United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Single-Use Plastics) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could just take up a theme from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, around the leadership campaign that is going on at the moment at the other end of the Palace, and to thank the Minister for intervening in that debate and reminding people, along with his right honourable friend Chris Skidmore, that climate change is a pretty important subject. If it is junked by those candidates, that is bound to have a severe effect not just on our planet and country but probably on the party as well. I hope that he has luck in that mission, but I am doubtful to a degree, unfortunately—and I say that with great gravity.

I intervened only to a certain degree during the passage of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, which was fairly fraught, during the lockdown and the Covid crisis. I seem to remember all sorts of confusion between mutual recognition and non-discrimination and the two being mixed up by a number of the speakers who maybe should have known better. The question that I got involved on was exactly this one, around how we make sure that environmental protections that are part of devolved authorities’ programmes are not overridden by those principles, so they can be enforced within those national boundaries. Therefore, I am pleased by and welcome this SI in making that possible in part, so that environmental protections in the devolved authorities and nations can be enforced and not overridden by imports from other parts of the UK. I very much welcome that.

As noble Lords have said, the reason why this is an issue practically at the moment is that in England, the most populous part of the United Kingdom, we are very much behind the times. Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland are ahead of us in terms of these restrictions on single-use plastics. I understand that, after going through this consultation, the earliest we in England will be implementing similar regulations is April 2023. Although nearer than it was, this is still some time away. Perhaps the Minister can find a way of making that quicker. I would be interested to hear his views on that.

I also understand that there is this strange issue of plastic straws in pubs, which you will continue to be able to use—not that I would, obviously—even when they are banned from retail. I would be interested to understand whether that has been resolved yet.

To me, the bigger issue on single-use plastics is still export. There were a number of areas in the 2019 Conservative manifesto around levies on single-use plastics, particularly around export to non-OECD countries. I have certainly become more and more of the opinion that that should be much tighter—maybe we should even export only to EU or G7 countries. I would be very interested to understand from the Minister where we are on that and the various provisions made in the Environment Act. I remind Members that last year we exported some 770,000 tonnes of plastic waste abroad. Those are staggering figures and reflect some of the figures from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

This is an area where clearly we need urgent action. We should be a leader, not just nationally but internationally, and I look forward to the Minister’s response on where we are on this much broader agenda as well.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing this SI to our attention. I add my support to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about the Minister, and thank him for addressing the candidates to be the next Prime Minister and keeping their feet to the fire on the environment. Although we have had our occasional disagreements in the past, nobody doubts his passion and commitment on this issue. I hope he keeps fighting that battle.

Like other noble Lords, I accept that this SI is becoming necessary following the agreement with the devolved Governments in the Resources and Waste Common Framework. I was grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope; I did not realise we were making history in the way he suggested and that this was the first time an agreement on common frameworks was finding its way into regulation and statute. Obviously, that is something we should celebrate. I thank him for drawing that to our attention.

I will raise one practical thing, which is that the Resources and Waste Common Framework is still referred to as “provisional”. Perhaps the Minister can clarify when that will be a final agreement. I do not have a problem enacting it, but if it is only provisional presumably there is a final sign-off to take place at some point. I would be grateful if he could advise what the process is for that to happen.

As noble Lords have said, it is obviously welcome that all sections of the UK are now taking co-ordinated action to ban the use of certain single-use plastics, as set out in the SI. As I said, I do not have any objections to the SI, but I have a couple of questions about the implications for further actions on plastics. Are the UK Government planning to ban further categories of single-use plastics? We know that it is only a very limited list at the moment. If further single-use plastics were now being considered, would a separate SI be necessary to address the internal market implications of a ban on each occasion as it came on stream?

Secondly, as a number of noble Lords have said, over the last years the relatively slow pace of progress in England has been frustrating. We have heard again today that Wales and Scotland seem to be leading the way on this. Although we understand that it is necessary to consult before taking action, it is frustrating that Defra is doing this in a piecemeal manner and taking so long about it. I hope the Minister can give us some good news on that before we leave today.

Import of Animals and Animal Products and Approved Countries (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I apologise to my noble friend for speaking after her, but I used to chair—until it was abolished—the EU Environment Sub-Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Trees, was an excellent member. One of the things we were really concerned about was that, when we moved out of the EU, we no longer had access to TRACES, which, as the Minister will know, is the main system for controlling biological security in animal and food products. Exactly as the noble Lord pointed out, we have put off these import controls I think three times. Can the Minister clarify how we are substituting the information we had from TRACES and how that now works? Are the Government satisfied with it, and where will we go with it in future while we wait for those biosecurity controls to come in in respect of the EU?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and for the helpful briefing he organised beforehand. I begin by very much echoing the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, about the Government once again delaying checks on food imports from the EU, and the biosecurity and consumer protection implications of all that. I also very much welcome the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on TRACES; we have discussed the issue many times and were always assured that there would be alternatives for TRACES in place, so it would be useful to hear from the Minister whether that is now the case or not.

I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing these proposals to the attention of the Committee and their implications for the loss of parliamentary oversight. The Explanatory Memorandum has set out the changes made by previous EU exit SIs and provides an explanation as to why these provisions are not considered sufficient to deal with urgent cases. We are acutely aware of the ongoing and changing threats to our animal and plant biosecurity, as well as to human health, and the need to have robust measures in place to act swiftly when new threats arise, as the noble Lord, Lord Trees, said. As such, we are sympathetic to the case being made and do not intend to vote against these regulations.

However, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has quite rightly pointed out that, once again, we face the loss of parliamentary oversight on the imposition of these urgent measures. It specifically proposes that the Minister be asked to give an assurance that the regulations will be used only on the rarest of occasions, so I ask on its behalf: can the Minister give an assurance that the powers will be used only on the rarest of occasions?

Following on from this, I have some detailed points which I would like the Minister to answer. First, if our response times because of parliamentary delays have led us to be vulnerable to biosecurity and food safety risks, why has it taken Defra until May 2022 to address this concern? What has been happening in the meantime? Have we left traders and consumers exposed to extra risk because of our inaction? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why nothing has been done before now.

Secondly, in correspondence with the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee about the capacity of the animal disease policy group, Defra responded:

“The expertise, capacity and processes required to exercise the powers in this instrument appropriately are well established within government, and have already been used to effectively control a range of SPS … risks since January 2021.”


