Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my own amendments in this group–Amendments 76A and 79. One of the characteristics of this Bill is that we start to talk about recreational fishing, which is an important leisure activity—not one I indulge in myself, but one I would certainly encourage.

However, there is a big difference between someone going out in their own unpowered vessel and the charter recreational sector, which could have a significant impact on local fisheries. In a way, this is a probing amendment to better understand the Government’s view on the recreational side, but there is a strong argument that charter vessels should be licensed. They are quite substantial, have a number of people on board who are fishing recreationally, and they may be targeting certain fisheries which are significant in terms of environment and biodiversity. Although this amendment does not cover it, there might be an argument that, now that Defra has invented the very simple catch app—controversial in certain areas, but I think it is a pretty good idea—we could easily use that for this type of fishing, as that would give extra information about the types of fish that are being caught and landed in the recreational sector.

My second amendment looks at the area of capacity. It has been mentioned by many noble Lords during Second Reading that the British fleet has gone down and down in size. Of course, the prime reason for that is that the efficiency of fishing vessels has increased hugely over recent decades, so you need much fewer vessels due to their power, fishing techniques, electronics, sonar and engine power. All of those features have led to a reduction in the fleet. In the past, we have had to have decommissioning schemes to equate fishing fleet levels with available stocks. They are never the best things to do, but sometimes they are necessary.

I am trying to find out how the Government expect the capacity of the fleet to be managed. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments and he may well be able to reassure me in this area. My amendment says that there should be no additional licences granted if there is already a sufficient capacity for the fishing stocks available for the total allowable catch. We know from history that a mismatch in that area, whatever the rest of the regulations are, is highly negative to sustainability.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I will speak to Amendments 85 and 87 in my name, tabled for probing purposes. Amendment 85 concerns conditions being imposed on sea fishing licences regarding matters that are not themselves directly related to the regulation of sea fishing. I am sure there will be a number of examples of conditions that it would be both logical and reasonable to impose, and I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify for the record what these include.

Amendment 87 deals with the duty of a sea fish licensing authority to comply or not with a request submitted by another licensing authority. In paragraph 4(3) of Schedule 3, there is an exemption to the statutory duty to comply:

“unless … it is unreasonable to do so.”

This amendment merely seeks clarity from the Minister to highlight the designation between reasonable and unreasonable, as presumably the requesting authority may consider the request entirely reasonable. What steps must a fish licensing authority take when a request is denied, and is that the end of the matter? Would the licensing authority need to justify that denial and, if so, is there a timetable for this, should the requesting authority wish to follow up?

I turn now to other amendments in this group. Amendment 76ZA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, brings into focus in my mind the interplay between farmed salmon, which is not regulated in this legislation, and the Fisheries Bill. The Norwegian Government believe that farmed salmon escapes are the biggest threat to Norway’s wild salmon population. The Scottish Government are certainly aware of the significant risk to the vital recovery of remaining west coast salmon stocks. Experts estimate that the number of escapes—often laden with disease, especially lice burdens—is around double the number of wild Atlantic salmon that return to their spawning rivers on the west coast of Scotland. During Storm Brendan in January, around 73,000 farmed salmon escaped from the open-net cage near Colonsay. I draw attention to the considerable effect this may have on west coast fisheries.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his amendments in this group. In Amendment 76A, he poses the question of whether the recreational use of a charter fishing vessel requires a full licence and in what circumstances. Would the planned exemption for recreational activities still stand? The Committee has welcomed the previous positive comments from the Minister about recreational fishing. Indeed, my comments on salmon are apposite. It is an often overlooked yet important part of our fisheries industry, reported to be valued at over £2 billion annually and supporting more than 18,000 jobs. I am grateful to David Mitchell at the Angling Trust for making contact regarding the size of recreational fishing and the economic impact it has. This merits some attention.

Finally, I thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, for his careful scrutiny of the provisions under Schedule 3, seeking clarity on the balance and pertinence of information required by a licensing authority.

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We take all amendments very seriously but I hope, particularly in this group, that noble Lords and my noble friend will feel able to reflect that all these matters are either found in other pieces of legislation or are acknowledged to be important. For the moment, I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister, particularly for his very helpful answer on recreational fisheries matters. I felt his answer on capacity was useful, but I just want to be clear. Is he saying that after this year, even when the Bill becomes an Act, through retained common fisheries policy law, the capacity rules from the common fisheries policy will remain for the United Kingdom? That is what I understood, and I am fully reassured.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I repeat that the requirement on the UK to limit its fleet will become part of retained EU law.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 77A, I will speak also to Amendment 80A. I also have a few comments on Amendment 124 from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, which seems very sensible.

The Minister will recall my concerns on earlier clauses as to how policies such as discard charging schemes and other items will be policed. I have tabled these two amendments as a way of allowing me to debate these issues. In particular, I understand that it is quite possible—this was not news to my noble friend and other noble Lords—that a Scottish fisheries Bill may be introduced. While I understand that Clauses 15 and 17 will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, is the discard charging scheme intended to apply only to English boats or also to foreign boats operating in UK waters? In that case, Scottish boats would be included as well. How will REM—the remote electronic monitoring—work? Is it envisaged that cameras will be included in all cases? Will it be a mandatory scheme? Will it be a statutory provision of the licence that British fishing boats under Clause 15 or foreign boats under Clause 17 require as to how it will apply? I do not see how the scheme will work if it is not mandatory and does not include cameras.

