Fisheries Bill (Eighth sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

Amendments 26 and 27 are offered essentially as probing amendments, but amendment 25 deals with a more substantial concern. I will not rehearse all the arguments about maximum sustainable yield, as I rather thought that we had finished that debate some years ago.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman advise us how amendment 25 would work in relation to the devolved Administrations managing stock and quotas?

[Mr Carmichael]

I would very much hope that they, too, would be working with a maximum sustainable yield principle. I am not aware of any suggestion that they would not.

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[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.

Our view in the Labour party is that the Scottish Government, and therefore Scottish Ministers, do not currently have the competence to exercise powers to determine fisheries opportunities and, as such, the consent of Scottish Ministers is not a requirement. As per the devolution settlement, the opportunity to determine fisheries opportunities currently rests with the European Council. That will be transposed to UK Ministers when we leave the European Union. It is therefore the case that any provision requiring the UK Minister to seek the consent of Scottish Ministers in advance of the determination would in essence act as a potential veto on the Secretary of State and the United Kingdom�s ability to determine fisheries opportunities across the United Kingdom common fisheries area.

We have seen throughout the process of Brexit and the subsequent required legislation, such as the Trade Bill, the Agriculture Bill and now the Fisheries Bill, that the Scottish National party wish to extend the powers afforded to Scottish Ministers and what decisions require their consent. I disagree wholeheartedly with that approach, as it is not in line with the devolution settlements, including the 1998 Act, which would have been voted on previously. If SNP Members were to address this issue through the proper channels by trying to amend the devolution settlements prima facie, rather than by trying to do it by the back door, that would be a more acceptable approach.

[Alan Brown]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute pointed out, the way the Scotland Act was originally set up, if matters are not listed as reserved, they are devolved. Surely it follows that the repatriation of powers from Europe to the UK should follow that devolution settlement and go to the rightful Parliament.

[Mr Sweeney]

Of course, the complexity lies in the interface with international obligations. The Scotland Act 1998 makes it clear that,

�If the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe that any action proposed to be taken by a member of the Scottish Government would be incompatible with any international obligations, he may by order direct that the proposed action shall not be taken.�

That shows a clear inconsistency with the Scotland Act.

That is corroborated by the Law Society of Scotland, which states:

�We welcome the duties of the Secretary of State set out under Clause 19 when making a determination under clause 18. The provisions require the Secretary of State to consult with devolved administrations and the Marine Management Organisation before making or withdrawing a determination. The clause also requires the Secretary of State to publish a notice of a determination after it being made or withdrawn, lay a copy of the notice in Parliament, and send a copy to the devolved administrations. This will assist in terms of ensuring clarity and accountability.�

Of course, if our amendment had been upheld with regard to the dispute resolution mechanism, that would have been a far more sustainable way to have resolved any disputes, rather than leading to an inevitable impasse and total logjam in the processing of a common fisheries area in the UK.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Gentleman talks about logjams and he mentioned the other Bills on which the Scottish Government are withholding a legislative consent motion. Is he saying that the Scottish Government should just acquiesce to Westminster and not defend the rights of the Scottish Government?

[Mr Sweeney]

That is a rather unfortunate characterisation of the situation. We want to have a consensual approach where arbitration is done in a sustainable way, not political opportunism leading to an impasse in the economic progress of this country.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Gentleman�s own party voted with the SNP and other parties against the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. The Scottish Government withholding legislative consent in some of these cases is actually in line with cross-party support in Parliament.

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[Luke Pollard]

I beg to move amendment 106, in clause�20,�page�11,�line�28,�at end insert�

�(5A) After that paragraph insert�

�1A The relevant national authorities shall distribute fishing opportunities made available to them, and may redistribute any fishing opportunities that were made available to them prior to the United Kingdom exiting the European Union. Any such distribution and redistribution must be carried out according to social, environmental and local economic criteria following national and regional consultation from relevant stakeholder advisory groups, including representative groups from across the fishing fleet, scientists, and environmental groups.��

This amendment would allow the redistribution of existing fishing opportunities, would also set criteria for the distribution of future and redistribution of existing fishing opportunities and require consultation.

Amendment 106 relates to the redistribution of fishing opportunities. A key aim of the Bill is ultimately to create a fairer system, and Members will forgive me if I take a moment to read out why it is so important. This is a key amendment for Opposition Members, and one that we believe would, if taken up, have a transformational impact on the health of our oceans and on the local economies of coastal communities right across the UK.

The logic of the amendment follows from the principle of fish being a public good, which, as we have just discussed, is not yet on the face of the Bill, but is something we all agree on. To acquire the right to fish, and use that for the public good, there should be a set of criteria that need to be followed to ensure that what we are taking balances out. The current FQA system is broken: half of English quota is held by companies based overseas, the small-scale fleet only holds 6% of quota, and the five largest quota holders�four of which belong to families on The Sunday Times rich list�control more than a third of UK fishing quota. Small boats provide the backbone of our fishing fleet, making up the majority of that fleet. They generally use low-impact gear and provide more jobs per tonne, but their share of quota is limited to around 4% to 6% of the total.

While there may be more fish for the UK after we leave the common fisheries policy, not amending the distribution of quota will exacerbate existing levels of inequality between parts of the sector, and will fail to incentivise best practice. The fixed quota allocation system, which has been heavily criticised for being unfair from the outset, has not been updated since the 1990s. Again, in the words of the hon. Member for Waveney:

�It is commonly recognised that the inshore fleet�the under-10s�has had a raw deal as far as access to quota and fishing opportunities is concerned.���[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 4 December 2018; c. 39, Q69.]

As a result of the existing system, ownership of fishing quota has become increasingly consolidated among larger-scale interests.

I will make the same remarks as I made in yesterday�s debate on the UK fishing industry: in the fisheries sector, we do not talk about small and medium-sized enterprises in the same way as we would in manufacturing, but if fishing were like manufacturing, the small boats would be the SMEs of our economy. There would be a much greater focus on the support system given to them, the investment into them and the jobs they create, and on making sure that they have the right and fair allocation of quota.

In our evidence session, Griffin Carpenter from the New Economics Foundation said:

�In essence, fisheries have been accidentally privatised. Every year, quota is allocated to the same holders, and there is a legitimate expectation that that continues in future. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other organisations are too scared to break that hold on the quota and say, �This year we will allocate quota differently.� It has not been done; it is basically privatised now the claim is so strong. If there is ever a point to break that link, it is now.���[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 102, Q196.]

I agree with him.

The small-scale fleet has generally been excluded from the FQA system and producer organisations, which has led to the decline of coastal communities and ports. Since 1938�a year I am sure we all remember well�the number of fishermen on UK-registered vessels has decreased by 76%. Fifty years ago, the UK had 50,000 fishers; now we have almost 12,000�a huge decline.

The small boat sector is shrinking every year. Between 2007 and last year, the number of fishermen on UK-registered vessels decreased by 9% from 12,871 to only 11,692. Since 2007, the number of fishermen on English and Scottish-administered vessels decreased by 10%. It has fallen by 22% in Wales, and in 2017, 42% of fishermen on vessels administered in Wales were listed as part time. Under the combination of an unfair system and Tory austerity, which mainly hits coastal communities, or has had a disproportionate effect on them, small-scale fishing activity in coastal communities the length and breadth of the UK is a shadow of its former self.

There is now an opportunity to reinvigorate our fishing industry through better and fairer distribution of quota. Fishing quota provides an opportunity to commercially fish a resource that belongs to everyone. Fishing should be seen as a privilege, not a right, but it has effectively been privatised, as I mentioned earlier. The Bill is our opportunity to change that. We do not want to rob big boats of quota and give it to small boats; we want to use the Bill to create a new criterion for allocating quota based on social, environmental and economic factors.

[Alan Brown]

I acknowledge the opportunity that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. We heard evidence about possible opportunities for some future reallocation. How would his amendment work in principle in terms of the devolution settlement? Would it allow UK Ministers to redistribute Scottish quotas, or would it be an England-only matter?

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it goes to the core of the amendment, which basically sets a different criterion for allocation. At the moment, quota is predominantly allocated on the FQA system. We are suggesting that there should be redistribution based on social, economic and environmental criteria, done on a species-by-species, zone-by-zone basis to take into account the varieties in our different fishing industries around the United Kingdom.

It is important that, when we set the tone for how fishing quotas should be allocated in future, the economic link that I spoke about earlier and the environmental consequences that the hon. Gentleman spoke about earlier are taken into account. That should be done by all fisheries Administrations, not just England or Scotland. It should be done by the entirety of the United Kingdom.

Quotas should be allocated on transparent social and ecological criteria to benefit fishing communities�for example, by offering a greater share for complying with relevant regulations, taking part in data gathering, fully monitoring and recording catches, and complying with discard rules. The UK has always had the ability to reallocate quota to reward particular types of fishing practice or to support broader social or economic goals, but has chosen not to seize the full opportunities that come from that.

Article 17 of the reformed common fisheries policy urged European member states to consider environmental, economic and social criteria when allocating opportunities. It was heralded as potentially revolutionary by senior EU officials when it was launched as part of the overall reformed CFP, but its lack of mandate meant that it failed to be implemented effectively in any EU member state. Greenpeace recently lost a case in which it made that argument in the High Court, but the Bill is a chance to fix that, using fairer criteria for the benefit of the small fleet in particular.

