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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to use zonal attachments to determine internationally agreed total allowable catches of fish after Brexit.

On leaving the European Union, the UK will become an independent coastal state with responsibility for controlling and managing our Exclusive Economic Zone. This will provide an opportunity to reach new agreements on the sharing of fishing opportunities. On average between 2013 – 2015, other EU Member States’ vessels landed around 750,000 tonnes of fish (£575 million revenue) caught in UK waters per year whereas UK vessels landed 100,000 tonnes (£100 million revenue) of fish caught in other Member States’ waters per year in the same time period.

We will have international obligations to cooperate with other coastal states over the sustainable management of shared stocks; we remain committed to sustainable fishing. We are looking at a range of data to support consideration of future fishing opportunities, including catches and zonal attachment of stocks in the UK Exclusive Economic Zone.