Fishing campaigners claim victory as discards to be banned from 2015 On Tuesday MEPs approved reforms to the Common Fisheries Policy, which is aimed at halting overfishing and will see a ban on discards coming into force in January 2015. Initially the new rules will ban discards of pelagic fish, such as mackerel, herring, sardines and anchovies. That will then be extended to other fisheries in 2016. MEPs also approved a new draft regulation to ban deep sea trawling along the sea bed in vulnerable marine ecosystems. Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall said: "The new CFP will make life better for fish and fishermen in other ways: ensuring that quotas are set in line with what the science says is sustainable and allowing decisions to be made at a regional level. Where the crazy, old CFP said that fishermen had to discard fish that they didn't have quota for, the new CFP says that this is wasteful and every effort must go towards ending discards. In the North Sea, fishermen will keep all the cod and haddock they catch from January 2016. Trials in the UK have already shown that boats can fish with virtually no discards of cod and catch very few fish that are too small to sell. Discards were made under the old policy usually because they were of a species that fishermen did not have quota for, were of unwanted species or incorrect size. Most of those fish thrown back die, resulting in a major impact on fish stock numbers. The new CFP will ban fishermen from doing this and encourage new fishing practices to reduce by-catch of unwanted species. The new policy is also due to change the way decisions on quotas are made. Currently these are agreed centrally, but under the new policy this will be agreed at a regional level. However, while most of the reforms in the new CFP will come into force on 1 January 2014, the ban on discards will not be in place for a further year. Last month scientists also questioned whether banning discards will help to stop fish stocks from dwindling. Researchers at the University of East Anglia said it needed to be combined with tough quotas and strict monitoring of fishing fleets. Next week fisheries minister from the EU will meet to discuss new limits for the next year. George Eustice, Fisheries Minister, said: "The long fight to reform the broken Common Fisheries Policy and end the shameful practice of perfectly good fish being thrown dead back into the sea has been won. Today's vote signifies a new chapter for the CFP that will make fishing more sustainable, will end the centralised one-size-fits-all approach to decision making and will make discards a thing of the past.