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[Mr Sweeney]

I am happy to support this excellent amendment, because it seeks to ensure that in the distribution of fishing opportunities, Scottish Ministers, along with Welsh Ministers and the Northern Ireland Department�we hope, soon, a Northern Ireland Executive will be restored�would be recognised as �relevant national authorities�, alongside the Secretary of State and the Marine Management Organisation. The Labour party believes such an approach to be fair. It would ensure parity between Scottish Ministers and the Secretary of State.

In good faith, I urge the Minister to accept the amendment. A failure to do so would show that the UK Government are not at all committed to ensuring that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are equal partners in our Union of nations. The amendment is therefore critical.

[Alan Brown]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Scottish Parliament initially was happy not to be included in the clause, because the Scottish Government have worked with the UK Government on that basis?

[Mr Sweeney]

It seems that we are in violent agreement on some things�we cannot do wrong for doing right, can we? Interestingly, I think that adding the amendment to the Bill would define the process and make it clear. That is why we also supported a clear dispute resolution mechanism being in the Bill. That, too, would have provided a clear, unequivocal process that would have allowed us to resolve these problems with the different partners in the UK. I have to say that I was rather disappointed that the SNP abstained on that amendment, but we are where we are. I think this is a worthwhile measure and it will be helpful for us to proceed on this basis. I urge the Minister, in good faith, to support it to bind our Union together even more.

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[Peter Aldous]

The new clause sets out criteria for the allocation of fishing opportunities. I would like to place on the record my thanks to Dr Tom Appleby, who appeared before us in last week�s evidence session, for his work on drafting these proposed provisions.

As I have mentioned, clause 20 is a reworking of article 17 of the common fisheries policy, which seeks to incentivise better environmental practice. As currently drafted, the clause permits the Secretary of State to distribute fishing opportunities to the devolved Assemblies and English fishermen. There is a concern that it is too complex. The new clause splits those obligations into two parts, as the roles are subtly different�one is a UK determination and the other is a determination with respect to England only. There is also a concern that the way the clause was incorporated by references makes it difficult to read. The new clause seeks to improve on that.

The new clause provides the following. First, it provides a UK function in subsection (1) and an English function in subsections (2) and (3). Secondly, unlike other public assets, the nature of the public ownership of UK fisheries is not settled in legislation�we heard the reasons for that on Tuesday�although the courts confirmed in the 2013 case that has been mentioned at length that fish are a public asset. It is important that the nature of that public ownership is settled, as that would enable UK administrators to manage and dispose of the asset properly, with appropriate powers and duties being granted. It is proposed that ownership should take the form of a public trust vested in the Secretary of State in a similar way to other Crown assets managed by such organisations as the Crown Estate Commissioners.

Thirdly, the distribution of fishing opportunities would include social criteria as a means of tying in the joint fisheries statements and the Secretary of State�s fisheries statement. It would also include a means of rewarding better fishing practices. Finally, since the documentation recording the reasons for disposing of fishing opportunities to the commercial sector would involve the distribution of a public asset, there would need to be unequivocal transparency.

We examined in last week�s evidence sessions whether quota reallocation would leave the Government and the fisheries administrations exposed to legal threats. It is important to consider that question with regard to the new clause. In so doing, I highlight two issues. First, Greenpeace sought independent legal advice, which concluded that these changes would be compatible with domestic and international law and that

�a challenge to a new system of quota allocation enshrined in an Act of Parliament would be unlikely to succeed.�

That conclusion is based on two key points. First, the mandate for reallocation would be placed in a new Act of Parliament that overrides any common law and, after Brexit, will be supreme. Secondly, in the 2013 case, Mr Justice Cranston stated that in his view FQA units could be deemed as possessions falling within article 1 of the first protocol of the European convention on human rights�the right to property. He also said that FQA units had no value if no quota had been allocated or they were unused, and in any case the interference with the possession of FQA units was in accordance with law and was justified.

Taken together, these two points mean that in the scenario of mandating quota reallocation in UK law, as we are now considering in our discussion of this Bill, this is compatible�

[Alan Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how his new clause would work in terms of the devolved Administrations and how they manage their quotas?

[Peter Aldous]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. The intention is not to interfere with that management through the current devolution settlement, so I do not think that he has a particular worry on this issue.

[Alan Brown]

I accept that the hon. Gentleman says that he is not seeking to change the devolved settlement; it is just that the new clause lists the Scottish Ministers. That is why I am trying to understand how it would work practically in the future.

Fisheries Bill (Fifth sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

Members will see from the amendment paper that the Opposition propose a number of additional objectives, including a new public asset objective, a new marine planning objective, a new safety and workforce objective, and a new climate change and international agreements objective. The first—the public asset objective—would deliver on the pledge in the Government’s White Paper, which states:

“We aim to manage these fisheries—and the wider marine environment—as a shared resource, a public asset held in stewardship for the benefit of all.”

That sounds brilliant, but it should have been included in the Bill.

Listing fish as a public good in the Bill would allow us to say definitively that fish should be allocated for the benefit of the country. I am amazed that Ministers did not set that out clearly in Bill. I encourage the Minister to accept the amendment so there can be no doubt, no obfuscation and no sleight of hand in policy from this Government or any that might follow—particularly in the coming days—that fish is a public good and their benefits should be shared by the nation.

We heard evidence last week from Griffin Carpenter, an economist at the New Economics Foundation. He agreed with that point, stating:

“When I have spoken to stakeholders, even the quota holders, everyone starts from the same premise that fish is a public good, but from my perspective that has not been followed through in the way we treat the opportunity to fish that public good.”––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 104, Q200.]

The hon. Member for Waveney expressed similar concerns. I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the House know Aaron Brown from Fishing for Leave, who is a key supporter of the amendment. He said in evidence last week:

“Fish always has been a public resource. Various judicial hearings have defined that as well. Indeed, it probably stretches all the way back into Magna Carta right back through our constitution.”

That is slightly before my time, I am afraid. He continued:

“At the end of the day, we as fishermen, as the members of the public who catch, are only custodians of what is the nation’s; we look after it and husband it well for current generations and future ones. We would very much like to see a clause put in”.––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 4 December 2018; c. 62, Q134.]

Importantly, clause 1 sets the tone for how the Bill will be regarded. There is much discussion about fish in our political debate. It is vital that we make it clear right from the start that fish is a public asset and should be distributed accordingly—a key argument that I believe Members on both sides of the House have advocated. Its omission from the Bill is regrettable, which is why the Opposition seek to insert it as one of the Bill’s early objectives.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. We will be happy to support the amendment if it is pressed to a vote. Clearly, clause 1 is all about setting objectives. The Minister may argue that the amendment is superfluous, but we are setting objectives and, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport touched on, we heard clearly in evidence that there is a desire for the Bill to state that fishing is a public good. That would set a marker for the future, when we look at reallocating quotas for the benefit of that public good. We are certainly happy to support the amendment.

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[Alan Brown]

Nobody is going to argue about the importance of improving health and safety. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, there are many risks in the fishing industry. I am just seeking clarification. Having the objective is fine, but how will the objective in itself lead to improvements in health and safety? Regulation and enforcement are required—we need that linkage.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention; it is a good question. The important thing about including this objective is that there would be a requirement for Ministers in their annual statements to report on progress on marine safety. As we have seen, sadly there has not been sufficient progress. Given that responsibility for marine safety is shared between a great number of stakeholders in government, it is important to have an opportunity to bring all those efforts together and share best practice. Having a clear objective that the regulatory environment we want to create around fisheries after Brexit is one where marine safety is prioritised is a key message that we should be sending to the fishing community.

The Minister will know of a brilliant scheme from Plymouth that provides lifejackets personal locator beacons to fishermen with. That is an example of how we can make real our proposed objective, if implemented. Personal locator beacons activate when they come into contact with water, enabling the search to be taken out of search and rescue. I have seen for myself the registry and met the team at Falmouth coastguard who manage this system: it is a good one that we need to roll out more comprehensively.

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[Luke Pollard]

The amendments, which aim to update the objectives at the front of the Bill, refer to climate change. It is important that we talk about climate change in the context of fisheries. Climate change is a challenge facing every single sector of the UK economy, but the impacts of climate change are being felt in fishing communities in respect of the availability and location of the fish stocks that our fishers are trying to catch.

At a time of global uncertainty, we could not let the omission of the phrase “climate change” from the Bill slip by. We know from the evidence we heard last week that climate change is affecting fishing, be that through the availability of food stocks for fish, through the changes in spawning and breeding grounds, or through different migration patterns, which affect where fishers go to catch fish. Climate change is real and it affects fishing, as it does every other economic sector, so it warrants a mention both in the Bill and in DEFRA’s serious considerations and actions.

If Labour had been in government and we were introducing this Bill, I imagine that we would be doing it ever so slightly differently from how the Minister is doing it. The amendment is key in addressing climate change and reinforcing sustainability.

