UK Sea Bass Stocks

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) on securing this debate and on his excellent speech, in which he outlined his case.

I do not intend to repeat the detail of much of what the hon. Gentleman said. I see my role, as a former Fisheries Minister, as being to stiffen the Minister’s resolve when he negotiates in Brussels in a couple of weeks’ time and with the self-appointed representatives of the commercial fishing sector. I warn him from my experience that if he and the Council do not make tough decisions now, he or his poor successor—perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith)—will have to make much worse decisions in a year or two’s time, as the hon. Member for Meon Valley outlined. It is far better to make tough decisions now. If the Minister caves in to the self-appointed representatives of the commercial sector, our bass fishery will be doomed. I therefore urge him to go to Brussels and negotiate hard on behalf of the fish stocks. In the end, it is the fish that matter for everyone, including the commercial sector if it is to have a future.

I also want the Minister to be aware that in the view, probably of most people in Westminster Hall today, and certainly of most people in the country who have an interest and knowledge in this area, the current proposals by the Commission are not only wholly inadequate but totally imbalanced in favour of the commercial sector and against the recreational sector. One of his first tasks, apart from ensuring that we get much more meaningful and drastic action, is to rebalance those proposals in the other direction.

The Minister will know the value of the recreational sea-angling sector, and not only because his hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley reminded him of it, but because his own Department conducted research into it in 2012; I think I can recall earlier pieces of research into it, too. The Department’s research in 2012 found that the sector’s income for the country was £2.1 billion, it sustains 23,000 jobs, and as I think the hon. Member for Meon Valley said, the VAT receipts alone from the wealth and activity generated by sea angling dwarf the income from the commercial fishing sector. As I said, the Minister’s first task is to rebalance this inadequate plan from the Commission.

The Minister’s second task is to grasp the nettle on minimum landing size. I commend to him an Adjournment debate that was held in the main Chamber in 2007, between the then hon. Member for Reading West—Martin Salter, who was a great champion of sustainable fisheries and the sea-angling community—and my successor as Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw. In that debate, all the arguments about minimum landing size were rehearsed. As the hon. Member for Meon Valley has reminded us, when I was the Minister I took the decision to increase the minimum landing size, to 40 cm as a first step, then to 45 cm after a period of review. Tragically, however, that decision was reversed by my successor who, as is often the case, came under pressure from the very powerful self-appointed commercial fisheries spokespeople.

That was a disastrous decision. If people look at that debate, they will see that the reasons given by my successor as Minister for not proceeding with the increase was that the bass stocks were in decent shape. Well, look at them now. All I can say to the current Minister is, “Please learn the lessons of that mistake and go for an increase in the minimum landing size.” It is absolutely insane that we allow people to catch the vast majority of bass before they even reach spawning size: that is my second message to the Minister.

My third message is to have a look at what I still consider to be the best Government strategy on fisheries published in the past 20 years—a document called “Net Benefits” that was published in 2004. It was commissioned by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in 2002, because of the disaster facing the North sea cod industry and the repercussions, not only on cod stocks but on fishing communities around the North sea. It took two years to develop what I believe still stands as the best long-term fisheries strategy for this country. I commend that document to the Minister and to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, the Opposition spokesperson, if she has not read it already; I hope that she reads it before she gets the job of Fisheries Minister, because it is the best policy document that I can remember.

In that document, the Government at the time said:

“We should review the evidence supporting arguments for the designating of commercial caught species for wholly recreational sea angling, beginning with bass by the end of 2004.”

That document was published in 2004, 10 years ago. Here we are now, with the bass stocks at risk of collapse, and far too little has been done in the meantime.

Consequently, the third thing that the Minister can go away and do is a longer-term thing, which is to have another look at designating the bass fishery as solely recreational. That was a Labour policy 10 years ago; it has got nowhere, and we are now paying a very high price as a result. Incidentally, the “Net Benefits” report was endorsed shortly after its publication by the then Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which also supported re-designating bass fishing as a recreational fishery.