If we already have the means to control these risks effectively, does that not rather undermine the need to give the Executive these extra powers? Could the Minister give some examples of the effectiveness of the current control regime to provide some context to this debate? What are the effective control measures? Where were they lacking? Why do we need to give Ministers extra powers? Friends of the Earth has also written in, asking about the independence of the bodies making these decisions. It would be helpful if the Minister could shed some further light on the independence of the bodies carrying out these risk assessments and making recommendations to Ministers.

Thirdly, the correspondence from Defra makes it clear that the new powers will be used to impose import restrictions not just where there was a new biosecurity risk but also to lift existing import restrictions if, for example, a country had successfully controlled an animal disease outbreak. This point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. Can the Minister explain why existing parliamentary oversight cannot be maintained for the lifting of import restrictions? This does not seem to be as urgent as when a new biosecurity threat emerges—where action may be needed in days or, at most, weeks. There would very much seem a role for Parliament in overseeing the lifting of import restrictions and in making sure that the country of import had taken all the necessary action.

Finally, paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum outlines some of the risks of delayed action. It talks about the threat of retaliatory action against exports from Great Britain. It also mentions the threat of intervention by the WTO. The Minister referred to this in his introduction. Can he expand on this concern? I am struggling to understand what these threats are. Can he give a scenario as to how serious this risk of WTO intervention is? From what he said about retaliatory action, are we developing a reputation for responding slowly to biosecurity risks? Is this a real concern about which we should be aware? I am just trying to understand what our competitor or trading nations feel our biosecurity level is and what the threat of retaliatory action is. It would be helpful if the Minister could shed some light on this. I look forward to his response.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am not sure if the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, wants to intervene, but I would like a bit more clarification. Is the alternative to TRACES up and running or not? The Minister talks about it still being developed—is it there? Is it functioning?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for intervening. It sounded rather like work in progress to the extreme; I thought we would be rather further ahead than that.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his usual courtesy in the way he has dealt with this Bill, and for all the information and help he has given us as we have moved through it. I thank all those around the House who have come together to pass a number of essential amendments, including the important amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

Having said that, I hope that the Government will talk to us more about these amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, mentioned, they are very much in line with government policy to protect the marine environment and level up coastal communities. I hope that we can find a way to retain the substance and the spirit of those amendments as the Bill passes through the other place and, potentially, comes back to this House.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very kind comments and for the courteous way in which he has engaged with us, and with our scrutiny of the Bill, throughout its passage. It has been extremely helpful to have the various technical briefings, both with civil servants and in writing; it certainly helped us to raise the level of debate.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, we very much hope that the Government will reflect on the amendments we have passed as the Bill goes to the Commons. They were made in good faith, with the interests of both the environment and our future fishing sector in mind. I very much hope that they are not simply returned to us but used to strengthen the Bill in the longer term.

In the meantime, I reiterate my thanks to the Minister and to all those on the Bill team, who have been very helpful as we have worked our way through the Bill.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much support this amendment. I want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his work in this area. He was a member of my EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, when he really went through this issue of the drawbacks of MSY. I am very grateful for all his work on that, and I wish to show my support for this amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am also very pleased to have added my name to these amendments, and I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has done an admirable job, not only in moving and speaking to his amendments this evening, but in making sure that, throughout its passage, the Bill is based on the best scientific principles. I also think that, in this case, he has made an important argument for using the ICES definition.

We have all been concerned about the different ways in which the established measure of maximum sustainable yield can be misapplied or misinterpreted. It remains the case that there is currently no legal commitment not to fish above MSY in the Bill. The Government also seem to have resisted adding a legal commitment not to fish above MSY because the UK—as we heard in other debates—is negotiating access to shared stocks with other states and do not want their hands tied. This should not be an excuse for inaction.

We remain near the top of the league table for EU member states with the highest percentage of their tack fished in excess of scientific advice. As a start, it is vital that the definition of MSY, set out in the Bill, does not allow further opportunities for dispute. We are therefore very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing us back to the need for a clear definition which puts hard empirical data at the core of the meaning. The noble Lord also rightly highlights that the viability of the stocks should be based not just on reproduction but on other environmental factors.

These definitions are the first step to delivering robust, clear application of MSY, and the contribution it needs to make a truly sustainable fishing policy. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has made a compelling case for these amendments, and I hope that the Minister can confirm his support for them.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, if I may just respond first to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, this amendment does exactly what he asks. It gives priority to environmental sustainability, but the other elements are there as well—so, bingo, we are there. We do not have a Content Lobby, but if we did, the noble Earl would need to go through it.

I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Cameron of Dillington, on their amendments, both of which I put my name to. The irony in this debate is that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, are arguing for the old-style common fisheries policy. What they are asking for is exactly what the CFP did. It gave a range of options to politicians—Commissioners or the Council of Ministers in that bun-fight that happened every December—which allowed fudge in decision-making about future quotas and fishing rights over the next year. They could look at some other objective or reason and decide to take an easy way out, forget environmental sustainability or put it second, third or fourth, and go for a short-term decision on fisheries.

And what was the outcome of that? We have hugely depleted stocks in our own EEZ and globally, because of all those fudge factors. Tell me an organisation that can survive with eight objectives but without anything being said about which is the most important. You cannot do that. You must have some idea of what the priorities are. None of us could run our lives on that basis; it would be impossible.

I come back to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, when he criticised the word “prime”. I did Classics up to O-level—pause for a “wow” from the Chamber—and “primus” means first. We know what “first” means, and it does not push the others aside. We have a first Secretary of State in the Government but that does not mean to say that the other Secretaries of State are all redundant; they are not. It is just giving a priority.

We also know, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said, that if we do not have environmental sustainability first, then everything else falls aside; it just goes away. Sometimes we have zero quotas, as I think the Minister said earlier about my first amendment, and they are dealt with by finding ways around them, either with financial compensation or otherwise. That means those stocks, the health of the industry and jobs in those coastal communities are there for the long term. That is why this is inarguable; you cannot have it any other way than that environmental sustainability has to be a prime objective. That would not get rid of the rest of the objectives; they are in the Bill for us to see.