I am grateful for the words of the Secretary of State on not rolling back environmental protections. It is important that those words are met with actions, including in the Bill. In addition to talking about climate change, we talk about the international agreements objective, which lists the other international agreements that have a bearing on fishing, and in particular on the conservation and environmental aspects of fishing—if we overfish, there will not be enough fish in our seas to sustain a fishing industry. We need fisheries that are sustainable both economically and environmentally. The amendment seeks to make a reference in the Bill to the other international agreements.

[Alan Brown]

Perish the thought that I am starting to think like a Conservative. However, although those are laudable conventions by which we need to abide, is not the key issue that, as a signatory to the treaties, the UK has to fulfil those obligations anyway? Therefore, it is superfluous having them in the Bill, regardless of the signals that would be sent by the amendment.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that, because it brings us on to maximum sustainable yield, which is one of our rationales for talking about this. The UK is committed to achieving maximum sustainable yield by 2020—that commitment is in a variety of international treaties and agreements. That target is hard to achieve, according to the feedback we have had from stakeholders and to some of the evidence we heard last week. That is why, in creating a new regulatory environment for fishing, we need to have due regard to the commitments the UK has signed up to elsewhere across our international conventions—MSY by 2020 is one such commitment. It is mentioned elsewhere but not in the Bill, which is why the Opposition seek to raise awareness of not only the importance of climate change to our fisheries but our international obligations and commitments as a nation. I would be grateful therefore if the Minister could expand on the Government commitments given elsewhere to sustainability, and on how they will be reflected not only in the Bill but in its implementation.

Fisheries Bill (Sixth sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. The opportunity to redistribute quota could have a beneficial effect on coastal communities across the country, from the west country to other parts of the UK. That is effectively what Griffin was saying in his remarks about understanding how quota has been allocated, and it is why the amendment is so important. It would help us better to understand the basis on which quota is allocated, particularly as a quarter of the UK’s fishing quota is owned or controlled by just five families on The Sunday Times rich list.

The small-scale fleet has generally been excluded from the FQA system and producer organisations. Quotas should be allocated on transparent social, economic and environmental criteria to the benefit of fishing communities and coastal communities. We heard that in our evidence sessions, and the idea enjoys support from both sides of the Committee, although we are yet to find a form of words on which we can agree. A greater share could be offered for complying with relevant regulations, such as taking part in data gathering, fully monitoring and recording catches, complying with discard rules and applying high standards of workers’ rights, welfare and marine safety. Through that, we have an opportunity to allocate quota in a fairer way that supports greater public goals and assets. Those are objectives that we all share.

There may be more fish after the UK leaves the common fisheries policy if we get a drawdown of the quota held by our EU friends, but not amending the distribution of quota would exacerbate existing levels of inequality between parts of the sector and would fail to incentivise best practice. Small boats provide the backbone of our fishing fleet and make up the majority of the fleet, in terms of employment. They generally use low-impact gear and provide more jobs per tonne, but their share of quota has been limited to 4% to 6% of the total available quota, even though they employ 49% of the fleet. A greater understanding of how that can go, how quota is currently allocated and how it will be allocated in future will help transparency and, importantly, confidence among fishers in the system.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the evidence and discussions about how future quota should be allocated. The benefits need to be considered. Does he accept that the amendment could impact on the devolution settlements, because quota allocation is devolved to the respective Administrations?

[Luke Pollard]

It is really important that we are part of the devolution debate, to ensure that where powers have been devolved to a devolved Administration, they can take decisions on how to distribute their quota accordingly. Quota drawn down from our EU friends is additional quota, which can, in theory, be shared across all UK fishers across the four home nations. An under- standing of how that is allocated is an important function of transparency and part of how we make the system work.

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[Alan Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman outline how he sees this system being set up and how it will actually operate, because right now the amendment is structured so that the Secretary of State sets the system up, which clearly indicates that there will be no input from the devolved Administrations into how the system will operate? He highlighted the example of a situation where one Administration might want to allocate in a way that is vastly different from the other Administrations, but the Secretary of State might have too much control through the way they have set it up. Is that not a risk with regard to the devolution settlement?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion. In this amendment, we have not attempted to prescribe exactly how the dispute resolution should operate nor how it should be established; we have merely said that there should be one. Given that the powers flow from this Bill into the hands of the Secretary of State, it seemed logical that the Secretary of State—whoever that may be—should have the initial responsibility of establishing that mechanism, obviously in conjunction with the other parties involved.

We feel that a firm deadline should be set in the Bill so that these matters are not allowed simply to drift. Therefore, the amendment proposes that the fisheries authority should be required to use the system set out by the Secretary of State in regulations, as soon as it becomes apparent that it will not be possible to have an agreed fisheries statement published by—in this case—1 January 2021. Equally, the date could be set 12 months after the commencement of the Act.

The Minister may try to persuade us that we are perhaps being too gloomy and that the scenarios that we are trying to prepare for are remote possibilities. If he is not inclined to accept this amendment, as I suspect he may not be, it would be beneficial if the Minister explained to the Committee what plans he expects to be put in place if there is a situation where the fisheries authorities are unable to reach an agreement, and that in itself causes a—

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[Mr Sweeney]

Technically, yes. Perhaps I am moonlighting as a Front Bencher. As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

I rise in support of this amendment. It reflects that devolution is a process, rather than an event, and if I were to do a risk profile of the Bill, this omission by the Government would be a red flag. It is important that this is addressed as a matter of urgency; it is critical, because as we have seen at instances throughout the discussions about the EU withdrawal process, impasses occur quite frequently between the devolved Administrations and the UK Government about how to proceed and how best to resolve issues. It is clear that in fisheries, there is a high risk of those issues emerging, so as a matter of prudence it is incumbent on the Government to make provision for issues to be resolved through a system and process defined in the Bill.

[Alan Brown]

I rise to ask the hon. Gentleman the same question I put to the shadow Minister: how does he see this mechanism being set up? If it is set up with the Secretary of State, how does he see it as being a panacea that will resolve any dispute if it does not have the input of the Administrations?

[Mr Sweeney]

I think it should be an inclusive process; I am not prescribing any particular definition for that, but I do not think the Secretary of State should have untrammelled power over the ultimate decisions. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland suggested, it should be something that is equitable and democratic in nature. That would be the way to proceed.

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[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out why five years is not as good as six; none the less, I think there is a point about our effective scrutiny of the system. When the Marine and Coastal Access Act was initially enacted, it was at the start of that journey of organising marine plans and policies. We are now in a very different place, both politically and environmentally. I am grateful for the comments about climate change made by the hon. Member for Stafford. Our world is changing and our fisheries need to be more adaptable to the concerns around climate change.

[Alan Brown]

In support of the principle of reducing the review period from six to five years, I tried to get in earlier on. I have concern about linking it to a parliamentary term, because as we know, despite the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, we have already had one Government that did not last five years, and the way things are going, it is highly probable that this Government will not, either, so I would be wary of linking it to a Westminster parliamentary term. That would also override the parliamentary cycle of the devolved Administrations. I am happy with five years, but we should be wary of how this is linked to the parliamentary cycles.

[Luke Pollard]

In seeking to move from six to five, that was merely to move from six years to five years, rather than necessarily to align with that parliamentary cycle.

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[George Eustice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney for tabling the amendments and highlighting an important issue. I understand why some might be concerned about the inclusion of the provision, because they judge that it to be a “Get out of jail” card which means that people would not have to follow the statement at all.

As with earlier amendments, I will explain the genesis of the language chosen for the clause. Again, I am afraid, I have to pray in aid the Marine and Coastal Access Act. Section 58(1) states:

“A public authority must take any authorisation or enforcement decision in accordance with the appropriate marine policy documents, unless relevant considerations indicate otherwise.”

The claim by some that the language in the Bill is random, new language that has never been used in legislation before is therefore not true. It is a form of words that was used in the most recent piece of marine management legislation available, which was introduced by the Labour Government.

The reason we have the provision is to ensure that in instances where we have a sudden change in circumstances, which might put us outside a joint fisheries statement, there is, in a sort of force majeure—

[Alan Brown]

I just want to understand what the Minister is talking about. Exceptional circumstances may arise that need swift action. Therefore, is there not a way to improve the language in the Bill, even though this serves as a precedent, rather than the amendment, which would delete it completely? Is that something the Government would consider for the next stage?

[George Eustice]

I was going to return to that point. As I said at the outset, while I think it is wrong to delete that flexibility for a force majeure event all together, I am certainly willing to look on Report at whether we could refine or narrow the scope and the circumstances in which such a measure could be used.

Let me give an example. If there were a sudden change in the health of a particular stock, we might have it as part of the plan that a stock could be exploited at a particular level. We might not want to do that anymore and might therefore step outside the plan—not to overexploit a stock but to stop exploiting it all together. It might also be the case that in order to reach an agreement with, say, Norway, which uses maximum sustainable yield as well as other environmental measurements and metrics, we might have to move slightly outside the scope of our own plan. Then a question has to be asked: as I put to Dr Carl O’Brien, is it better to get an agreement so that everyone is working within agreed limits and to an agreed plan with our neighbours—say, Norway—or is it better for everyone to just kick the table over, walk away and unilaterally set their own total allowable catch? I would say it is always the former. There will be times when we may have to step slightly outside the joint fisheries statement in the interests of getting a fisheries agreement at all, which is ultimately for the benefit of the stock.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney has highlighted an important issue. I hope he understands that, because we need that flexibility both for force majeure events and for other sudden developments, we need some sort of provision for those circumstances. Therefore, deleting the wording all together is wrong. However, in view of the points that he and others have raised, I will give this further consideration as we approach Report to see whether we can narrow that power so it can be used only in prescribed circumstances.

