Written Question·Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs·UIN 91567

Fishing Vessels: Monitoring

Tabled: 17 November 2025
Answered: 24 November 2025

Question

Pippa Heylings

Liberal DemocratSouth Cambridgeshire

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the answer of 29 October 2025 to question 83898, what incentives there are for volunteer participants in the design and test phase for demersal trawls using mesh sizes up to 120mm, over 10m; and how many vessels in that category have volunteered for 2026.

Answer

Dame Angela Eagle

All vessels taking part in REM early adopter projects have the opportunity to shape Defra’s approach to roll out, participating in programme design and flagging implementation issues. Volunteers can also recommend information and data they would like us to collect and how they would like it reported back. Defra also funds REM equipment and installation for volunteer early adopters.

At present there are no volunteers for Fishery C, Demersal trawls using mesh sizes up to 120mm, over 10m, English waters of the North Sea.