I want to take a point that has not been mentioned: devolution. We are told by the Government that this House is not competent to amend the Bill because of devolution; we are going through this process for no reason at all because everything in it is devolved. The Government have brought a Bill to us that they may have agreed with the executives but, as I understand it, it has not gone through any of the democratic assemblies or parliaments of the nations. We have been given a Bill that we have to make decisions on. The Government cannot put a gun to our head and say, “Because we have done a deal with the other executives, the Bill can’t change at all”. If the Government hold that view, they should dissemble this Bill, bring an English Bill to this House and let the assemblies and parliaments have their own fisheries Bills. That is the solution. However, we do not have time for that because we need to get this right and we need to do it before the end of the year when we move out of the transition period. All we can do is ensure that the Bill is right and protects the industry and our marine environment for the future—for the long term as well as the short and medium terms—by making sure that the amendment is passed.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am pleased to have added my name to Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and to add our support to Amendment 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. Amendment 2 goes to the heart of our future fisheries policy. It spells out that, within all the other important objectives, the sustainability of our fishing stock is the number one priority. This is a hugely significant prize as we take control of our coastal waters. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, it leaves behind the deals and compromises that were inevitably part of the common fisheries policy, and will put our fisheries on a more long-term assured footing where there will be fish stocks to fish for generations to come. The logic of this is obvious: we all want a thriving and economically viable fishing industry and we aspire to have better managed stocks, enabling a renaissance in our coastal ports and towns. There could be huge new opportunities for jobs and prosperity in this sector. We have other amendments, which we will debate later, that would give greater impetus to new jobs and growth.

However, this economic regeneration will be permanent only if it is based on the certainty of an abundant long-term fish stock. If not, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has asked, how will the trade-offs between the competing objectives be made? Will there be an inevitable skew towards short-term economic pressures at the expense of that long-term viability? In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and indeed as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, says, if you have too many objectives then, quite frankly, you end up with none at all.

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[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I like this amendment very much. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has managed to write out and explain clearly exactly what a bycatch objective should be whereas, in the Bill, there is not so much that and more a breakdown of how it will be achieved. Having said that, I congratulate the Government on their determination to stop discarding and to prevent bycatch or at least ensure that, if caught, it has to be landed and accounted for. That is the positive side, but the definition in the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is a much better one. To make sure that the bycatch objective is actually fulfilled, I hope that the Government will support the amendment on remote electronic monitoring, which the House will probably deal with on Wednesday.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for tabling the amendment and for succinctly and ably addressing the concerns that we raised in Committee about the definition of the bycatch objective in the Bill. We were concerned that the existing wording, which referred to bycatch below minimum sustainable yields being “avoided or reduced”, and bycatch to be landed but only when “appropriate”, lacked the rigour and systematic monitoring of bycatch and discards which the UK Government had agreed. As other noble Lords have said, this issue was explored thoroughly and expertly by the report of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee. It confirmed the case for an absolute ban on discards, but also identified how the policy was being undermined. We believe that urgent action is needed to make a more stringent policy a reality.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has now taken the debate further by seeking to better define the outcome of a bycatch objective. The outcome should be defined not by whether the bycatch is landed or not, but by whether bycatch is reduced using sustainable fishing applications. Obviously we want to drive this down to the absolute minimum. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, this will be increasingly achievable as we harness the advantages of new technology, particularly the application of remote electronic monitoring, which will be dealt with on a later amendment. We should also learn the lessons of the now discredited catch app, which threatened fishers with legal prosecution from the Marine Management Organisation if they failed to record their catch accurately on the app.

We support this amendment, which adds considerable clarity to the need for bycatch objective, and hope that the Minister will feel able to accept it.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful response. We are all looking for the best way to stop wasteful discards. As he will know, that has been campaigned for over many years. We were very pleased when the discard ban was introduced because it felt as though it was finally beginning to address the issue. If we now move away from it, we need to be assured that anything that runs in parallel has equal advantages.

I suppose that I had not quite understood that the scheme would be voluntary, so I assume that it is all still underpinned by the current discard ban and the charging scheme will work only in certain areas and certain fisheries.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I may make an obvious point. It is generally understood that discarding is continuing as it always has done and that there is very little change in fishers’ activity in that regard. Therefore, bringing in a charge will be a greater incentive to them to carry on as they are at the moment. I welcome this initiative but for the scheme to be successful there has to be remote electronic monitoring or whatever on the vessels so that fishers cannot discard at sea. The scheme will work only if that is done; otherwise, it will be an additional incentive to discard.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

That reminds me of a point that my noble friend Lady McIntosh raised. We have had a discussion about the requirements—not only REM but all the ways in which we need to work. We absolutely need to work with industry but we also need to say to it, “It is in your vital interests to work on this area because, in the end, if there aren’t sustainable stocks, there isn’t a sustainable industry”. They are so intertwined. I repeat that, once a scheme is up and running, the existing arrangements for prosecution of overfishing and the issuing of fines remain. This is an add-on, a further tool. There are other countries where it has worked well; this is an opportunity and work is in hand. We want to get the best scheme. It is important that we look internationally to see where it has worked and where it has not so that, when we deploy this, it hits the right target.

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[Lord Teverson]

May I come back on a couple of points? I thank the Minister for his positivity and I am grateful that he points out that the Bill allows financial intervention in terms of selective gear—that is very useful. One of the things that has come out from Select Committee work is that something that is perhaps not tracked by government, and I am not saying that this is easy, is how selectivity is being applied or is increasing. It is one of those areas that is quite important to track, so I just make that point.

I find it difficult to accept the idea that by giving a financial answer to sustainability we will get a rush to fish. Let us get back to the real world. The way it has worked in the past and will do in the future is that there will be, I presume, an annual agreement about quotas for the various fisheries. At that point we will get the dilemma that if we have an extremely low TAC we know that it will be very difficult for certain sectors of the industry, whichever sectors they are. That is the point at which the political compromise will be made and we will say, “All right, that is not sustainable. We have to help coastal communities, so we will fudge the scientific advice and allow that quota to go up.” This amendment would mean that at that annual negotiation we can say, “No, don’t fudge the scientific advice. You have to go by the scientific advice, but we recognise that there is pain in that sector of the fleet and we will find a financial way around it.” The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has often made the point that this has often been used in Europe as an alternative, sometimes quite successfully.

