Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords & Ping Pong (Minutes of Proceedings): House of Lords
Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to address the Government’s amendment to Clause 1 and the amendment of noble Lord, Lord Randall. The Government have proposed replacing subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 1 with a single subsection. To understand the implications, one must look carefully at the deletions. Subsection (3), which the Government would delete, states that the sustainability objective is the prime fisheries objective. It is reasonable to infer that the removal of this is tantamount to its negation. If sustainability is not the prime objective of fish stock management, it is logical to infer that the depletion of fish stocks would be regarded as a tolerable outcome if their preservation would stand in the way of the realisation of more favoured objectives.

One does not have to look far to discover what these objectives might be. The Government have encouraged an expectation that Brexit will result in a bonanza for British fishermen. They are keen to avoid an immediate disappointment of this expectation by restraining the fishermen. Fish are not vital to the UK economy. The incentive to conserve them is liable to be overshadowed in the short run by the desire of the Government to appease UK fishermen and supporters of Brexit in general.

That this is the immediate objective is confirmed by another deletion from subsection 2(a)—the deletion to which the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, draws attention. The original clause declared the intention to avoid compromising environmental sustainability either in the short term or in the long term. The Government now propose to do this only in the long term. This invites the danger that, in the long term, there would be little left to sustain. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, has proposed that the remaining qualification, which refers to the long run, should also be deleted, so that the objective of environmental sustainability can be asserted unequivocally. I believe this to be his intention and I support his Motion strongly.

Thankfully, there are other passages in the confused text of this Bill that might give us greater hope for the survivability of fish stocks than the Government’s proposed version of subsection (2) of Clause 1. Clause 1(3)(b) asserts the objective of exploiting the marine stocks in such a way as to maintain the populations of harvested species above the biomass levels capable of producing the maximum sustainable yield. Notice that this is not an injunction to fish at the maximum sustainable yield—which would imperil the fish stocks—but to fish at a lesser rate, which would allow stocks to regenerate.

I am unaware of the provenance of this clause. It must have been placed there by someone with a proper understanding of fish stock ecology. It makes good sense and I wish to commend it.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute briefly on this group of amendments. I wish to speak to nothing other than Commons Amendment 3, relating to the deletion of Clause 18, which deals with the national landing requirement. I support the Government going down this path of accepting that we do not want to impose the rigidities of that formulation, and I entirely agree with what my noble friend the Minister said in introducing his amendments and speaking to that particular one.

As was said by my noble friend, and by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, this is about achieving economic benefits through economic linkage. The Government are pursuing this through their consultation. We must understand that the most important economic benefits will be derived from the new relationship we establish with the European Union and our role as an independent coastal state. We must make this happen.

I remind noble Lords—I know those present will know only too well—that we import two-thirds of the fish that we eat and we export two-thirds of the fish that we catch. The market and trading relationship that we have with our neighbours is as important as the relationship that we have around the allocation of fishing opportunities. It is said that a deal can be done: both sides are saying a deal can be done but both sides continue to say that such a deal has not yet been done in relation to fisheries. That is a sad fact, because it should be the case that a deal should be available. Some considerable time ago, the European Union accepted the proposition that there would be a move to zonal attachment rather than relative stability. It cannot deny the simple legal fact that we have now, and will have in future, sovereign control over our waters, but I think we all accept that there is a need to co-operate.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson—he understands this far better than I do—made the point that what we require for our UK fishing fleet is, in the years ahead, a reversal of the experience they have had in the last decades. Instead of the progressive reduction of capacity of the UK fishing fleet—which I think is something around 30% down over 20 years, and halved over the last 40 years—we want in the decade ahead to see the capacity of the UK fishing fleet increase, year on year. It is not simply about the allocation of additional quota, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, that could end up quota that is sold back to foreign boats.

What we want to see therefore—and what is, I think, the basis of a deal—is an acceptance on the part of the EU that there is a progressive increase in UK quota that is then made as additional quota available to UK boats at a pace realistic to their ability to increase capacity. They have been losing capacity, on average, at 2% a year, and we could maybe be more ambitious in recovering it—at perhaps 5% a year, and a 50% increase in capacity over 10 years.

