Fishing Industry

Angela Smith Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, which was a Government debate and is now a Backbench Business debate. I join other Members in paying tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) and for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell). The second election campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby in May 1979 was my first election campaign as a party worker.

I take this opportunity to add my tribute to the bravery of our fishermen and those who have lost their lives in an incredibly difficult and dangerous line of work, as numerous Members have said today. The men who work out at sea take huge risks, and too many of them and their families pay the ultimate price.

We all appreciate just how important the fishing industry is to our country, but it is especially important to many of our coastal towns, so let me be clear. We in the Labour party believe that developing and maintaining sustainable fish stocks is not just essential for the marine environment, but is vital for the long-term health of our fishing industry. Labour believes that fishing is a public good which should be treated as such. That means that the Government have an important role in protecting the sustainability of both our fishing industry and the marine environment. We cannot divorce the economy from the environment and nowhere is that clearer than with fishing. Let me demonstrate the point: show me a series of declining fish stocks, and I will show you a declining coastal town.

I grew up in Grimsby, as many people in this Chamber know. As a girl, I witnessed a bustling fishing port—the biggest in the world at that time—and I clearly remember being taken down to the dockside by my father. I remember the numerous trawlers, the sense of busyness, the sense of pride of workers doing something they knew was incredibly important. But I remember, too, the decline as the years of plenty were replaced by years of what looked like famine. The devastation that it wreaked, both economically and socially, was vivid, with areas around the docks, such as East Marsh, suffering disastrous consequences. To this day, East Marsh, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby knows, is one of the most deprived wards in the country. Gone with the fish are many of the food processing plants that lined Ladysmith road when I was young. Findus has gone. Birds Eye has gone, no longer anchored by the town’s status as one of the greatest food towns in Europe.

As the daughter of a former Grimsby fisherman and someone who grew up in a coastal area, therefore, I fully realise the economic importance of activities related to the sea, fishing being a key aspect of all that. I absolutely believe that we need to learn our lessons. We need to understand that sustainable stocks go hand in hand with sustainable fishing and sustainable coastal communities.

The British fishing fleet is now much diminished, but it is still an important source of economic activity and contributes many millions to the UK economy. In 2013, it still directly employed some 12,000 people with a fleet of 6,400 vessels, and it landed some 600,000 tonnes of fish, at a value of more than £700 million. Plymouth, for example, is one of the largest fishing ports in the country—Brixham being the biggest— landing annually some 11.6 million tonnes of fish worth in excess of £13.5 million. It is not enough to reiterate the facts and figures. We need to secure our fishing industry by ensuring its sustainability, and we need to do that by respecting the fact that our fishing stocks are not just there to be plundered without any regard for their long-term survival. We need a plan to deliver both environmental and commercial fishing success.

Of course, the most important tool at our disposal in developing and maintaining sustainable stocks is science—good, credible data that is rigorously collected and rigorously analysed to underpin good decision making. Without good science, it will be very difficult to achieve our goal of securing a long-term fishing industry that is sustainable both economically and environmentally, and an industry that can continue to support our vital coastal communities. So my first question to the Minister today is: how confident is he that the UK can contribute robust scientific data to the European debate about sustainable fishing stocks? Will the Minister inform the House about the impact of Government cuts on the resources available to develop a more robust scientific base to fisheries policy?

If science is key to securing sustainability, we must also fully understand the importance of strengthening the contribution made to the industry by low-impact fishing practices, which are good not only for the environment but for the long-term interests of our industry. As was evidenced in the debate about sea bass last week, we know that our hard-pressed coastal communities secure significant economic benefit from fishing practices that are also less damaging to the environment. As I pointed out, some 884,000 sea anglers in England directly contribute some £1.23 billion to the UK economy. Their activities support a £2.1 billion contribution to the UK economy and 23,600 jobs, so we need to ensure that our plan, working in concert with our EU colleagues, takes account of the need to deliver more low impact fishing practices, and that is the proper context for any debate about quota distribution.