I was in Mevagissey at the weekend, looking at the vessels there. It is the second largest Cornish fishing port, and there was a proud sticker on the side of one wheelhouse saying “Fishing For Plastic.” There are schemes like that, so we are not paying for fishers to sit down with their feet up and enjoy the rest of the year at the taxpayers’ expense. It is a bit like the initiative on elms in the Agriculture Bill that I praised in the past. There are ways of doing it. There is no incentive to rush out to get your quota and then stop: this is about an annual situation. Responding to the positivity of the Minister, I am trying to explain that this amendment does not do that; it is trying to solve the dilemma in a positive way, a way that has been done by other fisheries administrations before. I think it is key to solving the economic issue while making sure that we are able to stick to sustainable fish stocks and scientific advice. I just wanted to make that clear.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made that point extremely well, and I hope the Minister will take it away and reflect on it further. As he says, there are all sorts of sustainability activities that one can imagine the fishers being funded to carry out that are not just straight fishing. If we were being more imaginative in the Bill, we could be more imaginative on those sorts of issues as well.

I want to say something about funding, because the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, quoted the Secretary of State on long-term funding commitments and asked which budget they will come from. I know that the Minister mentioned the spending review, but that is not the same as the commitment that seems already to have been made. I think he said that he would write or give us further information. Perhaps he could do that in writing to say what that longer-term funding will be and how it will be funded in the future. That would be extremely helpful, because that question mark still hangs over this.

I was not convinced. I did not come to bang my drum for Amendment 113 in particular, but the more the Minister tried to rubbish it, the more I got quite defensive about it. For example, in the Bill we have this long list of reasons for funding to be given by the Secretary of State, some of which are quite major and others one might think are not so significant. We are trying to say that collecting the scientific data is as important as them. I am sure that it is. It must be on a par with that because it is at the heart of our sustainability measures. Given that we already have a long list, I cannot see why we cannot add a paragraph (j) to the bottom of that long list.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, my proposed new clause seeks to clarify whether we have sufficient resources to patrol British waters and enforce fisheries licences, an issue we did begin to touch on in previous debates.

Apart from the odd skirmish, we have had a settled agreement on the distribution of fishing rights in UK waters and shared waters in recent times. However, leaving the EU and the common fisheries policy will potentially change all that. We do not know the outcome of the trade negotiations with particular regard to fisheries, but there are bound to be winners and losers—and there may well be bad losers.

We very much hope that the settlement works to everyone’s advantage, but that seems unlikely. The truth is that most commentators expect fisheries to be a highly emotive part of the UK-EU negotiations. I am sure that the noble Lord will seek to reassure us otherwise, but it seems unlikely that UK fishers will see a return to the unconstrained access to UK waters that they were promised in the referendum and beyond. The potential for bad feeling and a sense of betrayal could prevail from a number of quarters.

This brings us on to the resources needed to manage these disputes, which is the issue covered by our amendment. The Minister’s helpful letter following Second Reading described how offshore fisheries enforcement in English waters will be primarily delivered by two vessels operated by the MMO. In addition, the Royal Navy is increasing its offshore patrol vessels from four to eight in 2020, but only two of these would regularly be available to support fisheries enforcement. This does not seem sufficient for what could be choppy waters, and it is not clear whether Ministers consider these numbers sufficient or how they intend to deploy this capacity once the UK is an independent coastal state.

Therefore, we are seeking to require a statement setting out whether the UK has sufficient resources to patrol our waters and to enforce the licences. This includes whether we have sufficient vessels and personnel. It should also clarify what training Royal Navy personnel will be given in this specialist, potentially somewhat diplomatic, enforcement requirement. For example, what orders will enforcement boats be given when interacting with those they suspect of breaching licensing arrangements?

Given the PM’s stubbornness on the transition period, everyone is having to work on an accelerated timeline. We need to be confident that the UK is prepared to take up these opportunities to bring the matter to Parliament. Unless the Minister can offer a guarantee of a debate in the weeks and months to come, it seems we will get clarity only by introducing a statutory reporting requirement as set out in this amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for an excellent and important amendment. There is no point doing any of this stuff if we cannot enforce it, and enforcement on the high seas is one of the most difficult tasks that there is in terms of enforcement of laws and regulations, as we well know.

I absolutely take the noble Baroness’s point—I hope the Minister does as well, although I am sure he does—about the sensitivity of this. If negotiations are difficult, potentially we will have quite angry people on the seas from 1 January. It is important that any incident can be dealt with properly and diplomatically. We saw in the Baie de Seine, back in the latter part of 2018, how a dispute on the high seas quickly becomes dangerous and difficult to control—sense came when the two Governments came together afterwards to sort it out. There are all sorts of tensions there.

The question I particularly want to ask the Minister is about something that came up when the Secretary of State was in front of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee last week. One of the officials there with the Secretary of State said that a lot of the money going into enforcement was part of the Brexit process and therefore temporary. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what sort of budget has been put forward for additional enforcement over the time of Brexit and a potential Australian-style deal at the end of this year. What is the ongoing enforcement funding likely to be? There is too much temptation for the Treasury to be generous—realistic, shall we say—with enforcement funding over the Brexit transition period but thereafter ask Defra for huge economies in enforcement as it has done in the past. Assurances from the Minister, or otherwise, would be very useful at this stage.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, this amendment addresses a running concern in the Bill that Parliament will be precluded from knowing the details of the trade negotiations as they affect fishing opportunities until it is too late to comment or influence the outcome. In his letter to Peers, the Minister referred to future treaties, including a framework on fisheries with the EU needing to be laid before Parliament before it is ratified. We would argue that this is too late for Parliament to have any real influence. As we have previously said, this is a particularly sensitive issue given the promises made to UK fishers, and to the electorate, about reclaiming our share of EU quota as we leave the EU at the end of the year.

The Minister has previously stated that this Bill is intended to be negotiation-neutral, but the reality is that we cannot debate our transition to being an independent coastal state without considering the prospects for a future UK-EU deal on access to our fishing waters. If this Bill is not the right vehicle for parliamentary scrutiny of future arrangements—it appears from what the Minister has said that it is not—then many of us will feel frustrated. It is important to clarify what the alternative is. New subsection (1)(b) proposed in the amendment includes a specific reference to retaining a share of EU quota for distant-waters fishing outside UK limits. This is an aspect of the fisheries debate which has not received as much attention, but it is important for parts of the UK fleet.

