Recommendation 10

HM Government Acknowledged

Defra acknowledges that changes in how the sea is used is having an impact on a range of sectors and on nature. On 20 June 2025 Defra, the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs Northern Ireland, the Scottish Government and Welsh Government published a consultation seeking views on the update to the UKMS Part One. The UKMS Part One sets out the latest assessments on the state of UK seas. The assessments look at 11 quality descriptors of the marine environment and give us an indication of the impact the uses of the sea have on including ecosystem health, pollution, human impacts and eutrophication (excessive nutrient enrichment of water). In addition, many of the pressures faced by UK seas are transboundary and common with those countries the UK shares the seas with. This is why the UK works collaboratively with our neighbours through the Oslo and Paris Convention for the Protection of the North East Atlantic (OSPAR). OSPAR’s 2023 Quality Status Report (QSR) considered various sectors impacting the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic; including radioactive substances, offshore oil and gas, renewable energy, climate change, and other human activities. These assessments provide the scientific knowledge to identify the priority elements for actions to achieve the UKs vision for its seas. The results are used to inform a programme of measures (POMs) to ensure that the use of the marine environment is at a level that is sustainable, thus safeguarding the potential for uses and activities by current and future generations. The latest POMs was published January 2025. It would not be feasible to carry out an assessment on the impact of changes in marine spatial use on specific sectors. The marine environment is always evolving as is how it is used. The need to consider options and impacts on the environment is already set out in the impact assessments and where relevant when the decision goes to the Secretary of State responsible for nationally significant infrastructure project decisions. Government, using the Marine Spatial Prioritisation Programme, has developed a more strategic way of considering our use of the seabed by identifying priorities in different locations (in English waters). This is the first time that an exercise like this has been done. Where avoidance of conflicts is not possible, it will provide earlier identification of the trade-offs that might need to eventually be made. The MSPri programme is working closely with The Crown Estate (TCE) and the National Energy Systems Operator (NESO) in their development of the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP). TCE will continue to engage extensively with marine users and other key stakeholders, to gather feedback to be incorporated into TCE’s Marine Delivery Routemap – which aims to help plan all marine sectors and nature in an integrated way. Both the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP) and the Marine Spatial Prioritisation programme (MSPri) have been, and will be, engaging government departments and other stakeholders to agree data that will be used within their processes, and both are utilising The Crown Estate’s (TCE) Marine Delivery Routemap capability to map their resulting outputs. This recommendation is linked specifically to publishing a plan to secure a just transition for the fishing industry in the face of changing marine space use (recommendation at paragraph 42). The report also recognises that on 19 May 2025, the Government launched a £360 million ‘Fishing & Coastal Growth Fund’ that aims to support the next generation of fishers and revitalise coastal communities. The details of this are being developed and Government has committed to work with the fishing industry to target investment where it matters most. The Government therefore partially agrees with this recommendation.