Fisheries Bill (Third sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q I would like to ask about the legal implications of potentially redistributing quotas. What do you envisage the complexities of that might be? How can we address them as part of the process? What is your take on monopolistic activity in the fishing industry?

Rebecca Newsom: Greenpeace has taken independent legal advice on the issue. The conclusion was that, from a legal perspective, the Government and any other relevant national authorities can feel very confident in proceeding with this new approach to quota distribution. The prospects of a successful judicial review are very low, and the reasons for that are twofold. First, in the Brexit process, the proposed amendment is being put into a new Westminster Act of Parliament. As such, after we leave the EU, Parliament will be supreme and the law will have superiority to case law. Secondly, the 2012 legal case discussed on Tuesday concluded that while there may be some property rights attached to fixed quota allocations, those are not applicable if the quota has not been used. In any case, it is within the power of the Secretary of State to allocate as they see fit. Taken together, our conclusion is that such a measure would be clearly compatible with national and international law.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Q Good morning, everybody. We have not discussed the fact that the Bill includes a proposal for a discard prevention scheme. Do you have a view as to whether the measures are transparent enough? What are the risks of doing that? Is it the right approach to avoiding discards?

Helen McLachlan: Discards are a major issue and we welcome the continued commitment to trying to minimise discards overall. Our view on the measures in the Bill is that it is not quite clear what consequences or unintended consequences might arise. We would like to see more effort being placed on being clear about what it is we are taking out of the water and how much we really do need to discard. Going back to electronic monitoring at sea, we need to get a clear case. What we are concerned about at the end of the day is what we are removing from our ocean systems and how we can account for that sustainably. I think we would like to see more focus on that, rather than penalties per se, particularly as we are not quite clear on the intended or unintended consequences at this point.

Debbie Crockard: Especially because the original intention of the landing obligation was to improve selectivity, to make fishing more sustainable and to reduce waste. If there are uncertainties and things that are not clear within the Bill, we need to ensure that the legislation is still trying to meet those initial intentions.

[Alan Brown]

Q Rebecca, if we go back to quotas and quota allocations, you are talking about wanting to see more transparency, environmental measures and social benefits. You spoke about public consultation developing that. What do you actually want to see on the face of the Bill? That is what we are looking at just now. How do we get those protections in the Bill?

Rebecca Newsom: In terms of the Bill, we are talking specifically about clause 20, which starts off as a transposition of article 17 of the CFP. We are suggesting that a few very small changes are made to that article essentially to remove historic catch levels as one of the determining factors for distributing quota and to prioritise environmental, social and local economic criteria instead. That would be the tangible, most important change on the face of the Bill. In terms of the follow-up process, the change in the Bill would set the principles and the legal framework for how quota should be distributed in the future, but it would then become the responsibility and powers of the relevant national authorities, including the devolved Administrations, to run their own public, transparent consultation process to determine exactly what those criteria are, how it works in practice and to implement it.

[The Chair]

We now have to conclude this session. I thank all the witnesses for attending; your evidence has been very helpful.

Examination of Witnesses

Andrew Brown, Andrew Pillar, Daniel Whittle and Mike Park gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order.

Mike Park: Perhaps I can answer the question that the hon. Member posed. In Scotland, I chair a group called the Scottish Fisheries Sustainable Accreditation Group. That group focuses on ensuring that we build stocks up to sustainable levels and that our fishermen harvest stocks appropriately in terms of selectivity and other things. Once we reach a certain standard, we put them through the gold standard of the Marine Stewardship Council certification. The consumer is more concerned about whether she is buying a sustainably caught fish—quality fish—than she is about where it is filleted. By attaching that mark we ensure we give comfort to the consumer. I think that where it is filleted or whatever is a bit of a red herring—excuse the pun. At the end of the day, the consumer is focused on whether the fish comes from a sustainable source and whether it is of good quality. That is what we as an industry group actually ensure.

Andrew Pillar: One of the things that we would like to see strengthened is the recognition around labelling and for labelling to be consistent with the chain of custody and provenance—where a fish has been through its life cycle. That really is driven by point of landing. If something is British, that point of landing is key because you start to derive the value upstream and downstream in the chain of jobs dependent on that fish being produced.

Andrew Brown: I agree with what Mike said about accreditation. Macduff is working hard on accreditation for nephrops stocks and scallop stocks. That is important to us, and, post Brexit, accreditation and certification will become that much more important to guarantee the sustainability of our stocks.

[Alan Brown]

Andrew, you commented that access to EU markets and the EU workforce is critical for business and industry. What will the ending of free movement mean for your industry? Have you seen any impact of Brexit already since the referendum? Also, what are your views on future immigration policy? The UK Government are talking about not allowing what they call “low-skilled workers”, and having a £30,000 threshold for qualification.

[The Chair]

Order. I am advised that free movement is beyond the scope of the Bill.

Fisheries Bill (Fourth sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Q Griffin, you have talked in quite a lot of detail about the reallocation of quota. From my perspective, representing a community that is a have-not, shall we say, that is music to my ears, but I am wary of the legal implications of that. I agree that fishing is a public right, but as we have heard in our evidence sessions, by ill fortune or bad management, it has acquired certain proprietorial rights. How far, legally, do you think we are able to go? The important thing is that this Fisheries Bill must be determined and made by this House, not by lawyers.

Griffin Carpenter: Absolutely. I am not a lawyer—I am an economist—but the legal advice I have heard is that the use of a notice period goes a long way. I mentioned the international examples. We have to make some claim on FQAs as a public resource. Where you might get buy-in for this across the whole sector, including the large-scale fleet, is on something such as flagged vessels. When you hear about Spanish vessels in UK waters, they are almost never Spanish vessels in the sense that they have a Spanish flag and are fishing the Spanish quota; they have purchased UK fishing vessels and are fishing with UK quota, and a lot of coastal communities do not like that. For example, in Wales, most of the quota is caught by those vessels and either landed in Ireland or taken straight to Spain.

The problem is that, if you want to address this issue of flagged vessels—those who are foreign nationals but have UK quota—you must do so by saying, “FQAs are a public resource and we are going to take that away from you and then revisit the issue of distribution.” In a political sense, you can get buy-in for that idea. In a legal sense, I get that the notice period goes a long way. We heard the point made this morning that, because this is new legislation, some of the case law around the previous FQA distribution under the common fisheries policy might not apply. I am actually not sure about that.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Q Sticking to the quota theme, you have already touched on the debate between this being enabling legislation and how much detail needs to be in the Bill. Do you think there needs to be more on how the quota allocation will work in future? You also mentioned potential quota reserves for new entrants—small-scale recreational anglers have also been mentioned—so is it your view that there should be more in the Bill?

Griffin Carpenter: I think that is a political question. I understand the idea that it is enabling legislation and that for most fisheries legislation all the detail will come in secondary legislation, but if you have some priorities that you absolutely want to ensure are in future UK fisheries, here is an opportunity to introduce them. I understand that some of the ideas we are discussing might be incongruous with the tone, at least, of the rest of the Bill, but here is an opportunity where we can say, “Starting now, we are only in 2018 and we are already thinking about this issue. We are guaranteeing it is in the fisheries legislation, first and foremost.” From a political perspective, that is valid.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

On the redistribution of quota, obviously, if you are a larger owner of quota versus a smaller owner of quota, or an owner of no quota, you will certainly feel that you are going to be worse off in this situation. How do you cater for the fact that a lot of the smaller vessel owners perhaps previously owned quota that they sold, benefiting greatly financially, and then moved into smaller vessels for which they did not need quota? How would you avoid that kind of gaming happening again in the future?

Griffin Carpenter: That is a good question. The line that has always been used on quota allocation in the past was, “You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, and we don’t want that in the industry.” Now we have the idea of a Brexit dividend of extra quota, we are robbing Pierre to pay Paul, so that is fine. We are fine as long as Peter is protected.

The idea of quota shares is actually a bit confusing because they are percentages rather than tonnage. Now that stocks are recovering, and the quota increases each year, you can have a situation, even if you are taking from Peter and giving to Paul, where everybody is better off. You can have this as a conditional reallocation. Let us say you get a certain share in the large-scale fleet—you have a large-scale vessel—and you are guaranteed 1,000 tonnes every year. If the quota is going up, some of the surplus quota of that year can be reallocated to the small-scale fleet in a pool or through whatever system you do that. There is a bit of a difference between tonnage, which is what actually affects your bottom line, and the percentage. I suggest that we can have these thresholds in place.

