Agriculture Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendments 35, 36 and 60 on food security and access to food that promotes good health and well-being: I would have signed them, but many other people wanted to do so first and I am very glad to support them.

Having represented an agricultural and food-producing constituency for 32 years, I have experienced the destructive effects of BSE, foot and mouth and, incidentally, the truck-drivers’ strike. BSE led to the laying off of 1,000 people in my constituency within a week, and although foot and mouth did not directly affect my constituency, the restrictions on movement had very serious impacts, so I am very aware of food security and how it can very quickly be disrupted.

We have seen an increase recently in food poverty, because although supply chains have adapted to deliver food alternatively, it has in many cases been at more expense, as when suppliers to the catering industry have offered to supply domestic suppliers—healthy, good fruit and vegetables, yes, but at a price that not everybody can afford. Of course, as a country we are heavily dependent on seasonal food imports; and not just seasonal food, but fresh fruit and vegetables from Spain and the Netherlands, in particular.

Our homegrown fruit and vegetable production has been disrupted recently by a shortage of labour: Covid-19 restrictions have perhaps given us a taste of what a post-Brexit labour shortage will do for our supply chain. I can certainly say that, in our area, some producers are struggling to harvest our berry crops, of which Scotland is a major grower—for the whole of the EU, incidentally, not just for the UK. Indications are that the UK could face shortages of fresh fruit and vegetables, either because of tariffs or the diversion of EU exports elsewhere, because of higher transport costs and delays and losses because of necessary border inspections. After all, £700 million is being laid out to create a lorry park in Kent, where, I suspect, it will be difficult to keep food as fresh as it would be with the just-in-time delivery we currently enjoy. Quite simply, I worry that EU suppliers, who are currently happy to send fruit and veg to the UK, might find it less profitable and choose to divert to alternative markets within the EU, where there is less bureaucracy, less cost and less risk of delay and disruption.

Do the Government recognise that we may, for both security and nutrition, need to provide additional support to homegrown production, which will not face this disruption? What plans are in place to do that? Are we prepared for a sudden drop in supply or a dramatic increase in prices from 1 January 2020? The Government had not planned very well for the unexpected pandemic; they cannot suggest that what happens on 1 January is not foreseeable. How well are they planning for it, and how sure are they that disruption will be avoided?

Those who campaigned for us to leave the EU constantly promised an abundant supply of cheap food. The questions in this debate have been whether that cheap food is also nutritious food, and whether it is as good as the food we currently get or could get from our own production and our own sources. How can the Government guarantee that there will be an adequate, affordable supply of nutritious, affordable food if there is a shortfall of supply from our current EU sources? I commend these amendments and I hope that the Government will take them seriously, because if they do not, there will be a price to pay, in cash, in quality and potentially in shortage of good-quality, nutritious food.

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. He has asked some pertinent questions, which deserve clear answers.

What you never have, you never miss, but you soon miss what you have taken for granted. That has been underlined, time and again, during this very difficult Covid year. It is important that there is a smooth transition at the end of December. I personally greatly regret the fact that Ministers have been so obdurate about that date, but there it is. We have to face up to the fact that it is the prime duty of every Government to defend the realm. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, made plain in his splendid speech, part of defending the realm is keeping people properly fed. As one who grew up through the war years, when our affairs were brilliantly managed in the face of often seemingly overwhelming odds, I know that and so do many of your Lordships.

I was glad that my noble friend Lady McIntosh began this debate with such a prudent and sensible speech. There have been many of those in this debate, and there are very few amendments to which I would not have been glad to put my name. However, when we talk, as my noble friend did at the beginning, of public payment for public good, what is a greater public good than ensuring a proper supply of healthy food to maintain the health of the nation? It could be argued that that is the greatest of all public goods. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that when he comes to reply. He is a very well-regarded Member of your Lordships’ House and he knows about farming and agriculture at first hand. He also knows that his is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I am glad that “Food” features so prominently, as it did in the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

It is essential that we have a quality supply of good food. We are dependent upon our farmers for that. Some colleagues have, quite justifiably, made disparaging comments about what those who process the food do to extract nutrition from it, but our farmers produce excellent food. They must be encouraged to do so in every possible way while having proper regard, as we debated last week, for the countryside and the environment in which they operate and for which they are responsible.

