Fisheries Bill (Tenth_PART2 sitting)

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Alistair Carmichael

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

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I rise to speak to new clause 1, which has been tabled in my name and in those of my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun and for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock).

It has been a long-held view of the Scottish Government, and, indeed, of many in the sector, that Seafish, because of the way it is currently constituted, is not sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of the entire sector and requires radical reform. Many have made the case that there is an inherent flaw in Seafish attempting to represent all of the UK while operating in an area in which policy is devolved. In trying to represent the whole of the UK fishing industry, Seafish is viewed by many as providing insufficient support to the sector in Scotland, which all too often results in the poor or unsatisfactory marketing and promotion of Scottish seafood.

The main objective of the new clause is to devolve both the control over funding and the Executive powers of Seafish to Scottish Ministers. It would also devolve control of the Scottish aspects of the fishing levy, giving Scotland a key role in deciding how the Scottish share of the fishing levy should be spent. We believe that this new model will provide much greater flexibility for Seafish to exercise its functions separately and differently in the different parts of the UK. The new clause would also require Seafish to report the income it receives from the levies it imposes and how those are applied in each part of the United Kingdom.

As I have often said in Committee, not only is fishing devolved but there is absolutely no standardised version of the fishing industry across the UK. From Truro to Thurso and beyond, it is multi-layered, complex and nuanced, and is often very localised. Given that there is no one single fishing industry pursuing a common set of clear, shared objectives, it is surely ludicrous that we still have a one-size-fits-all fishing authority charged with securing a sustainable, profitable future for all parts of the seafood industry. How can Seafish practically offer regulatory guidance and service to the industry—including catching, aquaculture, processors, importers, exporters and distributors of seafood—as well as looking after restaurants and retailers in such a complicated and differentiated industry?

This is not an attack on Seafish or the people who work there. Rather, it is recognising that, with an aggregated coastline of almost 20,000 miles containing a host of different fishing practices and interests, it is in an almost impossible situation in trying to work in the best interests of everyone.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I have made the same point as the hon. Gentleman often enough myself. However, the industry in Scotland surely encompasses the full range of practices that he identifies across the whole of the United Kingdom. How would devolution help to address that?

[Brendan O'Hara]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I represent a west coast constituency and he represents a northern isles constituency, which are vastly different from that represented by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. It is about devolving power to as local a level as one possibly can. If Scottish Ministers are given the power to act on behalf of a much smaller area and a much smaller concentration of the industry, I think it will much better serve the industry as a whole across Scotland.

The Bill gives us the perfect opportunity to reform the current system to ensure that that levy can be better used to promote the range and quality of Scottish seafood, both at home and abroad. If Scotland were allowed to take these investment decisions, it would allow us to properly support the industry by promoting the quality and excellence of Scottish seafood products, both at home and across the world. It would also allow us to maximise the benefits of Scottish provenance, which is so important when marketing ourselves, particularly abroad, while supplying top-quality products to consumers.

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[Brendan O'Hara]

The Minister said that this issue was talked about in 2014. I think he would agree—I suspect that no one would disagree—that in politics 2014 seems a long time ago and much has changed.

I appreciate the support from the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, who talked about transparency, and he is absolutely right. In response to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, it is really important that this new clause is seen as a genuine attempt to improve Seafish. We are not seeking to undermine Seafish; we are seeking to improve how it works and how it can work best for the multitude of Scottish fishing industries. I agree that there is a community of interest, particularly in Northern Ireland, but that community of interest will be severely undermined by the imposition of the backstop that we talked about earlier this evening.

This change would work because it would allow a Scottish Seafish to promote all Scottish seafish across both coasts and the northern isles, and it could work. At the moment, Seafish does not work well for Scotland.

[Mr Carmichael]

I just want to tease out the issues here a little bit. I ask this question in a spirit of genuine inquiry, because I do not know the answer to it, but I would think that a lot of the inshore boats—the foreign boats in particular—around the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and certainly on the Clyde will fish as far down as the Isle of Man and around there, so what, in this context, actually constitutes “Scottish seafish”?

