PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Ocean Conservation and Stewardship - 15 September 2026 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered ocean conservation and stewardship.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. We spend a lot of time in this place talking about land, housing and farms—what grows and what gets built. We spend less time talking about the three quarters of a million square miles of ocean that fall under UK jurisdiction. That is a mistake, because our seas are the foundation of a great deal of our national life. They regulate our climate, feed our coastal towns, carry our trade and increasingly hold the key to this country’s resilience in the decades ahead.

As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the ocean, I watched David Attenborough’s documentary on the oceans alongside many colleagues in this House and the former Prime Minister. I echo Attenborough’s words that

“We are living in the greatest age of ocean discovery, yet we are also witnessing its greatest peril.”

I am the Member of Parliament for Chatham and Aylesford, and my constituency has a centuries-long maritime history through its association with the dockyard and global trade. That is highlighted by the outstanding work of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust in its recent “Awesome Oceans” exhibition with Steve Backshall, which seeks to educate our younger generations. Our nation’s heritage runs through our seas and oceans.

I want to use my time to cover four key elements: the state of our marine protected areas and bottom trawling within them, fisheries and sustainability, the case for parity in marine pollution fines, and the UK’s wider leadership role in the ocean, including in the recently signed biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement and the plastics treaty negotiations.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. My constituency based on the scenic Northern Ireland coastline, and I am particularly interested in what more can be done to protect the sea that surrounds us. Raw sewage contains bacteria, harmful chemicals and microplastics, all of which have serious consequences for both marine and human health. Those microplastics are essentially impossible to remove once they enter the environment. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that more must be done to tackle the problem of microplastics?

I do agree. The UK Government’s engagement on the global plastics treaty, in alignment with the European Union and other nations, is looking to resolve that exact issue. Microplastics that get into the human biology can significantly heighten the risk of cancer and other problems, and they are a persistent form of pollution that needs to be resolved.

Let me start with a number that should give every Member in this room pause. A third of UK waters now sit within a marine protected area. On paper, that sounds like a country taking marine conservation seriously; in practice, however, the Government’s own assessment finds that we are failing on 13 of the 15 indicators of good environmental status in our seas, and not one of our offshore habitats is currently assessed as in good condition. How can that be when so much of our sea is supposedly protected?

The honest answer is that designation is not always the same thing as protection. Across large parts of the MPA network, bottom trawling and dredging remain entirely lawful. Oceana estimates that, in 2024 alone, there were more than 31,000 hours of suspected bottom trawling in UK offshore marine protected areas. More than 70% of those hours were concentrated in just 41 English sites—the same 41 sites covered by the Government’s stage 3 consultation. That consultation ended some time ago, and fishermen, conservation groups and coastal communities responded to it in good faith, so will the Minister provide a clearer timetable for the publication of the outcome?

Bottom trawling deserves a moment of its own, because it is not a marginal or peripheral issue. Heavy gear dragged across the seabed flattens reefs, uproots seagrass and disturbs carbon that has been locked in the sediment for centuries. It is, by some distance, one of the most destructive things that we allow in our oceans.

I absolutely agree. Marine protection and a viable fishing industry are not competing interests; they depend on each other. It is impossible to fish from a stock that has collapsed, and coastal communities cannot be sustained by paper promises about future abundance. I agree that the question needs to be looked at, because we can do both and they are mutually beneficial.

That is why this year’s fisheries data should worry us. The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science assessed 79 baseline catch limits negotiated for 2026 and found that 46 of them, or 58%, were set above scientific advice. The consequence of repeatedly setting limits above what the science recommends is not an abstract matter; it shows up in the value of the fishery itself. The Blue Marine Foundation reports that UK fishing opportunities in 2026 fell in value by around £136 million on the year before, as well as real declines in commercially important stocks. There are also more troubling findings on illegal discarding; more than a decade after the practice was banned under EU law, there are reports of trawlers discarding six times more fish than they land. I would welcome an assessment from the Minister of how discard rules are being policed.

I want to be clear that the transition to sustainable fishing must work for the people who fish for a living as well as for the ecosystem. Vessels under 10 metres make up more than 80% of the British fleet. These small operations are often family businesses and the economic backbone of the harbour towns they sail from, including in my home county of Kent. If we ask the industry to change how it fishes, we owe it investment in skills, in lower-impact gear and in a genuine transition plan, as opposed to simply handing down a new set of rules with no support attached.

There is an anomaly in our law that I do not think gets enough attention. If a company pollutes land in this country under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, there are no limits to the fines that the courts can impose. Sentencing guidelines allow courts to fine large numbers of organisations amounts running into many millions of pounds, scaled to the seriousness of the harm and the means of the offender. But for those who pollute the sea, the picture looks very different. Fines for illegal discharge of oil were historically capped under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, and even where caps have been raised over the years, marine pollution offences have not often been brought into full alignment with the uncapped regime that applies on land.