I refer again to the admirable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. I very much hope that there is adequate planning to ensure a smooth transition at the end of the year. Above all else, the Government will be judged, not only by how they have handled the pandemic but by how they create a smooth transition, so our people can still take for granted a ready and steady supply of healthy food for the good of the nation and future generations.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Consider, for a moment, the skill set required for a modern mixed farmer, leaving aside those associated with the new ELM schemes. He needs to be a weatherman, to judge timeliness; he needs to be an engineer, to service and repair machinery; he needs to be a computer programmer, to set up milk parlours and tractors; he needs to be a chemist, to identify weeds and treat diseases; he needs to be a midwife, to bring animals into this world; he needs to be a hairdresser, to shear sheep; he needs to be a chiropodist, to attend to their feet; he needs to be a carpenter, for fencing and farm maintenance; he needs to be a topiarist, to maintain hedges; he needs to be an accountant, to manage farm finances; and finally, he needs to be a salesman, to sell stock, grain and other produce. This is to name just a few. That is why this amendment is so important. I support it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate, and I begin by saying how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. The sooner we can get back to proper debating, with interventions—not too many, but pointed and at the right time—the better. At the moment, we are in a one-dimensional Parliament, which is not able to adequately hold the Government to account or fully debate these subjects—a point rather brilliantly illustrated, perhaps not intentionally, by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, a moment ago, when he talked of all the attributes of the ideal farmer.

I want to address a few remarks to Amendment 12, but I want to look not at the accomplished man or woman who is a farmer, but at our children, and young children in particular. We all pay lip service to education, and there are parts of the country where a number of farms have regular farm visits; there are many in my native county of Lincolnshire, where I live, and many in Staffordshire, which I had the honour of representing for some 40 years in the other place. But we need to co-ordinate more. We need to try to ensure that there is a place on every syllabus, in every school, for some acquaintance with farming—perhaps by visiting, perhaps by welcoming speakers from the NFU and elsewhere into the schools. But we need to make sure our young people understand their food and where it comes from, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said earlier in this debate. We want them to value, cherish and—as we said in the debate on Tuesday—share the enjoyment and protection of wonderful countryside. Countryside and farming are indivisible.

The other point I would like to make in this brief intervention is to say how much I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, when she talked of the grotesque, indecent factory production of chickens and the devastation it causes in one of the most beautiful areas of our country—the Wye Valley. There have been photographs in the papers in the last week or two that shame us all. As she said, many of these are industrial units producing—entirely for profit—food I would not give to a dog.

We need to have regard for the standards with which food is produced. We are quite rightly making much of this in the negotiations with our European friends and neighbours. In the talk we are having of doing deals with other countries, our standards are, on the whole, good, but they can be better, and it is very important that we have an intelligent, well-educated electorate, who will not accept the indifferent or the downright bad. I will return to some of these points in the debate later this afternoon, but I hope my noble friend will acknowledge that these are important points.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

I support Amendment 57 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, so ably laid out by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. This amendment is vital to ensure that, in making payments for productivity improvements under subsection (2)(a), they do not counteract the purposes—the public goods—listed in subsection (1). There is no point in payments being made for public goods, such as environmental improvement, if public money is given for productivity improvements that could result in environmental down sides. I am not saying payments for productivity improvements should not be made; I am simply saying that we must make sure that these are not, in themselves, environmentally damaging. The amendment would ensure that productivity improvements were environmentally sound.

