UK Sea Bass Stocks

Debate between Lord Benyon and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on the excellent speeches we have just heard. I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) for calling this debate.

The story of the management of this stock has been a very bad one indeed. The high point was the decision by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) to increase the minimum landing size, and all credit to him for taking it. If we had followed that decision through at the time, it would certainly have made a difference. Why his successor rescinded that decision is something that I could not really determine from reading the excellent Adjournment debate in 2007 to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

When I was in the Minister’s position, I set about trying to reverse that change in policy, and I tried to increase the minimum landing size. I was persuaded that it was important to do everything to conserve bass at a European level, and I believe that it is right to get agreement among our European partners, because many vessels from other countries fish this stock in our waters. To go to the EU was a sensible piece of advice that I received.

However, if we just left matters to the sclerotic processes of the EU, this stock would crash before we could do anything about it. There is a lot that we can do unilaterally, and there is a lot that we can do in this House and beyond as a sort of club of ex-Fisheries Ministers; I do not know what the collective noun for ex-Fisheries Ministers is, but I think it is an “exhaustion” of ex-Fisheries Ministers. We would all say to my hon. Friend the Minister that he has a much more difficult task this December than the tasks that I faced in three or four years of December rounds of talks. He is a very good negotiator and takes his job very seriously. However, my advice to him would be to take precisely the advice of the right hon. Member for Exeter—that this stock will not exist unless tough decisions are taken.

We now face a collapse in stocks. At times, when we talk about minimum landing size, it seems slightly like fiddling while Rome burns, and that there are more important things that we could do. However, it is still necessary to increase minimum landing size and I hope that the Minister will consider doing that, and take forward the work that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already done on this issue and act unilaterally.

I take an old-fashioned view that fish should not be harvested until they have had a chance to breed. It is the spawning biomass that is crashing and it is on that issue that action needs to take place. This situation has arisen before; we can look beyond our borders and see where it has happened before. There is a fishery on the east coast of the United States called the striped bass stock fishery, which is now worth a lot of money. I have heard varying figures, including the figure that now, in its healthy state, it is worth $1 billion a year to the state of Massachusetts in terms of tourism and the added benefits that angling provides. I have also heard that nationally it is worth $2 billion a year to the US economy, and possibly more.

The stock spawns in the Chesapeake bay, but in the late 1970s it was overfished and crashed. Immediately, everyone was prevented from fishing it, whether they were recreational or commercial anglers. The stock has now recovered and it is a massive draw. British bass anglers spend all their savings to fly from the United Kingdom to the United States to exploit this exciting fish. It is branded; people wear T-shirts with the slogan, “I’m a striped bass fisherman.” However, British fishermen should not have to do that in US waters; they should be able to do it in UK waters. Similarly, they should not have to go to Ireland, where there is a very buoyant recreational fishery; I will come on to talk about that shortly.

I would love to portray the problem in the simplistic way that some do, which is to say that it is all about the pair trawlers. Well, I am afraid that it is not all about the pair trawlers. In the area from Felixstowe round to Sussex, the use of trammel and drift nets has increased by 20% or 30% in the past year. We need to look at all the activities in this sector. What is really interesting about the Marine Resources Assessment Group study that my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley mentioned is that it relates to a fishery in Sussex, where every way of exploiting this diminishing stock is used. There are pair trawlers coming over from the continent to exploit it; there are inshore fisheries that exploit it commercially; and there is also a very important recreational fishery. That is why MRAG chose Sussex to conduct this important piece of research.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said earlier, I suspect that we will hear later today in this House the words, “long-term economic plan”. Well, let us just look at the economics of the issue that we are talking about. In Sussex alone, I calculate—from the figures in the MRAG report—that between 258 and 267 tonnes of fish were harvested commercially in 2012, and somewhere between 10 and 19 tonnes were harvested recreationally. Taking the median of those two, about 5.7% were landed from the recreational sector. However, what is really important is that the economic output per tonne in Sussex is 40 to 75 times higher for recreational than commercial. The employment that is generated, calculated per tonne, is 39 to 75 times higher for recreational bass fisheries than commercial.

The report states clearly that the final economic and employment impacts of recreational bass fisheries in Sussex are estimated at £31.3 million and 353 full-time equivalent jobs. The final economic employment impacts of commercial bass fisheries in Sussex were estimated as £9.25 million and 111.28 full-time equivalents. That is a staggering difference. As my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley said, if calculated across the piece it is more than three times as valuable as a recreational fishery than as a commercial one.

It would obviously be better if the EU had measures in place to put this stock back on track, but I urge the Minister to look at what has happened in Ireland, where there is a recreation-only fishery, a strict catch limit and a high minimum landing size, which I gather is about to be increased to 50 cm, on the basis of scientific advice received by the Irish Government. This is a highly valuable tourist attraction. In Ireland, angling, tourism and coastal communities are integrating in a much better way than in this country. We have a lot to learn in that regard. People who go there are welcomed and find charter boats linked to hotels and pubs. The whole package is there; it is part of a deal that attracts people. I want those fisherman to go to Devon, Sussex and Essex and exploit this exciting game fish.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am going to do something that should never be done in the House of Commons, which is to ask a question without knowing the answer. I do not intend to put my hon. Friend on the spot, but he was Fisheries Minister until quite recently, so why did he not do this? What was the obstacle? Where is the resistance? What were he and his successor having to fight to be able to implement this measure, not just in the EU, but domestically?

