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20 July 2009 : Column 732W—continued
North Sea: Fishing Catches
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 22 January 2009, Official Report, column 1590, on fishing catches, whether the Lithuanian and Polish vessels referred to were entitled to fish in North sea fishing grounds prior to their countries' accession to the European Union. [287856]
Huw Irranca-Davies: The catch statistics for Polish and Lithuanian landings from the North sea provided in my answer of 22 January 2009, Official Report, column 1590, relate to landings in 2006. Both Poland and Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004 and therefore were members at that time. Access to North sea fish quota is determined by historic rights or else the countries in question would be required to swap in or purchase quota to access the fishery.
Oil: Pollution
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many incidents of oil pollution have been reported in each enumeration area (a) in each year since 1997 and (b) in 2009 to date; and how many of these incidents have resulted in prosecutions. [286299]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The following table shows the number of reported incidents received by the Environment Agency since 1997. The Environment Agency's national incident recording system began to be used in 2001. It is not possible to access information broken down into each enumeration area prior to 2001 without incurring disproportionate cost.
| Number of oil pollution incidents (Category 1-4) | |
The following table shows the number of reported incidents received by each Environment Agency region since 2002. This includes incidents from category 1-4. Category 1 incidents are the most serious, category 2 are significant but less severe, category 3 are relatively minor and category 4 are unsubstantiated incidents.
| Region | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009( 1) |
| (1) January to June. | ||||||||
The following table shows the number of prosecutions from oil pollution incidents since 2001. This information has been provided by the Environment Agency's national enforcement database in tandem with the information above. On that basis information prior to 2001 is not available.
In cases where a prosecution is not the most appropriate course of action, the alternatives of a caution or warning will be considered. A warning is a written notification that, in the Environment Agency's opinion, an offence has been committed. It will be recorded and may be referred to in subsequent proceedings.
There is a lag between incident and prosecution, which may well be in excess of 12 months depending on the type of offence and its complexity.
| 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009( 1) | |
| (1) To date. | |||||||||
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