Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 24
2nd Report - Governing the marine environment
Published 5 Jun 2025
Environmental Audit Committee Governing the marine environment All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We urge the Government to set a clear timeline for introducing the necessary primary legislation to ratify the Global Oceans / High Seas Treaty to send a clear signal of prioritising global marine protection. The timeline for ratifying this should be published within a month of this report and the treaty should be ratified no later than 20 September 2025, two years after the UK signed it. (Recommendation, Paragraph 88) 53
From: Environmental Audit Committee, 2nd Report - Governing the marine environment (HC 551), 5 June 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 9 September 2025 (deadline 5 August 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's 16 recommendations is mixed: it agrees with some, partially agrees with many, and disagrees with others, giving reasons in each case.
- On a lead department for marine governance, it says it "partially agrees", stating that "it would not be appropriate to have one department making all the balancing and prioritisation decisions". Defra will publish a report on its 'marine systems map' work "by early 2026".
- It disagrees with updating the Marine Policy Statement within six months, saying an update "would be very resource intensive" and "would take much longer than six months". It points instead to a Sustainable Ocean Plan by 2027.
- On banning seabed damaging practices in offshore Marine Protected Areas, it partially agrees: it says "blanket bans are disproportionate and not in line with legislation" and restricts only fishing assessed as damaging to protected features. It disagrees with setting a specific target for Highly Protected Marine Areas.
- On the High Seas Treaty, it partially agrees, saying it "has committed to introduce the legislation by the end of the year", which is needed to implement the agreement ahead of ratification.