[Brendan O'Hara]

One would presume that it is where the catch is landed, or where the boat is registered. So when a boat comes back to Tarbert, or Oban, or the right hon. Gentleman’s home island of Islay, that would constitute “Scottish seafood”. I do not need to tell him how important that Scottish provenance is and how important it is to get those langoustines to Madrid or Paris as quickly as we possibly can. If we have an organisation that is at front and centre about Scottish provenance, I think that would certainly be a step in the right direction.

As I say, I do not think that Seafish is working particularly well for Scotland at the moment and that is something we have to address. So, with your permission, Mr Gray, I will push this new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[Mr Carmichael]

Further to that point of order, Mr Gray. I associate myself with those comments. It is at least eight and possibly nine years since I last sat on a Public Bill Committee. In fact, if I say that the last time I sat on a Bill of this sort it was a Standing Committee, you will understand, Mr Gray, that that takes us back to at least before 2010.

In addition to those we have already thanked, we should record our thanks to those who gave evidence to the Committee. As a neophyte in that regard, I thought that was enormously helpful. That innovation has enormously improved our procedures. Finally, I associate myself with the best wishes with which we send the Minister to Brussels. It has clearly not been an easy year but I hope he will do everything he can to bring home the best possible settlement because the sustainability we have spoken about in theoretical terms during the Committee is very much at stake in practical terms.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Further to that point of order, Mr Gray. I associate the Scottish National party with the previous comments. Our sincere thanks to the Clerks and all hon. Members who have made this such an interesting, good-natured and serious Committee investigation of the Fisheries Bill. As everyone does, I wish the Minister the best of luck in his endeavours when he meets the rest of his EU counterparts. Finally, Mr Gray, thanks to you and Mr Hanson for chairing the proceedings.

Fisheries Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Alistair Carmichael

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Carmichael]

Like many Members of this House, I am often wary about using legislation to send signals, because most of the time I do not think it necessarily ends well. However, from my experience personally and as a constituency MP, I think the hon. Gentleman’s amendment would send a very important signal, so I commend him for tabling it.

One of my formative experiences in the area came when I was still in legal practice. I was instructed to appear at a fatal accident inquiry at Lerwick Sheriff Court on behalf of a family from Banff, or perhaps Macduff, whose son had been swept overboard from a trawler, the Alandale, which is no longer at sea. In a force 7 or force 8 gale, the young man had gone over to the ledge around the side of the boat to fix a trawl door. The boat was hit by a big wave—a lump of water—and he was washed away. The skipper said that the crew saw a flash of orange oilskin in the water, but that was the last they saw of him. They looked for him for some time, but the search was ultimately futile.

When I was instructed in that case, the grief of the young man’s parents formed my view, which I hold to this day, that the matter requires our attention and every possible signal needs to be given. The other thing that struck me during the fatal accident inquiry was the evidence of the other deckhand, who was still in his late teenage years. He said that for a few weeks after the incident, he had worn a life vest of some sort; when asked on cross-examination why he had stopped wearing it, he said that he had been subject to ridicule from others in the industry. Nobody of that age, and nobody who had witnessed what that young man had witnessed, should be subject to such pressure. I have noticed that the situation has improved since, but there is still a lot to do. I still hold the view that there is a job of education to be done within the industry, and making it an objective of the Bill would be a significant improvement.

Locator beacons are another matter that I have formed a view on over the years as a consequence of my experience of dealing with families. One constituent, with whom I worked for some years, had a brother working on a single-handed creel boat who was caught in a rope—we think—when shooting his creels and went over the side of the boat, which was on automatic pilot. The boat was eventually found a considerable distance from where the family thought he had been fishing. A locator beacon would not have saved his life, but it would have saved his family immense pain and grief to know sooner where he was. It is a relatively small and inexpensive innovation, but it highlights the importance of putting safety objectives in the Bill.

Finally, let me make a point about modern slavery. The modern slavery that we have identified in the fishing industry has generally been a consequence of the operation of transit visas in relation to crews of non-European economic area nationals. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has heard me speak about that in the House times without number. It is a ridiculous use for transit visas and the Government should get real and identify the need for non-EEA nationals to be employed in the industry, and make a sectoral provision about it.