Campaigners have documented the practical result. Over the past five years, there have only been two recorded convictions or fines for oil pollution breaches around our coasts, and one of those fines was as little as £7,000. The rate of inspection of offshore oil and gas infrastructure has fallen from a quarter of sites to fewer than one in six. I struggle to see the logic in treating a spill into the Irish sea or an ocean more leniently than the same spill into a field or other terrestrial habitat. Marine ecosystems are, if anything, harder to clean up and slower to recover than land is. A tanker or platform operator that calculates that the maximum possible fine is a rounding error against its annual turnover has very little reason to invest properly in prevention. I ask the Minister to set out whether the Government intend to bring marine pollution penalties in line with the uncapped regime for pollution on land.

Stopping damage is necessary but not sufficient on its own. Passive recovery—simply removing the pressure from trawling and dredging—can allow habitats to bounce back if the damage is not too severe, but we have lost more than 90% of our seagrass meadows since the 1930s, and salt marsh in the south-east of England continues to erode at about 40 hectares a year. Habitat loss on that scale will not reverse itself; we need active restoration of seagrass, salt marsh and native oyster reefs, delivered in partnership with local communities so that it creates jobs and skills locally. It should be something done not to a place, but with it. Blue carbon habitats matter for the climate as well as for nature, and restoring a meaningful share of them by the end of the decade should be treated as seriously as any land-based nature target that we set ourselves.

I want to end on a hopeful note. This country has genuinely led on the international stage. The UK’s ratification of the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement, or the UN high seas treaty, was a significant moment, because for the first time there was a legal framework for protecting biodiversity on the high seas—the two thirds of the ocean that sit outside any nation’s territorial waters. Until that point, it was outside the law. The UK was among the states that pushed the hardest to get the agreement over the line, and I pay tribute to the Department and Ministers for their diligent work on it.

The same is true of the global plastics treaty. I understand that the negotiations have not been easy, and the talks in Geneva last year did not deliver the agreement that many of us hoped for, but the UK has led as part of a coalition of more than 100 nations pushing for legally binding limits on plastic pollution. That is the right side of the argument to be on. I hope the Minister will update the House on when negotiations are expected to resume and what the UK’s position will be when they do.

Then there is the science. If they have not already done so, I ask colleagues to look at the work of our outstanding universities, including the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, which I and many Members of this House have had the pleasure of visiting. We lead on oceanographic science. I have met a number of researchers who are mapping deep-sea ecosystems that most of us will never see, tracking how the ocean absorbs and moves heat and carbon, and building the evidence base that underpins almost everything that we are discussing today, from stock assessments and blue carbon to the physical behaviour of the deep sea floor. That expertise is a genuine national asset, and it deserves long-term, stable funding.

We have real strengths in this country to build on, including a strong domestic marine science base, genuine international credibility on ocean treaties, and a public who, by a wide margin, want our seas to be better protected. What is missing in some cases is the follow-through—the stage 3 decision. Trawling continues inside sites that we call protected, and fines for marine pollution remain a fraction of what the same offence would attract on land. These are not difficult things to understand, and none require significant new pieces of legislation to fix. They require political will and a timetable. In the words of David Attenborough,

“We can now destroy or we can cherish. The choice is ours.”

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne), a fellow south-east coast MP, for securing this debate, and to all those who intervened. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on his leadership of the APPG.

Marine issues, including sustainable fisheries, have only recently become part of my ministerial portfolio, so this is a very timely debate for me. I am pleased to have the chance to set out my stall.

Our stewardship of the ocean matters. Our seas are central to so much of what we care about: nature recovery, food security, clean energy, coastal livelihoods and communities, climate resilience and our identity as an island nation. People rightly care deeply about the marine environment, but they also care about livelihoods, food production, energy security and the future of communities that depend on the sea. I pay tribute to campaigners and all those who work in the sector on these important matters.

Having responsibilities across those issues will enable me to take a more strategic view, consider the whole picture and look for a balanced decision-making process that supports our prosperous fishing industry and healthier, more resilient seas. I want my Department to make decisions that recognise the connections. I also want our decisions to be rooted in evidence, engagement and long-term stewardship.

The Government are committed to protecting and improving the marine environment, including playing our part in delivering the global biodiversity framework target to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. Domestically, our marine strategy and environmental improvement plan provides an important framework for action, including our statutory target for at least 70% of marine protected area features to be in a favourable condition by 2042. We are committed to the effective protection of our comprehensive network of MPAs around the UK.

