Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to discourage Japan from resuming Antarctic whaling.

The Government has made clear its opposition to Antarctic whaling.

Most recently, the UK Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) reiterated the Government’s concerns in relation to Japan’s proposal to resume whaling in the Antarctic at a meeting with the Japanese Commissioner to the IWC in May 2015, and with officials from the Japanese Embassy in March 2015. The then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Natural Environment, Water and Rural Affairs, my hon Friend the Member for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle (Mr George Eustice) and Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Japan, have also both written previously to the Japanese government on this issue.