Fishing Industry

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Seamus Logan

Thursday 28th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

I absolutely do, and this is one of the reasons why it is so difficult for fishing boats in coastal communities to recruit a crew. For decades, teachers, careers advisers and probably even parents have been telling people, “Don’t bother going into fishing. It’s a dying industry; it’s got no future for you.” When you look at the history of the last couple of decades, you can kind of understand why people say that. I believe that they are wrong, but it is going to take a long time to turn that around.

In the meantime, in order for there to be an industry there for the next generation to be recruited into, I am afraid that we need to take measures now to maintain it. In the short to medium term, that requires a more sensible approach to be taken by UK Visas and Immigration in the Home Office. It also requires the industry itself to step up to the plate and to say, “We understand that the answer to this, in the medium to longer term, lies within our own hands. Here is what we propose to do to make it a more attractive industry for the future.”

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

I apologise for being unable to stay for the whole debate, including the ministerial response at the end of it; unfortunately, travel plans intervene.

On the point that the right hon. Gentleman just made, during the summer representatives of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, the Scottish Seafood Association, Seafood Scotland and the North East Scotland Fisheries Development Partnership all endorsed the need for a better set of visa arrangements, so that we can deal with these post-Brexit labour shortages. Might it be helpful if the Minister agreed to visit the north-east to meet representatives of those bodies to discuss how we can address the labour shortages in a more productive way?

[Mr Carmichael]

I will take this opportunity to address the visa question; I was going to address it last, but we might as well address it now. The hon. Gentleman is right: especially for inshore fisheries, which are those working within the 12-mile limit of the UK territorial waters, the labour shortages are an absolute chokehold. The bigger boats that fish outside the 12-mile limit can take advantage of transit visas. Frankly, that is an abuse of the transit visa system, but it is the only mechanism available to boats to get the crew they need.

In news reports and on television programmes recently, there have been some quite disgraceful examples of the way in which the transit visa system has been abused. There are those in the industry who need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves. They have brought shame on the industry by the way they have mistreated those they have brought in on transit visas—although, to my mind, that also reinforces the need for a proper system of visas to be introduced for what the Migration Advisory Committee accepts is an occupation with a shortage of available labour.

The crux of the problem is that although the MAC designates fishing as a shortage occupation, the Home Office insists on a standard of English language competence that sits somewhere between O-level and A-level—in fact, it is just short of A-level—in the English system. Obviously, some language skills are necessary, but that standard of language skills goes beyond what is necessary. We have had for years now crews from the Philippines and from some African countries in particular who work in our inshore fleets and other fleets with no real safety concerns about their work, so I see no reason why the Home Office should continue to insist on that language standard, which acts as a barrier to the industry getting the crew it needs. If we accept that bespoke arrangements are required for the fishing industry, to insist on a language requirement that goes across all the workforce arrangements makes absolutely no sense to me.