European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Kelvin Hopkins

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate and to support the Bill that has been introduced by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I am pleased that he has done this. I also had the pleasure of supporting the previous Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), and of serving on that Bill’s Committee. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) talked about prosperity in the European Union. I hope that he will go and tell that to all the unemployed Greeks and Spaniards, and ask them if they think the EU is prosperous. The economy of the European Union, and particularly of the eurozone, is diving into a black hole at the moment.

I rise to support the Bill because I believe that people want a choice. I was an active member of a multi-party organisation called People’s Choice. Interestingly, its chair and president were both members of my party, although members of other parties were also active in it. A big majority of the British people want a referendum. In my constituency, we held a mini-referendum just before the last election on whether to have a referendum, and there was a 2:1 majority in favour of doing so. I therefore feel that I can legitimately express my view here today, as it is also the view of the majority of my constituents.

I have some experience of referendums. In the 1975 referendum, I was the chair of the Vote No campaign in Luton. Subsequently, I was the agent for the no vote in Bedfordshire. Interestingly, the agent for the yes vote was Sir Trevor Skeet, the then Conservative Member of Parliament for Bedford. Some years ago, when I met him again and reminded him of our previous encounter, he was horribly embarrassed because he had changed his view. That was an interesting conversation.

The Labour party held a special conference at that time. It was my first ever Labour party conference, and a massive majority—myself included—voted in favour of supporting a no vote in the referendum. At that conference, I saw one of the greatest pieces of oratory of my political career. It was a speech by Michael Foot, calling for a no vote. In it, he referred to Joseph Conrad’s novel “Typhoon”, saying that if someone was in a storm, they should always face into the storm to save themselves and not run away from it. Sometimes we have to do that in politics as well. I have always remembered that speech. I am often in the minority, but I remember what Michael Foot said: if you believe you are making the right point, stick with it. I have certainly taken that on board.

At that time, a great majority of Labour MPs wanted to come out of the then Common Market, but the majority of Conservative MPs wanted to stay in. There has been much reference to Labour’s support for the European Union, but even fairly recently it was the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who kept us out of the eurozone. Had we gone into it, it would have been a complete disaster.

It has also been suggested that there have been great changes since 1975. We have certainly moved much further towards an integrated Europe, but there were early signs of where we were going. In 1979, there was a proposal to form an embryonic single currency called the European monetary system—the “snake”—but Denis Healey wisely kept us out of it. At the time, I wrote a brief for the general secretary of the union I then worked for, who then banged the drum at the TUC saying that we should not go into the snake. I like to think that I had some small influence on the Labour leadership at that time.

Now, my devout wish is to convince my Labour colleagues to support a referendum. They might not necessarily listen to my voice, but there are significant voices in and around our leadership that privately support a referendum. However, they have not won the argument inside the leadership yet. Their views are private, but I hope that my party will have acquiesced and decided to support a referendum by the time of the general election, even if it does not agree with my view on the European Union.

[Barry Gardiner]

I understand that my hon. Friend is a passionate and insistent voice on these matters. Does he believe that the timing that has been set out in the Bill is sensible? Will it allow the people of this country to have the necessary debate with full information about what any renegotiation might involve?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Personally, I would like a referendum sooner rather than later. Most people in Britain have a pretty good idea of what the European Union is about.

We will renegotiate terms, and no doubt there will be some loose improvements in minor areas that will make no difference to our membership. A sticking point for me is that we should withdraw from the common fisheries policy. We need to restore Britain’s historic fishing waters so that we can start to restock our seas to ensure that we have fish for the long-term future. I put that case in private to a former UK representative in the European Union who immediately said that, in that case, we would have to get out of the EU because we could not possibly withdraw from the common fisheries policy. So there we are: we have a problem. If we are going to renegotiate, it should be about real things that matter.

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the work that Commissioner Damanaki has done for the renegotiation of the EU fisheries policy, and of the benefit that that is bringing to small fishermen in the UK? The UK quota can now be divided up, bringing greater advantage to the under-10 metre fleets.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I appreciate that improvements have been made to the common fisheries policy, and for that I give some credit to the previous Conservative Minister, but the pressure on him to renegotiate came partly from other hon. Members, including me—

Fishing Industry

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Barry Gardiner]

Very briefly, because I do not want to deprive the Minister of time.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend has made a very powerful point about the number of fish being caught. Surely excluding from our waters the vessels of other member states that overfish, which we cannot control, has to come first before we start to manage our own fishing industry.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend was out of the Chamber when I responded to that point, which he made earlier. Perhaps if he wants to catch up with that in Hansard we will not delay the proceedings further.

