Fisheries

Austin Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I have always thought that the best possible way to reform the common fisheries policy was to come out altogether. Before the previous election that was Conservative party policy and I was sorry to see it changed, although it is still a policy to which the Government are attached. They wish to repatriate powers from Europe, and if ever there was a case for doing so it is in respect of fishing, because the blanket command-and-control policy operated from Brussels, with centrally decided political decisions, is not working, cannot be made to work and has to be ended. That means that we have to transfer power down to the regional advisory councils, which have been very successful, having been established only in 2002. They have been a major success but they need powers to allocate quotas, to impose conservation and technical measures, and to enforce those quotas. That means that they must have not only some fast-track powers of implementation, so that the whole thing does not get held up in the Brussels bottleneck, but the finance and staffing to do the job properly.

Therefore, we must, first, fulfil the rather vague aspiration in the Commission’s own document of transferring powers down to the RACs to give them the control of management. They need to work with the producer organisations; they need to involve the industry in deciding and managing its own fate. That is best done through the producer organisations, by giving them power. They have been very good at managing their quotas in their own areas and that power needs to be extended. If we are to have transferable quotas, as the Commission specifies, there have to be transfers within the producer organisations, rather than sales to foreign owners, as happened so much in respect of Spanish vessels. There needs to be a transfer of quotas within the individual POs so that we keep quotas locally. The producer organisations have to play a part, with the industry taking the lead.

We have to point out to the Minister—I am sure that he is aware of this—that the last vestiges of this command-and-control economy are the Commission’s proposals to cut the quotas, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). They are the last vestige of the ancien régime that the Commission is trying for, and they have to be imposed at the December Council. That is because the cuts in the quota that the Commission is proposing do not follow the advice of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. ICES says that there should be no increase in quota, but the Commission has translated that into a 25% reduction, which is ludicrous. So, too, is the other proposal, for which ICES does not provide an analytical assessment of what has to be done, that there should be a 15% cut. If that is passed by the December Council and comes into the process of co-determination with the European Parliament, we could be stuck with that decision until 2014, which would be ludicrous. It would be damaging to the industry and it would leave us with a huge cut in domestic fleets.

The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation—the hon. Member for North Antrim has just concurred with this point—calculates that if the proposed cuts are enforced on the white fish and the prawn fleets in Scotland, they will be able to fish for only four days a fortnight. They will not be able to make a profit and they will be forced to lay up. This will decimate our fleet for a goal that is mistaken and has no scientific basis, so it is vital that the Minister overturns those cuts and opposes further cuts as part of the cod recovery plans. Cuts in quota will mean more discards.

I have two other points to make. One is that we have to accept that all fish should be landed, not discarded. The fishermen can be paid a management fee—the cost of landing and marketing, and no more—but that will allow us to record all the catches actually made. Secondly, we need to end the system of buying quota from poor African countries, which is a kind of fishing imperialism, where huge Spanish vessels are going in, damaging the local industry, crushing the local boats, in many cases, and stopping the recovery. There can be management arrangements to assist people in managing their stocks and to help them, but there should be no buying of quota, at our expense, to crush the local industry. The times are better than how they have been portrayed and the stocks are recovering, but now is the time to take a firm stand and get the powers transferred back down to the regional advisory councils to save our industry.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—