EU Membership: Economic Benefits

Debate between Bob Stewart and Sheryll Murray

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

I want to make a short contribution about the effect of the EU on the economic viability of our fishing industry and to congratulate the fishermen who have taken part in the flotilla on the Thames today to make sure we hear where they stand.

Our fishing industry is a ghost of its former self. Before we joined the EU, we had a successful, viable fishing industry all around the coast. I remember seeing fishing boats in south-east Cornwall moored three or four deep along the quayside. I do not see that today. Although fishing is no longer the largest employer in Looe—tourism is—people come to traditional fishing towns and expect to see fish being landed. A highlight they often mention is tasting fish and chips from one of the award-winning restaurants or buying fresh catch from fishmongers such as Pengelly’s in Looe. Where would tourism be without our fishing?

In 1971, just before we joined the EU, we had a thriving fishing industry bringing home millions of tonnes of fish and directly employing over 21,000 people. Last year, it caught about 600,000 tonnes and employed under 12,000 fishermen. According to a report co-ordinated by the New Economics Foundation, there was a 12% fall in the number of fishermen between 2003 and 2013. My late husband, Neil, was one such fisherman. He was forced to fish alone on his boat as a result of economic pressures arising from reducing quotas while still trying to meet the costs of increasing insurance, harbour dues and landing charges, not to mention repair costs and gear replacement.

The report attributes the decreasing employment to a decline in the number of vessels owing to the forced scrapping imposed by successive Governments to meet the artificial targets from the European Commission and to vessels investing in new technology—the latter might be true for larger vessels, operating with several deckhands, but is certainly not the case for small fishermen like Neil. It was a simple economic decision taken because he often could not land and sell the fish that swam into his net. The report also says that the trend of declining numbers of fishing vessels and fishermen is likely to continue.

The report does not mention the declining fish quotas that the EU sets each year. Haddock is just one example. The UK gets 10% of the total allowable catch, while France gets 70%, and the same applies to many other species in many other areas. Would hon. Members go into a bank alongside a French person, each of them with a bundle of notes to the value of £70, and throw £60 into the wastepaper bin, while the French person invests it all? That is effectively what fishermen in Looe are being forced to do today because of the quota share-out agreed by the EU in 1983 known as “relative stability”.

[Bob Stewart]

Everyone in the House knows the sad story of my hon. Friend’s husband. How much increased capacity would the fishermen of Looe get were we to leave the EU?

[Mrs Murray]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I will come to it in a moment.

I will not get into arguments with those who want to remain, further sacrifice this great industry and abandon the economic wellbeing of our coastal fishing towns, which would be disproportionately affected. I cannot say that Neil died as a result of the common fisheries policy, but I can say that it contributed to the economic pressure he felt when deciding to fish alone. We talked about it and decided that it was better that he work alone in less rough water than work in storms to provide for two families.

I say we throw our fishermen a lifeline. Our Fisheries Minister has been to Brussels and seen for himself how little he can deliver through horse trading in the Council of Ministers over proposals put forward by the unelected European Commission. I say, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), that if we vote to leave, the Minister could make the decisions that apply to fishermen in the UK’s 200-mile median line limit.

As someone who has lived and breathed the UK fishing industry for 30 years, I say there are no economic benefits to UK fishermen from EU membership. About 92% of UK fishermen are calling for the UK to leave. I say we throw them a lifeline, vote to leave and take back control of our 200-mile line—80% of the total EU pond. We would not necessarily have to say to member states, “You can’t come and fish in our waters”, but it would be on our terms, not those arising from horse trading among 28 states sitting around the EU table debating proposals from the unelected, appointed, bureaucratic European Commission in Brussels.