Leaving the EU: Fisheries Management

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts
Tuesday 20th March 2018

(6 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Michael Gove Portrait Michael Gove
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My admiration for the hon. Gentleman knows almost no bounds. He is right: the common fisheries policy has been bad not just for Britain, but for fish throughout the European Union. My only hope is that he will not only have an opportunity to see our shared ambition for a Britain outside the European Union fulfilled, but will be able to persuade socialist and progressive colleagues across the European continent to reform their own governance in a way that is genuinely liberating, as he has long advocated.

Brendan O'Hara Portrait Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
- Hansard - -

As I look across at the faces of the Scottish Tories who are once again witnessing the United Kingdom Government betraying Scottish fishing communities, never has the phrase “done up like a kipper” seemed more appropriate. Can the Secretary of State explain to the bewildered fishing communities in my constituency why he has signed them up to what he described nine months ago as the “disastrous” common fisheries policy for a further two years, on worse terms than they are currently experiencing?

Michael Gove Portrait Michael Gove
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Listening to yet another Scottish National party spokesman denying the reality of the SNP’s adherence to the common fisheries policy and attempting to cover it up with a weak pun, I felt that I was witnessing yet another audition for someone to appear on Alex Salmond’s rt.com talk show. It is the combination of bad taste and poor humour that has been exhibited by so many on those Benches.