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Lord Blencathra (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 19 June 2025

Debate

English Marine Protected Areas: Bottom Trawling and Dredging

Contribution

My Lords, bottom trawling is an appalling way to fish but a superb way to destroy everything on the seabed. Last year, according to statistics from Oceana UK, just 10 fishing vessels of at least 20 metres in length were responsible for 27% of the suspected bottom trawling in our marine protected areas, wrecking fragile seabed ecosystems, releasing carbon and dumping tens of thousands of tonnes of discarded fish of the wrong sort. I say to the Minister that that applies to every single MPA, not just those with special species that he wants to protect. None of these 10 vessels was from the UK, and just 6% of the total 33,000 hours of suspected bottom trawling in MPAs was carried out by UK vessels. While we welcome the consultation, would the Government partly redeem themselves from selling out our fishermen to the EU by banning those 10 big foreign boats, which would lead to a 20% saving overnight, and then phase out the rest of bottom trawling over the next couple of years?

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