EU: Common Fisheries Policy

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for paying tribute to the campaign run by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall—to which I pay tribute—but I would hope that the noble Lord would also pay tribute to my honourable friend Mr Richard Benyon, who I think has done equal amounts in terms of his negotiations on these matters. I cannot give the noble Lord specific answers to these questions at this stage, as he well knows, because we are still negotiating on these matters. We have had the proposals from the Commission only today, so I have not read them in detail, nor has my honourable friend Mr Benyon. We will look at those proposals, he will be negotiating on them next Wednesday, and we will come forward with proposals that will be good for the United Kingdom’s fisheries industry, for fish in general and for the sustainability of our fish stocks.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, given the success of the fisheries policies of Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and given the fact that 70 per cent of the fish in European waters swam in British waters before we joined the Community, why do we not take back our own fish management to the benefit of our industry? Why do we need a common fisheries policy at all?

[Lord Henley]

Oh dear. As I think I have said to the noble Lord before, we are where we are. We have a common fisheries policy and we are committed to renegotiating that along with the Commission, which has accepted that that policy does not work, and we are going to get that right. With the Commission and a vast number of other member states being on side, and with this country being totally and utterly committed to doing so, we can get that right. We will start that process next Tuesday and continue it as long as is necessary.