The other thing is that, with additional fishing opportunities potentially coming in, hopefully, we can do a reallocation all at once so, again, the large-scale fleet will not necessarily be worse off. They might have a smaller percentage of haddock, let us say, or some demersal stock that the small-scale fleet really wants, but they are getting all the extra herring and other species from the North sea from our EU colleagues. There is the potential for doing all this at once: revisiting the allocation system and making everyone better off.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Q The Bill envisages a joint fisheries statement, but also something called a Secretary of State’s statement, which would include a whole plan for the English fleet about how it contributes to coastal communities and supports livelihoods. In what way does that fall short of what you are seeking? It is a clear commitment for a plan that will outline how we allocate fishing opportunities to help those objectives.

Griffin Carpenter: It is a commitment for a plan, but I am saying we should think about that plan right now and what should be in it, rather than leave it to each Government to decide. We have seen that, through article 17, it has always been in UK jurisdiction to decide how to allocate quotas. That is not a power that the EU had that we are taking back; it was always up to us and we have not taken that opportunity. Now is the right time to have that conversation, and the Bill is a piece of legislation that we can put that in.

It is roughly the same with the discussion about MSYs. Yes, in the fisheries statement, they can say how we are doing—how the stocks are doing in reference to those MSY values—but we should have that as a duty. Be specific in the Bill and say, “You cannot fish above MSY.” We are going to be post 2020, so you might as well just say, “We will be fishing in line with MSY.” We are past the deadline.

[Alan Brown]

Q A few witnesses have commented that they do not think there is enough information or transparency regarding the discards prevention scheme that is in the Bill and how it will actually work in future. Do you have any views on that?

Griffin Carpenter: It is an interesting question. From my reading of it, it seems to take from the Norway model, which is that some discards are landed but there is a fee attached to that. Instead of the landing obligation, we will say, “The quota is set at this level. You cannot fish above that, otherwise you get choke problems.” It is more of an economic incentive, rather than a hard line.

That needs to be compensated for with lower quota, because we are saying that there is going to be some fishing above that line, but we will have an economic incentive so you do not land as much. I think the principle is a fair one—switching incentives—but that should be compensated for in our expectations about how much above that quota we are actually going to fish.

[The Chair]

Q We are into the last 45 seconds or so of the session. Is there anything you wish to say that has not been said so far, Mr Carpenter?

Griffin Carpenter: One quick point, if I may. We have spoken a lot about quota, but non-quota species are very important. More work should be done on stock assessments. That is something that could be in the Bill to say, “We are not going to be fishing stocks anymore if we have no idea how much we can be fishing.”

Fisheries Bill (First sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Q I have two questions. Do you think the Bill will lead to increased fishing opportunities both for new entrants and for what until now have been called the under-10s, although I think it is important we try to get away from that descriptor? Picking up on the Minister’s comments about equal allocation across all UK fisheries for all UK boats, do you think that principle lies comfortably with the sustainable management of individual fisheries? I say that because there is a concern that it is difficult to do that when you get boats from other parts of the UK coming into waters off the East Anglian coast, and not only off the East Anglian coast. It is a concern that has been raised with me about waters off the north-east. Yesterday I was hearing about problems with managing cuttlefish down off the south-west where this problem had arisen. I would welcome both your views on those two issues.

Barrie Deas: On increased fishing opportunities and how they could be allocated, for a number of reasons, including case law in the English courts, but also the stewardship that comes along with rights of tenure, which have been an important factor in stabilising our fisheries over the last 20 years, our federation takes the view that for existing quota it should remain the same, but for additional quota we think there is a conversation to be had on the most appropriate use of that. There is a range of options.

Perhaps we are being a bit narrow here. You alluded to the division line at under-10, which has, I think, caused distortions in the fleet and unintended consequences —you have a cohort of high-catching under-10s, sometimes called rule beaters or super-under-10s, that have kind of distorted fishing patterns. There is recognition that we need to move beyond that now. In that context, there is an issue about how you define genuine small boats—genuine low-impact vessels—and I accept that. My organisation would be very interested in taking them out of the quota system altogether. That does not mean not taking into account their contribution to mortality. In a sense, it is a reversion to what we had in the early days of under-10 metre management, where sufficient quota was allocated and we did not have to have monthly quotas for that class of vessels. There is a very interesting conversation to be had about the future and new entrants and how the genuine low-impact fleets fit into that.

Equal access has been an important principle and there are dissatisfactions wherever you have a nomadic fleet arriving on the doorstep of a local fishery. That would be true of our boats fishing in bits of Scotland, I suppose, and certainly you hear these kinds of things about Scottish boats fishing off the Northumbrian coast or down in the south-west. Fishermen are competitive. They are competing with each other as well as with foreign fisherman. That is the context in which you have to situate that particular issue.

Bertie Armstrong: Mr Aldous, your question was about new entrants in under-10s. The enabler for a better deal for new entrants in under-10s will be the uplift in opportunity for fishing that comes with Brexit; otherwise, we presumably have fixed the problems already with the fishing opportunity available. The situation is different as you go around the coast. The small-vessel fleet in Scotland has a different character and tends to use creels, or pots, to catch shellfish—that is a great generalisation; there are others—so there is a different set of problems. It is generally inshore and small scale and is therefore best sorted out locally, but I think there will be a better deal for all with the uplift in opportunity.

There is another abiding principle here. If you are going to make alterations to arrangements for fishing, the fish need to be there to be caught. It is one thing to give someone tons of fish; it is quite another if the fish are not there in prime condition with a business plan for getting them landed and into a logistics chain. Much is made of the big mackerel catchers in the pelagic fleet, and much is made of rather lurid statistics about what percentage is held by what number. You cannot catch 250,000 tonnes of mackerel in winter, 100 miles to the west of the British Isles, with hand line under-10s—you simply cannot. But a few hundred tonnes to the hand line under-10s, provided the local arrangements pay attention to making sure there is a whole logistics chain and they are going to get that fish to a place where somebody wants it, is where the opportunity lies.

My final input, on behalf of slightly larger-scale fishing, is: be careful what you mean by low impact. The carbon footprint per kilogram of fish of a pelagic trawler catching mackerel is very much smaller than any other form of fishing, because you catch volume efficiently and quickly. There are many aspects to this.

In answer to the question, yes, there is extra opportunity, but there has to be extra opportunity to distribute. The problems are largely regional and should be sorted out regionally. We need to be careful not to place excessive detail on the face of the Bill. I suggest that a lot of this is best done by secondary legislation.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Q Mr Armstrong, in answer to an earlier question you suggested that we might see a date of what you called sovereignty over quotas and waters. You suggested that the end of the implementation period as it is now—December 2020—was the ideal date. How does that square with the fact that there may be a backstop arrangement and the Prime Minister has said that, depending on what happens, we might need to extend the implementation period? How would inserting a date in the Bill work with the other flexibilities that are still to be resolved?

Bertie Armstrong: I would wish to dispense with the flexibility to extend for fishing the implementation period by placing a date on the face of the Bill. There will undoubtedly be some resistance, but that would not be up to me. That is why we would like to see that in there. We are on record as being less than completely happy that the implementation period applies to fishing at all, because legal sovereignty over the waters and the resource therein comes on Brexit day. However, we are where we are, and we recognise that the withdrawal agreement has compromises all over the place. We therefore, with reluctance, accepted the implementation period compromise, but we would not wish to see it extended at all.

The backstop has been much described, particularly over the last few days. Clarity is helpful on what happens. There are two preconditions: if the backstop clicks in and is applied and there is no fisheries agreement in place by that stage, and there is no prescription of what is in the fisheries agreement, tariffs will apply. Fishing will be cherry-picked out of the trade arrangements. Tariffs will apply to fish—which, by the way, the Scottish Government study indicates would not necessarily be a terminal problem—and access to our waters for other UK fleets would cease. So it would be a mess of large proportions and we are rather hoping that it would not apply.

I see some puzzlement about the lack of access for anybody else. If there is no fisheries agreement—and there is precedent on this, with EU-Norway arrangements, for instance—there is no access to each other’s waters.

[The Chair]

May I lay down a red line, particularly for our detailed consideration of the Bill, starting next week? The backstop and all that is not in the Bill. Those are, of course, important matters and they do have some relevance to and bearing on it, but our purpose today—and, indeed, during the process of consideration in detail, as of next week—is to consider in detail the words that are on the face of the Bill. Therefore, next week I will take a tough line on the broader political considerations and say that they are, I am afraid, simply out of order. They are important, but let us focus on the Bill.

[Alan Brown]

Q I accept your guidance, Mr Gray, but clearly there is the suggestion of the clear date versus how that would fit into the bigger picture. It is the same thing when we talk about future quota allocations and how that will work. Mr Armstrong mentioned the issue of tariffs in his answer. In yesterday’s questions to the Attorney General he said that the backstop arrangements meant that Northern Ireland would have tariff-free access to the EU and tariff-free access to Great Britain, whereas no other market will have that. Is that a concern, and how could that be addressed in this Bill?

Bertie Armstrong: To be honest, that is not where our focus lies at this point in time; it is on making sure that the Bill as an enabler of—I will use the phrase “the sea of opportunity”—makes it on to the statute book, rather than on the details of what does and does not happen to Northern Ireland in the event of a backstop.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

Going back to Mr Pollard’s question about UK vessels landing elsewhere, for example Norway, can you say a little about what motivates fishermen to land elsewhere? What changes are required in our ports or onshore infrastructure to make landing in the UK more attractive, and is that covered by the Bill?

