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White Fish

Volume 465: debated on Wednesday 24 October 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate he has made of the volume of wild bass stocks. (159471)

Scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea in 2004, suggested that the bass stock is fished sustainably. A more recent study assessing bass stocks in British coastal waters by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) suggests the biomass of the adult population has approximately doubled between 1995 and 2004, though there is no estimate of the absolute biomass of bass stocks. Catches in the UK fishery increased from 1234 to 2211 tonnes over the same period. Cefas expects to update the stock assessment for bass later this year.