Fisheries Bill (Sixth sitting)

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion. In this amendment, we have not attempted to prescribe exactly how the dispute resolution should operate nor how it should be established; we have merely said that there should be one. Given that the powers flow from this Bill into the hands of the Secretary of State, it seemed logical that the Secretary of State—whoever that may be—should have the initial responsibility of establishing that mechanism, obviously in conjunction with the other parties involved.

We feel that a firm deadline should be set in the Bill so that these matters are not allowed simply to drift. Therefore, the amendment proposes that the fisheries authority should be required to use the system set out by the Secretary of State in regulations, as soon as it becomes apparent that it will not be possible to have an agreed fisheries statement published by—in this case—1 January 2021. Equally, the date could be set 12 months after the commencement of the Act.

The Minister may try to persuade us that we are perhaps being too gloomy and that the scenarios that we are trying to prepare for are remote possibilities. If he is not inclined to accept this amendment, as I suspect he may not be, it would be beneficial if the Minister explained to the Committee what plans he expects to be put in place if there is a situation where the fisheries authorities are unable to reach an agreement, and that in itself causes a—

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

Further to that point, the Minister said previously that he would be, in effect, the English Fisheries Minister and the Secretary of State. Does the hon. Gentleman have concerns that the English Fisheries Minister is also the arbiter in such a scheme? How would that work out? Would there not be a complete conflict of interests if we were to put the Minister in that situation?

[Luke Pollard]

The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is a valid one, and it relates to the difficulty of having a UK role and English role simultaneously. The importance of creating a dispute resolution system ahead of any dispute happening is that the rules of engagement are already set out if those conflicts and the issues that may arise from people being double-hatted come about. That assumes that the English Fisheries Minister is indeed an English MP and there is not a Welsh or Scottish MP in that role, because that would create opportunities for other types of conflict within that scenario.

We need to get that settled from the outset and that is effectively what the amendment seeks to do. The amendment says, “In the event of there being a problem, how will it be addressed?” It would be good if the Minister set out his Department’s thinking. If there is a scenario in which conflict happens, we need to be clear about how it will be resolved, because fisheries is a very political issue. We know from the Fisheries Councils that there is an awful lot of national bravado, national posturing and national importance in respect of the deal, and the agreement that emerges is a really important one. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister set out how he would address that in responding to the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend is right that is a possible scenario. There could be a multitude of other scenarios where that is a real risk.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he is being very generous.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East said he was looking for a situation that was equitable and democratic. That is motherhood and apple pie to a place such as this, but he was lacking any details of what was being proposed and guarantees that it would not impinge on the devolved Administration, and something that takes into account—as we have talked about before—the asymmetrical constitutional set up that currently exists in the United Kingdom. Yes, we would love to see something that was democratic, accountable and equitable, but at the moment there is nothing on which to hang any of that.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but I disagree. We do not know what the cause of that dispute will be or what form that dispute will take, but we can predict that there will be a dispute of some form in and around the formation of these joint fisheries statements in the future. We also know that at a time when climate change is changing the stock levels in our seas, when there is a real concern about how fishing quota is distributed—between ourselves within the UK, and with our EU neighbours and Norway—disputes will arise. It is inevitable that that will take place.

The summary of the debate we have had so far is that there is a hole in the Bill, which needs to be fixed. Ministers need to be seriously concerned about the fact that there will be a problem here and the relevant Hansard will be dug out. Whether the Minister is still in his place or not at that point—I suspect, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd says, it may come sooner rather than later—we need to resolve this. As a result, we will push this amendment to a division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.