Fisheries Bill (Fourth sitting)

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Exceptionally quick. Thank you.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Q Your report, “A Fair and Sustainable Fisheries Bill”, made a number of recommendations. How much of that has been translated into what we have in front of us? Do you think that the Fisheries Bill represents radical change or preservation of the status quo? Is it a missed opportunity?

Griffin Carpenter: It has been discussed many times that it is an enabling piece of legislation. Many of our policy ideas are not in there, for the reasons just discussed. In my opinion it is a political choice whether you get overly detailed in one area. That is a trade-off, depending on what you want to prioritise now and your trust that it will come in secondary legislation.

We were calling for redistribution of quota. Something I think is missing from the Bill, which was discussed earlier, is commitments to maximum sustainable yield—not just the stock commitment but the flow, so how much you are taking out. Many of us were surprised that was not in the Bill. We would like more focus on inshore fisheries management; those are shellfish stocks that are left out of the discussion on quota.

Also, there is a lack of trust in the fishing industry. The way you build trust is through repeated social interaction. The only realistic way to do that is to have inshore bodies, where all the stakeholders meet together to discuss issues in the inshore waters within 12 miles. Those bodies should be empowered to have jurisdiction up to 12 miles and control the number of pots, and so on.

[Peter Aldous]

Q The right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), when he was Fisheries Minister, fought very hard in the 2015 review of the CFP, and the general consensus was that it was a good deal. One of the main things won was article 17, so you worry me by basically saying that no one takes any notice of it. In transposing article 17 to the Bill, what can we do to give it teeth, so that people take notice of it and it is implemented?

Griffin Carpenter: Exactly. This refers back to the first discussion we had. We as an organisation were one of the groups advocating for article 17 in the CFP. The CFP—people might disagree with this—actually gives quite a lot of power to member states, for better or worse. The EU did not want to say exactly how each member state should allocate its fishing opportunities. It just says, “Tell us how you are doing it. Be transparent and objective about how you are doing it. Is it based on historical catch records? Are you giving more to the small-scale fleet?” and so on. Every member state continued allocating quota as they were. The UK has done some things with unused quota, but never actually referred back to article 17. It was just that the small scale wanted more, so they gave some more.

The problem with transposing that is that it seems like we are missing an opportunity to be specific. Article 17 was vague so that each member state could use their own criteria. Now we are transposing that, but we are the member state—we are one entity—so we can say exactly, especially in the case of England, how we are going to do it, and we can say that right now. It seems strange to transpose something that was intentionally vague so each member state could be specific.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Grant]

Q Moving slightly off the Bill—I am sure the Chair will forgive me as it is connected to the environment—we see birds gathering to migrate across the globe, but we do not see the same movement of fish under the water. What sort of distance do the fish travel as they migrate from place to place? Environmentally, we believe that the temperature of the water is going to increase, so could that increase in temperature alter where the shoals of fish go? Is that going to affect the fishery?

Dr Carl O'Brien: The answer to the first part is that it is very species dependent. Species like North sea cod will live in the North sea, the eastern channel and the Skagerrak. They mix quite happily. Species like mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring travel over very large distances. Species like eels essentially travel around the globe, starting in the Sargasso sea. We have a lot of data that has been funded by DEFRA, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in its previous role, from tagging things like bluefin tuna. We have a lot of data on migration, so we know roughly where fish are moving.

The issue of climate change has two aspects. One is that, as waters warm, you may see a movement of fish. We have seen northern hake move from the southern waters more northerly into the North sea, which is causing some of our fishermen a problem at the moment, with choke issues. The other aspect is that you may suddenly find species that you have never seen before. We are getting reports of cuttlefish, squid and even jellyfish down in the channel. We are aware, through questioning the public, that there is an Asian market for jellyfish, so perhaps some time in the future there will be a market for UK jellyfish. Who knows? We are looking at that as part of this process; we are not focused just on this year’s or next year’ fishing quotas. It is very much about where we might be in 50 or 100 years’ time.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Q I have a question about the discard prevention scheme: we have heard over the last couple of days from representatives from the fishing fleet itself, who think the system will not work, and from environmental groups, which think there is not enough information on how it will operate. Could you tell us how the scheme will be implemented? Given that both the environmental lobby and the fishing fleet have concerns, do you think we should put something in the Bill to make it absolutely clear how it will work?

Dr Carl O'Brien: I am a scientist, not a politician or a Minister, so I do not know how it will work. The thinking behind it is that, as we move towards fully implementing the landing obligation next year, there will be some serious issues with choke species, as the Minister mentioned. My understanding of the discard prevention charging scheme is that you have two options: you either have such a scheme or you tie vessels up. As soon as you have fished your quota, you can no longer go to sea because you will not have the ability to discard, which means you will not have the ability to land quota.

