Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Marine Management Organisation's management of the under-10 metre CatchApp for recording fish landings.

The development of the Catch Recording application has followed standard Government practice and was quality-assured by the Government Digital Service (GDS). The app is currently in a ‘public beta’ phase, which includes a rollout of the service to the fishing sector. During this phase the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has published information, advice and guidance to provide support to all users. Current figures indicate a significant portion (77%) of the active under 10 metre fleet have adopted the new recording method with over 27,000 catch records successfully submitted. The comprehensive data that catch recording offers will enable the MMO to have confidence in its assessments of the total volumes and species of fish being taken from English waters by the under 10 metre fleet.