Fisheries Bill (Tenth_PART2 sitting)

Debate between Alan Brown and David Duguid

Committee Debate: 10th sitting (part 2): House of Commons
Monday 17th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Alan Brown]

The Minister is optimistic about the future prospects and in thinking that I will withdraw the new clause. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Member for Glasgow North East for their contributions.

I think the hon. Member for Stafford actually made the point for me when he expressed his concerns, and looked for reassurances from the Minister, that the money will go to the Treasury. Frankly, I do not trust the Treasury. I say to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan that at one point there was a £1 billion fund for carbon capture and storage that looked like it was going to go to Peterhead, but the Treasury overrode the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and withdrew the funding. That is the problem with funding reviews by the Treasury: it can put a red pen through the funding at any time it likes. The Treasury holds the purse strings.

[David Duguid]

The general point that I think the hon. Gentleman is trying to make is that, while we are in the EU, we get the EMFF. However, does he accept that there is no guarantee of that same level of EMFF funding for member states in the future?

Fisheries Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Alan Brown and David Duguid

Monday 17th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Duguid]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. Amendment 1 is a probing amendment relating to a concern raised by several hon. Members—[Interruption.] Give me a second to finish my first paragraph, and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun.

The concern has been raised by hon. Members including those who tabled the amendment—my hon. Friends the Members for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann)—the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the shadow Minister. I do not know whether this will reassure Opposition Members. I am sure the Minister will forgive me for reiterating this concern, which I have raised relentlessly, not just with him but with Ministers and Cabinet members above his pay grade, and I will continue to do so.

[Alan Brown]

I was just chuntering from the sidelines. The hon. Gentleman said that this is a probing amendment. Does that mean that he is not deadly serious about it and is not willing to press it to a vote?

[David Duguid]

I have heard comments from the Minister that reassure me to some extent, but as the hon. Gentleman knows other things are afoot that make it very difficult to pass this amendment right now. I will comment further on Report.

This concern is shared not just by hon. Members but by the industry as a whole through representations from organisations including, but not limited to, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and the Scottish White Fish Producers Association. The amendment addresses the timing of when we extricate ourselves from the influence of the common fisheries policy. Of course, we actually leave the common fisheries policy when we leave the EU. That is always what was promised, but because of the implementation period we will find ourselves under the influence of the CFP.

The Minister will be aware that, along with hon. Members from other coastal constituencies, I made representations, initially proposed by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, at the start of the year that the impact of any transition period on fisheries should extend only nine months from Brexit date—to the end of 2019. In March this year, the intention to have a 21-month implementation period was announced. Given that this was an additional 12 months over what was proposed as a compromise, it was greeted with disappointment in fishing communities. However, it has been understood and broadly accepted on the basis that the final prize of being out of the CFP and being an independent coastal state was still very much in play, and that the EU itself would not accept fisheries being cherry-picked out of the implementation period. I leave aside for the purpose of this discussion the EU’s subsequent attempts to do that very thing—to cherry-pick fisheries and other aspects of the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. That is for another discussion.

The industry was encouraged by and supportive of the White Paper, in no small part due to the repeated mentions of December 2020 as the moment we would take our place as an independent coastal state. However, that date is not reflected in the Bill. Amendment 1 seeks to put that date in the Bill, or at least to secure an assurance, which I invite the Minister to provide, that our exit from the influence of the CFP will be time-limited.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Gentleman said that amendment 1 was a probing amendment and that this was not quite the right time to put the date in statute. When will be the right time? What will have changed by the time we get to Report to make such an amendment the right one?

[David Duguid]

I am looking forward to the Minister’s response to the amendment. As the hon. Gentleman and the rest of the Committee know, a lot is happening—or not happening—at the moment, so we need to see what comes out of the next few weeks. I would be grateful if the Minister provided whatever assurance he can at this stage about how the Government will ensure that the CFP no longer applies to our fishermen beyond December 2020.

