Adjacent Waters Boundaries (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it was an extremely useful contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, because of her enormous local knowledge and, of course, her experience as Member of Parliament for South Down, covering Carlingford Lough, and dealing with former constituents who are fishers there.

The Opposition will not oppose this order, obviously. It rectifies a mistake, as the Minister has said, in existing legislation. This is an area of water that is inside the United Kingdom waters’ exclusive economic zone, but officially outside the Northern Ireland zone. As he said, it means that the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs can manage the water there. It should be able to do so, particularly with regard to sea fishing, as he said, in Carlingford Lough.

I am particularly impressed by the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, with regard to consultation. It will be very interesting to hear the Minister’s response to that. He has obviously mentioned the Irish Government themselves, but the other bodies, including the north-south body, are important in these matters. Although this is a technical statutory instrument —no one opposes it—it touches on the much more controversial area of fishing, which is currently the subject of negotiation between the European Union and the United Kingdom. These are hugely significant issues and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.