European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Work in Fishing Convention) Order 2018

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a board member of the Marine Management Organisation.

I thank the Minister for her explanation but I still do not get how we will use this legislation. This specifically is not EU legislation. The fact that this process might have been used before should not act as a precedent for repeating something that is wrong. None of the areas covered by this—minimum age and some on the medical side—are exclusively EU competencies. There is a number of EU competencies which are exclusive under the common fisheries policy, but these are not them. This is the wrong instrument with which to effect these measures and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments.

As this has an EU context, I am particularly interested in whether all 28 EU member states are signatories to the convention and whether there has been a pan-European signing-up to it.

I welcome the convention. The Minister made the valid point that the order applies to foreign vessels that might come into UK ports and enables us to enforce this. The vast majority of vessels will be from either EEA or EU member states and I would be surprised if they were not meeting the terms of the convention. However, it is an excellent backstop.

It is interesting that the Minister used exclusively the term fishermen whereas the convention refers to fishers. Certainly in North America, “fishers” is the English word that is always used in this context. Will the Government in future always use the term fishers rather than fishermen when they refer to this industry and its participants? Fisherman is an ancient term, it is gender-specific and inappropriate to this industry in the 21st century. I do not accuse the Minister of being inappropriate while she was making her explanation because that has been the way in which we do it in this country, but it is time for change.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might raise a query. I thank the Minister for introducing the convention order. My query is on the medical aspect that was picked up. Paragraph 4.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to ILO 188 and “medical care”, but paragraph 4.5 refers to “shared competence”. It then goes on to describe,

“medical treatment on board vessels”.

Obviously the vessels will vary in size. Can we be given any clarification on what is expected in the difference between medical care and medical treatment on board vessels?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lord Teverson by saying that we support the basic aims of ILO 188, but I have some questions for the Minister. I start with a really easy one. Paragraph 3.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the territorial application says,

“this instrument includes Scotland and Northern Ireland”.

What happened to Wales and to England? It then says that,

“it is not a financial instrument that relates exclusively to England, Wales and Northern Ireland”.

What happened to Scotland then? I find that particular paragraph confusing.

This whole process has been very slow. ILO 188 was laid before Parliament in 2008. The Government say they now hope to rectify this as soon as possible. Given that we are a decade on, when will that be? Is that what the Minister was referring to when she said that the Government hope to take further action by later this year? Do we have any clarity as to exactly what that phrase means?

The Government are making this order under the European Communities Act 1972 to facilitate the implementation of ILO 188. My noble friend drew attention to the appropriateness, or not, of using this method, but the Government have chosen to do it by that system. It raises a wry smile, of course, at this stage of our attempts to leave the EU, but nevertheless that is the Government’s chosen path. One has to ask: what would be the implications of Brexit on how we implement this? There are obviously issues of shared competence here. It is not that the EU has remained uninterested in this. The Council exhorted member states to ratify it by the end of 2012. We are clearly lagging behind that timescale, but at least the work is now being done. One applauds that.

I realise that this is a mechanism for further implementation, but the impact statements say that there will be “no impact on business” and that it,

“does not apply to activities that are undertaken by small businesses”.

What we are doing by agreeing to this is unlocking the door to rules and regulations that will surely apply to small businesses. I am confused by the lack of an impact assessment and by the statements on the lack of impact on business. Are the Government saying that there is no impact because we do all this anyway? I thought that might be the answer, but in fact the Minister just stood up and said that very often these rules are not observed. We need to receive an explanation to find out exactly why the Government feel that an impact assessment is not necessary.

Finally, I refer to regulated working time, to which the Minister referred earlier. She pinpointed the fact that these standards often are not met. I wonder what the Government have in mind to improve conditions in relation to regulated working time.