If the objective were included in the Bill, arguably the Home Office’s current approach to visas for non-EEA nationals would be in breach of it. For that and other reasons, the proposed change to the Bill is eminently sensible and supportable.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland is right. Any of us who represent fishing communities know the devastation that can be caused when a boat is lost. Indeed, just at the start of this year in my constituency, the Nancy Glen sank off Loch Fyne with the loss of Duncan MacDougall and Przemek Krawczyk. The devastation felt is something I never want to see again. Anything that improves safety on board has to be supported.

I question the amendment in relation to wages and salary protection, but the SNP supports the principle. The Scottish Government—notably Fergus Ewing, the Cabinet Secretary—have written to industry stakeholders along those lines and spoken to the Government and officials about regularising the visa situation to ensure that non-EEA workers are subject to UK employment law. We are keen to get full implementation of ILO 188, the International Labour Organisation work in fishing convention. We have concerns that the wording of the amendment means it would not apply to the many fishermen who are self-employed, or to the significant proportion of the industry who are share fishermen, to whom such things as the national minimum wage do not apply. We need to ensure that anything in the licence works in tandem with existing law and check the exact implications of the amendment.

It is complex, so although we agree with the spirit of the amendment, particularly about safety on board, we must ensure that we get things right. If the amendment is pressed to a vote we shall support it but, if the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport does not press it, we will have an opportunity to work on a proposal covering more of the industry. We could work on that together and perhaps bring it back on Report.

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[Brendan O'Hara]

Although these are all good aspirations, and we recognise the need to continually improve our data and the need to contribute to better science, we have concerns about some of the practical aspects. For example, who will pay for the very costly technological change that is proposed? I also question whether primary legislation is really the place for determining such scientific measures.

I caution that some of the technological measures are still in their infancy or, in some cases, not yet possible. For example, as I understand it the knowledge around identification and sizing of catches has only just been developed in terms of camera technology.

Finally, is it not for the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to determine how to collect data, and indeed what data is to be collected? I fear that the amendments might inadvertently cut across that devolution settlement.

[Mr Carmichael]

To pick up on that last point, my amendment is probing, albeit with a serious purpose at its root. Essentially, the problem is that for years we have had conflict between what fishermen believe is in the sea and what scientists say is in the sea on the basis of the data that they have. The data that would be produced by the full documentation of catches—which is an important principle, whichever jurisdiction we are dealing with—would be the best possible evidence. It would be in the interests of the industry, and it would certainly be in the interests of the scientific community as a whole.

For years, I have complained about the fact that the source of the conflict between the industry and the scientists is that much of the data collected is almost two years old by the time it is used for the purposes of decision making. We know the situation in the marine environment can change massively over that time. As a consequence, we have a mismatch between the scientific evidence and what fishermen believe is in the sea.

What we propose would allow for a much earlier “quick and dirty” analysis of what is in the sea, and would offer the opportunity of different fisheries management systems. At the moment, given the way in which we use science, I would be very cautious about the idea of moving to anything like a real-time closure, for example. The science, of course, is always evolving and improving, but this is not a novel process; this approach is taken in a number of other fishing jurisdictions. If reliable data is coming from the industry itself, the objectives of real-time fisheries management will be much more easily achieved.

Amendment 24, which stands in my name, is probing, but it strikes at the heart of the approach that the Government will be taking, especially in later parts of the Bill, which deal with the practical ways in which fisheries management is to be undertaken. The National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, for example, is keen to see the creation of advisory councils.

Fisheries Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Alistair Carmichael

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

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Q Mr Armstrong, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation suggests that you represent every owner and skipper from Solway to Shetland. For the record, could you tell us who you represent and about the diversity of the fishing community in Scotland?

Bertie Armstrong: We represent the 450 businesses that are responsible for most of the quota species. For the non-quota species, a large number of vessels are one handed or two handed. They belong to no associations—that is not being dismissive, but if you are a one-handed fisherman, you do not have much time for politicking. We have the whole of the Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation and the whole of the Orkney Fisheries Association, but not the Western Isles Fisherman’s Association or some of the smaller associations down in the Clyde.