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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate he has made of the number of hours spent by supertrawlers in protected areas of UK waters in each of the last five years.

The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.

Our Fisheries Bill prohibits any commercial fishing vessel from operating in UK waters without a licence. It also provides powers to attach conditions (such as the areas that can be fished, species that can be caught and the type of fishing gear that can be used) to fishing vessel licences. Foreign vessels operating in UK waters will have to follow UK rules, including the conditions that are attached to their commercial fishing licence.