Those are my very short political messages to the Minister. The hon. Member for Meon Valley has done a great job in laying out the detailed case for change, and the challenge that we face. However, my simple message to the Minister is for him to go away, fight for bass and take some radical action, because if he does not do so, he—if he is still in the job—or his successor will have a much tougher job further down the line.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I did set about trying to increase the minimum landing size. I regret that we did not move faster when going through the process of consultation and further consultation, and trying to ensure that this was agreed at European level, because the evidence is all there. When you are a Minister, people tell you that someone cannot be prevented from doing something without enough evidence and judicial review, and that there are threats of infraction, and all the other things. However, I freely admit that if I had my time over again I would steamroller this through and take the consequences, because the consequence now is a crashing stock. The stock will disappear, along with the economic value.

To the fishermen in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), I say this: I have met them many times and I have great respect for them, but they will not be fishing for bass, not because of any decision taken by any Minister of any party, but because there will be none. They have a great future ahead of them exploiting other stocks, such as thornback rays and other things that are prevalent in those waters, but they really will have an economic benefit if they can get the fishermen on their boats to catch recreational bass in future.

[Mr Bradshaw]

It might help the hon. Gentleman if I say a little bit about my experience. In this regard, it was one of those occasions as a Minister where I had to stand up to powerful and well-funded vested interests and to officials. Great as my officials were, I am afraid it was a Minister’s decision against the advice and the will of my officials, and sometimes that is the right thing to do.

[Richard Benyon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that position clear. It is important to listen to advice, but as I say we could still be fiddling when Rome burns. This stock will shortly be gone.

Other hon. Members want to speak. I shall conclude by saying that 80% of bass swim within 12 nautical miles of the coast, so action is needed now. We need action on minimum landing sizes; we need spatial and temporal closures; and we need better protection of nursery areas. Yes, we need a bag limit, but I do not believe that that is a massive issue—whether it is one, two or three—but other technical measures in the commercial fishery are needed. We also need better data so that we can face down the interests that say that this is the wrong decision.

The only way forward for bass is for them to be caught by hand line or rod. Any commercial activity at all should be based on its being a premium, hand-caught resource, in a similar way to mackerel in the south-west and other species: a virtue is made of the fact that those are local and high quality. My frank message to poncey restaurateurs who demand bass the size of the palm of my hand for their fussy customers is, “Get those from aquaculture, don’t get them from out of our seas, because that is destroying a stock.” Actually, their customers will probably mind more about not being able to eat bass in future. I want to see our waters criss-crossed with charter boats taking fat cats out to fish this really exciting stock, putting that money into coastal communities, and see a sustainable source working for this country, not crashing.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

It was the CEFAS report of 2012, which was commissioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, which we will put in the Library. That report concluded that a minimum landing size increase applied at European level could have quite a big impact, but pointed out that, because a lot of fishing mortality is caused by foreign vessels in UK waters, a unilateral, UK-only minimum landing size would not necessarily have the desired effect.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I urge the Minister, in the last couple of minutes, to discuss the designation of bass as a recreational species.

[George Eustice]

I was going to try to cover some of the other points.

First, on the value of recreational angling, I should declare an interest, because my brother fishes bass in Cornwall and regularly lobbies me on bass stocks. Recreational angling has a significant economic value. At the end of last week, I met Charles Clover, the chairman of the Blue Marine Foundation, to discuss its latest report, and we recognise the value of that. What I am sceptical of, though, is having an outright ban on commercial fishing sectors, as has been trialled in Ireland. Anecdotally, there are quite a lot of reports of by-catch in Ireland and of bass having to be discarded because they are a by-catch of other fisheries. Ireland has found that, in the absence of a wider European agreement, just having a total ban on commercial fishing has not been effective.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) talked about me facing down legal advice. I can say that, on this issue, unlike on many other issues in DEFRA, where there is frequently legal advice about European law, I have not come across any particular legal advice that is an obstacle. This issue is much more about the best way to deliver the outcome we want, and although there are difficulties and frustrations in negotiating such outcomes at a European level, we can start by having effective measures at that level, which we can then supplement with our own national measures, and I intend to do both those things.

In the 10 seconds I have left, let me say that we should recognise the role that IFCAs can play. Many already implement their own measures to protect bass. Finally, I will be going to Europe and to the Fisheries Council to get the best deal we can.