We appreciate that the UK position is that we want to reach an agreement with the EU and vice versa. However, if that does not prove possible, the default position is that the UK will unilaterally repatriate 100% of quota for UK waters next year, while potentially cutting off access to EU waters immediately for those who fish those distant waters. This could have a huge implication for the UK fleet, much of which relies on continued access to those distant waters. We do not know whether the Government intend to do this or whether they would negotiate some other form of transitory agreement with the EU. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify the Government’s thinking on this issue.

Meanwhile, I hope that noble Lords will support the amendment. It seeks to give a clearer role for parliamentary scrutiny over these decisions, which could have profound implications for the future of our fleet. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment. If there has been one mistake made since the referendum—apart from the result of the referendum which, of course, is indisputable and I entirely accept—it is that the Government have attempted to exclude Parliament from so much. That has been part of the reason why we have had the three years of turmoil that we have had. It is therefore important that the Government keep Parliament involved or up to date on how these negotiations are working; though clearly Parliament is not looking for the final resolution, those negotiations have to take place in that context.

Last week, I was concerned that when the Secretary of State was in front of the EU sub-committee, he stated that the Scottish Administration—or a Scottish Minister—would not be allowed in the room when the negotiations took place. He was very specific about it: I questioned him and checked what he had said. He said it was because this was not a devolved matter but a matter for the United Kingdom. It was slightly ironic, given the discussions we have had on this Bill. Will the Government reconsider that position, because the Scottish fishing industry is fundamental to the UK fishing industry? This is an area on which the Government ought to change their view. I very much support the amendment and the spirit in which it was introduced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, Amendment 107 in my name follows on from our previous debate about the management of, and criteria used for, allocating future fishing rights, which could be the subject of competitive tender or auction. Without repeating the whole debate, the Minister said in winding up on the previous amendment that consideration is being given to the new quota allocation. She also told the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that there was support for a new entrants’ scheme. If that is the case, my challenge back to the Government is: why can we not include the principles of that in the Bill? If the Bill is for anything, it should be for those sorts of future planning activities. I hope we can find a form of wording that incorporates that in the Bill.

We have addressed our concerns about how any future auctions will be run, and what the consequences would be if they were driven solely by the highest bidder. Our amendment would require regulations made to deliver the auctions to reserve a proportion of the fishing opportunities for the under-10-metre boats. The previous debate sought new opportunities for new entrants to the sector. This amendment more specifically focuses on the smaller-sized fleet.

We have already explained the importance of the smaller boats to the economic and environmental sustainability of the sector. They generally use lower-impact gear and provide more jobs per tonne, but their current share of the quota is limited to around 6% of the total. Yet in the UK, the under-10-metre boats represent more than 70% of English fishing boats and 65% of direct employment, so we should be using this opportunity to boost their numbers and their share of the sector.

This is a central argument in our bid to revive the declining and impoverished coastal communities, and for that to work we need a spread of smaller boats accessing the smaller harbours and ports. This intervention is particularly necessary as the small-boat sector is shrinking every year. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of fishers on UK-registered vessels decreased by 10%. In his letter to noble Lords of 10 February, the Minister explained that the Government were indeed keen to support the under-10-metre vessels. He explained that in England they were already taking steps to ensure that they received a higher share of the reserve quota and that further consideration was taking place on the distribution for this year. That is all fine as far as it goes, but it does not represent the step change necessary to really revive the under-10-metre sector.

Nevertheless, given the Minister’s previous comments, I hope he will support this very modest amendment. After all, all it does is to require the auction regulations to address the issue of reserving a proportion of the auctioned fishing opportunities for the under-10-metre fleet, so I hope he can support it.

Amendments 108 and 109 address our wider concerns about the competitive tendering and auction processes. They rightly raise whether we should take into account the bidder’s impact on the marine environment when allocating new quotas. As we have debated before, these amendments have considerable merit and are in line with our earlier arguments and I hope the Minister will support them.

Amendment 110 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, proposes a new Clause 27. Again, she has taken on the Government’s drafting to a considerable extent. I am grateful for her efforts. She specifies in detail what she feels that the ownership and distribution rights of English fisheries should be. These include quite detailed proposals, but they also keep the competitive tendering and auction principles with which we have some concerns. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness’s explanations for these proposals. It may well be that we will be persuaded at that point. In the meantime, I beg to move Amendment 107.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for putting steel in my backbone again and demanding that this is in the Bill—whereas earlier I sort of retreated a bit.

I am interested in hearing from the Minister how these auction rights will be used. Will they be for all quota or the new quota? I would like to use this opportunity to understand the Government’s specific intention for using these rights in the Bill. How will they do it and when? Will it apply to new quota or all quota? I am unclear, because it all starts with the Secretary of State in May. I would be very interested in understanding what the Government intend to do in the near term.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Grantchester. They are, in the main, probing amendments. They follow on from the earlier group of amendments and concern the scope of powers to amend or depart from proposals in the joint fisheries statement.

As it stands, the Bill allows the fisheries policy authorities to depart from proposals in the joint fisheries statement if there is a change of circumstances. It goes on to say that the changes of circumstances include, but are not limited to, international obligations, actions by a territory outside the UK, scientific evidence, and evidence relating to the social, economic or environmental objectives. Amendments 59 and 72 tighten up that wording so that those are the only reasons for agreeing a change of circumstances, the reason being that quite a wide scope for change is already given in the joint fisheries statement, which is envisaged to be a longer-term planning document rather than one constantly under revision. Therefore, we believe that the original wording is too loose and could allow other, extraneous factors to come into play.

Our Amendment 60, in the name of my noble friend Lord Grantchester, goes one stage further and removes international obligations altogether as a reason for a change of circumstances. Our concern is that the negotiations with the EU 27 and other external coastal fishing areas will be taking place this year and in future years, and those international obligations could be used as a reason to revisit the joint fisheries statement and abandon our commitment to the sustainability and climate change objectives and the other important objectives in Clause 1.

During our debates on the Bill, all noble Lords have been concerned that a good set of objectives in Clause 1 will end up being watered down by the economic pressures of the trade deals and that we will end up back at square one with something not dissimilar to the common fisheries policy, which has, rightly, been discredited. Therefore, we tabled this amendment to explore under what circumstances international obligations might be used as a reason to amend the joint fisheries statement.