It is a slippery slope: we more fundamentally do not want to see polarisation, where some farming is effective and productive, and other farming is environmentally sound, where some land is sweated intensively for production, and some set aside for biodiversity in the environment, like zoos.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a previous Secretary of State for the Environment—for the avoidance of speculation, let us call her Secretary of State Truss—had a vision for the future of agriculture and the environment which had highly intensive agriculture in the lowlands and biodiversity and the environment shuffled off into the uplands. We have come a long way in sophistication since then. We all want all agricultural land to efficiently deliver food and for the environment. Amendment 57 would be important for this, but if the amendment cannot be agreed to by the Government, can the Minister tell us how he plans to ensure that productivity support does not result in environmental down sides?

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this amendment. I shall be brief, because it covers many of the points that I made on the third group. I also thank the Minister for adding Clause 1(1)(b), but I have questions for him. What form might the compensation take? Is one of the problems perhaps that rural crime is not taken as seriously as it might be?

I believe that such prosecutions come under the Environment Agency rather than the police. Should there be a wider use of cameras in rural areas believed to be prone to this? Where there is shared access between, for example, a county council as well as a different user of the land, should there be some arrangement to negotiate between them about who is responsible for policing this? How does my noble friend intend to police the current provision under Clause 1?

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to take part in this brief debate, and it is nice to have a debate on one specific amendment, dealing with a particular problem or series of problems.

I do not suppose there is a single one of your Lordships who was not totally disturbed and revolted by the photograph of that wonderful, 500 year-old oak tree burnt down last weekend in Herefordshire as a result of irresponsible barbecuing. That is a totemic picture and shows—alongside the graphic descriptions by my noble friend Lord Caithness, who moved this amendment splendidly—what we are up against.

I have a specific suggestion to make to my noble friend the Minister. I was taken by the explanatory statement of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on the Marshalled List:

“This amendment is to highlight the extra costs that farmers and foresters can face”—


he has done that graphically and splendidly—

“and discuss the effectiveness of the Countryside Code.”

I understand that the code is in the process of being revised, which is good. However, I do not suppose that very many of those people who created squalor in Dorset or who burnt down that beautiful old oak in Herefordshire have a clue what the Countryside Code is.

My suggestion to the Minister is this: I have spoken in your Lordships’ House before on the subject of citizenship, and I believe that every young person leaving full-time education should go through a citizenship ceremony, having studied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship for a year at least. One of the prime responsibilities of being a good citizen is to help to look after and enhance the environment.

There should be compulsory education on the Countryside Code and looking after the environment, which we have inherited and have a duty to pass on to successive generations. I would very much like to see, as part of the graduation process from school, the issuing of a countryside passport that young people are proud of and can carry with them. If they transgress—of course, it is not a problem of young people only, but one has to start somewhere—there should be exemplary fines and penalties. A cancelled passport should be one of these, because those who have shown that they do not appreciate and care for their environment and for the countryside should not be allowed to trespass and transgress upon it. I do not use “trespass” narrowly.

If we really mean what we say, and if we really want to strengthen the Bill in the way in which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has suggested, we must have not only compensation but, at the forefront of our mind, the creation of a culture where compensation will not be needed because people will not despoil and damage their environment. I recommend to my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, and to my noble friend Lord Gardiner, who has been meticulous in his attendance, devising some sort of system along these lines.

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[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to follow my old and noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach; a fellow Lincolnshire man who is regarded with great affection in all parts of your Lordships’ House, he struck a note of caution.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for giving us an opportunity to debate this subject briefly, but I am not absolutely sure whether we need to amend the Bill. If we look back over the last two or three decades, we can see a number of changes, some of which have been very good and others perhaps less so. I remember when I used to drive through the Chilterns, on my way from Staffordshire to London, and suddenly those wonderful red kites would emerge; it reached the stage where one never had the journey without seeing red kites. They were of course despised scavengers in Elizabethan London, but, in the Chilterns, they are wonderful, soaring, graceful birds. There was a time when the buzzard was on the verge of extinction, but no more; that too is marvellous. But much as I admire the largest of all our birds of prey—the sea eagle, or the white-tailed eagle—I understand that farmers on the Isle of Wight are somewhat apprehensive for their flocks.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for making it clear at the outset that he is not one of these nutters who advocates bringing back the wolf. Although he did not stray on to that territory, I also suspect and infer from what he said that he is not necessarily championing the return of the lynx—about which farmers are again somewhat apprehensive. However, we should bring back, and replace, certain things. There cannot be a Member of your Lordships’ House who does not inwardly weep at what has happened to the elm tree and the ash. At the moment, dieback is ravaging a tree that has been admired in this country for centuries. Then again, we have to ask ourselves what exactly is indigenous or native. If we were to go outside and ask people, many would immediately say the rabbit, but the rabbit came here with the Romans and was then cultivated by the monks as a source of food. One has to be very careful and balanced in all this.

