To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs whether he will bring forward legislative proposals to ban supertrawlers in local waters.

“Supertrawlers” are typically large fishing vessels, often greater than 100m in length. Whilst they have significant catching capacity they are bound by their fishing quotas, or allocated fishing opportunities. There is no recent history of such vessels fishing in Northern Ireland waters, because they mainly target pelagic species and have little or no fishing opportunities in our waters.

Apart from Irish vessels that can avail of the reciprocal Voisinage fisheries access agreement, EU fleets that have “supertrawlers” have no access to UK waters within 12nm of the coast, which comprises most of the Northern Ireland zone for which we have management responsibility.

In my assessment there is little prospect of “supertrawler” fishing activity in NI waters and no need currently to bring forward legislation to ban such vessels. “Supertrawlers” are however permitted to transit through NI waters as long as they are not fishing and we will monitor the activity of these vessels if they enter our waters.