Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 4 November 2025.
Charlotte Cane
Liberal Democrat, Ely and East Cambridgeshire
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to ban bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas.
Emma Hardy
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government’s approach is to restrict fishing which is assessed as damaging to the specific protected features in each Marine Protected Area, based on advice from the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies. A consultation on the latest round of proposed fisheries byelaws, which proposes further restrictions on bottom trawling, closed on 29 September. The Marine Management Organisation is now carefully considering all responses received, and decisions will be made in due course.
Yes0 people think so
No1 person thinks not
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.