To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs what steps his Department is taking to reduce wildlife by-catch and entanglement, including of marine mammals and seabirds, as a result of fishing.

The draft Joint Fisheries Statement which is currently out to consultation sets out how the UK will achieve its eight fisheries objectives. One of those is the ecosystem objective which is to implement an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management so as to ensure that negative impacts of fishing activities on the marine ecosystem are minimised, and to ensure that incidental catches (e.g. of cetaceans) are minimised and eliminated where possible.

Fisheries administrations are working together to develop the UK Bycatch Mitigation Initiative (BMI), which sets out a programme of work to minimise and, where possible, eliminate bycatch of sensitive marine species. Publication is planned for 2022.

The BMI focuses on achieving five objectives, broadly: (1) improving monitoring and research; (2) identifying bycatch “hotspots”; (3) developing and adopting effective mitigation measures; (4) adopting incentives to encourage implementation; and (5) reducing bycatch internationally. Under each of these objectives, there is a list of actions and description of outcomes government seeks to achieve. Each administration will lead its own implementation of the BMI.

As of 30 November 2021 all UK wild-capture commercial fishers must report any incidental mortality and injury (bycatch) of marine mammals during fishing operations to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) within 48hrs of the end of the trip. The MMO will coordinate the collection of bycatch data on behalf of all administrations and will provide this information on a 6 monthly basis.