Fishing Industry

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for the fishing industry.

I place on record my appreciation of the Backbench Business Committee for making time available for this debate and for bringing it back to its rightful place here in the main Chamber of the House.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues often tell us, rightly, that food security is national security. The focus of our discussions about food security is often what we farm on land, but we should never lose sight of the fact that we are an island nation and we are surrounded by seas which, if managed properly, can provide us with a source of good quality protein that can be harvested in a carbon-efficient way.

The people who work in our fishing industries often do so in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Still too many of them lose their lives in pursuit of our food and we should record our appreciation for what they do to keep us fed. I say “fishing industries” for a reason. Too often, we talk about fishing as if it were a single homogeneous industry, when the truth is very different. Even in my constituency, the issues facing inshore crab boats are very different from those facing the larger white- fish boats, which are in turn different from the issues facing the pelagic boats. Layer on top of that the interests of aquaculture, and we begin to get a sense of the complexity of seafood harvesting and production.

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

As many Members may know, warmer sea temperatures brought unexpected numbers of octopus to the waters around South Devon last year, and my crab and lobster fishermen have seen their catch decimated. They have lost up to 80%, hauling empty pots for weeks on end. That means fleet members are now cancelling maintenance work and having to lay off crew. Our fishing communities desperately need support, whether to enable them to stay in the industry or to help them decommission and leave. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that support is desperately needed from the Government?

[Mr Carmichael]

It is critically important. I heard that for myself from my hon. Friend’s constituents when I visited Brixham not once but twice in the run-up to Christmas. It remains to be seen whether the invasion of octopus will be permanent because of changing water temperature, or whether it is just another of those blips that I think last happened in the 1950s. Whatever the truth of the matter, something has to be done for the industry that is there at the moment when the truth is finally established.

We speak about aquaculture as being all about finfish, but in my constituency and elsewhere the role of shellfish aquaculture is enormously important and deserves more attention, especially as we anticipate the conclusion of a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the European Union.

Fishing is still a predominantly community-based and family-run industry. It may not shift the dial massively in terms of UK-wide GDP, but in those areas where it matters it is nearly always essential. In Shetland, caught and farmed fish account for approximately one third of our local economic product. We have benefited over the years from the presence of oil and gas, and now from a growing visitor economy, but they do not define our community in the way that fishing does. I labour that point because it matters. People would be forgiven for thinking that this is an industry determined to plunder the seas and extract every last living organism from it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fishing is predominantly a family business, and the people working in it want to hand on their business to the next generation. They have more of an interest in ensuring that there is a business to be handed on.

Fishing is an area of Government policy where good co-operation between our Governments makes a difference. That is what the industry needs and expects of us. Sadly, it does not always get it. The recent controversy around the fishing and coastal growth fund illustrates how it is fishers who lose out when that goes wrong. Let us remember that the roots of that fund lie in the decision of the Prime Minister to sign up for a 12-year extension of the catastrophically bad deal that Boris Johnson got us in the trade and co-operation agreement in 2020. Given that the EU was looking only for a five-year extension, it is quite an achievement to have managed to negotiate it up to 12 years. Let us also not forget that the loss of fishing effort traded away by the Prime Minister is worth about £6 billion over the 12-year period at today’s prices. If we were able to get half or even a quarter of that, the fund would never have been necessary.

To my mind, it makes perfect sense for the fund to be administered on a UK-wide basis, as was the case with the previous fund delivered by the last Government. That would, in fact, have been an opportunity for Scotland’s two Governments to work together collaboratively on the delivery, and might have been more reflective of the fact that Scotland’s fleet accounts for more than 60% of the UK fishing effort.

Instead, the Government in Whitehall acquiesced to demands from the SNP Government in Edinburgh to devolve the administration. With devolution, there inevitably followed the application of the Barnett formula, and, as a result, we receive only 8.3% of the fund. Madam Deputy Speaker, I could weep. On one of the rare occasions when they do manage to agree on something, they still manage to do it in a way that works to the detriment of the fishermen in my constituency.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a matter of considerable regret that the Scottish Government asked for the fishing and coastal growth fund to be devolved without first agreeing the mechanism outside the Barnett formula that would reflect the fact that Scotland has a larger share of the fishing industry?