We must take a science-based approach to quota allocation and we must have a clear goal of delivering a diverse and abundant marine environment that can sustain stronger economic growth and deliver more jobs for Britain’s fishing community. It is essential that fishers are able to respond to the changes in the abundance of their quarry. The quota system can clearly create barriers to more sustainable, responsive fishing practices, but I am not persuaded that calls for an increase in total allowable catch and quota are based on adequate evidence or are compatible with the recovery of Britain’s fisheries and the long-term economic health of Britain’s fishing communities.

The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) stated the need for a greater share of the quota for the under-10 metre fleet. He made that case absolutely superbly. Although I have screeds that I would wish to have said about it, he has made the case and I do not need to do so.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) spoke of the science base. Everything comes back to that: we must follow the science. The difficulty is that often proceeding on the basis of anecdote and surmise is the only thing that we have. There are very few examples of scientific evidence being gathered both pre and post-fishing activity. A happy exception is found in the study, “Long-term changes in deep-water fish populations in the northeast Atlantic”—a paper published in the proceedings of the Royal Society in 2009.

This week, unfortunately, the proposed European ban on deep-sea fishing, which aimed to phase out trawling below 600 metres, was defeated. Trawling below that level is recognised by scientists as being by far the most destructive fishing activity. In line with its work on a more sustainable EU common fisheries policy, this matter has been very much on the European Parliament’s agenda. The Minister may care to explain why his Conservative colleagues in the European Parliament joined forces with other groups to vote down the ban and also voted to delay progress on the draft legislation, meaning that better conservation measures for deep-sea species are unlikely to be taken forward until after the 2014 European elections.

Deep-sea trawlers are catching top predators first and then moving down the food web. Taking away the top predator from an ecosystem risks a significant, possibly irrevocable, destabilisation because it removes species that play a regulatory role affecting the entire food web. The key target species in deep-sea fisheries include round-nosed grenadier, black scabbard and orange ruffy, but for these three, and up to perhaps another seven, target species for deep-sea trawlers, some 78 species are being caught as by-catch. These deep-sea species tend to be longer lived. The orange ruffy lives for up to 100 years and reaches maturity only at the age of 30. Catching these species can completely destabilise the ecosystem.

The science shows that before commercial deep-sea trawling commenced, the abundance of fish per sq km was 25,000 fish, but afterwards it collapsed to 7,225 fish per sq km. Equally of concern is that the decline was not localised in the fished area of 52,000 sq km but extended to 142,000 sq km—an area two and three quarter times that of the area that had been fished by deep-sea trawling. This is a desperately serious problem.

Finally, I want to talk about marine conservation zones, because they have been—

Fisheries

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I am very pleased to do so. There are three key areas of discards, which are often not well understood: over-quota discards, which are calculated to be about 22%; undersized discards, which are calculated to be about 24%; and non-commercial discards, which are calculated to be about 54% of discards. I will deal with each of these in turn, but first I want to talk about the importance of the ecosystems-based approach.

The ecosystems-based approach is fundamental to sustainable environmental management. It establishes a strategy for the management and sustainable use of natural resources by considering them in the context of their role in the entire ecosystem. The current EU common fisheries policy and the EU marine strategy framework directive already commit the EU, in principle, to this ecosystems-based approach. The tragedy is that that has not been reflected in practice.

True ecosystems-based fisheries management would require systemic reform through the introduction of a regionalised management framework. A regionalised management system within Europe would divide the EU fisheries into management regions according to ecosystems, rather than nations, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) suggested. Unfortunately, fish do not carry passports about their person. They do not know when they are travelling from one nation’s waters into another’s. Therefore, one must look at the ecosystem and not simply the national boundaries.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My simple point is that nothing will happen in terms of the proper management of fisheries without self-interest—the self-interest of the member states and of their fishing industries. If a simple regional and scientific basis is used, that essential self-interest will not be built into the system.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am glad that my hon. Friend makes that point, because that is exactly what I wish to challenge. It seems to me that we can assure the fishing industry and fishers that there is real self-interest in promoting this approach.