While I would greatly welcome the conservation and increase in numbers of wildcats in Scotland, I entirely sympathise with what the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said about wildcats on Dartmoor. Of course, it is difficult to find a true wildcat, as there has been so much interbreeding with feral cats; again, that is something that we have to bear in mind. Similarly, although they are in many ways attractive and exciting to watch, I am not sure that the reintroduction of the wild boar, through escape, has been exactly what we would have wanted, yet they are now prolific in parts of Gloucestershire. If ever a subject deserved the moto “festina lente”—make haste slowly—it is this one. It is right for us to be discussing this, but it is also right to realise that it is not something we should accelerate without very careful consideration.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, talked about the beaver—wonderful creatures; there was a wildlife film about them on television the other week. They are totally fascinating, but some people who live in the areas where they have been introduced would not exactly rejoice, as the noble Earl indicated in his speech a moment or two ago. Of course, we have seen what has happened when non-indigenous creatures have been introduced. There is the grey squirrel, which has put our native red squirrel in such peril, and, of course, the mink, which is a scourge. I fear that we in Staffordshire played a part in that, because a mink farm was broken into by animal liberationists and the mink spread all over the place. What was the result? Mink and no otter. I think one has to have balanced reflection and discussion.

I conclude by saying that I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It is good to raise the subject, but I urge caution upon the Minister. I very much hope that we will bear in mind that conserving and preserving our indigenous wildlife is what we must concentrate on.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is now not intending to speak, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, to begin, I take my reference point from the Book of Genesis, where Adam and Eve were told that they had to be stewards of all creation. That was further defined in the Book of Leviticus, which makes clear that the use of land is to provide abundant crops but also that it is to be a place of sanctuary. Of course, Leviticus goes further, for those who wish a literal interpretation and application of the holy book, because it says that all land must be owned for only 50 years and then passed back by the owner. So landowners who have had land for many centuries need to bear in mind that their tenancy over that land also incorporates long-standing rights of access.

I was a little surprised to hear the noble Earl, Lord Devon, suggesting not just that the NHS budget be diverted to landowners but that access was a major problem. It has certainly not been a major problem at Powderham Castle for the hundreds of thousands of revellers who have visited to watch Noel Gallagher, Coldplay or the range of other concerts that have taken place there. We need the facts to be accurate in these debates.

Health, sanctuary and well-being are fundamental to humanity. Society cannot function without them. Access to the sanctuary of quietness away from the towns and cities is fundamental to the physical and mental well-being of the citizens of this country. There is therefore a balance to be struck between the subsidies demanded and received by the farming community year on year—be it through the new government policy or, previously, the excessive common agricultural policy—and the right of citizens to access rights of way without hindrance, to go out into the fresh air into the sanctuary, as Leviticus defined, in order for our well-being to be preserved. At this time, with the horrors of coronavirus, those rights of access are fundamental. In my view, these amendments are apposite in getting the balance right.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I want to begin by saying, “There endeth the lesson”. Having sat here now for well over seven hours and heard virtually every speech, I am glad to have the brief opportunity to say a few words.

The Government must learn the lesson of the Second Reading. Time and again we have heard today from people who were excluded; I myself was one of the 22, or whatever the number was. If we had had a two-day debate on the Bill, I think we would have moved a little more expeditiously through Committee because a lot of Second Reading points have been made.