[George Eustice]

Both amendments seek to achieve the same purpose, which is effectively to make it harder to extend the implementation period beyond December 2020, as currently provided for in the withdrawal agreement. Underlying the amendments is the clear sentiment in the fishing industry, on which I think there is almost cross-party consensus, that we cannot get out of the EU fast enough. The common fisheries policy has been a disaster—we do not get a fair share of stocks—so it is entirely understandable that the fishing industry and others would like us to become an independent coastal state with our own seat at the table, negotiating our own fisheries resources and getting a fairer share of the total allowable catch, as soon as possible.

We currently envisage the implementation period running until the end of 2020. As we discussed earlier, in the event that we are unable to conclude a future partnership with the EU during that implementation period, and that that is apparent by July 2020, the Government will have a choice of one of two options. If we have made good progress and are close to getting a new agreement in place, there will be an opportunity to extend the implementation period. That might be for just a few months to ensure that things can be put in place. If, however, the Government judged that the prospects of getting a future partnership were low—or the prospects of getting one in the foreseeable future were low—they could opt to embrace the so-called Northern Ireland protocol backstop.

Fisheries Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Alan Brown and David Duguid

Thursday 6th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Q Sticking to the quota theme, you have already touched on the debate between this being enabling legislation and how much detail needs to be in the Bill. Do you think there needs to be more on how the quota allocation will work in future? You also mentioned potential quota reserves for new entrants—small-scale recreational anglers have also been mentioned—so is it your view that there should be more in the Bill?

Griffin Carpenter: I think that is a political question. I understand the idea that it is enabling legislation and that for most fisheries legislation all the detail will come in secondary legislation, but if you have some priorities that you absolutely want to ensure are in future UK fisheries, here is an opportunity to introduce them. I understand that some of the ideas we are discussing might be incongruous with the tone, at least, of the rest of the Bill, but here is an opportunity where we can say, “Starting now, we are only in 2018 and we are already thinking about this issue. We are guaranteeing it is in the fisheries legislation, first and foremost.” From a political perspective, that is valid.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

On the redistribution of quota, obviously, if you are a larger owner of quota versus a smaller owner of quota, or an owner of no quota, you will certainly feel that you are going to be worse off in this situation. How do you cater for the fact that a lot of the smaller vessel owners perhaps previously owned quota that they sold, benefiting greatly financially, and then moved into smaller vessels for which they did not need quota? How would you avoid that kind of gaming happening again in the future?

Griffin Carpenter: That is a good question. The line that has always been used on quota allocation in the past was, “You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, and we don’t want that in the industry.” Now we have the idea of a Brexit dividend of extra quota, we are robbing Pierre to pay Paul, so that is fine. We are fine as long as Peter is protected.

The idea of quota shares is actually a bit confusing because they are percentages rather than tonnage. Now that stocks are recovering, and the quota increases each year, you can have a situation, even if you are taking from Peter and giving to Paul, where everybody is better off. You can have this as a conditional reallocation. Let us say you get a certain share in the large-scale fleet—you have a large-scale vessel—and you are guaranteed 1,000 tonnes every year. If the quota is going up, some of the surplus quota of that year can be reallocated to the small-scale fleet in a pool or through whatever system you do that. There is a bit of a difference between tonnage, which is what actually affects your bottom line, and the percentage. I suggest that we can have these thresholds in place.

The other thing is that, with additional fishing opportunities potentially coming in, hopefully, we can do a reallocation all at once so, again, the large-scale fleet will not necessarily be worse off. They might have a smaller percentage of haddock, let us say, or some demersal stock that the small-scale fleet really wants, but they are getting all the extra herring and other species from the North sea from our EU colleagues. There is the potential for doing all this at once: revisiting the allocation system and making everyone better off.

Fisheries Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Alan Brown and David Duguid

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Alan Brown]

Q I accept your guidance, Mr Gray, but clearly there is the suggestion of the clear date versus how that would fit into the bigger picture. It is the same thing when we talk about future quota allocations and how that will work. Mr Armstrong mentioned the issue of tariffs in his answer. In yesterday’s questions to the Attorney General he said that the backstop arrangements meant that Northern Ireland would have tariff-free access to the EU and tariff-free access to Great Britain, whereas no other market will have that. Is that a concern, and how could that be addressed in this Bill?