Barrie Deas: Money. That’s it, really. [Laughter] I had better say a bit more. Over the last 20 years, markets for fish have developed and diversified. Peterhead has become the pre-eminent white fish port in Europe. Flat fish tends to go to Urk in the Netherlands. South-west ports are sending prime, high-value fish to the continent, and then there is the shellfish market. From time to time there will be price differentials. Also, it can reflect where the vessel is fishing: for example, it might make sense to go to Denmark and land for one trip and then land back into Peterhead for the next, or to land into France. Fishermen are commercial animals. They are very much driven by catching fish but also by marketing fish, and price is key.

Bertie Armstrong: I would reinforce that. At the slight risk of crossing the red line again, and as I keep saying, the elevation of the UK to the world stage would mean that, in the simple arithmetic of volume and value, we would overtake Iceland. It would allow us the sort of conditions that our own processing industry would want to entice not only all our own landings but perhaps some from others as well. However, it is a matter of commerce and business, generally.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We are running out of time. May we have a last question from Alan Brown?

[Alan Brown]

Q Mr Salter, you seem to be talking about having a percentage of quotas ring-fenced for recreational angling. How would getting that into the Bill work? Would it apply to future quotas to allow expansion of the sector?

Martin Salter: We are not calling for that to be in the Bill; it would tie the Minister’s hands. If we are to adopt world-leading sustainable fishery management practice, it is important that Ministers and decision makers are able to take the best scientific advice without having to come back to Parliament to change quotas and reallocate bass stocks from 30% recreational to 37% recreational, for example. That clearly would not work. They have to have that power, but that is why it is important that we put a duty in the Bill for Ministers to set sustainability targets.

The point about resource sharing is more about achieving an optimal economic and societal return for the stock. I find it very sad that protected species such as the grey mullet that we see swimming around harbours in the UK have very little commercial value, yet at times of spawning aggregations we see entire year classes of those stocks totally netted, flooding the market and getting less than £2 a kilo. This is a slow-growing species: a grey mullet takes anything from 10 to 12 years to achieve a size that makes it a useful recreational angling target. It is a very poor use of that resource. As a good business calculation, which is the better use of that stock? Would reserving more of it for recreation give us more jobs for the UK economy—more bites for our buck, if you like? That is something that good fishery management practice would seek to achieve. It will not be achieved by legislation as such, but it could be assisted by a power and duty for fishery Ministers.

[Alan Brown]

That is a complication, because trying to get a legislative framework that gives that certainty—

[The Chair]

Order. We are strictly limited by time and it is now 11.25 am, so I fear I have to call this evidence session to an end. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm. The Committee Room will be locked in the meantime, so hon. Members may leave their papers here if they wish. I thank the witnesses very much indeed for their useful evidence.

Fisheries Bill (Second sitting)

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Aldous]

Q I will not comment on pulse fishing, because I agree with you, Mr Brown. I think the Minister said that the Government are happy to look at an effort-based pilot. I am conscious that there was a pilot in the past. What was the outcome of that? What shortcomings were there, and what lessons might we learn for future pilots?

Aaron Brown: That is one of the areas where, when we devised this system, we realised there had been a massive failing. The days at sea scheme was blunt and there was no effective monitoring. Generally, it was with smaller boats in south-east England. I think even the fishermen themselves would hold their hands up and say they really knocked the backside out of the pilot. There was mis-reporting going on—they just went out and kind of went Tonto on it.

We are advocating an hours-based system. You would obviously have vessel monitoring systems. We want to get towards a fully integrated monitoring/management system. Vessels would have sensors, which are not expensive to put on—vessels use a similar technology for gear telemetry and door sensors—and go on any type of fishing gear, to monitor soak time, so you would know the exact time a vessel’s gear was in the water. There would be a stipulation to monitor where vessels were through your inshore VMS or your full-on VMS, and also to fill out electronic logbooks, which are here now. You would get an up-to-date, haul-by-haul update on how much fishing effort was going in. You would know, “That boat towed six hours in this area and he caught x amount of fish for this size of gear. The chap over to the side towed similar gear and caught half the amount of fish.” You would start to know where the abundancies were.

The one main control to go for with a pilot is making sure it is rigorously enforced and it is an hours-based scheme. The other main thing is the catch composition thing. That really is the main control for regulating the industry. Rather than everybody going Tonto, like they did last time, and targeting Dover sole, cod or bass, you would say, “Yes guys, you can catch them and keep them, but be aware that if you do that, your ceiling of hours is going to come clattering down to meet you.”

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Q I think you touched on this topic earlier on; you said you would probably come on to it. Do you have a view on the discard prevention charging scheme that is in the Bill and on how transparent it is and how it would actually work?

Aaron Brown: That is one of the things in the Bill that very much seems to ride coach and horses over the idea that the Bill is just an enabling Bill. Obviously, there is a bit of reticence—okay, you could say, “Understandably so”—to career on towards a different type of management on an effort-based system, yet somehow we have a scheme here that has dropped out of the air, with no prior piloting and no prior consultation, and that has just arrived on the table. We are vehemently against it, because we personally feel—and everybody who has read the Bill, both among our membership and in other organisations, feels—that only an idiot who could not understand the practical implications of such a scheme would propose it.

We feel that the scheme is there to administratively abrogate the failings of the current system. The Government are proposing to take all the repatriated resources and use them as headroom to avoid choke species, whereby, as of 2019, vessels have to cease fishing on the exhaustion of their lowest quota. What will happen is that you will have vessels going to sea. Many hon. Members are from the south-west, as the Minister is, and haddocks are a huge problem there—in the North sea, it is hakes. The Government then say, “We will honour the fish that would choke you or would tie you up. We will give you fish to keep fishing, but so that there is no economic incentive to target that species, you must land it for free.” That scheme effectively creates a giant shuttle service, where boats are going to have to run in and out, in and out of harbour, landing all this fish that they cannot profit from, to allow them to keep fishing.

The first big problem with that scheme is retention of crew. Lads are not going to work to retain—well, just now it is a 40% discard rate, so if they have to retain that 40% for free, you are going to lose your crew very quick. The next problem is that there is no provision in the Bill as to what happens to this fish when it is landed: you cannot turn around and allow processors, hauliers, markets or shore-based people to profit from it, because that would disadvantage the fishermen. Really, the logical question about that clause is, “Are we going into some sort of Soviet system, where the fishing industry is going to work for free for the Government?” It is an ill-thought out thing, and I think it needs taking out of the Bill. It needs to come back once it has been properly tested and run in to see if it actually works, because we see such pitfalls in it, and it does not actually—

[The Chair]

We have to move on, sorry. We have to finish at 4 pm and we may have a Division in the House before then, so we have to be quick on questions, or all Members will not get in. Any further questions, Mr Brown?

[Alan Brown]

Q In terms of perverse incentives and the process of making money out of these fish, you said that they would be landed for free. Could there not be a risk of collusion, with fish being landed and processed so that some of that money is recouped?

Aaron Brown: To some extent, that would be difficult now. It would come back to black fish, which were really stamped out through the vessel monitoring system and designated ports legislation, whereby vessels now have to book in three hours in advance and declare their catch. Effectively, the only way to do it would be coming in and mis-declaring that you did not have those fish—because otherwise you would be declaring them, and the Government would know they were there—and taking them up the road. Obviously at the ceiling, you could say, “Well, the tally was wrong.” There is some degree of openness to abuse.

However, the thing that disappoints us most, where our system works but this one allowing fish to come in does not, is that it does not address the fundamental flaw: arbitrary quotas do not work in mixed fisheries. All that happens is that we are now setting an arbitrary target that we try to hit, and all this scheme does is allow you to make it right up to that target. It does not actually tell you, “Is that more abundance of fish?”

In the south-west with haddock, say, or in the North sea with hake, you could lift the quota up—double it—and the fleet would still catch it. Does that tell you there is a greater abundance of species, or does it basically show that you have given more legislative headroom to bring fish ashore? The only way that scheme would work is if you increased the quota disproportionately high, which no one is going to agree to. Since there would be no economic incentive for the boats to go off and handle all these fish that they are not profiting from, you would see where the fleet came up to and what a natural abundance catch was. That might be 60,000 tonnes, but if you had set the quota at 100,000 tonnes, you would know that there was not that abundance. The scheme, effectively, does not work. It needs taking out.

[Bill Grant]

Q I noted that you were very much against the big boys, or the financially powerful, coming in on an auction system to buy up the quotas or the right to fish. Bearing in mind that skippers with smaller quotas or rights to fish sold them on to those people, what is your alternative to that system? How would you make it fair?