I urge my noble friend, for whom I have enormous regard, to discuss with his colleagues the inevitable extension of the Committee stage of the Bill. It will not get through in four sessions and, frankly, it should not.

Garden Centres

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cormack]

Lord Cormack to ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to compensate garden centres closed due to restrictions addressing COVID-19; and when they will allow those centres to reopen for the sale of plants.

The Question was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are acutely aware of the challenges facing garden centres and the horticultural industry. In addition to the financial package of government support, we are working closely with the Horticultural Trades Association to analyse how effectively the Government’s package is meeting its members’ needs. The timing of any reopening is subject to medical and scientific advice on when it will be appropriate to change the current arrangements.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend that Answer, but I am very disappointed by it. The future of many growers and garden centres hangs in the balance. More than one-third could be gone by the autumn. We are talking about an industry that employs close to 500,000 people and is worth £24 billion a year. It is deeply disturbing to see plants destroyed at a time when people need the therapeutic calm of their gardens as never before. Is it right that supermarkets are allowed to sell plants while garden centres are not allowed to make outdoor sales? I make a plea to my noble friend to take action soon. Other countries have done so.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, with a name like mine, of course I understand the importance of garden centres and horticulture. As I said, we are working very closely with James Barnes, the chairman of the Horticultural Trades Association, and we have had some very productive discussions. The HTA has drafted a traders’ protocol on social distancing. I am working very closely with the HTA and I am very conscious of what my noble friend said.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support both amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch; I have added my name to Amendment 29. As the noble Baroness said, the purpose of both her amendments is to introduce requirements on the Secretary of State to build and sustain the UK fishing industry. They would also require the publication of a strategy for enhancing the safety of fishers and providing the necessary legal and training infrastructure. The amendments are supported by fish producer organisations throughout the UK.

For many coastal communities, the fishing industry, both onshore and offshore, is critical to their growth, development, job creation potential and local economy. In that respect, I remind noble Lords of the County Down fishing ports, about which I have already spoken to the Minister, where the fishing villages survive and thrive due to the prevalence of the fishing fleet and the fish-processing industries.

Allied with that, though, is a high level of risk and danger. Deaths of fishermen have occurred in the Irish Sea over the last 20 years. I think of one particular family from Kilkeel where a grandfather, a son and his son all perished on one night about 20 years ago. The fishing industry believes that there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity not only to revive those coastal communities and grow the region’s industry role as leaders in sustainable fisheries management but to ensure that this worthy profession is provided with adequate and up-to-date training; that incentives are provided to those who wish to engage in fishing as a profession; and that they are provided with the necessary qualifications in a safe environment to do so.

Take the example of the County Down fishing ports, where about 1,700 people are employed in fishing. I suppose on a proportionate basis, taken throughout the UK, that is not considered a lot. However, in those communities, it is, because fishing is vital to their revitalisation.

The Bill is about setting the future legal framework for fisheries management, but it is also right that Government, Parliament and industry consider how to grow and sustain the workforce needed if new opportunities are to be realised.

The three central themes of these amendments are to protect and enhance the safety of workers across the industry; to develop that modern legal and training infrastructure that helps to grow our domestic workforce; and to shape an immigration system that allows UK vessels to continue to recruit skilled non-UK nationals. I am mindful of the Minister’s written response on this issue to all of us who participated at Second Reading some three weeks ago, in which he said:

“We will prioritise the skills a person has to offer, not their nationality.”


I note that, through the prospective immigration Bill, Defra is working closely with the Home Office to ensure that there is a long-term strategy for the food, farming and fisheries workforce as part of the immigration policy. I hope that the Government will be able to accommodate skilled non-EEA fishers to contribute to the revitalisation of those coastal communities, as well as protecting and enhancing the legal and training infrastructure of all domestic workforces.

