Non-EEA Visas: Inshore Fishing

Debate between Deidre Brock and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I commend the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) for bringing this important debate. I will mention a few points raised by him and by other hon. Members.

The hon. Gentleman highlighted the concerns he had received directly from fishermen. Those personal testimonies and experiences illustrate for us—better than the very good briefings we have received on this matter—the precise nature of the problems, including the Government’s policy on the 12-mile limit and their attitude to migration. I will come on to that later. The fishermen also called for the more customised approach for which the Scottish Government have also called for some time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) is an excellent constituency MP, and he spoke with his usual passion on how much support there is across the board for non-EEA workers coming here, and of their being in many ways the lifeblood of fishing communities up and down the coast. He also mentioned how many allies the proposal has, and insisted that the UK Government begin to act on it.

The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) highlighted the difficulties that the industry has experienced in recent years in attracting local youngsters to the profession. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave us the Northern Irish perspective, as always, but also a personal viewpoint, given his family associations with the industry. He called for the UK Government to acknowledge the industry’s simple point: that it needs people who can do the job now, not in 10 years’ time. He also said that all in the UK are on the same hymn sheet.

However, it is worth remembering that Ireland is a part of the British Isles, and because of its independence it can in many ways make better choices specific to its own requirements; that contrasts with the situation that we are discussing, in which it seems that one size fits all. As I said, that is worth remembering. The hon. Members for Angus (Kirstene Hair) and for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) reminded us of the UK Government’s role, still, in turning on and off the tap of this vital labour source for Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom and Great Britain without due regard for the devastating impact on small coastal communities.

It is very good to see cross-party consensus on the need for concessions on visas for non-EU crew to keep our fishing fleets safely on the seas. A sticking plaster over a rotten immigration policy it may be, but it is a much-needed one. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, along with others in this place, has been championing this cause for some time, and it is good to see more recognition now of the absurdity of boats being tied up for lack of crew when people are available to do the job.

One of the things that sticks in my craw most about the rules on transit visas is that they squeeze hardest the smaller boats—those with one or two crew members, fishing daily from local ports. They struggle the most when staff are hard to find. The recent fishing White Paper said that the Government would encourage growth in the small boat sector. If they mean what they say for once, fixing this issue would be a good start.

I hope that the Security Minister and, through him, the Immigration Minister will reflect on the strength of the evidence that has already been presented and the importance of the fishing industry to Scotland and will act with greater urgency than they have indicated they are willing to do so far. It is clear from the figures that we have heard how dependent the whole industry is on non-EEA staff, so concessions should be the easiest decision that they have ever made. There are precedents: the offshore wind farm sector has a concession to allow non-EEA crew to operate inside 12 miles.

There is surely no need to wait for the autumn report from the Migration Advisory Committee, particularly as the MAC does not seem to be flexible itself when it comes to recognising shortage occupations and sectoral needs in Scotland. The issue seems to be that deckhands are not regarded as skilled by the great and the good who decide such things. I suggest to anyone who defines being a member of a fishing crew as unskilled work that they take time out this summer and get some work experience on a Scottish fishing vessel. When they have successfully mended a torn net in the face of a howling storm, they can come back to us and tell us that it is unskilled.

Fishing is not an industry that easily fits into a tick-box system for staff, but it clearly takes unique skills, experience and a certain type of character to do this job. The Scottish White Fish Producers Association, which knows a bit more about it than we do in this place, identified the need to recruit fishermen from outside the EU and found a similar skillset in fishermen from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Skilled fishermen who are willing to leave their families and come to do a tough job over here should be welcomed and given all the rights and protections of our EU workers.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend is summing up the debate fantastically well. I want to reiterate that I have prepared a press release into which I will insert the name of the Minister who lifts the pen and makes the change, with high praise. I hope that a Government who need some good news will at least grasp this one little straw and ensure that what we have asked for happens, and this summer. This is not a question of reports; we know what the arguments are. It has just got to happen.

[Deidre Brock]

I absolutely agree. I certainly hope that something will happen along those lines, although I remind my hon. Friend that last November the then Immigration Minister, now the Minister without Portfolio, promised to look into the possibility of running a pilot scheme in which seasonal workers coming from non-EEA countries could work for nine months to help the fishing industry on the west coast of Scotland. As of yet, I think, we have heard nothing further about that proposal.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I do not know how many Immigration Ministers we have dealt with and had this same discussion with. We have to educate them, tell them, inform them—whatever. We get the promise of jam tomorrow, and before we know what is happening, they have been promoted, sacked, moved on or whatever and we are dealing with another one. It is groundhog day on this issue with each and every different Immigration Minister; and in a few months’ time, given the rate of attrition in this Government, we will probably have someone else again.