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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the government of the Faroe Islands to discourage the annual killing of dolphins and pilot whales in the Faroe Islands.

The UK Government continues to raise its opposition to the hunting of dolphins and pilot whales with the Government of the Faroe Islands at every appropriate opportunity.

Most recently, in June 2015 the UK Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) wrote to the Danish and Faroese Governments to re-iterate our concerns over the welfare and sustainability of their hunts. This follows a visit to the Faroe Islands in March, during which the [then] Secretary of State for Scotland raised the UK’s concerns with the Faroese Prime Minister. Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Denmark has also previously visited the Faroe Islands and raised the issue in a meeting with the Faroese Prime Minister and Fisheries Ministry officials. Further, in his address to the International Whaling Commission meeting in September 2014, the Minister of State for farming, food and marine environment, George Eustice, stressed the UK's strong support for finding alternatives to hunting and for improving the conservation and welfare of cetaceans globally.