I believe that if our fishing industry is to recover and become the catalyst for economic regeneration in our coastal communities again, there is a duty on all of us, and on the Government, to work in a collaborative way with the industry and other relevant organisations to achieve that objective, which should be placed in legislation. That is why I support both amendments.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I have not participated in these debates, but I wanted to support this amendment because of the emphasis on safety. I do so, my Lords, for personal reasons. I was born in Grimsby just before the Second World War. Grimsby was in those days the largest fishing port in the world. The title was sometimes disputed by our friendly rival and neighbour across the Humber in Hull. Certainly, those two great fishing ports occupied the first and the second positions.

My family had generations in the fishing industry, coming down first from Eyemouth in the Borders of Scotland with smacks when the fishing industry was established around the middle of the 19th century. I was brought up to have great respect for those who went down to the sea in ships. That respect was reinforced by great sadness almost every year, because there was hardly a year when a trawler was not lost, often with the deaths of 20 or 30 men. This brought great grief, either to Grimsby or Hull.

As a young man growing up, I knew all this theoretically. But then, in 1965, I was chosen as the Conservative candidate for Grimsby for the election that in fact took place in 1966. For some 18 or 19 days in August 1965, I went on a deep-sea trawler and lived with the fishermen on board, and got up when the cod end was swung in and the catch was teemed on the deck. Although it was August, we faced at least one force 8 gale; we were also becalmed for a time. I saw the extraordinary skill, courage and resilience of the fishermen. You can understand it only if you have seen it at first hand. They were a wonderful bunch of men, marvellous comrades. The cook was not the most brilliant, but he had been a fisherman until forced to retire in his late 60s and then he became a cook. There was a wonderful spirit of camaraderie and there was great skill, but there was always great danger.

I became very sad when, following our joining what was then the Common Market, the fishing industry was certainly hit—I speak as one who was, as many of your Lordships know, a fervent remainer. If we are to revive our fishing industry, as I hope we will, it is tremendously important that we place emphasis on training and appreciating those who are trained. They have to be immensely strong, resilient and courageous, working at all hours of day and night and rarely getting more than a handful of hours of sleep. A revived fishing industry will depend wholly on those people. It is therefore right that we concentrate for a few moments on this issue and I feel it appropriate to give my words of support in this context.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I concur with the sentiments of the previous speaker. However, I fear that the amendments are misconceived in calling for the building of a fishing industry workforce. Even if one were to argue in favour of a substantial increase in the size of the UK catch, which would be utterly wrong in the current circumstances of depleted fish stocks, it would not require an increased workforce.

There is already significant underemployment in the fishing workforce, since advances in fishing technology have reduced labour requirements. We should therefore seek alternative employment for our fishermen, unless we seek to ban the technology. This is the technology of the big boats that use sonar to locate the fish, chart their positions by GPS and use encrypted messages conveyed by satellites to alert other vessels in their fleets to their discovery of the prize. They also take most of the fish.

Were fish stocks to be replenished, less effort would need to be devoted to fishing and fewer fishermen would need to be employed. There would no longer be a need to search the vast expanses of the marine deserts in pursuit of the few remaining shoals of fish.

Perhaps I might also remark on the idea that the fish stocks in our so-called exclusive economic zone are a resource that belongs exclusively to our nation, as more than one speaker has maintained. Our EEZ, which is of an exorbitant extent in comparison with those of other European fishing nations, was bequeathed to us by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It was the by-product of an intention to protect the fish stocks of Iceland, which were suffering from the depredations of foreign fishing fleets. It was never the intention of the convention to disbar other European nations from their traditional fishing grounds, yet this is what our fishermen are keen to achieve, seemingly with the support of the Government.

It is a recipe for trouble and conflict, notwithstanding the joy that it has given to my noble friend Lord Grocott, who is exhilarated at the prospect of claiming these fish stocks for the nation. It is foolish. While we were debating the Fisheries Bill on Monday, the International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, and the French Minister for European Affairs, Amélie de Montchalin, were rehearsing the terms of a major confrontation on fishing rights.