NEWS, LONDON, 15 September 2026: The public wants the science obeyed, and the Government’s own evidence shows that it is still failing to do so. New data by YouGov for the Blue Marine Foundation finds that 71% of UK adults support a legal requirement preventing fishing catch limits from exceeding scientific advice. 

The mandate is strikingly broad. Support is the majority position among 2024 voters for every major party, while 75% of adults say the Government should give scientific advice a great deal or a fair amount of weight when setting catch limits in commercial fishing. Yet practice falls short. 

According to Blue Marine’s new report, Apocalypse Now: The True Cost of Overfishing, only 42% of catch limits were set in line with scientific advice in 2026, down from 46% in both 2024 and 2025. This leaves the fish populations less resilient, fishing communities less secure, and a valuable public resource depleted for short-term gain. Across UK waters, 38% of the stocks assessed are below the minimum legal level, while the value of UK fishing opportunities is £136 Haddock and whiting declined by 79% and 73%, where scientific advice was repeatedly exceeded.

Clare Brook, Blue Marine’s CEO, added: “It’s not rocket science, or even climate science; it’s really simple: if you take more fish than scientists advise, you will have fewer fish the following year. If you do that over a decade, you will have stock collapse. Fisheries regulators need to stop being swayed by short-term industry greed and start setting catch limits within clear scientific guidance, for the sake of all those whose livelihoods and futures depend on healthy seas.”

Hidden overfishing through discarded catch

The report warns that official landings do not show the full scale of fishing mortality. It found that 93% of dab and 78% of grey gurnard caught are discarded, while the populations of those species have declined by 44% and 62% respectively since 2016. Blue Marine describes this unrecorded mortality as “hidden overfishing”.

Jonny Hughes, Fisheries Policy Lead at Blue Marine, said: “This report shows the scale of ongoing overfishing. It is baffling that the UK and EU can continue to ignore scientific advice, make the same mistakes, see the same dreadful outcomes and then claim they did not see it coming. Management decisions are being made for short-term political reasons at the expense of long-term sustainability. Politicians are gambling the future of our seas, their wildlife and the fishing industry.”

Parliament can close the gap

Blue Marine is calling on the UK Government to:

  • Set catch limits no higher than scientific advice and make that safeguard legally binding.
  • Introduce mandatory Remote Electronic Monitoring across fisheries to improve scientific data and monitoring of discards and catch. 
  • Account for estimated discards when setting catch limits, so that quotas reflect the total number of fish killed rather than only the fish landed.
  • Adopt binding, time-limited recovery plans for depleted fish populations and reform quota allocation to reward sustainable, low-impact fishing and support the inshore fleet.

The choice is not between fish and fishing. Rebuilding stocks is the route to larger and more stable future catches, healthier seas, stronger food security and coastal economies that can endure.