Fisheries Policy

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I begin by congratulating the hon. Members for South Down (Ms Ritchie) and for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on leading the charge by securing this debate. Colleagues from both Government and Opposition parties have made a number of excellent points, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute further on some of those matters, albeit not on the Floor of the House.

I am also grateful to the many organisations and individuals, some of them with clearly conflicting interests and views, who have taken the time to brief me since I took over this portfolio just a few weeks ago. I add my tributes to the people who work in our fishing industry, and particularly to those we see on television fighting tremendous waves offshore, to those who have died for their industry and to the voluntary organisations that provide such a tremendous service on our seas.

The annual meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council will take place in a little under a fortnight’s time, and it is a key event in the marine calendar. We must make it clear what is in the UK’s best interests when the all-important fishing quotas are examined and agreed by member states. With the changes made to the common fisheries policy in recent years and the continuing assessment of their impact, it is right that we review and understand the issues ahead of the Council’s meeting and make sure that the Minister knows what we, and the communities we represent, believe he should be doing in the best interests of both the industry and the marine environment.

Various Members have spoken about the agreement to reform the policy, and I will speak about discards in a little more detail. It is estimated that discards previously accounted for 23% of all EU catches, or about 1.7 million tonnes of fish, annually. Some fisheries, however, experience a staggeringly high discard rate of up to 90% of catches, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) highlighted. The European Commission has rightly described the practice as “unethical” and identified the problem as

“a substantial waste of natural resources”.

We have heard how, on 1 January 2015, the phased introduction of a landing obligation got under way in an effort to address such waste by outlawing the discarding of fish for all pelagic fisheries. Discard bans for all other species, and all EU fisheries, are due to be phased in over the coming years, beginning in less than a month’s time on 1 January 2016.

That element of the reformed common fisheries policy undoubtedly provides us with a real opportunity to promote the long-term sustainability of fish stocks and the viability of the fishing industry. However, I am aware that the imminent expansion poses a number of challenges, not least because demersal species are largely caught in mixed fisheries. Regrettably, it is highly likely that the next chapter will see additional bycatch and make this phasing in of the landing obligation more complex to implement and monitor than the ban on discards of pelagic species. Although there are various exemptions to mitigate that likelihood, what additional measures will the Government introduce to incentivise the increased use of selective fishing methods, so that we can minimise bycatch and enhance sustainability as the landing obligation is gradually introduced for demersal species? What assessment has the Minister made of the number of fleets that have already adopted more selective measures and, more importantly, the number that have not?

Although the intentions behind a discard ban—to reduce the wasting of our fisheries’ resources and to drive improvements in environmental performance—are welcome, the change to allow the proportion of the total allowable catch originally held back to cover discards to be added to fishing quotas is anticipated to result in an increase in fishing quotas—the so-called “quota uplift.” Although uplift itself should not increase fishing mortality beyond recommended levels, that conclusion is built on an assumption that estimations of discarding are both accurate and verifiable. Were fishing fleets to receive quota uplift and yet continue to discard or high-grade illegally, fishing mortality could rapidly rise beyond sustainable levels and undermine recent improvements.

A report commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature suggests that equipping and installing all fishing vessels in the over-10 metre UK fleet with remote electronic monitoring camera systems and undertaking to review 8% of video footage could cost less than is currently spent on traditional monitoring options in the UK, which account for only 0.1% of the hours fished by the fleet. I therefore challenge the Minister to outline what safeguards he will be seeking on EU-wide monitoring to ensure compliance with the new rules and a level playing field for all member states. I would also be grateful if he told us what thought has been given to providing enhanced monitoring at sea, whether remotely by CCTV or on board by scientific observers, and what plans he has for developing a risk-based approach to monitoring through the development of catch profiles.

On a related theme, it is notable that the reformed policy establishes that decision making in areas such as fixing fishing opportunities must be guided by scientific advice on maximum sustainable yield, a theme raised in some detail by the hon. Members for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), among others. The central aim, as we know, is to implement sustainable management of fisheries while allowing the highest rate of extraction at which stocks can be fished without risking depletion and jeopardising future catches. That is the view of the conservationists and the industry, but I am aware that there are different views on the accuracy of the science, with some arguing for increased rather than decreased quotas.

Overfishing, as we know, is proven to be bad for fish stocks and has negative knock-on consequences for the fishing industry that relies on them and the communities supported by the sector, so the science must be accurate and verifiable. There is all the more reason for it to be so when we consider the October decision of the Fisheries Council to set total allowable catches for 2016 in the Baltic sea that exceed scientific advice in a majority of cases.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), speaking in the fisheries debate last year, affirmed that,

“the interests of the marine environment go hand in hand with the best interests of the fishing industry and of our hard-pressed coastal communities.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 1047.]

I reiterate that sentiment, and I highlight again the need to develop stronger partnerships with the fishing industry to shape the transition to a more sustainable future.

We already know of the increase in marine conservation zones around our coast. Again, co-operative work is needed to ensure that we can conserve while allowing the fishing industry to exist alongside conservation. I am clear that we will arrive at that future only when we heed the scientific advice available and exploit it to develop policies firmly grounded in evidence. While Ministers in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council continue to set limits each December that outstrip the recommendations of so-called experts, despite a commitment to end overfishing by 2020 in the worst-case scenario, that future still appears some way off.

Of the total allowable catches announced for 2014, for instance, 31 of 69 stocks, or 45%, were fished above scientific advice. The UK is a prime offender, having been placed at the top of the EU overfishing league table for 2015 by the New Economics Foundation. I hope the Minister will therefore commit to seeking agreement on fishing limits that do not exceed those levels when he attends the Council meeting in Brussels in 10 days’ time or so, rather than accepting higher limits that risk more severe cuts in the run-up to 2020.

The situation is all the more pressing given that, as the Marine Conservation Society tells me, most stocks in the EU are data-poor. Almost two thirds of demersal stocks in the North sea alone are estimated to be data-deficient, ahead of the implementation of the landing obligation on 1 January. I also hope that the Minister will support a risk-based approach to the management of such data-deficient species in the short term and push for those species to be made a priority for research and assessment. Delaying that process means delaying the benefits of sustainable fishing. If the outcomes of the Council meeting show a lack of ambition similar to last year’s, it will unnecessarily interrupt progress.

We have heard in the debate about the recruitment challenges facing boat owners and their desire to recruit more non-EU workers within a regulated scheme to enforce minimum standards on service, pay and treatment. I am hopeful that the Minister will respond to that in co-operation with his Home Office colleagues. As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and others mentioned, it is sad that so many of today’s young people who might have been mariners two generations ago now shun the sea, preferring a more family-friendly lifestyle. Perhaps if the earning power of past days returned, attitudes might be different and more young people would move into the fishing industry.

Although our industry still supports a huge number of jobs in our coastal communities, those opportunities risk becoming unsustainable as long as small vessels have disproportionately restricted access to the UK’s quota. Many Members have raised that issue in the debate, including my north-east neighbours, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). I look forward to hearing the Minister address Members’ challenging and serious questions on that issue.

I know that Greenpeace is not the flavour of the month for some Members here, but it calculates that small-scale vessels represent more than three quarters of the total UK fleet but have access to just 4% of the UK quota. The remaining 96% is held by larger-scale interests. I am sure the Minister knows that the right decisions at the Council are required to support our coastal fishermen and the communities and jobs that they sustain, but I hope to hear also that he will use the power in his gift to give a fairer deal to smaller boats and open up wider access to the UK’s fishing quota.