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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent marine protected areas from being (1) bottom trawled, and (2) dredged.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

We have designated over 100 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) since 2010, so that now 40% of English waters are within the protected area network. We have already committed that the next step is to ensure all of our MPAs are properly managed and supported by our proposed legally binding target under the Environment Act which we are consulting on at present. 98 MPAs in English inshore waters are already protected from damaging fishing activity and we have introduced byelaws in the first four offshore sites, which ban bottom towed gear over sensitive habitats. We have also published a call for evidence relating to the next 13 offshore sites. We are aiming to have all MPAs in English offshore waters protected from damaging fishing activity by 2024.