Fisheries

Alan Reid Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on tabling the motion, and congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on allowing it to be debated on the Floor of the House. Fishing is an important subject, and it is important for us to debate it on the Floor of the House rather than, as happened last December, in Westminster Hall.

It is clear that discarding must stop. We must end the practice of returning to the sea fish that will not survive. Discarding fish is not only a moral and environmental issue; it is a needless waste of valuable economic and food resources. It also results in considerable amounts of data being lost to scientists, who are trying to calculate fish stocks accurately in order to inform fisheries management.

As has been emphasised throughout our debate, discarding is not caused by bad behaviour by fishermen. It has been forced upon them by a series of unworkable EU regulations. When calculating annual quotas, the European Commission assumes that a very large percentage of the catch will be discarded back into the sea, but it has no idea of the actual proportion. Various estimates have been made, but they have always had a wide margin of error. Because the discards are not measured, we have no idea how much dead fish is thrown back into the sea. European fisheries are currently regulated by total allowable catches or TACs, but they do not in any way put a cap on catches. They measure and place a cap on landings of fish at port; what is measured is not the amount of fish that are killed, but the amount of fish landed at the port. The system therefore serves to obscure the scandal of discards.

The vast majority of discarding occurs in mixed fisheries. That is because the current regulations are unable to cope with mixed fisheries. The main control of activity is single-species TACs, but that is overlaid with other, complicated regulations, such as catch compositions, days at sea and effort control. These complicated regulations do not mirror the contents of the ecosystem. Fish do not swim around in shoals neatly made up of exactly the same proportions of the different species as laid down by the Commission. The fish are not co-operative; they are caught in very different abundances and combinations from day to day. As a result, the requirement to discard to meet the rules is created.

In pursuit of solutions, there has been a great deal of innovation and experiment. The Scottish fishing industry has led the way, such as through the development of selective nets to let unwanted fish go and “real time closures” to avoid catching such fish in the first place. Although a lot of good work has been done at the local level in many parts of Europe, what has been lacking are Commission initiatives to address the regulatory faults underlying the mixed fishery problem.

There is widespread agreement that regional control is the way forward. Central control from Brussels has failed. The regional advisory councils or RACs are a significant step in the right direction, but they are only a first step. They must develop into decision-making bodies, and common fisheries policy reforms must include allowing the current list of initiatives to be developed and translated into local regulations that best fit local circumstances. All the stakeholders in European fisheries must strive for that.

We must have science-based, long-term management plans that provide a secure and sustainable future for fishing communities throughout Europe and for the environment. The current regulations that force fishermen working in a mixed fishery to discard must be changed, such as by allowing fishermen to match quotas with catches through an improved, transparent system of quota transfers.

If we have better regulation that is determined at a more local level and science-based, long-term management plans, we can make our fishing industry sustainable for both fish and fishermen. If I may conclude by amending a quote by a former eminent Member of this House, we must be tough on discards, and tough on the causes of discards.