Fisheries Bill (First sitting)

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

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

[David Duguid]

Q So there is the favourable price that you might get from landing elsewhere, but is there something about the ports or the processing facilities, in Norway for example, that the UK needs to catch up on? Could we do something through the Bill to help improve that? When you mentioned money, I thought you were talking about investment in our onshore facilities as well as the price on the market.

Barrie Deas: Over time, and with rebalanced quotas, there would be opportunities, because of the greater throughput, to look again at all these issues. I am not sure what you could put in the Bill particularly that would be helpful, given that this is a dynamic commercial issue that you are addressing. I certainly think that it is an important issue, but I would have to be persuaded that the Bill is the right place to address it.

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

Q Good morning, gentleman. I do not want to dwell on the date, but I think it will be an important part of our discussions when we come to line-by-line scrutiny. Your suggestion is that the date would be 31 December 2020, which is the currently envisaged end of the transitional period. You are resistant to any idea that we should extend the transitional period. How do you see fisheries management working from 29 March 2019 to 31 December 2020?

Bertie Armstrong: The provisions, as we understand it, are that we will act as a coastal state-designate during that period, participating fully in the coastal state arrangements that will set the catching opportunity for 2021.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q What does that mean in practical terms?

Bertie Armstrong: It would mean that, between now and then, there would need to be the construction of coastal state arrangements that include the United Kingdom as a stand-alone coastal state, and for the United Kingdom to participate in that. This is probably in 2020, but not before.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q That is the December Fisheries Council in 2020 anticipating the conclusion of the transitional period. You say that that is the position as you understand it. Is that on the basis of your discussions with the Government?

Bertie Armstrong: It is also as laid down in the withdrawal agreement. Happen as may, it turned up in a paragraph of the legal advice yesterday, which was not actually advice on what we ought to do on fisheries but was a repeat of what was in the withdrawal agreement.

Barrie Deas: The December Council later this month will be the last time that the UK participates as a member state. The whole apparatus of European decision making will then not apply to us; we will not have MEPs and we will not be involved in any of the decision-making forums. The transitional period is a little bit anomalous and strange, because the UK will be part of the EU delegation to EU-Norway next year but will not be in the room for co-ordination. There is some uncertainty about how that will work in practice, and we need clarity on that. I agree with Bertie that an implication of the withdrawal agreement is that in autumn or December 2020, there will be bilateral or trilateral negotiations with Norway that will set the quotas, quota shares and access arrangements for 2021. That is my understanding.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q That is in 2020, but not in 2019.

Barrie Deas: No—in 2019 we are in the implementation period. It is slightly anomalous that there is a lack of clarity about how that will work in practice. It is governed by a good faith clause for both parties, but it is still uncertain how that would work in practice.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q For the purposes of what would currently be the divvying up of whatever comes out of the EU-Norway arrangements, what is our status at the December Council in 2020? Are we there as the start of a new bilateral—is that how you understand it?

Bertie Armstrong: I know for a fact that you understand this, Mr Carmichael, but there is a point of principle that is worth mentioning. The December Council is something of a distortion of importance, because effectively it takes the pie piece—the amount of opportunity that was agreed in coastal states arrangements for the EU—and, in terms of relative stability, it fiddles about with the details and ratifies them. That will be of no real interest to us in times to come. This year it will be of extreme importance, but in times to come we will be involved in the rather more important division of the north-east Atlantic fishing opportunity. As an owner of a very significant piece of the north-east Atlantic, we will genuinely be at the top table, to use a hackneyed phrase. The December Council is not any form of top table; it is arm wrestling inside the EU for an already settled fishing opportunity.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q We anticipate that this year we will have a difficult December Council, given the science and what we know about North sea cod and other species. In my experience, these years very rarely come along in isolation. I think the anxiety is about how we are able to influence these decisions. The decisions that were made back in 2002 and 2003 about cod stocks in the North sea were central to the prosperity of the fleet. If we are not at the table in 2019 and 2020, how will we avoid becoming the dish of the day?

Barrie Deas: Those concerns have to be there for the negotiations in 2019 for 2020. Science is going to be the basis of the decisions on total allowable catches. There is the good faith clause, but we do not understand the mechanics of how the UK will be consulted as we have been promised. However, 2020 for 2021 is an entirely different scenario: all other things being equal, the UK will be negotiating as an independent coastal state and will carry a great deal more political weight as a result.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q Have the Government ever given you any explanation of why they put us in this position in the first place? They were not going to give in, but then they gave in. Did they tell you why?

Barrie Deas: I think the answer is that a transition or implementation period was agreed to give business a chance to adjust to leaving the EU—

[Mr Carmichael]

Q But why was fisheries put in that?

Barrie Deas: The whole acquis—the whole body of EU law, including fisheries law—applies. As much as we would have liked to sidestep that, the Government made a calculation that that was not available or realistic.