Finally, Amendments 62, 63 and 73 tackle the rather vague reason for a change of circumstances being

“available evidence relating to the social, economic or environmental elements of sustainable development.”

We felt that phrase could mean anything. Changes in these elements relating to fishing management will happen constantly. New reports and statistics about progress in these areas will appear regularly. At what point could this be used to promote a review of the scheme, and is this how we envisage it would work? Instead, we have proposed a much tighter phrase, which is to limit reviews of the joint fisheries statement to resulting from

“catastrophic events which have an impact on fisheries management or the marine environment.”

The previous wording of the Bill did not have the reference to changes in socioeconomic circumstances as a reason for non-compliance with the JFC. Instead the Explanatory Notes listed catastrophic events as a reason for revisiting it, so we have taken this wording and added it to this version of the Bill. Does this not make more sense? Obviously we do not want to put a complete straitjacket on the wording of the JFS, but those drawing up fisheries management plans and those employed in the industry need certainty to plan and invest, otherwise there is a danger of constant lobbying to change the provisions and much confusion among those tasked with implementing the plans.

I hope noble Lords will see the sense in what I say, including the Minister. I therefore beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I very much welcome these amendments and support them. I have put my name to Amendment 62, which is about my genuine concern—I will not go over it again at this time of the evening—that somehow social and economic elements will be used to trump a sustainability issue, even if it is not the will of the present Government or of the Minister. It just makes me uncomfortable, and I would much prefer this whole area to be tighter, as with the other amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which she has explained. It is coming back to this area again of ensuring that we do not prejudice the long term by making life easier politically in the short term.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I am sure we will deal with this very quickly: there may be a misunderstanding here. One of the most important things if we are to have a sustainable fishery is that we understand the state of the stocks on an annual basis, as we do at the moment. We have cited many times this evening and on Monday the proportion of the stocks that are or are not meeting MSY within the common fisheries policy. I just want to be assured that there will be something similar each year, certainly for those precious stocks and, I hope, for some others as well—I am looking to the Government to guide me here—so we can understand, as Parliament and as the industry, what the states of the stocks are each year. I cannot understand why this could not be the case if we have any sort of quota allocation or annual international negotiation with adjacent coastal states. I am looking to the Minister to clarify this and to assure me that we will keep that regular feedback on the state of the stocks. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for tabling this amendment. He raises an important point about the need for the most up-to-date scientific evidence on the state of stocks to aid planning and quota allocation. As previous debates established, there are a number of different timescales resulting from the provisions in the Bill and it is important that we somehow manage to mesh them effectively. One of them, the reporting of the state of stocks, is currently a three-year timescale, whereas this amendment quite rightly proposes a timescale of one year.

We feel that there are strong arguments for this. Given that quota negotiations and fishing opportunity determinations are due to be made annually, and they are meant to draw upon the latest and best scientific advice, it makes sense for the stock reports to coincide with this timescale. Given that the Secretary of State has the opportunity to make mid-term revisions to fisheries management plans, access to the latest data would provide the best possible motive for change. We would go one stage further and hope that these stock reports could be officially collated by Defra and the devolved Administrations and made publicly available. Given that we are moving towards real-time stock measurement and given that the scientific processes we are putting in place will be much more real-time and up to date, I do not think that this is too onerous; therefore we support this amendment and hope the Minister agrees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I hope that this will be a fairly brief discussion. Amendment 76 has been tabled to seek clarification about the circumstances in which foreign fishing boats might legitimately enter UK waters without a licence. The kind of circumstances we had envisaged were during a storm, if there is an illness on board or when sailing through UK waters to reach a more distant fishing ground. This topic was raised at a meeting with the Minister last week and we were offered assurances by officials that appropriate international agreements and conventions would trump this Bill in the event of an emergency incident. I hope that the Minister will be able use this opportunity to clarify the conventions, how they would apply in these new circumstances, and the legal advice that he has received in relation to this matter.

We appreciate that the criminal offence set out in the Bill relates only to fishing in UK waters without a licence, rather than using UK waters for transit or an emergency landing. However, presumably it is not unusual for foreign vessels which are not licensed to enter UK waters to cast their nets as close to the EEZ boundary as possible. If a vessel were to be swept off course by changing weather, could that be construed by a patrol boat as unauthorised fishing?

I accept that these are hypotheticals, but there are potentially difficult times ahead for policing our waters. We need to recognise that while we will have robust enforcement in our waters, emotions can sometimes run high when it comes to perceived incursions. It is vital that there be a responsible approach which puts safety first, while ensuring that all foreign vessels understand the implications of the licensing regime we are proposing to introduce and do not flout them without recognising the consequences. I therefore beg to move the amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, this is a really important issue and one that we need to clarify. I am sure that there are international obligations to do this, but I would be very interested to hear what they are. The noble Baroness raises some really important points about the fact that at sea, things can get difficult and emotional. We saw the incidents in the Baie de Seine last year or the year before, so we have to be very clear and careful about some of these things.

One thing I want to point out, which the Minister will be completely aware of, is that we sometimes envision an EEZ where foreign vessels have to stay on one side and British ones on the other; but under international convention, as long as they are steaming and not fishing, they are absolutely allowed to go through international waters. It is important to remember in this debate that it is not all about keeping foreign fishing vessels out of the UK EEZ; they are perfectly entitled to be there, not necessarily in territorial waters but between 12 miles and the median line, or 200 nautical miles. They are entirely allowed to steam through there as long as they do not fish, and we should remind people of that.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her amendment. This again touches on an issue that I am sure we can all agree is of great importance. The Merchant Shipping Act 1995 has special provisions for assisting vessels in distress. These provisions allow for any UK or foreign vessel that is wrecked, stranded or in distress at any place on or near the coast of the United Kingdom or any tidal water within UK waters to receive any assistance required. In addition, Articles 17 and 18 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allow for the right of innocent passage, which applies to all ships of all states, to territorial seas——between 0 and 12 nautical miles—and to the exclusive economic zone, which is between 12 and 200 nautical miles, or the median line. Passage in this instance means navigation through the territorial sea, anchoring or stopping in territorial waters in cases of force majeure or distress or for the purpose of rendering assistance to persons, ships or aircraft in danger or distress.

