The Government will “explore the merits” of a national memorial day to commemorate those who have died working at sea.

Transport minister Robert Courts also said the Government was “determined” to make the fishing industry a safer workplace in future, as he answered calls from Labour MP Karl Turner (Kingston Upon Hull East) for a national lost trawlermen’s memorial day.

Mr Courts told MPs: “I believe that there is merit in exploring further the idea… supported by so many members across this House, of a national memorial day dedicated to those who have lost their lives, and consequently I have asked my officials to explore this proposal further, and I would like it very much if all members who have spoken in this debate would be a part of that engagement as we consider this proposal further.”

Conservative MP Robin Millar said the coastal waters of the UK are “hazardous” and “it takes a special person” to work in such conditions.

He noted fishing boat, the Nicola Faith, that sunk after setting off from Conwy in January.

Sadly, the bodies of all three crew members, Ross Ballantine, Carl McGrath, and Alan Minard, were identified after being discovered on the Wirral and Blackpool.

The MP for Aberconwy said it can be easy to forget the “skill and courage” of the trade.

On safety in the modern fishing industry, Mr Courts said he was “determined that more can be done” to prevent deaths at sea and added he would write to all MPs with “constituency fishing interests” in the new year and “explore using their unique insight and knowledge gained through their work” to improve safety.

He added: “Over this winter if any of us, or our constituents, anyone watching this debate, turns in for a late night after a fish and chip supper in a warm pub deep in landlocked safety, I hope they take a minute, just once, to tune into the shipping forecast with its calm gale warnings and think of those at sea risking life and limb that we might be in bed, safe and warm and fed.”

Mr Turner, Hull East MP, told the Commons that “in January every year hundreds of people attend a service on the banks of the Humber to mark Hull’s Lost Trawlermen’s Day”.

He called on the Government to commit funding towards a formal national memorial day, as well as running a consultation to help determine some of the details and the form it would take.

Mr Turner said that in the mid-20th century, workers were four times as likely to be killed in the fishing industry than in the UK’s next most lethal profession of underground coal mining.

Calls for the memorial were backed by backbench MP Sheryll Murray whose husband, a fisherman, died in an accident at sea.

The MP South East Cornwall said: “There are a lot of fishermen’s wives out there who don’t have anything other than a memory because they didn’t even have their husbands recovered.”