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 effect of banning the landing of bass by fixed nets on reducing the incidence of accidental catching of those fish.

The EU bass measures that apply this year are intended to further reduce the landings of bass across all fishing gear groups – trawl, hook and line, and netting (both fixed and drift) as Member States work together to recover this important stock. Limited derogations from a complete ban were agreed for application this year, including a monthly limit of 250kg per eligible vessel to allow for limited landings of unavoidable by-catches when using fixed gillnets to catch fish other than bass.

In the first six months of this year, we have seen a reduction of bass landings in the UK fleet netting gear group of 54% from the 2011-13 baseline average in the same period, i.e. 54 tonnes landed from January to June, down from 117 tonnes in the earlier six month baseline average.