PROTECTION OF REEFS IN LYME BAY

That this House welcomes the current Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs public consultation on measures to protect the marine biodiversity of reefs in Lyme Bay; recognises that these habitats are of national, if not international, conservation importance and can support a range of sustainable economic activities, including potting, sports diving and sea angling, providing a significant return to local businesses; further recognises that the needs of wildlife and of these local businesses are threatened by scallop dredging which slowly destroys the habitats on which they all depend, for less than half the return from the same area; believes that the protection of the Lyme Bay reefs is urgently required on environmental and economic grounds; and therefore calls on the Government to introduce statutory protection for the entire 60 square miles of the Lyme Bay reefs, which constitutes less than 10 per cent. of the whole of Lyme Bay.