Leaving the EU: Fishing

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Sheryll Murray

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I welcome the Minister to his place. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing this debate, which gives Members another opportunity to raise their concerns about the effect that Brexit will have on their fishing industries. I say “industries” because it is important to recognise the great differences that lie underneath the catch-all term “fishing industry”, and all too often only the voices and opinions of the big players are heard or considered newsworthy.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) rightly said, in Scotland about three quarters of our active fishing vessels fish primarily in inshore waters, which are defined as those up to 12 nautical miles from shore. As Member of Parliament for Argyll and Bute, I am well aware of the importance of the fishing sector to the economic wellbeing of my constituency. As well as having an inshore fishing fleet, Argyll and Bute produces and exports enormous quantities of shellfish and has a hugely valuable Scottish salmon industry. Although those industries may do different things, they are linked by a couple of vital threads. First, they need to be able to recruit the right people to crew their boats and process their catch, and secondly they need guaranteed, fast and unimpeded access to markets. I believe that Brexit, in whatever form it eventually takes, threatens all that, and I do not think that that feeling of trepidation about what lies ahead is confined to the west coast of Scotland or the inshore fleet.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I will make some progress for now. In a debate last November I quoted from an article in the Financial Times by Mure Dickie who, during a visit to Peterhead, spoke to at least one fish wholesaler based there who believed that they had been sold down the river once again.

[Mrs Murray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Brendan O'Hara]

Let me finish my point. Interestingly, a couple of weeks ago, the Financial Times asked Mure Dickie to visit the west coast of Scotland to see how the promise of the bright new post-Brexit world was going down with fishing communities in Argyll and Bute. What he found bore a striking similarity to what he had encountered in north-east Scotland. When asked about the “sea of opportunity” that was promised to fishing communities during the referendum, Kenny MacNab from Tarbert, who chairs the Clyde Fishermen’s Association, replied:

“It’s only a sea of opportunity for a few. It’s not a sea of opportunity for the west coast inshore fleet”.

Just down the road in Campbeltown, long-time skipper Andrew Harrison said:

“We haven’t got the fishing opportunities to gain out of Brexit. We’ve got a hell of a lot more to lose”.

For fishing communities—from large producers in north-east Scotland to the inshore fleet on the west coast—the promised sunlit uplands of a painless extraction from the European Union, in which the UK will dictate who can fish in our waters and exactly how much they can take, while still receiving tariff-free access to the European Union, have been replaced by cold reality. Their sense of betrayal is palpable. That is not what people were promised; that is not what was written on the side of a bus.

[Mrs Murray]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm what he appears to be saying, which is that Scottish National party policy is to remain in the common fisheries policy?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I am referring back to the debate we had last November, and indeed before then; we have had this verbal ping-pong before, and I will not be taken down that blind alley again. [Interruption.] I will make some progress.

I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous); like it or not, the EU has already linked gaining access to UK waters with access to markets. That suggests that any increase in quota for UK boats could come at the price of new trade barriers. That is an inescapable fact; that is what the EU is going for. Let us be honest: United Kingdom Governments do not have the best track record in defending the interests of the fishing industry when it is expedient for them not to do so.

In 2016, fishing, aquaculture and fish processing combined generated just short of £1 billion to the Scottish economy, and employed 15,000 people. In 2017, Scottish vessels landed just short of 0.5 million tonnes of sea fish and shellfish. However, it is one thing to catch and land fish, but quite another if there is no market to sell it in. Right now, we have a mature, stable and growing market. Fifteen days from now, who knows what we will have? That is causing grave concern in the Scottish fishing industry.

The European Union is by far the most important export market for Scottish seafood; in 2017, 189,000 tonnes of Scottish seafood, with a value in excess of £700 million, was exported to the EU. Fishermen in my constituency have perfected the art of getting langoustine, lobster or prawns out of the water and on to tables in some of the best restaurants in Europe in a matter of hours. That does not happen by chance. That has taken 40 years of dedicated hard work, and we will not stand by and watch it be thrown away by this Government’s incompetence, intransigence, and ideologically motivated red lines. As members of the European Union, we enjoy tariff-free access to 27 member states. No Brexit deal out there could be better for our exporters than the one we already have as full members of the European Union.

UK Fishing Industry

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Sheryll Murray

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree. I think Bertie’s words have been taken out of context and misquoted. He went on to say:

“The link between access and trade breaches all international norms and practice and is simply unacceptable.”

When the European Union negotiated our terms of entry, it was very keen to get access to the United Kingdom’s then 12-mile limit—it was not until 1976 that we had a 200-mile limit—but that must end. The weak words I have heard about us negotiating with our European partners are completely wrong, because under international law we have control. We should decide how much surplus our fisherman, other member states and other nations—it is not just member states of the European Union—are allowed to take. British fishermen must be treated fairly.

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

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Does she accept that Bertie Armstrong and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation do not speak for the whole of the Scottish fishing fleet and the Scottish fishing industry? The industry is multifaceted, particularly in my constituency on the west coast of Scotland, where fishermen entirely depend on getting unfettered access to their live catch and getting that on to European tables.

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree with and respect the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has specifically been used by various people in the main Chamber as a way of backing up their point, and has thus been misquoted. I felt it was right to put on record that what has been attributed to it in the past was not the full story.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Murray]

I am really shocked to hear that. Despite being personally involved in the fishing industry for the last 40 years, I have not been able to find a single fisherman who supports the CFP. However, what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that he wants to stay in the CFP by staying in the European Union. Does he agree? If he does not, he needs to put that on the record now. The two go hand in hand.

[Brendan O'Hara]

Let me say to the hon. Lady that the two most certainly do not go hand in hand.

[Mrs Murray]

They do!

[Brendan O'Hara]

If that is the hon. Lady’s argument, then she is saying something about Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservative party. Ruth Davidson said on 1 October:

“I voted to remain. I fought for remain. If there was another vote tomorrow, I would still vote remain.”

The extension of the hon. Lady’s argument is that Ruth Davidson is a supporter of the CFP, which I think Ruth Davidson herself would argue with. There is nothing to say that remaining and seeking to reform the CFP are mutually exclusive: they are not mutually exclusive. We can remain in the European Union and we can fight to reform the CFP.

[Mrs Murray]

rose—

[Brendan O'Hara]

I will return to the hon. Lady in a minute.

All that would have been required was for some UK Government in the last 40 years not to throw the fishing industry under a bus, but the UK Government have had no cognisance of the importance of the fishing industry. Now, the CFP is regarded as some sort of totem that people can coalesce around.

I suggest that the hon. Lady has a look at Hansard, because it is actually quite difficult, until the very recent past, to find a Conservative politician arguing against the CFP.

[Mrs Murray]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain to us why the previous leader of the Scottish National party, who was formerly the Member for Gordon and before that the Member for Banff and Buchan, actually put a Bill before the House to withdraw from the CFP. If what the hon. Gentleman is saying is absolutely correct, he is disagreeing with his former leader.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I do not think I am disagreeing with my former leader. What I am saying is that one can remain within the European Union and have a reform of the CFP—

[Mrs Murray]

You can’t!

[Brendan O'Hara]

The CFP is a political decision and it can be reformed. If consecutive UK Governments had not sacrificed everything, including the fishing industry, to get where we are, we would not be in the situation that we are in now.