For example, in poor weather, foreign vessels can stop fishing and shelter behind a headland to escape the worst of the wind and waves. According to the MMO, it is a common occurrence, especially in east and south-western areas and in Northern Ireland waters, to allow vessels safe navigation and passage. Through this existing legislation, we have a duty to provide shelter in our waters and in our ports so that vessels may deal with injuries, replenish their provisions and refuel; and also to allow them safe transit through our waters to reach more distant fishing grounds. Therefore, foreign vessels that need to access UK waters to get to their fishing grounds, or where there is a concern over danger to life or property, will continue to be able to do so. Any further exceptions will be agreed in international arrangements or set out in vessel licence conditions. This is already provided for in Clause 12(1).

I thank the noble Baroness for her explanation, but I regret that the second part of the amendment, which allows the Secretary of State to prescribe other reasons by regulation, is rather broad and potentially could be a catch-all. Additionally, as drafted, the breadth and ambiguity could cause challenges within the devolution settlements, depending on how broadly or narrowly the reasons were interpreted. I believe that the matter that this amendment relates to is covered in legislation already. With this explanation, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this issue, and the Minister for his response. We are flogging the same issue of proportionality over and again with different wording. I was not totally convinced by the Minister’s response. He talked about the need for a balanced approach between all the different objectives. We have already rehearsed the fact that that could lead to an unbalanced approach if we are not very careful, or the wrong objectives coming to the top in the hierarchy, so I am slightly anxious about that. I took it from the Minister’s reply that it would not be appropriate for other objectives that were not already listed to be put in that balance. If that is what he was saying, it is certainly reassuring.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made a very compelling case on the international issues and I am not sure that the Minister managed to unravel it, particularly on the first amendment. There will be a need for us to carry on co-operating with our international neighbours, so I do not see what would be wrong in putting that in the joint fisheries statement alongside all the other tasks that have to be carried out. It is not a minor issue: it will be a major part of the authorities’ functions. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will reflect on that because I think it is worth further discussion. It may be in a slightly different form of words, but that balance—

[Lord Teverson]

I assure the noble Baroness that, in the next group, I will very much take hold of that issue.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

We are rehearsing and repeating some of these debates, but that was very reassuring to hear, and I am glad the noble Lord has taken that on board.

The Minister’s point that we will report after the event, rather than be forward-looking, was well made and we need to reflect on it. I was a bit disappointed by his answer on recreational fishing. It is not just about funding or having access to financial assistance but more about the importance of recreational fishing. As I said to the Minister—and he reflected it back to me—it is a major part of the fishing sector, not a minor part. It employs more people and involves more money and jobs, so to say that the joint fisheries statement should not explicitly take account of that does not feel right to me. Again, we may not have put the amendment in the right place, but I think we can firm it up in some way. I will reflect on his comments in Hansard. It may be another one of those issues that will crop up somewhere else during the course of the Bill. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I was going to speak further to Amendment 34, but the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have said it far better, so I shall resume my place.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 48 in my name, but I also echo the arguments made by other noble Lords. Our amendment seeks to achieve a very similar objective to many others in the group: to maintain stocks of sea fish at or above sustainable levels. We are all, in our different ways, seeking to clarify and firm up the wording which would achieve that. As with some of the other debates, we believe that this is a core principle that should lie at the heart of the Bill.

The objectives set out at the front of the Bill emphasise the importance of sustainability, but this means nothing unless we use the Bill to tackle the scourge of overfishing and bring fish stocks back up to sustainable levels. Of course, as we have discussed before, we recognise that this is not just a UK problem but a global problem. Globally, 29% of stocks are overfished, many of them illegally, or they are unregulated. The Blue Marine Foundation has said that, if these trends continue, the world’s seafoods will collapse by 2048.

This is an opportunity for us to play a leading role globally in addressing this crisis. However, we will only have respect and influence if we are seen to be putting our own house in order. Coming out of the common fisheries policy is an ideal time for us to show leadership on this. Taking more control of UK waters provides a rare opportunity to revisit the scientific data, make a baseline stock assessment, create space for stocks to replenish and reset the dial on how much fishing should be allowed to achieve long-term sustainability. That is why we want to see a requirement not to fish above sustainability levels as a guiding principle running through this Bill.

This should apply equally to UK fishers and foreign vessels given a licence to fish in our waters. Amendment 48 would require fisheries management plans not just to contribute to the restoration of stock levels up to sustainable levels but to go further, by restoring the stock and creating a long-term reserve, so that we can begin to repair the damage that has already been done.

Of course, we recognise that much of the fishing allocation around our shores will continue to be determined through negotiation with our European neighbours, but they have already signed up to the principle of maximum sustainable yield through the common fisheries policy, so they cannot really object if we take a more robust stand on this issue than the negotiations around the CFP have so far delivered.

As we have discussed, we will in due course have new opportunities to fish in UK waters, and this is an area where we could make the most progress. This will be under our direct control, so the benefits can be shared between the recovering fish stocks and the UK fishers who understand that it is in their interest to let those stocks regenerate.

I hope that the Minister will recognise the sense of these arguments and seek ways to incorporate the principles into the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group which I am sure the Minister will be able to bat away quickly and easily. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on his amendment: it is a problem that I thought we would never have, but he suggests a way to resolve it and I am sure that he would make an excellent independent adviser if it should ever arise.

Clause 3(1) states:

“The fisheries policy authorities may at any time prepare and publish a replacement JFS.”


It comes back to trying to make the rules clearer. Can one of the authorities trigger this, or does there have to be a consensus? I look to the Minister for guidance on what precisely that mechanism is.

I always like simplification in life. While I understand what the Bill is trying to do in requiring two fisheries statements, it would be great to have a combined document so that everybody could understand how the policy looks as a whole. That would be terribly useful to the consumers of the legislation; that is, the industry and all the stakeholders.

I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the department came to six years as a review period. We have American presidential elections every four years, the World Cup is every four years, the Olympics are every four years, and fixed-term Parliaments are every five. Why six? It would be better if it was five. Six years seems a long time in terms of marine ecology and fisheries statements. It should be looked at just a little more regularly.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, we have a relatively simple amendment, Amendment 74, in this group. The Bill requires the fisheries policy authorities to produce periodically a report on the extent to which their policies as set out in the joint fisheries statement have been implemented. Where there is an omission, the Secretary of State is required to intervene.

