My Lords, the UK plays a leading international role in marine conservation, working with partners to tackle pollution, protect vulnerable ecosystems and promote sustainable ocean governance. To mark World Ocean Day, we highlighted action at home and abroad, which included legislation to implement the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement. At the Blue Belt programme’s 10th anniversary event, it was announced that Montserrat will join the initiative, expanding protection to over 4 million square kilometres of ocean. My colleague in Defra, Minister Hardy, will engage global leaders at Our Ocean Conference tomorrow and announce further blue planet fund commitments.
My Lords, I welcome the Bill—as I am sure do my colleagues involved in promoting it—on ensuring that there is a treaty to protect the oceans, but I note that the Government have made merely the first step towards ratification. Before that, we have to have secondary legislation, but there is no sign of it. The Government say that they just need a bit more time—but why? What is the problem in getting on the real road to ratification? Is it that the Government have found a problem in sorting out their policy on bottom trawling?
I reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are completely committed to ratifying the BBNJ agreement. As she knows, I am sure, we introduced the legislation on 10 September to enable the UK to implement its obligations under the agreement and move towards ratification, and that received Royal Assent on 12 February. As she is aware, we now need to bring in further secondary legislation before the BBNJ agreement can be ratified formally by the UK, and I can absolutely confirm that this process is currently under way.
My Lords, the Blue Belt is the Government’s programme to assist the UK overseas territories in protecting and enhancing ocean health and enabling sustainable growth through evidence-based marine management and protection. Last week, I had the pleasure to meet the representative of the Cayman Islands, Dr Ebanks Garcia, as well as Minister Ebanks-Wilks and former Premier Wayne Panton MP. I have a question arising out of that meeting: how are the Government ensuring that the Blue Belt programme strengthens compliance, surveillance and management capacity in the overseas territories—for example, for protection of mangroves—rather than focusing just on MPA designations?
Through the Blue Belt sub-programmes of the Blue Belt Ocean Shield, which is the compliance and enforcement capabilities, and through the Global Ocean Wildlife Analysis Network, which is about non-invasive scientific surveys, we support the Blue Belt programme and ensure that enforcement happens as it needs to. As part of that, we provide support to the British Indian Ocean Territory, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar. We give more than £60 million of UK government support to the Blue Belt programme in order to underpin the protection and sustainable management of an enormous amount of our oceans now. As far as we are concerned in the Government, this is a cornerstone of the UK’s contribution to our global ambition to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that enforcement is in place.
My Lords, carbon emissions harm the oceans through warming, acidification and deoxygenation, and threaten climate, food and jobs. Since 1990, the carbon emissions of the UK’s richest 0.1% have increased by 53%, while the bottom 90% have cut theirs by 26%. Can the Minister explain how the Government curb carbon emissions by the super-rich and make them bear the cost of their pollution?
We are working through a sustainable ocean plan, which will make a really big difference to the environment in the areas that my noble friend is talking about. We are currently in the scoping phase of this, and we are looking at the guidance on the high-level panel for a sustainable ocean economy that also supports other countries to develop their plans. There is a lot of that plan already in place, and it is through plans like that that we will make a real difference to the environment of the ocean.
My Lords, my noble friend referred to bottom trawling, and I previously asked the Minister about the Government’s response to bottom trawling in our marine protected areas, which is causing extreme damage to the ecosystem. The noble Baroness pointed to a record number of responses. I am not sure if that still stands, given that there were 116,000 responses to the social media ban, and that the Government were able to come up with an initial response and a new policy in just three short weeks. Could the Minister provide any update as to when the Government will respond to the marine protected areas bottom trawling consultation?
Yes, I am very aware that Members are keen to hear about some progress on the consultation on this. We are progressing all steps, and the idea is to introduce by-laws by the end of 2026. I am absolutely mindful of the importance that the noble Baroness attaches to this, as do other noble Lords, and we are working directly with the Marine Management Organisation to move this along.
My Lords, one of the increasing issues for our porpoises, dolphins and whales is that of increasing marine noise. Defra published a policy document at the beginning of last year, which I welcomed, but will the Minister tell us what progress has been made to protect all our marine mammals so that they can survive and thrive in our national waters?
The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise the issue of noise, and we are learning more and more about that as time goes on—I do not think it was taken seriously for quite a long time. I do not have an update at my fingertips today, but I am more than happy to keep the noble Lord informed as we make progress in this area.
My Lords, it is all very well that the Government are celebrating World Ocean Day and have passed the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Act, but this Government have surrendered 40% of our national fishing rights for the next 12 years to the EU. French vessels are the largest bottom trawlers in our marine protected areas. Both my noble friends have asked about MPAs. Have the Government given up our ability to control the exploitation of our own small parts of the ocean?
I would say absolutely not; we have not given up at all. We are aware that there are still decisions to be made on fisheries management, particularly around measures for the highly protected marine areas, which I am sure the fishing industry is looking at and waiting for very closely. We are going to be looking at this through a very clear evidence-based approach, and we will be making a decision shortly. The key thing is that we have been working very closely with fishers and have been talking to people impacted by this, because it is a complex area where you are looking at the needs of fishermen and the fact that we want to eat fish in this country, compared with how we manage our environment and particularly our marine protected areas. So it is something we are working through at the moment.
My Lords, protecting our marine environment and marine animals is probably one of the most important things we can do. Does the Minister agree that, to do that, we need a very strong Navy?