As my noble friend is aware, I am particularly exercised about the discard charging scheme. I would have preferred the original government policy, which clearly pointed to complete elimination. The purpose of these amendments is to allow my noble friend to explain how it will operate in practice. Will it apply to all British boats or only to English boats? What will the relationship be if the Scottish Parliament passes a separate fisheries Bill, and what will our relationship be with foreign fishing vessels? Will they be put on exactly the same footing and will it be a mandatory scheme? Which clauses will it apply to?

In Amendment 124, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is doing something not dissimilar to what I am doing. He too refers to remote electronic monitoring with cameras, which, unless my noble friend can put my mind at rest about how any remote electronic scheme could work without cameras, I am keen on. Can the noble Lord tell me why he seeks to phase this in? I am much more at one with the Government, unless I have misunderstood the drafting of his amendment, which talks about this being phased in. I hope my noble friend insists that this is brought in immediately as a provision of the licencing regulatory regime.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, we come now to one of the most important groups of amendments. I was interested in the reply given by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to the fourth Oral Question earlier, which was about what the Government are doing to make this country an environmental leader. He went through a number of Bills which are going through at the moment, including the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill, before mentioning the Fisheries Bill. He is right on the first two. Under the Agriculture Bill, there is ELMS, a very radical policy to ensure that farmers who are paid a subsidy produce public goods. A lot of those are going to be focused on the environment. As the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said, as part of the Environment Bill we have net gain and nature recovery networks, both of which I applaud. They will add greatly to the environmental growth of the United Kingdom.

What does the Fisheries Bill do to enhance the UK’s environment? The withdrawal Act gave us control over the EEZ, but all the Fisheries Bill does is change one set of administrators to another, replacing a lot of objectives in the common fisheries policy with similar ones. There is nothing in this Bill that enhances the marine environment. I cannot think of anything in it, as it stands, that does that.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

It is a rare event when I chide the noble Lord on his own Front Bench, but the fisheries management plans, if properly carried out, are quite a major step forward.

[Lord Teverson]

I think quite the contrary, because they do not co-ordinate with other adjacent EEZs. They account only for fisheries in our EEZs, not the rest of the circulation of those stocks. As they stand, they are substantially inferior—they are unable to carry out their mission. The one area where we can change this is remote electronic monitoring. That is one of the most important challenges. The Government believe in remote electronic monitoring in terms of making the discard ban effective and in terms of much better data, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, stresses far better in his amendment than I do in mine. I fully endorse what he is trying to do.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for her Amendments 77A and 80A, and to other noble Lords for their amendments, which, in various ways, seek to place requirements on fisheries licensing authorities to introduce onboard monitoring equipment and cameras on British boats and foreign vessels fishing in UK waters. I reiterate that this Government remain fully committed to reducing bycatch and ending the wasteful discarding of fish. While we recognise the potential of onboard monitoring and cameras as an effective technology to monitor, control and enforce the end of wasteful discarding, Amendment 77A could divert us from taking a more appropriate, risk-based, intelligence-led enforcement approach through vessel monitoring systems and aerial surveillance, for example, as well as ones that may develop in the future, such as onboard observers or drones.

Control and enforcement, and fishing vessel licensing, are both devolved matters. The amendment cuts across devolved competence by trying to prescribe this at a UK level. It is for each devolved Administration to decide how best to control their waters, tailoring their management measures to their specific industry.

[Lord Teverson]

I just remind the Minister—this comes back to something the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said—that last Wednesday, when we last discussed the Bill, the Minister made it clear that the whole area of objectives is a devolved area, yet the Government have put all those objectives in. It seems to me that the Minister is saying, “Do what I say, not what I do.” The Government have put in devolved measures, but they are saying to Parliament that we should not. I find that very difficult.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am sorry that the noble Lord finds it difficult. The objectives have been agreed with the devolved Administrations; they have asked us to legislate with the agreement of those objectives which are in Clause 1. However, as the noble Lord knows better than I, all the things I have outlined ad nauseam about the seeking of amendments mean that they cut across the settlement we have with the devolved Administrations. I am very pleased to say that the devolved Administrations have come together, have agreed and have asked us to legislate on these matters in Clause 1 and, indeed, in the schedules that relate to those issues that the devolved Administrations would like us to deal with in the Bill.

I sense that the noble Lord and others may want it all best ways, which would mean that somehow we do not respect the fact that the devolved Administrations have it entirely in their gift to make the arrangements they so wish. For instance, my noble friend Lady McIntosh asked about the discard prevention charging scheme in Clause 29(1). This provides that

“‘chargeable person’ means—(a) the holder of an English sea fishing licence, or (b) a producer organisation that has at least one member who is the holder of an English sea fishing licence.”

We are taking measures where we can, which is where we can make those provisions, but it is entirely up to the devolved Administrations.

If the noble Lord will let me, I shall outline some of the areas where I hope he will be pleased, also, that the devolved Administrations are working on this, but it is their right to do it through their own legislation as well. I hope we will not go around in circles.

[Lord Teverson]

Have the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Welsh Assembly approved these measures? The Government are saying, “These are devolved areas” and have put it in a UK-wide Bill. Parliament here is doing exactly the same. We are a UK Chamber, just as the Minister’s Government are a UK Government. They have not got permission from those legislatures, so we have to take on that role ourselves. I do not take the Government’s point on this at all.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I think I will take this offline with the noble Lord, because why are those schedules in the Bill, specifically requested by the devolved Administrations, giving them the powers that we are also seeking through the Bill? The Bill comes with the working, active collaboration—as I have said almost every day in Committee and at Second Reading—of all the devolved Administrations.