The discard prevention scheme is a way of saying to fishermen, “If you have good ideas for selectivity measures or ways of mitigating large amounts of discard and you want to use those measures, if you catch a small amount of over-quota catch, through this scheme you can be charged and incentivised to carry on fishing.” Where the scheme moves from being an incentive to being a penalty is that if you habitually overfish, there must be a point at which it is a penalty to you and you have to stop doing it. Clearly, you would have to manage quota in such a way that the system can cope with that bit of overfishing. But in principle, it is a good idea.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Q One final question, if I may, which follows on from what Mr Grant said. I was in Greenland recently. There are species that have been caught off the coast of Greenland that have never been recorded as having been there before. I presume that as species move north, species from the south move into UK waters. How fleet of foot is DEFRA in terms of whether our fishing fleet should begin to harvest stocks of fish that are not usually there?

Dr Carl O'Brien: The easiest answer to that is that, in 2003, MAFF created the fisheries science partnership, which is still funded by DEFRA. We asked fishermen for their ideas on specific projects. A lot of the ideas are selectivity measures, but we had a project a few years ago where there was an emerging cuttlefish fishery down in the south-west. The fisheries science partnership was used as a way for the fisherman to work with scientists to see the viability of a cuttlefish industry down there. The problem with cuttlefish is that they come and go. They had a couple of years of quite high catches, but then basically they died away.

There is a strong role for science and industry to work together, because you would not want the industry to gear up for a cuttlefish fishery that will last for only two years. The way we have worked in the past is the way I hope we would work in future. But you are right—if there are emerging new species, there should be a dialogue between the industry and scientists and also Government to see whether you should develop fisheries. In some cases, these will be species that we may not know very much about, a bit like the jellyfish. You would not want to gear up for a high extraction rate of jellyfish without understanding the implications for the ecosystem. There will be other species that feed off jellyfish. If we as humans are removing them from the system, those species will not have access to a food source.

[The Chair]

Three more Members have indicated they want to ask a question, and I want to try to get them in before 3 o’clock.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

Q You referred to the need for co-ordination between marine and land-based planning. Would you say that the same would apply for economic regeneration and a role for local enterprise partnerships?

Dr Amy Pryor: Gosh, absolutely. In the last year or two, some LEPs with coastal areas—in fact, most have them—are starting to look towards the coastal communities, but it certainly has not been that way since the beginning. It was a fight to get them to take notice of the coastal areas and the role that they play. I see a role for LEPs and for coastal partnerships, because they have a lot of trust from the local community and have been around for about 20 years; they pool all the different strengths together. I would like to see more formal recognition in the Bill—perhaps an extra marine planning objective that could actually set out these things. The Fisheries Bill cannot remedy everything, but it could take steps towards providing that integration, which would also achieve the objectives of the 25-year environment plan that the Government are committed to.

Elaine Whyte: To be fair, it is not just in marine planning, but in science. We always find that the science is lacking at local inshore levels. Again, we should be looking to Norway and at our local fleets as reference fleets and get the fishermen working with the scientists to provide that reflexive data that is needed. A lot of planners and other people sitting around the table do not quite understand what is happening. There is a major problem there for stakeholders as well. What we do have around these timetables are a lot of stakeholders; we are very happy to have them, but sometimes they bring their own science and ideologies. What we really need is an honest broker—that is how we can do it through marine planning and through local authorities.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Q This is more to Elaine. Clause 10 is about the power to grant licences. Scottish Ministers and Northern Ireland Departments can do it. The Scottish west coast fishing fleet is in close proximity to Northern Ireland; they fish in the same water for the same stocks. How concerned are you and your members about the possibility of different regulatory frameworks for Scotland and Northern Ireland, and what damage could that do to the west of Scotland fleet?

Elaine Whyte: With the greatest respect to Northern Irish colleagues, who we have fished with for a long time and whom we respect entirely, we are concerned about this, because it is the same stock from the same area. If there are different tariffs and different rules applicable, that will of course impact on our trade and our entire ability to fish. It is a massive concern.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Q Has there been any analysis of what damage that would do to places such as Tarbert or Oban?

Elaine Whyte: No, but there really should be. There is socio-economic work on the marine protected areas going on at the moment, but we really need to look at what we are landing from such areas. Nephrops are the second most valuable shellfish that we have in the whole country and we really have to look at where they are being landed—a lot of them coming from Scottish waters are going to Northern Ireland at the moment.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Q How important to Community Inshore Fisheries Alliance members is keeping current access to EU markets, and is there any analysis of the damage that time delays would have on your ability to export?

