Written questions by Gardiner.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the trends in the number of verifications of catch certificates accompanying seafood imports undertaken by UK authorities.

Defra and the Marine Management Organisation work closely with Devolved Governments, Local Authorities and Port Health Authorities to ensure illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing documentary checks are completed at the border and appropriate verifications are conducted on seafood imports to the UK. Verifications, defined under Article 17 of the UK’s IUU Regulation, are formal checks beyond standard documentary reviews. Competent Authorities conduct risk-based checks, and if concerns arise, the MMO may hold consignments and carry out verifications.

Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department has provided to (a) the Marine Management Organisation and (b) port health authorities on applying a risk-based approach to identifying seafood consignments for scrutiny under illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing regulations.

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) provides training and guidance to port health authorities (PHAs) on implementing the UK’s IUU Regulation, which PHAs apply through their local risk-based approaches. Where concerns arise, the MMO engages with third-country authorities to resolve the issue or reject the consignment. Defra attends monthly PHA forums chaired by the MMO, where issues related to IUU imports and risk assessment are discussed. At these meetings, Defra provides policy advice to support the operational guidance shared by the MMO and PHAs.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to update the catch certificate system for seafood imports to mirror upcoming changes being made by the EU to its catch certificate scheme.

The UK will be updating the information required on catch certificates this year. These changes will focus on ensuring the robustness of the data on traceability measures and will ensure that UK exporters can continue to re-export seafood originating from other countries to the EU. The UK’s Fish Export Service (FES) enables exporters to generate electronic IUU catch documentation, including catch certificates. The UK also plans to integrate FES with the EU’s CATCH system in 2026 to support system interoperability.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to adopt a digitised catch certificate scheme that is interoperable with the EU’s new CATCH IT system for (a) receiving and (b) processing seafood catch certificates.

The UK will be updating the information required on catch certificates this year. These changes will focus on ensuring the robustness of the data on traceability measures and will ensure that UK exporters can continue to re-export seafood originating from other countries to the EU. The UK’s Fish Export Service (FES) enables exporters to generate electronic IUU catch documentation, including catch certificates. The UK also plans to integrate FES with the EU’s CATCH system in 2026 to support system interoperability.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the risk that seafood imports from (a) China, (b) Russia and (c) countries yellow-carded by the EU may be linked to (i) illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and (ii) human rights abuses.

The UK has retained the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Regulation following its departure from the EU and continues to apply its provisions. While the UK has not formally adopted the EU’s carding system, it does enforce import bans on seafood from countries that have been red-carded by the EU, such as Cambodia, Comoros, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Imports and landings from vessels listed on the UK’s IUU vessel list are also prohibited. Imports from yellow-carded countries are permitted to avoid unnecessary trade disruption because marking these countries as IUU offenders may undermine their efforts to improve compliance and address IUU fishing. The UK keeps issues related to IUU fishing and human rights abuses in seafood supply chains under active review, and we welcome robust evidence from stakeholders to inform future policy development.

Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of England's waters would be closed to bottom trawling when the proposed stage 3 byelaws are implemented.

We cannot pre-judge the outcome of the stage 3 byelaw consultation, which is currently in progress.

Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timeline is for implementing measures in Inshore Marine Protected Areas.

The responsibility for developing byelaws lies with the ten Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs). We are encouraging the IFCAs to complete as soon as possible the good work they have already done to ensure our MPAs are effectively protected. Inshore MPAs located between 6 and 12 nautical miles from the coast are the responsibility of the Marine Management Organisation and it launched a consultation in June 2025 on stage 3 of its programme of MPA fisheries management measures.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department adopted the features-based approach for the assessment method for the stage 3 Marine Protected Area byelaws.

The Marine Management Organisation uses a feature-based approach for developing fisheries management measures in England’s Marine Protected Areas, including the proposed stage 3 byelaws. Sometimes these management measures will involve restrictions across the whole of a site, where the features to be protected cover the whole site.

Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timeline is for the implementation of the stage 3 offshore MPA byelaws once the consultation has been concluded.

We aim to implement any necessary byelaws quickly. However, this will depend on the number and complexity of responses received to the consultation.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to publish an implementation plan for the Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative.

Since the publication of the Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative, we have continued our work to minimise and, where possible, eliminate the bycatch of sensitive marine species. That has included renewing Clean Catch for a further 3-year period. This flagship programme will be focused on collaborative trials with the fishing industry to establish practical ways to minimise bycatch, delivery of research on potential bycatch hotspots and of best practice guides tailored to fishermen’s needs, and critical knowledge exchange both within and beyond the UK. In addition to that, in 2025, we are considering further measures to reduce bycatch of seabirds. We have not published an implementation plan but will consider the need for this when working with stakeholders to identify and implement these measures. This builds on wider work done under the English Seabird Conservation and Recovery Pathway. For more information see: English Seabird Conservation and Recovery Pathway (ESCaRP) - ME6044.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2025 to Question 22880 on the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement, whether his Department has drafted the secondary legislation required in advance of ratification for the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction.