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[Mr Carmichael]

That would have been perfect sense. It was certainly also regrettable that it was said that the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation had asked for this, when they obviously had not. A good, mature working relationship between the two Governments is required, and unfortunately we are just not there at the moment. That may change after May—who knows?

The irony of the fuss created by SNP Ministers about the allocation of the fishing and coastal growth fund was not lost on fishermen in Shetland. As The Shetland Times pointed out, Shetland received only 5% of the Scottish Government’s marine fund, despite the fact that we account for 20% of Scotland’s fishing product. We were assured by local SNP politicians that this was entirely different, as their scheme was “merit based”, which presumably means that we got our quota share only because we were not good enough to get the rest.

The relationship between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations is one thing; more important still is the relationship between all Governments and the industry as a whole. When any Government think they know better than the industry, we know that bad outcomes are just around the corner. Never has that been seen more clearly than when the SNP in Edinburgh, along with their coalition partners the Greens, sought to close down vast areas of fishing grounds by designating them as highly protected marine areas, which was stopped only by the most colossal campaign by industry and community organisations around the coast. It should never have been so difficult to make our own Government back down on measures that were so obviously an existential threat to coastal and island communities.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

My colleague is making some very good points about where Governments are misjudging these matters. Charter fishermen in Torbay are extremely worried that the three-bag limit on pollack could devastate their industry. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government need to monitor this extremely closely to see whether it does have this massive impact on the industry?

[Mr Carmichael]

My hon. Friend makes a relevant point, which goes to the heart of how decisions are made. It is critical that Government are able to take on the infinite nuance and complexity in fisheries management, and that is done by being in the ports and on the quayside, talking to fishermen, processors, auction houses, transporters and all the rest of it.

The signs remain, however, that the same attitude persists in the Scottish Government. Members will have heard me speak before about the difficult situation facing our pelagic fleet as a result of the quota cuts, which are yet to be finalised, from the year-end negotiations. These cuts will put our pelagic fleet under serious pressure. At times like this, it is more important than ever that boats are able to land fish where they will get the best possible price, so the increase in the requirement for pelagic boats to land in Scotland limits unnecessarily their scope to maximise their restricted opportunities. Again, it has not gone unnoticed that nationalist voices in The Shetland Times condemn the change, while in the pages of Fishing News, Gillian Martin MSP stridently supports her ministerial colleagues.

It does not have to be like this. Our fishing fleets around the coast and in our island communities ask only to be listened to and heard by Government. They do a difficult and often dangerous job, and they should not have to contend with it being made even more difficult —and yes, occasionally more dangerous—by the people we elect to serve here and in other UK legislatures.

[Torcuil Crichton]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks about the fishing industry being heard. I hear reports of the SNP saying that Shetland would be listened to if it had a seat at the SNP table. I have a message for Shetland: we in the Western Isles have an SNP MSP, and we have not been listened to for 18 years.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am sure that message that will indeed be heard with some interest in the Northern Isles. We island communities need to learn from the experience of each other.

There are lessons to be learned from the management of fisheries in different parts of the country. Before Christmas, I visited Brixham with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee as part of our ongoing inquiry into fishing and the marine environment, and much of what I heard there was similar to what I hear back in Shetland. In fact, speaking to fishermen around the country, the same issue rears its head time and again: spatial squeeze. The salami slicing of access to traditional fishing grounds as a result of other marine and maritime activities now poses a clear and present danger to the viability of our fishing industries as a whole.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the obstructive nature of some authorities. Does he share my concern about some of the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities? The Eastern IFCA, for instance, has caused grave concern to my fishing constituents in Boston, who are furious about the increasing interference and regulations. It is almost as though they want to stop the whole fishing industry as opposed to enhancing it.

[Mr Carmichael]

I do not know the specifics around the Eastern IFCA, but if the hon. Gentleman writes to me about it, I will see if I can help him out in any way, shape or form. It comes back to my earlier point: authorities have to listen to and be informed by the fishing industry, whatever their locus. By the same token, the fishing industry has to accept that it is not always going to get everything it wants either.