Aaron Brown: The way we want to see it is with the auction clause taken out and a direct replacement put in on what we call the 1 tonne to one boat principle, whereby the resource is seen as a national resource and legislated as such. What happens is that all the repatriated resource that we gain under zonal attachment—anything about that is missing from the Bill—that national pot of resources, gets allocated to all vessels in a sea area fairly, equally. For the west coast of Scotland, where we are both from, about 60,000 tonnes of mackerel could be repatriated—worth about £60 million—and about 100 vessels are left there with the capability to go to that fishery, so what you would turn around to say, therefore, is that each west coast fishing boat in the ICES sea area for that stock gets 600 tonnes. That applies across any stock.

What we would like to see with that is, instead of it just being administrated on a spreadsheet like the non-sector is, which ends up with DEFRA just saying that we get 12 tonnes for 12 months, spread out equally over the months, is that that fish can be held in a PO—not monetarily traded, rented, bought or sold, but held in a PO—as a kind of holding vessel to use it at the best time of year, when that fishery may be on, rather than trying to spread 600 tonnes over 10 months. Also, if you cannot use that resource, it goes back into the national pot. We believe that has a huge degree of simplicity to it, legislatively and operationally. It would provide the flexibility for vessels to use that fish at the best time of year and, obviously, it would allow it to be reabsorbed into the national pool. That is what we would like to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As I said earlier, there is an open offer from the Government to add a schedule for Scotland at a later stage of the Bill’s progress, should Scotland wish us to. This area is devolved to Scotland. The Scottish Government have the power to act in this space and they need to make up their mind and decide what they want to do.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

How can the Minister talk about ethical funding when Westminster has stolen £160 million of convergence uplift meant for Scottish farmers? What are the Government doing to replace that up to 2020, and what is going to happen beyond 2020?

[George Eustice]

As the hon. Gentleman will no doubt be aware, the average receipt for Scottish farmers tends to be higher than in other parts of the UK, because Scottish farmers have larger holdings in more disadvantaged areas. We are having this review precisely to address the importance of fair funding in the future.

Fisheries Bill

Alan Brown Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I note the reporting of what Ms Sabine Weyand said. One of the interesting things—again, I alluded to this earlier—is that different Members will have different assessments of the advantages and disadvantages that lie within the draft withdrawal agreement, but it is instructive that the negotiator on behalf of the European Commission, Ms Weyand, felt that she had to sweeten the pill, particularly on fisheries, to get EU nations to sign, because there is an acknowledgment on the part of EU nations that UK negotiators have safeguarded access to our waters and secured our status as an independent coastal state. The initial negotiating mandate of the European Union has not been satisfied in these negotiations with respect to fisheries, but the red lines laid down by our Prime Minister have been defended. It is absolutely critical, without prejudice to any other conversations, to acknowledge that.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

On the powers of the devolved nations, the Secretary of State said during the Vote Leave campaign that one of the Brexit dividends is that immigration powers could be devolved to Scotland. Immigration is crucial to the seafood processing industry and to the fishing boats, particularly on the west coast of Scotland. Does he agree that Scotland should get control of immigration so we can manage our fishing industry?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am grateful to those who work in the fish processing industry, and indeed to those who work offshore, who come from across the world, and not just from European economic area nations, to help ensure that industry is strong. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that our post-Brexit immigration policy will be truly global in scope and focused on making sure this country is an economic success, emphasising that we have taken back control.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker; I appreciate that, as I had already tried to pare down my speech to the 10 minutes suggested earlier.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h -Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil). As he mentioned, he, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who unusually is not in the Chamber, and I have the same consistent issue of access not to EU labour—this is not a Brexit issue—but to the non-EEA labour on which the fishing industry has become dependent over the years.

I welcome this opportunity to speak about the Bill, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s opening speech. The fisheries sector is hugely significant in my constituency of Banff and Buchan. Peterhead is the largest white fish port in Europe, and a little further up the coast is the port of Fraserburgh. They are the two largest towns in my constituency. A little further around the coast is the smaller—but no less significant to its local community—port of Macduff. In terms of tonnage, almost half the fish landed by UK-registered boats is landed in my constituency.

Not just fishermen, but the wider communities around the coast of my constituency and of the UK have lost a great deal over the decades we have been in the common fisheries policy. There has been not only a loss of livelihood, the scrapping of boats and the closure of businesses, but fundamentally a loss of what identifies these coastal communities and the people who live there, who remember what once was. Quite rightly, the people in these communities look forward to making the most of the sea of opportunity presented by our leaving the EU and the CFP.

Everyone who speaks in this debate, and those watching in fishing communities around the UK, are keenly aware that Parliament will soon review the proposed EU withdrawal agreement, the impact on fisheries of which is not insignificant. It is therefore difficult to discuss the Bill without referring to the withdrawal agreement, the outline political declaration, or any new future fisheries agreement. I am very much aware of concerns expressed by fishing interests in my constituency and beyond. I have been reviewing the text of the agreement, as well as taking on board input from members of the fishing community, industry representatives and trade bodies, among a host of various stakeholders. My Scottish Conservative colleagues and I have made our position clear to the Government, and we look forward to working with Ministers to find a resolution to the range of concerns raised.

The variety of concerns can be summed up in two words: timings and leverage. On timings, we will leave the EU in March 2019, and when we do so, we leave the common fisheries policy. That is not a political decision, but a matter of legality—we cannot be in the CFP if we are not in the EU. Likewise, we cannot be in the EU, which would be the position of Opposition Members, and not in the CFP.

The agreement states that we enter an implementation period at that point, with that period ending on 31 December 2020. As others have mentioned, it would be welcome if clause 42 included the phrase “no later than December 2020”, because by that time, we must be in a position in which we have completed our first negotiations as an independent coastal state in time for our beginning to realise the opportunities that that presents for the calendar year 2021.

When we first enter negotiations in December 2020, we must have the maximum possible leverage. We have seen in recent media reports from the continent that EU fishing interests are far from pleased that the text of the agreement makes no mention of retaining guaranteed automatic access to UK waters post Brexit. If we are to have the maximum possible leverage in annual coastal state negotiations from December 2020, we must resist the EU’s demands for any continued automatic access to our waters. As the Prime Minister confirmed in her response to my question on this subject last week, we must not accept the EU’s attempts to link future trade agreements with automatic access to UK waters.

[Alan Brown]

I assume that the hon. Gentleman understands that the trade agreement is equally important. Clearly, it is important that we are able to get products to markets. We talk about everything being in isolation, but we must look at this in the mix, because that helps the whole sector.

[David Duguid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I will get to that point a little later.

The Fisheries Bill itself, and the White Paper before it, has been welcomed by organisations across the industry, including the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. This vital legislation lays the groundwork for the revival of our fishing industry outside the common fisheries policy. It is important to note that, in the event of no deal, the Bill will ensure that all UK vessels can legally continue to fish in our own waters. For example, clause 7 revokes the CFP regulation that allows EU vessels unfettered access to our waters. Clause 8 introduces the common-sense principle that any foreign vessel that wants to fish in our waters must do so on our terms. This is taking back control of our waters, and it is the basis of the British fisheries sector’s revival. Clause 9 covers those UK fishing boats that are required to be licensed, as well as stating those for which licensing will not apply.

Clause 1 defines the fisheries objectives, as many Members have said, and chief among them is the sustainability objective, which ensures that fishing and aquaculture is environmentally sustainable in the long term and managed in a way that is consistent with contributing to the economy and to food supplies. I was going to go through all the other objectives, but as I am pushed for time, I will skip them.

Clauses 9 to 17 set out rules for the licensing of UK and foreign fishing boats—I just want to cover that briefly. Although the devolved Administrations are responsible for licensing boats in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, licences issued by any UK fisheries administration will be valid across UK waters. The UK Government will agree access arrangements internationally and, although each of the devolved Administrations is responsible for issuing licences to foreign vessels in its zone, it is encouraging to know that the UK Government will administer the system, having already been provided with consent by the devolved Administrations.

Clauses 18 to 22 cover the allocation of fishing opportunities, an area on which I would like specific clarification from the Minister. Clause 18 deals with the Secretary of State’s power to determine fishing opportunities. I would appreciate it if Ministers commented on the appropriateness of the Secretary of State setting quotas for lobster or brown crab in Scotland which, I believe, are subject to international agreement. Clause 22 is about the sale of English fishing opportunities. Given that English-registered vessels operate in Scottish producer organisations and vice versa, will the Minister please provide clarification on whether these would be available for all UK vessels?

Finally, let me say something about the future of the fishing industry in my constituency and of fishing communities around the UK. After decades of deterioration within the CFP, we will not see a full recovery overnight. Government support will be required, and this House has previously been assured of that support by the Prime Minister and others

“to secure a sustainable and profitable fishing industry that will regenerate coastal communities and support future generations of UK fishermen.”

I conclude by reassuring the Minister that after we leave the CFP and become an independent coastal state, with all the powers and control that that entails, I will look forward to continuing to work with the Government to deliver that ambition to regenerate not only the fishing industry, but the wider communities and economy for which the “sea of opportunity” will deliver.

Badger Cull

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am surprised to be speaking so early in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing the debate. He said that he is amazed that we are still debating this issue after five years. I must admit that, as I was preparing my notes, the phrase that sprung to my mind—it is a moot point whether Einstein actually said it—was:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

That seems to be what is happening with badger culling. We do not have the scientific evidence to support it, as the hon. Gentleman set out.