Elaine Whyte: As an alliance we are constitutionally and politically neutral. We have always said that and we will work with the best outcomes possible, but we are very worried about market access, as we have said from the start. We are looking at the delays. A lot of people are saying that maybe there will be six months and that that will be a problem. Our fleets could not really handle six months. We are more aligned with the Federation of Small Businesses, in the sense that a month or two would be enough to harm our fleets.

[The Chair]

Amy, do you have any comments on that?

Dr Amy Pryor: I am going to leave that to the Scottish and Irish experts.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

Q I want to come back to something that Elaine Whyte said earlier about the concern that there might be different rules for different parts of the fleet, with Northern Ireland having access to west of Scotland waters, for instance. Could you explain a bit more what your concern is? Obviously, the Bill is trying to resolve quite a difficult tension, which is that fisheries is a devolved matter, yet it is also highly affected by international negotiations, which are reserved. The way it does that is by giving each Administration the ability, through clause 10, to have licence conditions, but then separate to that, in clause 31 and schedule 6, it gives the Administrations the ability to set their own technical conservation measures, so if they wanted to have a closure, for instance, that would apply to everyone, whether or not it was on the vessel licence. There are two means of doing it, and I think the Bill squares that rather difficult circle through that means.

Elaine Whyte: It potentially does, but it does not square the tariff issue, so that is something that we would still have a concern about. Some of our members have mentioned the issue of nomadic rights, and of course we understand that, but we always think that there should be some link to the coastal communities around about. They should not be disadvantaged by lack of access to their own stocks, in a sense, as well. That is important to us domestically as well as between different countries and the UK.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Q Mr Grant said, and I think we would all agree, that we hope to see young men and women from throughout Scotland going into a revived indigenous fishing industry, but we need to have an industry there for them to go into. How do we bridge that gap? Who will crew the boats and the fish processing plants while we wait for that throughput? Given the geography of the west of Scotland in particular, the inshore fishing fleet is now at a critical point, is it not?

Elaine Whyte: Yes, it is. We have some boats that are about 60 years old, which is not right, so we have to look at how we can help our infrastructure. There are ways to do that. The Western Isles had a very good boat-building scheme, which was very low-risk and allowed people to come in. We need to start building up those facilities along the coast. I would say that we need that not just on the west coast but all around the coast.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Q But, particularly on the west coast, how do we crew or keep that—

Elaine Whyte: We have a gap at the moment, and we have to make sure we are getting skilled workers in from wherever they come from. I would say that we are working towards a long-term domestic policy through marketing. I would use the example of Denmark again and say that, 10 years from now, that is what we should have. For now, we have to be realistic and make sure we have got people there to teach the new guys coming up.

Dr Amy Pryor: Can I add something to that? Certainly within the south-west and the south-east, fishermen have told us that there are plenty of skilled crewmen out there, but they move around a lot. They go where the opportunity is. Something as simple as a database that tells young fishermen where there is a fishing opportunity, and for how long, would go a long way towards filling those gaps and making it a bit more attractive to be a nomadic land-based fisherman going between different fishing communities to fill those holes.

[Mr Sweeney]

Q I would just like to ask for your view of the grant system offered in the Bill. Do you think it may support smaller fishermen, particularly when we are looking at fleet renewal and the potential industrial benefit to the UK? Do you think it is an opportunity? Do you think it needs better definition, or is it too vague?

Dr Amy Pryor: I personally think it is a bit too vague at the moment. The examples that we have had through the European fisheries fund and the European maritime fisheries fund have gone a long way to enabling fishing communities—especially the community-led local development mechanism and fisheries local action groups. Where they have worked well, they have worked extremely well. They have had a huge impact and have gone on to bring millions in investment into the local economy, benefiting the whole coastal community. As an enabling Bill that says, “We are committing to provide financial assistance,” it is great, but it could be a lot more prescriptive and detailed. It could break that down and really represent the different sectors of the wider coastal community, as well as the fisheries.

Elaine Whyte: I would add that it is important that we somehow define fisheries through this, because I know a lot of instances where fisheries funds have been used for something that fishermen on the ground have probably never had any benefit from. It is good that we consider who the stakeholders are, how we want this to be used and whether fishermen will ultimately get the benefit of it. It is particularly important at a time when there is a lot of money coming into the fisheries policy sector from environment non-governmental organisations and charities and whatnot—I counted about £4 million into Scotland in the last couple of months for people influencing fisheries policy. We need to be enabling our fishermen to do something positive.