What then, is the Government’s approach to this issue? How prepared are the Government to incentivise the industry to make the switch to more sustainable practices? How hard are the Government prepared to argue in Europe for the conservation measures necessary to deliver sustainable stocks, particularly in relation to action to protect those all-important nursery areas and the spawning areas? How prepared are the Government to use Labour’s Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, and the marine conservation zones enabled by that legislation, to help to deliver industrial and environmental sustainability? Labour is proud of its record on marine protection. Our Act offers a positive way forward, as it makes possible conservation measures, not just in relation to the nought to 6-mile limit but in relation to the 6 to 12-mile limit, because of course it gives the Marine Management Organisation the power to deliver new byelaws that relate not just to UK fishing vessels but to the vessels of all member states that have fishing rights in our waters.

Labour is not just proud of its record; we are clear about our support for continued membership of the EU and the need for positive engagement with it. This is particularly important to fishing. The EU represents the world’s largest maritime territory and is key to delivering a sustainable future. Rather than turning our back on it, as some hon. Members would have us do, we need to be taking our arguments into Europe, making the case for meaningful implementation of fisheries reform, in order to deliver thriving fish stocks and thriving fishing communities. Is the Minister committed to meaningful engagement with our partners in the EU or would he take the route suggested by some of his colleagues and prefer to shout from the sidelines? Reform of the common fisheries policy must bring with it a determination to deliver on the key changes, which as we all know are primarily focused on more regionalisation of decision making, a requirement for quotas based on maximum sustainable yield by 2015 and a ban on discards.

Maximum sustainable yields, as has been illustrated in the debate today, are a key tool for delivering a sustainable fishing future. They offer a way forward both in terms of recovering over-exploited stocks and securing their long-term future. However, it is also right that maximum sustainable yields be based on good science and good quality data, and that these data be correctly applied in the decision making process. This means adopting an approach that is rigorous but pragmatic; 2015 should be the assumed date for implementation of maximum sustainable yields, but we need to recognise that where the case is made scientifically for extending the time available to reach maximum sustainable yields, we should do so.

Fishermen and environmentalists alike are keenly interested in this aspect of CFP and they deserve to know where the Government have got to in terms of implementation. So, will the Minister update the House on how he plans to approach the implementation of maximum sustainable yields? Transparency is the key. Where the 2015 deadline is supported by the Government, give us the evidence for the decision. Where flexibility on maximum sustainable yields is supported by the Government, again, give us the supporting evidence. Our hard-pressed fishing communities and those who are passionate about our marine environment deserve nothing less.

Finally, there is the issue of discards. We know that the deadlines for implementation vary from 2015 for pelagic fisheries to 2016 to 2019 for demersal fisheries. We know that we need to deliver on this principle if we are to make real progress towards a sustainable fishing future, albeit we have had the demand and the argument made today for a more pragmatic approach to implementation. But we know too that, badly implemented, we run the risk of seeing quotas increased for those vessels that practise or have practised discarding, while those vessels that fish more selectively and hence more sustainably risk having their quotas cut in order to achieve maximum sustainable yields. Is the Minister prepared to argue for measures designed to avoid this undesirable and perverse consequence? Is he prepared to make the case for the adoption of more selective fishing practices by those vessels benefiting from quota uplift? In other words, is he determined to ensure that we do not sacrifice the principle of sustainability in an attempt to compensate those who have traditionally indulged in discarding? What will he do to ensure that the integrity of the ban is maintained?

We believe that the interests of the marine environment go hand in hand with the best interests of the fishing industry and of our hard-pressed coastal communities. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) pointed out, we need to develop stronger partnerships with the fishing industry to shape the transition to that more sustainable future. More than anything, we need to be able to use good scientific data to underpin our approach to delivering that future. I await the Minister’s responses to the questions raised with interest and once again thank the sponsoring Members for today’s debate.