Written question asked by Greg Knight (Conservative) on Wednesday, 25 January 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 31 January 2006. It was answered by Ben Bradshaw (Labour) on Tuesday, 31 January 2006 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Whaling

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make representations to the Norwegian and Japanese Governments against their commercial whaling activities; and if she will make a statement.

Answer: With colleagues from 16 other countries HM ambassador in Tokyo delivered a Demarche to the Government of Japan on 16 January, protesting in the strongest terms on Japan's plans to expand its so-called ‘scientific' whaling activities. The UK Government, in common with those of a majority of International Whaling Commission (IWC) members, have regularly criticised Japanese scientific whaling programmes in both the North Pacific (JARPN) and the Southern ocean (JARPA) as being of little scientific value and urged Japan to terminate them forthwith.We will continue to press Norway to desist from commercial whaling, which we believe contrary to the spirit of the IWC moratorium. We make our objections very clear to Norway regarding their whaling activities and will make further protests prior to and during the annual meeting of the Commission which takes place later this year.

Secondary information