Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateAndrew George
Main Page: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)Department Debates - View all Andrew George's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI will follow up with a response to my hon. Friend’s letter. The Department for Transport is looking at what support may be made available to help with ports. We are considering whether fishermen will be able to receive additional help from the business support fund, which, as I said, is being administered by local authorities, but I am happy to look into the individual cases he raises.
Welcome as the package is, I seek further reassurance from the Minister. Fishermen are having difficulty engaging with the scheme. If they have purchased the replacement pots already, they cannot receive any recompense, and the pots also have to have been lost on land.
On the latter point, I do not think that that is the case, but the Marine Management Organisation might want to see some evidence that the pots have been damaged or lost. In many cases, the MMO accepts a straightforward statement signed by a fisherman. There is an issue with retrospective payment, as the European Fisheries Fund does not allow for retrospectivity and we have had some discussions with the Commission. We are trying to get a better handle on how many fishermen are affected—we think it may be somewhere between 15 and 20 fishermen—so we are looking into this issue, and I had a meeting with officials on it just yesterday.