The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) aims to ensure rational and sustainable exploitation of fish stocks through conservation and management policies. The fishing vessel licensing system and quota management help to achieve this. The economic link licence condition aims to ensure that British coastal communities dependent on fisheries and related industries gained economic benefit from vessels fishing against UK quotas. See also the Statement by all UK Fisheries Ministers on Quota Management and Licensing (PDF 113KB).

UK Fisheries Administrations have agreed a Concordat on the management of the UK’s fish quotas and licences.

• Read the concordat
• Read the press release

Under the Concordat, Defra, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly Government will each be allocated annually agreed shares of UK quotas for distribution to their fleets.  These allocations will, as now, be based on Fixed Quota Allocation Units (FQAs).  There will, however, be no permanent split of UK quota and fishing vessels will continue to be free to move their operations to another part of the UK.  The Concordat also rationalises arrangements for the licensing and administration of fishing vessels, and formalises existing arrangements for the management of the UK’s fishing effort (days at sea) under the EU Cod Recovery Plan.

The European Fisheries Fund, operated by the Marine Management Organisation, provides  grants for the sustainable development of the fisheries sector.

The Marine Management Organisation co-ordinates marine fisheries enforcement activity. These pages cover implementing rules for the Control Regulation, electronic recording and reporting of fishing activity, administrative penalties, and registration of buyers and sellers of fish.

Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is a major problem worldwide. We are implementing the IUU Regulation and working with other countries to tackle IUU fishing.

The Sustainable access to inshore fisheries (SAIF) project aims to reform English inshore fisheries to deliver a thriving and sustainable inshore fleet. A range of research reports have fed into the project.

You may also be interested in:

• Statistics on quota uptake – You can find daily, weekly and annual quota data on the MMO website.
• Common Fisheries Policy