On spatial squeeze, no single demand is unreasonable: the development of offshore renewable energy, aquaculture, marine protected areas, the laying of cables and pipelines, the use of the sea for leisure and doubtless other purposes —the list goes on. At every turn of the wheel, it is fishing effort that is reduced to accommodate something else. The root cause of the problem is that no one holds the ring to look at the whole picture of how our seas are being used. The policy of compensatory MPAs for damage caused to the seas by development done elsewhere feels particularly unjust and illogical.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

Does my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries not think that the marine spatial prioritisation programme, which was introduced last summer, will do exactly the job he is hoping to see delivered?

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[Mr Carmichael]

Well, I hope it will. It remains to be seen. As the hon. Lady knows from working with me as co-chair of the APPG on fisheries, along with our independent co-chair the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), to come up with a fisheries strategy for the whole country—it is that lack of strategy that needs to be addressed—the Government have a bit of a backlog on strategies, and the one she mentions has not even joined the queue yet. That is why we are doing this job: I think any initiative without a strategy is always going to struggle. I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to junk a couple of pages of my speech there.

The House should be in no doubt that if the spatial squeeze on our fishing industry is allowed to continue, we shall soon risk losing its critical mass as a productive industry—that is true in all four parts of the United Kingdom. Once that critical mass is lost, we may never recover it. For the families and communities affected, that would be catastrophic. Fishing families are hard-working and economically productive people. Take away their ability to earn a living at sea, and they will not just sit idle; they will doubtless move with heavy hearts to do something else, somewhere else. That will forever change the nature and character of our coastal and island communities, and not in a good way. I hope that the Government will hear the warning and act before it is too late.

Finally, I wish to raise a concern that is very specific to my constituency: Norwegian access to our local waters. There are, as I speak, big, powerful vessels appearing around Shetland that were not there in the past. We often speak about the North sea fishing area, but in reality, so much of the international fishing effort has become concentrated around Shetland. Shetland fishermen have called on the UK Government to reduce the reciprocal catch limits in the UK-Norway annual bilateral fisheries agreement, but that appeal has not been heard. This is effectively the one major fishing effort in our waters over which we can still have some annual control.

The official preliminary figures show that the Norwegians caught over 22,000 tonnes of demersal fish in UK waters, while the UK caught just short of 9,500 tonnes in Norwegian waters. That is not a fair or balanced deal. We have long held the view that Norwegian access is a good thing for the Shetland fleet, not because there are many Shetland vessels going into Norwegian waters, but because several larger Scottish vessels go, which takes them and their catches away from our waters. That illustrates well the subtleties and complexity of managing effort in shared waters.

A degree of Norwegian access is welcome, but the current agreement and catch limits clearly favour Norwegians at the cost of our fleet. The stats show that Norwegians’ saithe catches in UK waters doubled from 8,000 tonnes to 16,000 tonnes between 2024 and 2025. Saithe, let us not forget, is one of the stocks under pressure. Things are tough enough without a doubling of Norwegian effort on a key stock that is concentrated mainly around Shetland. By contrast, the highest UK demersal catch in Norwegian waters this year has been about 4,000 tonnes of haddock. That is a bit of a disparity, so can I can ask the Minister to give urgent attention to the lowering of the reciprocal cap from 30,000 tonnes a year to 20,000 tonnes a year?

There is a commitment in the agreement to reviewing the cap throughout the year. That is something that fishing industry representatives in Shetland have called for, but now it needs to be tackled as a matter of urgency. In this, I am merely the interlocutor. If the Minister wishes to discuss this with the real experts, she will find them in Shetland. I hope that once the days lengthen a little bit, we may see her there.

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[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for applying for this debate, those hon. Members who supported his application, and the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time on this important subject. However, I regret that the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) used so much of their time to attack the SNP Scottish Government. The plain fact of the matter is that I am elected, as are they, to deal with matters in this place. My advice to them is: if you are so concerned about Scottish matters in Holyrood, please stand for election there.

I want to give some context before I deal with those matters that are relevant to Westminster.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Seamus Logan]

No, not yet. I may allow interventions later, but I want to get to the second paragraph of my speech first.