[Richard Benyon]

I did set about trying to increase the minimum landing size. I regret that we did not move faster when going through the process of consultation and further consultation, and trying to ensure that this was agreed at European level, because the evidence is all there. When you are a Minister, people tell you that someone cannot be prevented from doing something without enough evidence and judicial review, and that there are threats of infraction, and all the other things. However, I freely admit that if I had my time over again I would steamroller this through and take the consequences, because the consequence now is a crashing stock. The stock will disappear, along with the economic value.

To the fishermen in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), I say this: I have met them many times and I have great respect for them, but they will not be fishing for bass, not because of any decision taken by any Minister of any party, but because there will be none. They have a great future ahead of them exploiting other stocks, such as thornback rays and other things that are prevalent in those waters, but they really will have an economic benefit if they can get the fishermen on their boats to catch recreational bass in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

As Fisheries Minister, aside from my personal interest in fishing and angling and what my fishing friends would have told me, I do not think I would have known about the problem until it reached its present stage if it had not been for the Angling Trust coming to see me with a group of people who really know what is going on. We could then put in train a process—which I wish had happened earlier—involving the Government working well with organisations that are informed and rational in how they work with Ministers.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said, the debate is not anti-commercial interests, anti-jobs or anti-employment. It is pro-economic, social and environmental development. It is about what all the political parties in the House believe in, yet we have had 10 years of debate and have achieved nothing.

As Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Administration, I have the word “accountability” in mind: that is the crunch. All the democratic pressure on successive Ministers was to get something done; my hon. Friend the Minister must ask himself why it has not been done. I invite him to consider what my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury—and indeed the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)—said about wishing they had been tougher with their officials. It is not right to blame officials, who give their best advice, but there is also the question of legal advice.

Legal advice is not an instruction on how to behave; it is something to be taken into account in making a decision. If the risk of being taken to court—to judicial review—is balanced against the risk of losing the fish stock, which is the bigger risk? The Minister must be accountable for the decision. He is not being accountable to this House if he just submits to the legal advice. Legal advice is to be listened to, but in many cases it is to be overridden. It is to be disregarded—well, not disregarded; it is to be taken into account. The judgment that the Minister then makes is not about blindly accepting the legal advice. Otherwise we do not have accountability; we might as well be ruled by lawyers.

We have seen European law, human rights law and fear of judicial review take over the whole of government in some Departments—DEFRA may be one of the worst instances—but we expect our Ministers to govern. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister please to exercise his best judgment. He will then be vindicated for what he does. If he submits to the legal advice, he will be condemned.

When we think about why our system of government feels so unaccountable with respect to so many Ministers, the question we should ask is how they respond to the advice that they are given and whether the House should empower them to act in the national interest rather than submit to the rather blind legal advice they are often given. That advice is given for the best of reasons; that is the job of the lawyers. However, in my experience, lawyers always advise doing the more cautious thing from their point of view—not necessarily from the point of view of the public interest.

Common Fisheries Policy

Debate between Lord Benyon and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for showing me the wonderful marine science hub in his constituency. Amazing work is being done there, demonstrating what a mobile and fluid ecosystem the marine environment is, and important work is also being done on acidification and sea temperature changes. It is impossible to be precise about the number of fish stocks and the trajectory of the rise, but we are already hearing a lot of good news. There is much more work to be done, but I hope that the combination of top-quality science that is respected internationally and the experience of the fishing industry will lead inexorably to greater prosperity for the industry.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I join many other Members in all parts of the House in paying tribute to my hon. Friend for his tremendous efforts. Many people in Brightlingsea, Wivenhoe, West Mersea and Harwich are full of hope for the first time in a generation that they will be able to expand their industry—but is that not the test? Unless the under-10-metre industry expands on our coasts, the policy will have failed, and we shall have to think again. Will my hon. Friend undertake to persist in his efforts, and may I thank him for them?

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He was keen to put me in touch with those in the fishing industry in his constituency, so that I could listen to them and observe at first hand the impact of the industry on the local community, and its intrinsic links with tourism and a community’s sense of place and worth. Nowhere is that more apparent than in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

There is a vibrant marine environment just off the coast of that part of Essex. A variety of stocks are fished in the same waters. The European Union, with its one-size-fits-all common fisheries policy, has never seemed to understand that complexity. Now we have a system that will enable us to try to introduce some common sense that will benefit the fishermen in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We want that to be at the heart of the detailed, technical management of an overarching policy.

EU Fisheries Negotiations

Debate between Lord Benyon and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I am sure that the hon. Lady, like me, wants to ensure that we stay resolute in our determination to follow the science. We have a political issue to sort out with the mackerel problem and that can be done only by getting Iceland and the Faroes back round the table. I do not want the United Kingdom to fish the last mackerel out of the sea. We want to ensure that the stock remains sustainable. I feel very unhappy about the impact that this situation could be having on her constituents and on those whom I have met in Lerwick and in other places where mackerel is an important fishery. We want to ensure that Iceland and the Faroes play ball, but we cannot allow this stock to be fished unsustainably.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all that he has tried to do for the under-10 metre fleet. Will he say more about how the “non-sector” will be affected by the settlement, in particular people fishing out of Harwich, Brightlingsea and Wivenhoe, a fleet that he knows well?

[Richard Benyon]

As I have said, there is good news for the under-10 metre fleet, which is particularly effective at targeting stocks such as sole and plaice. There is quite a large increase in the plaice quota and we managed to avoid a big cut in other stocks by presenting the science and working with my hon. Friend’s constituents who fish sustainably. The under-10 metre fleet can feel proud of their contribution towards the sustainability of our fishing industry and I commend those in his constituency for that.