Bertie Armstrong: To be honest, that is not where our focus lies at this point in time; it is on making sure that the Bill as an enabler of—I will use the phrase “the sea of opportunity”—makes it on to the statute book, rather than on the details of what does and does not happen to Northern Ireland in the event of a backstop.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

Going back to Mr Pollard’s question about UK vessels landing elsewhere, for example Norway, can you say a little about what motivates fishermen to land elsewhere? What changes are required in our ports or onshore infrastructure to make landing in the UK more attractive, and is that covered by the Bill?

Barrie Deas: Money. That’s it, really. [Laughter] I had better say a bit more. Over the last 20 years, markets for fish have developed and diversified. Peterhead has become the pre-eminent white fish port in Europe. Flat fish tends to go to Urk in the Netherlands. South-west ports are sending prime, high-value fish to the continent, and then there is the shellfish market. From time to time there will be price differentials. Also, it can reflect where the vessel is fishing: for example, it might make sense to go to Denmark and land for one trip and then land back into Peterhead for the next, or to land into France. Fishermen are commercial animals. They are very much driven by catching fish but also by marketing fish, and price is key.

Bertie Armstrong: I would reinforce that. At the slight risk of crossing the red line again, and as I keep saying, the elevation of the UK to the world stage would mean that, in the simple arithmetic of volume and value, we would overtake Iceland. It would allow us the sort of conditions that our own processing industry would want to entice not only all our own landings but perhaps some from others as well. However, it is a matter of commerce and business, generally.

Fisheries Bill

Debate between Alan Brown and David Duguid

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker; I appreciate that, as I had already tried to pare down my speech to the 10 minutes suggested earlier.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h -Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil). As he mentioned, he, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who unusually is not in the Chamber, and I have the same consistent issue of access not to EU labour—this is not a Brexit issue—but to the non-EEA labour on which the fishing industry has become dependent over the years.

I welcome this opportunity to speak about the Bill, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s opening speech. The fisheries sector is hugely significant in my constituency of Banff and Buchan. Peterhead is the largest white fish port in Europe, and a little further up the coast is the port of Fraserburgh. They are the two largest towns in my constituency. A little further around the coast is the smaller—but no less significant to its local community—port of Macduff. In terms of tonnage, almost half the fish landed by UK-registered boats is landed in my constituency.

Not just fishermen, but the wider communities around the coast of my constituency and of the UK have lost a great deal over the decades we have been in the common fisheries policy. There has been not only a loss of livelihood, the scrapping of boats and the closure of businesses, but fundamentally a loss of what identifies these coastal communities and the people who live there, who remember what once was. Quite rightly, the people in these communities look forward to making the most of the sea of opportunity presented by our leaving the EU and the CFP.

Everyone who speaks in this debate, and those watching in fishing communities around the UK, are keenly aware that Parliament will soon review the proposed EU withdrawal agreement, the impact on fisheries of which is not insignificant. It is therefore difficult to discuss the Bill without referring to the withdrawal agreement, the outline political declaration, or any new future fisheries agreement. I am very much aware of concerns expressed by fishing interests in my constituency and beyond. I have been reviewing the text of the agreement, as well as taking on board input from members of the fishing community, industry representatives and trade bodies, among a host of various stakeholders. My Scottish Conservative colleagues and I have made our position clear to the Government, and we look forward to working with Ministers to find a resolution to the range of concerns raised.

The variety of concerns can be summed up in two words: timings and leverage. On timings, we will leave the EU in March 2019, and when we do so, we leave the common fisheries policy. That is not a political decision, but a matter of legality—we cannot be in the CFP if we are not in the EU. Likewise, we cannot be in the EU, which would be the position of Opposition Members, and not in the CFP.

The agreement states that we enter an implementation period at that point, with that period ending on 31 December 2020. As others have mentioned, it would be welcome if clause 42 included the phrase “no later than December 2020”, because by that time, we must be in a position in which we have completed our first negotiations as an independent coastal state in time for our beginning to realise the opportunities that that presents for the calendar year 2021.