It may be that this is not achievable in a straightforward deal with our European partners. But in the broader context of the relationship with the EU, such a shift and reduction in the available quota to our neighbours in the European Union is entirely negotiable, with compensation for those who lose access to quota in some of these other countries. That may be something we have to accept in the context of the deal.

However, it seems to me that one of the ideological barriers to understanding the nature of the deal that has to be struck is the proposition, constantly made by the Government, that there is no relationship between market access and quota. That is clearly not true. It was not true for the Norwegians: the European Economic Area discussions that Norway had with the European Union were about financial contributions, fishing opportunities and market access. Our deal with the European Union must include all those three aspects too. When we accept that, and the fact that we are substantial importers and consumers of fish caught by our neighbours, just as they buy from us, we then begin to realise that there must be a deal and how it might be achievable. We will then get the economic benefits through the expansion of our fishing fleet over a period of time at a sustainable rate, which, I believe, should be accepted, even by the most fervent advocates of the Brexit process—which I am not. But even those who are must accept that simply, for example, giving all the quota back to the English fishing fleet tomorrow will not suddenly create a large capacity that does not presently exist.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I shall speak in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I would like to say what a privilege it is to serve under his chairmanship on the EU Environment Sub-Committee.

I have spoken at every stage of this Bill about the benefits of remote electronic monitoring, and I very much support the conclusions that we reached in the other place when I was chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. As the number one admirer of my noble friend the Minister, I believe that this amendment should be extremely helpful to him. I would like to quote what my noble friend the Duke of Montrose would have said had he been here. He feels that at the moment we are missing answers to the main questions about reasonably accurate records of stocks, and I think that this amendment serves to plug that gap. In my noble friend’s words, it

“might remove some of the resistance in the under 10m fleet”,

because we are exposing that. The amendment addresses what is missing at the moment, which is the scientific data that we need. I welcome the fact that under-10-metre vessels will be excluded and that that exclusion will apply to both UK vessels and other vessels fishing in our waters.

I want to impress on the Minister a sense of urgency in this matter. I welcome the fact that he has made a call for evidence and that we are to have a consultation in the first half of next year, but there will then be a further delay before the regulations are drafted and come into effect, and that is the missing link. Therefore, I urge the Minister to show a sense of urgency in this regard.

In regard to the quotas for under-10-metre fishing vessels, when I was MEP for Essex North and Suffolk South, the whole of the Essex coast was in my constituency. This issue is of immense concern to fishermen there and to fishermen in Filey and other parts of Yorkshire. I am sure that my noble friend will confirm that we do not need to have left the EU fisheries policy to achieve this, so, again, I hope that we can proceed rapidly to the donations and to allowing unused quotas to be used by the under-10s.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, always speaks with authority. If the Minister is not able to accept his amendment, I hope that he will say what vehicle he will use in this House to inform us how the three legs of the sustainability objective will be retained.

Finally, expressions such as “long term” and “shortly” always amuse me. Now, we learn from the Minister that we will hear before the summer about the regulations to bring part of these provisions into effect. Can my noble friend point to the specific part that “in the long term” will apply to? Is it the habitats directive? Which legal provision would prevent any possible future development of ports if the words “in the long term” were removed from Amendment 1? What specific legal provision can he refer to in that regard? I am struggling to understand, unless there is a specific provision in the habitats directive or other parts of what are now EU retained law in UK law.

With that, the one amendment that I would support, if he were to put it to a vote, is Amendment 14B, standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to ask the next short question of the Minister.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am a member of the EU International Agreements Sub-Committee of your Lordships’ House. We are spending a lot of time not only looking at the content of treaties, but also understanding how these are implemented into domestic legislation. I am confused. Can my noble friend explain how the 1999 treaty to which this refers was implemented into domestic legislation? Why did this not lead directly to its continuation or amendment? This is the second time we have looked at this Bill; in the first draft, licensing of fishing boats in our EEZ was considered.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, I may need to clarify this again. We were not able to open discussions with the Faroe Islands while we were still members of the EU. It was only in January 2020—at the same time as the Bill was introduced—that we were able to begin discussions and explore options to implement this change. I am not an expert on the 1999 legislation. It would be more helpful to my noble friend if I wrote to him with a detailed answer.