The government is on course to ditch a landmark EU legal commitment to end overfishing by 2020, despite the prime minister’s promise not to reduce UK environmental standards after Brexit.

The move represents a dilution of ambitions outlined in the government’s own fisheries white paper, according to MPs and conservationists. It comes after some in the fishing industry called on ministers not to adopt the 2020 target into post-Brexit law.

Under the common fisheries policy, EU ministers will be legally bound – from next year on – to set fishing quotas within a “maximum sustainable yield” (MSY). This is the greatest amount of fish that scientists say can be caught without depleting the stock long-term.

The deadline was agreed by EU member states, including the UK, in a bid to finally end the annual spectacle of fisheries ministers caving to industry pressure to set allowable catches at levels their scientific advisors say are unsustainable.

Prime minister Theresa May has promised to incorporate all EU environmental regulations into domestic law, and to ensure “Brexit will not mean a lowering of environmental standards”.

But the government bill intended to replace the EU’s common fisheries policy includes no legal duty to limit catches in line with the scientific advice – and ministers have so far rebuffed attempts to introduce one.

‘Step backwards’

Instead, the fisheries bill – which will return to the House of Commons soon – includes only an “objective” to ensure fishing within MSY. Environmentalists warn this will leave ministers vulnerable to continued industry pressure to overfish.

“It would really be a step backwards and a watering down of existing commitments,” said Sam Stone, head of fisheries and aquaculture at the Marine Conservation Society.

“The government has said several times that there should be a green Brexit, and said they want to improve environmental standards. Removing this commitment would certainly not achieve that.”

Fishermen themselves want an industry to pass on to their children

Liberal Democrat MP Alastair Carmichael, whose Shetland and Orkney constituency plays a major role in UK fishing, told Unearthed that the costs of getting the fisheries bill wrong “would be huge”.

“Fishing unsustainably is in no one’s interests, especially not the interests of the fishing industry and the communities that depend on it,” he said.

“Maximum Sustainable Yield is a piece of jargon that really means common sense. Fishing is an industry that goes down generations and fishermen themselves want an industry to pass on to their children.”