Fish Discards
Debate between Lord Benyon and Kevin Brennan(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Richard Benyon
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. For too long fishermen have felt right at the bottom of the decision-making process, under layer upon layer of control. I hope that we can have a system that is simpler and closer to them. In December I sat up late into the night discussing with Commission officials where an eliminator panel should sit in a net that was to be used off the Shetlands. That is an absurd system. I hope that a more regionalised approach will mean that decisions are taken by fishermen and closer to where they fish.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I, too, welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) back to his rightful place on the Front Bench. The Minister said that he wanted particular dates for the implementation of the policy against these immoral discards. Did he achieve the dates he had in mind in the negotiations?
Richard Benyon
No, but I failed to achieve them only by about a year. We can argue and quibble, but the important thing is that we agreed a general approach. Had we not done so, we would have becalmed the whole reform of this broken policy, possibly for years, and sent a message to the European Parliament that the Council does not really think it is important, and those who believe the current system works would have won, which would have been a disaster.