The amendment would require the Secretary of State, if required to produce a report on the policies omitted from the joint fisheries statement, to consult not only the devolved Administrations but a wider group of representative bodies on the content of the report. It is a straightforward amendment which seeks to fill a gap in the consultation provisions made elsewhere in the Bill. The provision in Schedule 1 does not spell this out in sufficient detail.

On an earlier amendment, the Minister read out a list of representative bodies which the department regularly consults, which of course is welcome, and described it as an “expert advisory group”. However, that is different from a statutory requirement to consult at various stages of policy production and review. I hope that the Minister will concede that our amendment would fill a gap in the consultation proposals. Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I hope that she does not just bat it away.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his amendments. As he said, we need mechanisms to address what happens when things go wrong, and he made a good stab at doing that. He made the useful proposal that an independent review could be sought when conflicts over policies and their application arose. I hope that the Minister agrees that those proposals have some merit. The noble Lord’s other amendments touch on the extent to which representatives of the UK fishing fleet should be consulted. Again, that is important. We agree with the proposal but, as in our amendment, would want any consultation extended to a wider group of stakeholders.

The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, relate to the timescale for the review of joint fisheries statements. He proposed a more meaningful review period of five years rather than six. We agree that there is little logic in the six-year timescale. Given that it is assumed that international negotiations will continue to take place annually, it seems far more practical to review and update the joint fisheries statements in a more timely way in line with changes taking place scientifically and the negotiations with the international community. As he said, five years is consistent also with the parliamentary cycle, so there seems to be not much logic for six and a whole lot more logic for five. I hope that the Minister is able to take that on board.

The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, seeks via his amendments to build more flexibility into the production of joint fisheries statements. He may have a point, although I doubt that there would be many occasions where there would not be some need for a review every five or—if necessary—six years.

At the heart of these amendments is a need for proper statutory consultation, meaningful timeframes, the best advice and flexibility. I hope that the Minister will see the sense in the proposals and perhaps take some on board.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I agree that there needs to be far more collaboration. It is the big missing thing in the Bill in many ways. We have a Bill that covers the whole of the United Kingdom. We have devolution in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales but I am concerned that we have no devolution in England despite the fact that the English fishery is diverse—as are those of the other nations—and I have amendments later in the Bill that seek to tackle that in a sensible and not too radical way.

I welcome the spirit of the amendments. They are the basement of what we need but I hope the Minister will take strongly the message that there needs to be consultation and working with not only the industry but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said, the larger stakeholders to make this sector work. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this proposal.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for tabling these amendments, and I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness said.

The noble Baroness raised an important point about consultation, although, as we discussed in the earlier amendments, I am not sure—I think she acknowledged this—that adding it to the list of objectives is the right way to go about it. But the sense of what she is trying to achieve certainly has merit.

A number of the delegated powers in the Bill contain consultation requirements with devolved Ministers and/or representatives of the fishing industry. However, in that respect, the need for consultation is reserved for specific purposes and is envisaged as a one-off, whereas this amendment proposes a more regular and longer-term consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said he thought it was at the basement of the types of consultation we should have but, nevertheless, we agree that there should be more comprehensive regular engagement with relevant stakeholders.

Moving further than the noble Baroness’s amendment, we need to make sure that the different sections of the UK’s fleet—the trawlers and the 10s and so on—are all effectively represented in the process. We need to make sure that the spread of stakeholders is right.

We are not doing very well with this Bill because we keep having to revisit and go back and forth to parts that we have already discussed. We have amendments later in the Bill which deal with the issue of consultation, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has said that he has more detailed proposals with regard to the establishment of advisory boards and so on.

In the mix of all that there is the fundamental issue of consultation, and all these proposals have merit. We will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say on this issue and, when we have dealt with all the amendments we have tabled, we will try to pull together a considered view about the best wording and the best way forward. We would like to get this element of the Bill right and we may well have to come back to it on Report. As I say, we will listen to what the Minister has to say but we may need to pool our ideas to take this issue forward, and we should do so.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much welcome marine planning. I should perhaps declare a past interest as a board member of the Marine Management Organisation, which is responsible for marine planning in England. Last week I talked to Gillian Martin, the convenor of the environment committee of the Scottish Parliament, about marine planning. It is happening in Scotland, too.

I am certainly not advocating this as yet another objective—we have too many already—but it is important that the Bill takes account of marine planning and all the work going on in that field. Today our seas are, to put it mildly, used in multiple ways—for trade, renewable energy, undersea carbon capture and storage, and lots of other areas. I am not sure that the Bill even mentions things such as marine conservation zones, which are part of marine plans and, inevitably, part of the management of the fishing regimes. I would like to think that there was a way to refer to marine plans in the Bill, although not quite in this way.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for tabling these amendments. As she said, they relate to the importance of marine planning and the conservation obligations of the fishing sector.

The Marine and Coastal Access Act is an important piece of legislation, passed in the final years of the Labour Government, of which we are very proud. It already requires the UK and devolved Administrations to prepare marine plans. The point made by the noble Baroness was important: new legislation should incorporate the marine plans where they overlap and apply. With this Bill it is sensible to incorporate them into the joint fisheries statements and the fisheries management plans. We should not risk one piece of legislation overriding the obligations of another: the case for integration is well made.

As marine plans have been with us for some time, there is an argument that they should provide the bedrock on which other policies are built and developed. There is little sense in having marine conservation measures in place if certain protections are at risk of being disrupted by fishing activities authorised under the Bill, so the case for integration is strong.

We have raised previously with the Minister the wider challenge of how all Defra Bills integrate; for example, how this Bill will integrate with the Environment Bill. They all need to interlink and create a bigger whole. I am sure that we will be told that a number of the issues that we raise here will be dealt with in the Environment Bill. We need to make sure that everything is in its place and is interlinked. Everything should be developed as a package. The points made by the noble Baroness about the links between this Bill and marine conservation are well made. As with all these things, it is about finding the right wording and the right place in the legislation, but the principle is one that we should adopt.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I should have made another declaration: I am co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. Obviously, being surrounded by sea apart from the Tamar—which is an even more important boundary with our brothers in Devon—Cornwall has a marine interest.