Fisheries Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

33: Clause 2, page 3, line 35, leave out from “to” to end of line 36 and insert—
“(a) restore one or more stocks of sea fish to, or maintain them at, sustainable levels, and(b) in respect of fish activities for the one or more stocks of sea fish referred to in paragraph (a), achieve the ecosystem objective.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the ecosystem objective to be achieved whenever policies to maintain or restore a particular fish stock are set out.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, has just pointed out, we seem to be repeating ourselves because we are going around in circles. As I said the other day, if you do not have environmental sustainability, you do not have social or economic sustainability. The Minister is not hearing that, or certainly not agreeing with it, and nor are his advisers. They just do not seem to get the basic premise that if you do not have a healthy planet, you do not have anything else. You cannot make deals with nature. Nature can heal itself, but not with all our interventions. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, has pointed out that we are essentially the voices of the environment here because there are no huge and powerful pressure groups supporting it.

I am also going to have to repeat the fact that the Conservative Party manifesto made a commitment to the people of Britain who voted for the Conservatives that there would be a legal commitment to fish sustainably, so it should be in this Bill. It is no good saying that it is in other places; it has to be in this Bill because only then will people understand that it is an incredibly important component of the whole fishing industry. Ecosystems are part of that sustainability and it all has to work together holistically. At the moment, the mechanisms in the Bill are quite disjointed and have to be tidied up, and presumably an awful lot of Members of this House would be very happy to contribute to that.

Amendment 33 aims to ensure that the fisheries management plans are made in the context of the ecology that they will affect. It is impossible to change the dynamics of one species without creating a whole load of repercussions, possibly unknown ones, within the ecosystem. More predators might lead to fewer prey, for example, while more prey might lead to more predators. Sometimes, the best interventions might be farther down the food chain, such as increasing the population of microscopic plankton which will then support higher populations all the way up the chain. The fisheries management plans would better be regarded as being ecosystem management plans and should be made with the purpose of achieving the ecosystem objective. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I should tell the Committee that if Amendment 33 were to be agreed to, I would not be able to call Amendment 34 on the grounds of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

We might perhaps incorporate that if there is a more general desire to talk through fisheries plans. The truth is that the four fisheries administrations have worked very constructively and positively, with sustainability at the heart of that work. We have all been saying that there is no point in overextracting or overexploiting fish stocks anywhere in UK waters. We need to work on restoring all our stocks, and that is absolutely what these plans are designed to do. I shall of course be very happy to have further discussions on that.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, almost all of whom probably have much more competence in this area than I do. I thank the noble Lord for his answer. He was quite fierce towards me—in fact, that is probably the grumpiest I have ever seen him—and I consider myself told off. I did not mean to doubt his integrity but I am afraid that I cannot say the same for the Prime Minister. It is very dispiriting to be on this side of the Chamber, to put a lot of work into legislation, to come forward with what we think are good suggestions to make it a better piece of legislation and then to have them all swept aside simply because the Government have a large majority. The Minister must see that that is quite difficult to swallow at times.

I thank the Minister for giving an answer that he felt to be very reassuring. I will read it to see how much I am reassured by it and, in view of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 33 withdrawn.