Bertie Armstrong: Clearly the industry was not in the room when that happened. As I understand it, there would have been no agreement and it would have been stuck with four or five nations. Of the 27, half do not have a coastline. These pressures apply to a maximum of 11, but more like four or five, nations—

[Mr Carmichael]

Q So it was in order to get a deal?

[The Chair]

Mr Carmichael, that is your last question. We are all drifting beyond the Bill. We have four questioners and 10 minutes to get them in.

Bertie Armstrong: There is certainly a matter of relevance, although it remains subjective rather than objective. If we become dish of the day, there will be a time when we are a sovereign state with a complete grip on what happens in our waters. It would therefore be unwise for short-term gain to be exacted at that stage, providing that the Government of the day retained their backbone.

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Q Mr Armstrong, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation suggests that you represent every owner and skipper from Solway to Shetland. For the record, could you tell us who you represent and about the diversity of the fishing community in Scotland?

Bertie Armstrong: We represent the 450 businesses that are responsible for most of the quota species. For the non-quota species, a large number of vessels are one handed or two handed. They belong to no associations—that is not being dismissive, but if you are a one-handed fisherman, you do not have much time for politicking. We have the whole of the Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation and the whole of the Orkney Fisheries Association, but not the Western Isles Fisherman’s Association or some of the smaller associations down in the Clyde.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have eight minutes for five questions.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q Paul, I think I agree with you that the work of the POs is much undervalued, and frankly not much understood. Tell us a little bit about the work of POs in terms of trading quota across the different parts of the UK.

Paul Trebilcock: One of POs’ functions is quota management. Part of that involves getting quota to those who need it—fishermen. That can be done through the swaps and transfer mechanism, which has evolved and developed over many years. Those can be swaps involving different quota stocks swapped for those needed. It can be leasing, it can be gifting, it can be borrowing and it can be a form of banking—it is quite a sophisticated and complex, or flexible, way of doing things, which enables it to be moved around to where it is needed, wherever possible.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q What happens if the Administration in one part of the UK, for example, tries to restrict quota trading among other parts?

Paul Trebilcock: At the moment we have the ability to trade across all parts of the devolved Administration quota tonnages on an annual basis, but it is not possible to move the fixed quota allocation units across Administration borders, which hinders business and stops FQAs getting to where they need to be—fixed quota allocation units for stocks off the south-west probably are not needed in Shetland and vice versa. The ability to rebalance that and free that movement would be welcome, but at the moment there is free movement of quota tonnages across the devolved Administrations, which is absolutely essential in getting quotas.

[Mr Carmichael]

Q And the Bill as it stands would allow that to continue free of political interference?

Paul Trebilcock: The Bill as it stands, as I read it, does allow for that. The risk, of course, is that there is the signal towards devolution that means the different devolved Administrations can, I think, as I read it, choose to have their own quota management rules. That is certainly a risk, but it does not appear on my reading to be a high risk. I would hope that all devolved Administrations were trying to work collectively for the benefit of their respective fishing industries and the UK as a whole, so retaining flexibility and restoring the flexibility to move FQAs would be a welcome addition.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Mr Salter, you rightly placed great emphasis on sustainability. Given that in the UK we export most of our fish and export most of what we catch, most of what is consumed comes from places in which as an independent coastal state we rightly have no control over whether things are fished sustainably. Do you see a role for consumer-type markings on sustainability? Should that be left up to the industry or should there be some kind of legal basis so that we walk the walk on sustainability as well as talking the talk?

Martin Salter: I think consumers welcome guidance. It is a matter for you whether you think legislation is required, but when you walk into a supermarket you see a very complicated tapestry in front of you.

We have a very real problem with farmed salmon. Our colleagues from Scotland recognise it as an important industry, but if it were a land industry it would be shut down tomorrow given the appalling levels of pollution. The amount of sewage that is discharged as a result of the Scottish salmon farming industry into pristine marine lochs is quite horrendous. The wrasse that are prevalent around Mr Pollard’s constituency in the south-west are slow-growing fish of very little commercial value—often the first fish that youngsters catch when they go sea angling. They are being shipped live to the Scottish salmon farming industry as a cleaner fish to eat the lice because that is cheaper. That is a double bad whammy. The industry really needs to improve its act—I notice that Norway is moving a lot of its agriculture on to land so that it can deal with the effluent.

I still see an awful lot of people eating Scottish farmed salmon. I am sure Scottish MPs welcome the fact that they do so, but in sustainability terms and environmental terms it is a dreadful product—doubly dreadful because of its impact on sea fish down in the south-west. Perhaps statutory guidance would be welcome, or at least a level playing field in which agriculture was forced to clean its act up as farming practices on land have been forced to do over the years.