Fishing is an incredibly important livelihood for many of my constituents. Fraserburgh and Peterhead ports are among the largest fishing ports in Europe in terms of the tonnage and value they consistently bring in. Across Scotland, the Scottish Government’s Scottish sea fisheries statistics show that the value of the Scottish fishing industry in 2024 was £756 million—the highest in the past 10 years. Scotland’s sea area is six times larger than our land area and accounts for 63% of the UK’s exclusive economic zone. It is therefore no surprise that Scotland accounts for the largest part of the UK’s fishing industry, generally representing around 60% of total UK landings by both tonnage and value.

The industry is obviously important to Scotland’s rural and coastal communities; it is a key part of Scotland’s food economy and provides employment all around our coast. The issue of this debate is crucial to my constituents—but, regrettably, the decisions taken by the Westminster Government regarding the Scottish fishing industry are regarded by those constituents as treacherous. First, we had the EU-UK agreement, announced last year, which saw fishing access arrangements extended for 12 years, rather than the preferred annual renegotiation that would have ensured better leverage for fishers. The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described this decision as “disastrous” for Scottish farming and described the UK Government’s view as being that the fishing industry is “expendable”. The Prime Minister said that this UK-EU deal was a “win-win”, but that characterisation is risible.

Then, as if to pour salt in the wound, the £360 million fishing and coastal growth fund allocations saw Scotland receiving just £28 million over 12 years, or just over £2.3 million a year—7.8% of the fund. How on earth is that approach sustainable? It is an unmitigated disaster for Scottish fishers. Trading away access to Scottish waters and refusing to mitigate that policy through the coastal growth fund is simply creating the conditions for the Scottish fishing industry to fail. A sector worth £756 million to the Scottish economy faces changed conditions with no consultation, as Members have acknowledged, mitigated by a pitiful amount from this UK Government.

The Scottish Government were sidelined in the allocation of the coastal growth fund, with the pathetic excuse that they had requested a devolved approach. Now we learn from the Fishing News that the application of the Barnett formula was because of a decision by the Treasury to baseline the marine allocation for 2024-25, rather than ringfencing it. To clear this up for Members who commented on it, at no point did the Scottish Government say that the allocation should be Barnettised; they simply asked for the devolution of the decision making on that fund to Scotland.

[Mr Carmichael]

Well, what on earth did they expect? They asked for devolution. With devolution comes Barnettisation. Is the hon. Member going to stand there and tell us that the SNP Government did ask for the rebasing that we have seen previously? I have certainly never heard that suggested, and we have taken evidence on this in the Select Committee.

[Seamus Logan]

I want to address that now. Under the European maritime and fisheries fund, when we were part of the European Union, the UK received approximately £207 million over six years, of which Scotland received 46%—46%, not 7.8%. That is why Scotland wanted that matter devolved: so that we could properly support the Scottish fishing industry, in the same way that the European Union and the UK did in the past. Why change the approach?

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[Mr Carmichael]

I do not know if the Education Minister from Ontario that you welcomed is still here, Madam Deputy Speaker, but if not, that is unfortunate. Many of my family emigrated to that province in the early 19th century, so it is nice to see some of them coming back now.

I place on record our appreciation for the engagement from various fishing organisations, in the run-up to today and throughout the year. They include the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Shetland Fishermen’s Association, and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations; Mike Cohen and Felix Davies from the latter have been in the Gallery throughout our debate. If that is not an illustration of their determination and commitment, then I do not know what is.

We have had, I reckon, 13 Back-Bencher contributions, as well as contributions from the three Front Benchers. We have covered the usual range of issues, including tax, quotas and spatial squeeze, but we managed to diversify into how to kill lobsters and the reintroduction of eels. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) took us back to the beginning of time. There was a happy contrast between his speech and many that we have sat through over the years that did not take us back to the dawn of time, but made us feel as though we had been taken back to that time.

The Minister gave an impressive list of the asks that she has been given. It will be daunting to address them all, but I encourage her to see that list as a positive, because it shows that there are people in this industry who want it to develop and grow. This is a great industry that can have a great future if we give people the basic tools to get on and make it great. I thank the Minister for allowing us to ventilate the issues today, and I am sure that we will return to the subject in future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government support for the fishing industry.