Marine Protected Areas

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Member makes an important point about the nature of the equipment and the damage it does to the seabed. I think the Government have made a good start in the process, but there is a way to go.

I want all our marine protected areas to have the same protections that have been introduced to the Dogger Bank. I hope that, after this debate, the Minister and officials will get a move on. The job is not nearly completed. We now have the first four or five areas protected. The Dogger Bank is particularly important, and that is a good start, but every day of needless destruction in other marine protected areas causes more damage to our ecosystems, which will take years and years to restore.

My message to the Minister today, first and foremost, is that we need to get on with stopping these destructive practices altogether. That is why I have particularly focused on bottom trawling. If we destroy the seabed and the habitat of the creatures that live on it, we also deeply damage the food chain for the fish who live there. In doing so, we compound the problem for our fish stocks. To my mind, there is a benefit to the fishing industry in sorting out adequate, proper and appropriate protections for marine life. I do not believe that there are any fishing communities around the UK that want to destroy our fish stocks and create a situation where fishing is unsustainable.

We must prevent the most damaging practices—big industrial trawlers, often coming from continental ports, towing vast mechanisms behind them—simply scalping the seabed and leaving a trail of destruction. We have to take a wholly new approach to managing fish stocks and supporting the industry. As stocks diminish, the industry has had to go further and further afield to stay in business. Our focus therefore must be on helping our fish stocks to recover. Proper protection in marine protected areas is an essential part of that.

If people do not engage in damaging fishing practices and there is only limited scale local fishing, marine protected areas become a breeding ground for new fish. Those fish will spread outside of the protected areas. Fish stocks have shown signs of really recovering in the small number of highly protected marine areas around our shores, and in the waters around them. That approach is beneficial to the fishing industry as well as being of absolute importance to our natural ecosystems. We must step up our approach to restoring the marine environment and managing it well so that both nature and fishing can flourish.

My first ask of the Minister—it is one of a number—is to drive forward with bans on damaging fishing practices in marine protected areas. There really is no reason why that cannot be done in the current Parliament. Let us take responsibility. We have done some great things in government, including taking the legislative framework for nature protection further than it has ever been before. Before we get to a general election, let us be able to say to the country that we have completed the job, that we have provided those protections in the MPAs and that we have done what we started out to do. My message to the Minister is: please, let us get on with it.

We must also take a further step forward and provide even greater protections for our most important waters. As recommended by the Benyon review, I want to see highly protected marine areas around our shores. In such areas, no extractive activity is permitted, and nature can be left to its own devices. In the few areas around the UK where really tough protections have been put in place already, there has been a resultant rapid increase in local marine populations. That has happened only on a very small scale in the UK, but the results have been dramatic. It benefits the surrounding fisheries because if an area’s nature, fish stocks and ecosystems are given a chance to recover, surrounding areas have better fish stocks and healthier marine life. If we look after nature, the benefits work for everyone.

My second request to the Minister is this: let us move to designate our most important ecological areas as highly protected marine areas. If we ban all extractive activity in those areas to help them to recover, we will provide a real boost to the surrounding seas too. I say that fully in the knowledge that we must find a balance for the fishing industry; we cannot just close the fishing industry off from large areas of the waters that it has fished for centuries. However, it is also in the interests of the industry that there are patches where we provide complete protection.

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

The right hon. Gentleman is being sufficiently general in his terms that I do not think that anyone, even from the fishing industry, would disagree with him. However, he may want to look northwards to the experience of the Scottish Government with their consultation on highly protected marine areas. There is a great deal of advantage in hastening slowly in this area. The right hon. Gentleman really must bring fishing, coastal and island communities with him. Otherwise, he will end up doing something that is ultimately counterproductive to fish conservation. If the right hon. Gentleman can demonstrate the benefits in a small number of areas first, there will be more support from coastal and island communities.

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to do this in stages. It is still more important to do this in partnership with the fishing industry and with fishing communities as well. Where there are highly protected marine areas, communities are seeing the benefits. I am not in favour of barging in and saying, “This area of sea that you currently use is closed from tomorrow.” Let us talk to them and work with them to designate areas in a way that works for those communities and for marine life. Let us not approach this on the basis that there should be no more marine protected areas or highly protected marine areas. This can be made to work for both sides.

[Mr Carmichael]

The right hon. Gentleman has to bear this point in mind. He wants to exclude fishermen for rewilding purposes, but fishermen find themselves excluded from other fishing opportunities as well because of cables, pipelines, aquaculture and offshore renewables. It is a salami-slicing effect. Does he agree that if we are to be effective in creating marine protected areas, or highly protected marine areas, we have to look at it in the round, and not just the HPMAs in isolation?

[Chris Grayling]

I accept that we need to look strategically at all our waters to see what the right approach is, but I do not think this is something we can simply not do. The need to protect and restore the ecology around our shores is such that we must take bold steps, although we should take those steps fully aware of the potential impact on coastal communities, and work in full consultation with those communities to identify the best places on which to focus. This is not something we can avoid doing, or even try to avoid doing. We need to step up the pace to provide protections where it is appropriate and most important to do so.