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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to adopt a digitised catch certificate scheme that is interoperable with the EU’s new CATCH IT system for (a) receiving and (b) processing seafood catch certificates.

The UK will be updating the information required on catch certificates this year. These changes will focus on ensuring the robustness of the data on traceability measures and will ensure that UK exporters can continue to re-export seafood originating from other countries to the EU. The UK’s Fish Export Service (FES) enables exporters to generate electronic IUU catch documentation, including catch certificates. The UK also plans to integrate FES with the EU’s CATCH system in 2026 to support system interoperability.