When we first enter negotiations in December 2020, we must have the maximum possible leverage. We have seen in recent media reports from the continent that EU fishing interests are far from pleased that the text of the agreement makes no mention of retaining guaranteed automatic access to UK waters post Brexit. If we are to have the maximum possible leverage in annual coastal state negotiations from December 2020, we must resist the EU’s demands for any continued automatic access to our waters. As the Prime Minister confirmed in her response to my question on this subject last week, we must not accept the EU’s attempts to link future trade agreements with automatic access to UK waters.

[Alan Brown]

I assume that the hon. Gentleman understands that the trade agreement is equally important. Clearly, it is important that we are able to get products to markets. We talk about everything being in isolation, but we must look at this in the mix, because that helps the whole sector.

[David Duguid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I will get to that point a little later.

The Fisheries Bill itself, and the White Paper before it, has been welcomed by organisations across the industry, including the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. This vital legislation lays the groundwork for the revival of our fishing industry outside the common fisheries policy. It is important to note that, in the event of no deal, the Bill will ensure that all UK vessels can legally continue to fish in our own waters. For example, clause 7 revokes the CFP regulation that allows EU vessels unfettered access to our waters. Clause 8 introduces the common-sense principle that any foreign vessel that wants to fish in our waters must do so on our terms. This is taking back control of our waters, and it is the basis of the British fisheries sector’s revival. Clause 9 covers those UK fishing boats that are required to be licensed, as well as stating those for which licensing will not apply.

Clause 1 defines the fisheries objectives, as many Members have said, and chief among them is the sustainability objective, which ensures that fishing and aquaculture is environmentally sustainable in the long term and managed in a way that is consistent with contributing to the economy and to food supplies. I was going to go through all the other objectives, but as I am pushed for time, I will skip them.

Clauses 9 to 17 set out rules for the licensing of UK and foreign fishing boats—I just want to cover that briefly. Although the devolved Administrations are responsible for licensing boats in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, licences issued by any UK fisheries administration will be valid across UK waters. The UK Government will agree access arrangements internationally and, although each of the devolved Administrations is responsible for issuing licences to foreign vessels in its zone, it is encouraging to know that the UK Government will administer the system, having already been provided with consent by the devolved Administrations.

Clauses 18 to 22 cover the allocation of fishing opportunities, an area on which I would like specific clarification from the Minister. Clause 18 deals with the Secretary of State’s power to determine fishing opportunities. I would appreciate it if Ministers commented on the appropriateness of the Secretary of State setting quotas for lobster or brown crab in Scotland which, I believe, are subject to international agreement. Clause 22 is about the sale of English fishing opportunities. Given that English-registered vessels operate in Scottish producer organisations and vice versa, will the Minister please provide clarification on whether these would be available for all UK vessels?

Finally, let me say something about the future of the fishing industry in my constituency and of fishing communities around the UK. After decades of deterioration within the CFP, we will not see a full recovery overnight. Government support will be required, and this House has previously been assured of that support by the Prime Minister and others

“to secure a sustainable and profitable fishing industry that will regenerate coastal communities and support future generations of UK fishermen.”

I conclude by reassuring the Minister that after we leave the CFP and become an independent coastal state, with all the powers and control that that entails, I will look forward to continuing to work with the Government to deliver that ambition to regenerate not only the fishing industry, but the wider communities and economy for which the “sea of opportunity” will deliver.

UK Oil and Gas Industry

Debate between Alan Brown and David Duguid

Thursday 19th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alan Brown]

I will come to the management of the downturn, but I think the hon. Gentleman has helped to make the case for an independent Scotland, so I thank him for that. I was not going there; I would not have touched on an independent Scotland, but I thank him. I still stand by the fact that, in my opinion, the money was going to the UK Treasury and was not distributed to the areas that were generating the wealth.

Interestingly, when it comes to fracking, in 2015 the UK Government promised a shale wealth fund of up to £1 billion for the north of England where fracking is proposed. Perhaps that is a lesson learned. It reinforces the omission of not setting up an oil fund for the benefit particularly of Scotland and other areas of the UK that extract oil and gas.