In English waters, we are continuing to implement fisheries management byelaws, including introducing further protections in due course. That includes proposals to restrict bottom trawling, following the Marine Management Organisation’s consultation last year. The MMO is carefully considering the significant number of responses received and will announce its response in due course. Such decisions are not always easy, and must be taken carefully, transparently and with a clear understanding of both environmental and socioeconomic impacts.

We are also reviewing the English marine protected area network to consider whether sites are in the right places and have the right levels of protection. That matters because the network is effective only if it is ecologically coherent, well managed and able to respond to the pressures that our seas face now and in the future.

Those pressures are increasing. Climate change is already altering the marine environment, affecting habitats, species distribution and the communities and industries that depend on them. At the same time, we must manage the impact of growing demands on our marine environment and space, including those resulting from the expansion of offshore wind. That expansion is essential to our clean power and energy security ambitions, but it must be delivered in a way that also supports marine recovery.

Reforms led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, such as the marine recovery fund launched in December last year, will help unlock clean power while delivering effective compensation to protect nature. The marine recovery fund is one element of our offshore wind environmental improvement package, which aims to ensure continued protection of the marine environment while speeding up consent for offshore wind.

Marine spatial prioritisation and co-location work will also help us manage competing demands, including offshore wind, fishing, conservation and other sea uses. That is exactly the kind of area where we need to look across Government goals and avoid treating each decision in isolation.

We are also committed to supporting the fishing sector to adapt to growing pressures on marine space, and we will work with the industry to safeguard its long-term viability. I know that the European Commission is developing its Ocean Act, and I look forward to learning more about the important work that the EU is doing to cover both conservation and stewardship.

Marine protection also relies on enforcing the rules. Responsibility for delivering on that and tackling marine pollution incidents depends on the nature of the incident and source of the pollution. A number of bodies have statutory roles in responding to marine pollution, while any investigation and enforcement action are matters for the relevant independent regulators and enforcement authorities. In the case of pollution originating from terrestrial sources, the Environment Agency has a key role to play, while the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has an important role if the pollution comes from a marine source. Fines and sentences are imposed independently by the courts, which determine the appropriate penalty based on the circumstances of each case and applicable sentencing guidelines.

I can confirm to Members that DEFRA and the Environment Agency are engaging with the Ministry of Justice to strengthen the overall enforcement regime so that environmental offences carry meaningful consequences and provide a stronger deterrent against pollution.

Links between marine protection and fisheries are particularly important. Food security is national security, and seafood has an important role to play. A sustainable fishing industry depends on healthy fish stocks and healthy seas. Fisheries management plans are helping us to take a more evidenced view of how we support fisheries sustainably. They demonstrate why fishery management and protection of the marine environment must be addressed together, and set out a range of short, medium and long-term actions to maintain or restore stocks to sustainable levels and to improve the marine ecosystem.

We cannot, however, deliver ocean conservation alone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford said in his opening remarks, the UK continues to play a leading role internationally in ocean protection, and it remains committed to delivering our shared global mission to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We are proud to be a founder and chair of the Global Ocean Alliance, as well as ocean champion of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, in which role we are committed to protecting and restoring the health of our ocean.

We continue to work with partners to protect vulnerable ecosystems and coastal communities. The UK has bolstered these efforts by leveraging finance for the ocean through the Blue Planet Fund, which is our largest marine official development assistance programme. Also, I am delighted that in July the UK ratified the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement. It will enable greater conservation of the two thirds of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdiction, and support the delivery of the global biodiversity framework, including the target to protect at least 30% of our ocean by 2030.

Later this month, the International Whaling Commission will mark its 80th anniversary, and next month will also mark the 40th anniversary of the global moratorium on commercial whaling, but there is more work to do. The UK will be at the forefront of global efforts to protect and promote the welfare of whales and other cetaceans as the chair of the IWC conservation committee. We also look forward to being a leading voice on ocean issues at the UN biodiversity conference in October and the climate conference of the parties in November, and to engaging proactively in the work of the first meeting of the BBNJ conference of the parties next year.

We are also working with international partners to secure a new international agreement to end plastic pollution that addresses the full life cycle of plastics and promotes a global circular economy. We are committed to reaching an agreement at the first round of negotiations in March 2027.

Finally, this Government recognise the continuing need for high-quality science to support our domestic and international work, and to ensure that Government decisions are based on the best available evidence. The UK has a leading role to play in ocean science, and we regularly call on others to help us to address emerging ocean threats and to inform the implementation of our international commitments and management measures.

As this debate has shown, effective ocean stewardship means taking a long-term and joined-up approach, both domestically and internationally. As I have said, bringing together marine and sustainable fisheries will help to balance environmental, social and economic considerations. By protecting and restoring the marine environment, supporting sustainable fisheries and coastal communities and grounding decisions in the best available evidence, we can help to secure healthier seas for future generations. I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford for securing today’s debate, and for raising such important issues.

Question put and agreed to.