The hon. Gentleman correctly highlighted the cost of the cull to date, and the fact that there are cheaper alternatives, such as vaccinations. He also correctly highlighted that the Government have now committed to carrying out some vaccinations in edge areas. However, I would like the Minister to explain how there will be proper controls on that, how the effectiveness of the vaccinations in each area will be compared with the effectiveness of culling, and how the Government will make sure that there is no cross-contamination so that the different methodologies can actually be compared.

It was quite disturbing to hear about the poor practice in Cumbria. My research has highlighted real concerns about the shooting and inhumane treatment of badgers and the suffering that they undergo as a consequence. We need to hear what the Minister has to say about the monitoring of the rules and compliance with them. I also agree with the call from the hon. Member for Derby North for the Minister to say how we will deal with the possible terminal decline of the badger in certain areas because of the level of culling deemed necessary to allegedly eradicate bovine TB.

The UK Government’s initial 10-year randomised badger culling trial was actually terminated, with the independent scientific group that monitored it concluding that it was not effective. There was then a change of Government and the new Government pounced on some of the figures that showed that bovine TB could be reduced and decided to permit the cull. However, the quoted possible reduction of 12% to 16% was over several years, demonstrating that the cull is not effective when measured against the effort required. It seems to me that it was a strange policy choice by the UK Government. It is stranger still that the cull is now a shooting exercise, rather than using a more humane method.

As we heard from the hon. Gentleman, as the years have gone on, the costs have accumulated and cull areas have become more extensive across England and Wales, but the disease still exists. However, proper scientific evidence of the effectiveness of culling does not exist. Culling is being rolled out further, but the evidence, if it exists at all, has not got any stronger. As the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has observed, the fact that culls are being operated so differently from the original trials means there is no way to assess their effectiveness. We do not really have any baseline figures against which to properly gauge them, so they seem a futile exercise.

The independent scientific group set out key parameters that should be followed—having boundaries that are impermeable to badgers to ensure a controlled area, and areas of between 150 and 500 sq km, for example—but those are not being adhered to in the current exercise. Again, independent guidance has not been followed, so we really do not know how effective culling is.

Scientific evidence from Ireland suggests that direct contact between badgers and cattle may not be the mechanism for bovine TB transfer, and that badgers actually tend to avoid areas where cattle are present. That means more work is required on the thesis that it is contaminated environments that allow a lot of the transfer of bovine TB. Clearly, the environment remains contaminated even if badgers are culled. We need to do much more research on that aspects rather than continue the culling exercise.

The UK should be able to assess the cost and success of culling against the cost and success of vaccinations. I appreciate that in recent debates—there have been a number on this issue—Members have highlighted that there has been a shortage of vaccinations at times, but that does not seem to be the case at the moment. There have also been new developments, such as oral bait for badgers, which seems to be more cost-effective. All that ties in with the hon. Gentleman’s call for the Government to conduct transparent cost-benefit assessments and release the data so that we can have confidence and scrutinise what goes on.

Fortunately, the risk of bovine TB in Scotland has historically been very low, and there is no evidence of a wildlife reservoir of bovine TB. In October 2009, Scotland was added to the list of European Union member states and regions that have been declared free of bovine TB. The European Commission attributed that to the success of Scotland’s livestock industry working in conjunction with the Government. The Scottish Government recognise the need for confidence on the issue and have introduced a stringent package of measures, including tissue sampling during farm visits, an epidemiological risk assessment, the tracing of cattle, contiguous herd assessments and the need for two consecutive tests with negative results to retain bovine TB-free status.

That aligns with the RSCPA’s call for better cattle husbandry, high biosecurity and improved testing to mitigate cattle to cattle transmission. Its point on cattle husbandry ties in with what the hon. Gentleman said about the need for strict enforcement of controls on the movement of cattle to ensure that they are not moved illegally, that proper source to source tracing is carried out and that people cannot change cattle tags or falsify records. That is clearly important for stopping cattle to cattle transfer.

I hope the Minister will explain how scientific information will be collated, co-ordinated, assessed and interpreted in a completely neutral manner—neutrality is important—and how relevant expert opinion will be taken where required. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

It is a pleasure to respond to this debate, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing it. I am aware that this issue is contentious. The badger is an iconic species. It is a protected species in our countryside. I completely understand that many people have strong feelings about the policy and the approach we are taking. As I and the Secretary of State have said before, none of us wants to cull badgers for any longer than is necessary. However, to answer his question, the reason why we still have these debates is that the Government are of the clear view that it is necessary to have a badger cull as part of a coherent strategy to eradicate TB. We believe that that is firmly underpinned by the evidence—I will return to that because the hon. Gentleman and others raised questions about the science.

The badger cull is just one part of our wider strategy to eradicate TB. The absolute heart of our strategy has always been regular cattle testing and removal. In the high-risk area, we currently have annual testing; we have four-yearly testing in the low-risk area; we have pre-movement testing; we introduced compulsory post-movement testing; we have radial testing in the low-risk area, where we get a breakdown; and we have contiguous testing in the high-risk area on the farms surrounding a breakdown. All of these measures mean that we are regularly testing our herds and regularly removing reactors to that testing.

Diagnostics, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, are important. We recognise that TB is a difficult disease to fight. It is difficult to detect because it is a slow-moving, insidious disease, and none of the diagnostic tests is perfect. However, one thing we have done is make greater use of the interferon gamma test—the blood test—to remove infection from herds when it is picked up. We are also deploying that test more proactively in areas where the cull has taken place so that we can bear down on infection in cattle. We have also introduced a more severe interpretation on inconclusive reactors to the skin test. Diagnostics are important and part of our strategy is to improve testing. We are supporting a number of initiatives to improve testing, but at the moment we are using the more sensitive blood test in conjunction with the skin test to improve our detection rates.

A number of hon. Members mentioned biosecurity, which is important—biosecurity is a key part of our strategy to eradicate TB. A few years ago, I introduced a new accreditation scheme—the cattle health certification standards scheme, or CHeCS. We encouraged farmers to sign up and to take steps to manage risk to their herd, both in terms of risk-based trading for the cattle that they bring on to their holding and in terms of protecting the herd and their farmyard from badger incursion, for instance using fencing. We recently changed the compensation regime to incentivise farmers to sign up to the biosecurity scheme, meaning that if they do not sign up to it they face receiving lower compensation for cattle reactors that they bring into their herd.

We have always been clear that vaccination, which a number of hon. Members mentioned, could have a role, particularly in the edge area, and possibly as a way of getting an exit strategy from the cull once we have borne down on the population. We have been supporting vaccination pilots in the edge area—the so-called badger edge vaccination scheme, or BEVS, which we restarted this year once vaccines became available again.

The difficulty with vaccination, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) pointed out, is that we have to catch badgers regularly to top up the vaccination. It is not the case that we can inject them just once. Vaccination does not cure badgers that have the disease, so the scheme has limitations, but we have always maintained that it could have a role to assist in an exit strategy. That is why we continue, for instance, to fund work to try and get an oral bait vaccine that we could deploy in the badger population.

[Alan Brown]

How do we measure the vaccination in the edge areas as opposed to culling, which has already been happening? The Government must ensure that they correctly compare two different methodologies and that there is not cross-contamination, as it were, given the movement of badgers.

[George Eustice]

That is a very good point and precisely why we have focused our vaccination efforts in the edge area, where we are not culling badgers. The culls are being rolled out predominantly in the high-risk area where we know the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population is a persistent problem, and are using vaccination in the edge area to ensure that we are not vaccinating badgers only to cull them.

We are also looking at cattle vaccination. We have been developing work to do a so-called DIVA test, which can differentiate TB-infected from vaccinated animals so that it would not affect our trade. Cattle vaccination deployed in the hot spots could help to give immunity to our herds, and clearly cattle vaccination is easier to deploy than badger vaccination, because a herd of cattle can be run through a crush and vaccinated—we do not have to capture wildlife to do it.

Our strategy is incredibly broad. No one single intervention will give us the magic solution to tackling this terrible disease. It is a difficult disease to fight, so we need to use a range of interventions. The badger cull is just one part of our strategy, but there are no examples anywhere in the world of a country that has successfully eradicated TB without also addressing the reservoir, the disease and the wildlife population.

TB was first isolated in badgers as long ago as 1971. In 1974, a trial was conducted to remove badgers from a severely infected farm, with the result that there was no breakdown on that farm for five years afterwards. Between 1975 and 1978, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funded extensive work that demonstrated conclusively transmission between badgers and cattle in both directions. Subsequent work in Ireland reaffirmed that finding. In the Krebs review, which hon. Members cited, it was observed that between 1975 and 1979 TB incidence in the south-west fell from 1.65% to 0.4% after the cull—a 75% reduction.

Subsequently, therefore, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, more extensive work was done in three exercises. One was in Thornbury, where the TB incidence fell from 5.6% in the 10 years before culling to 0.45% in the 15 years after culling, which was a reduction of 90%. In Steeple Lees, there were no breakdowns for seven years after badgers had been cleared. In Hartland, the incidence dropped from 15% in 1984 to just 4% in 1985, which was a reduction of more than two thirds.