The Government is completely committed to ratification of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), which is in line with our determination to reinvigorate the UK's wider international leadership on climate and nature. Work is in hand on the measures needed to implement the detailed and complex provisions of the Agreement before the UK can ratify. Legislation to implement the BBNJ Agreement will be introduced as soon as the legislative timetable allows.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the objectives set out in the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs' speech entitled The Kew Lecture: Foreign Secretary's speech on the climate crisis, published on 17 September 2024, if he will make an assessment of the contribution of the Darwin Plus Programme to the UK Overseas Territories.

In 2020, Defra commissioned an independent review of the Darwin Plus programme. This found Darwin Plus projects to have a strong, positive impact on the capacity of the Territories to deliver long-term strategic outcomes for the natural environment, which enhances protection of biodiversity ecosystems. During his Kew Lecture on 17 September 2024, the Foreign Secretary declared reversing the decline in global biodiversity as a Government priority. It is estimated that the UK Overseas Territories are home to over 90% of known endemic British species. Information on individual projects funded under Darwin Plus is available on the programme website (https://darwinplus.org.uk/). The programme’s performance is reviewed annually and published on the UK Government’s online Development Tracker.

Food and Rural Affairs, what percentage of his Department's total biodiversity budget was spent on supporting biodiversity in the UK Overseas Territories in 2024-05.

UK Government biodiversity spend is across multiple organisations and this funding contributes to other objectives, such as water quality, net zero and food security. As such it is not possible to provide an exact figure of total domestic expenditure on biodiversity. For 2024-25, the department has committed to make available up to £10 million in direct support for biodiversity in the UK Overseas Territories. Future funding will be subject to the outcomes of spending review and business planning processes.

Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of total percentage of the biodiversity for which the UK has global responsibility is located in the UK's Overseas Territories.

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee, as the Government’s statutory nature advisor, does not have, nor is it aware of, an estimate of the total percentage of the biodiversity for which the UK has global responsibility and is located in the UK Overseas Territories. Of the total number of endemic species associated with the UK’s biodiversity, 94% reside in the Territories.

Food and Rural Affairs, what was the total funding allocated to projects by Darwin Plus in each financial year since 2019-20.

Total funding allocated to Darwin Plus projects in each financial year since 2019-20 is provided in the table below. YearTotal funding taken up by Darwin Plus projects 2019-2020£3.81m2020-2021£4.55m2021-2022£6.65m2022-2023£8.50m2023-2024£10.12m2024-2025£8.96m

Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the future of the Darwin Plus programme.

In November 2024, Minister Doughty and Minister McCarthy met with the elected leaders and representatives of the Overseas Territories at the UK Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council. The UK Government confirmed that it would continue to work in partnership with the Territories to support the protection of their unique environments and to help address biodiversity loss.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether he will attend the UN Oceans Conference in June 2025.

The third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3), co-hosted by France and Costa Rica in June, will be at a critical time for the ocean and a stocktake of progress towards UN Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. The UK is supportive of an action-orientated UNOC and looks forward to the event. Defra are leading on the planning for UK attendance at the Conference and formal invitations from the co-hosts are expected to be shared soon after which Defra will confirm Ministerial attendance.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the paper entitled Marine Protected Areas network report (2019 to 2024), published on 18 December 2024, what steps he plans to take to protect designated features within the MPA network that are not in a favourable condition from (a) destructive forms of fishing and (b) other stressors.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are already protected from the point of designation by the planning and marine licensing regimes that cover activities such as dredging for aggregates and construction of offshore wind farms. Fishing activity falls outside the scope of these regimes, so fisheries regulators make detailed assessments of the impact of all fishing activities on the protected species and habitats in our MPAs and develop byelaws to restrict fishing when it has been assessed as damaging. Over 60% of England’s 181 MPAs have these byelaws in place. As mentioned in my answer to PQ 17500, the Department is considering next steps for fisheries management in MPAs in the context of our domestic and international nature conservation obligations and how we support the fishing sector.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 January 2025 to Question 17503 on Fishing Catches, what (a) criteria and (b) thresholds were applied in deciding which instances of non-compliance with the landing obligation merited enforcement through (i) verbal and (ii) written advice; and when the Marine Management Organisation expects to conclude decisions on remaining cases of non-compliance.

This is a devolved matter, and the information provided therefore relates to England only. In deciding how to manage instances of non-compliance, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) follows the principles of inform, educate, enforce in accordance with their published Compliance and Enforcement Strategy: Compliance and Enforcement Strategy - GOV.UK. The threshold for evidencing non-compliance with the landing obligation is high, often requiring discarding to be observed/witnessed. Evidence can be drawn from a range of sources but must meet the required burden of proof for the sanction being applied. The issuing of verbal or written advice depends on whether the inspection is conducted at sea or in port. Verbal advice is issued at sea in circumstances where relaying correspondence is more difficult and written advice is issued as a consequence of inspections in port. The MMO aims to resolve straightforward investigations within 6 months. More complex cases may take longer.

Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2024 to Question 17501 on Fisheries: Monitoring, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making it a mandatory requirement for vessels over 24 metres to have cameras onboard under the Remote Electronic Monitoring roll out.

Defra have already assessed which fisheries should have mandatory Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) and published the results in 2023. The assessment concluded that over 24 metre pelagic trawlers in English waters should be a priority. Implementation began in summer 2024. A further four fisheries were also identified as priorities. In those fisheries, REM will be mandatory for vessels over 10 metres.