In Scotland we became used over the years to the scare stories about oil running out before yet again we discovered new oilfields. If we want to talk about not seeing it as a stopgap measure, we obviously need to watch how politicians talk about oil reserves. I certainly appreciate that everyone in this room has been very positive about the reserves that are there, the amount that could still be extracted and the future of the industry. However, other politicians sometimes try to exploit the concept that oil is running out, and we need to be careful about that.

[David Duguid]

It should be recognised, as I tried to point out in my speech, that it is fair to say that the easiest oil and gas low-hanging fruit to get has been got. There is a future for oil and gas, but, as I said, we cannot use the same behaviours and technologies as before, which is why it is important for Governments and industry to pursue the developments in technology and changes in behaviour required in future to exploit what is left, which is not so easy to get as what came before.

[Alan Brown]

I do not disagree. Clearly, the industry has shown a lot of innovation over the years and will continue to do so, and obviously it needs to do so to get additional extraction. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North gave the example of partial decommissioning to allow the technology to be input for enhanced extraction. That is something that industry is looking at now, and I am sure it will continue to innovate.

We know that prices can be volatile; we have had to deal with that over the years. Oil bottomed out at just under $12 a barrel in 1997 before rising rapidly to $91 a barrel by 2008. That was under a UK Labour Government. If I go back to legacy issues, I wonder what happened with that money, because there was no way oil projections at that time were going to be based on the oil price increasing dramatically. It was such a windfall with that massive increase in price, but I do not think we have seen the benefits of that, either.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan about managing the downturn, we have been consistently told that we need the broad shoulders of the UK, but if we look at the support that the UK Government have implemented in the past few years, the spring 2016 Budget reduced the supplementary charge back to 10%, which was a welcome measure. The Red Book predicted that that would cost £1 billion, and yet nearly three times that was given away in inheritance tax to millionaires. That shows skewed priorities.

In the spring 2017 Budget, there was nothing specific for the oil and gas industry, except one paragraph promising another discussion paper. However, it did confirm the lowering of corporation tax. Despite what everybody says about how it grows the economy and creates more tax, the Red Book predicted that that would cost the Treasury £24 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament. That was the Government’s Treasury prediction. Let us think what could be done with that £24 billion in terms of infrastructure investment or additional support for the oil and gas industry. In my opinion, it was a lost opportunity.

In the November 2017 Budget, a measure was introduced: transferable tax history. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North said, that was genuinely welcome. It is predicted to bring an additional £70 million in revenue to the Treasury, so it was not a difficult decision. That decision supports industry, but it helps the Treasury, so it should have been taken long before. We are still awaiting the appointment of the oil and gas ambassador first promised by David Cameron in January 2016, so the Government really need to provide additional support for the industry.

Yesterday I raised this matter in the debate on industrial strategy. The oil and gas sector deal has been supported by every colleague here today, but I was disappointed that the ministerial response from the Despatch Box yesterday never mentioned the oil and gas industry or Scotland and did not pick up on the point that I had made, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry). I hope today’s Minister will respond. I am sure she is working on the oil and gas sector deal and is positive about it, but it would be good to have that confirmation.

I must repeat my disappointment about the pulling of the CCS fund. That must be a lesson for the Government going forward because it scared the industry and scares away other people trying to make private investment. Again, the Minister has spoken positively about the future of CCS, so it would be good to hear her reinforce that when she sums up.

I appreciate time is moving on, Mr Sharma, so I will try to hurry up, but I want to mention another renewable energy project that has been developed at Grangemouth and would support the Grangemouth refinery: the Grangemouth renewable energy project, which has been successful in the CfD auction. Because it contains biomass, the whole premise of the project is based on securing renewable heat incentive funding as well. The UK Government are looking at retrospectively capping the amount of RHI funding available to projects to 250GWh. That would put the Grangemouth renewable energy project at risk, so I urge the Minister to reconsider, because the project is so innovative. It is a world leader, it would support the Grangemouth refinery, and it could develop industry for export and help grow the UK economy.

We have heard some impressive contributions. All have concluded that the oil and gas industry has a bright future, and I certainly echo that. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response.