Post-Brexit Fisheries Management

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair once again, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate, which is timely given the unrelenting challenges that the UK fishing industry is facing, and the public interest in protecting our marine environment. I associate myself with some of his comments, particularly those about transit visas and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) also pointed out, labour shortages. Those issues are clearly very pressing.

I welcome the Minister again. I have previously welcomed him in a farming capacity, and today I welcome him in a fishing capacity. I enjoyed his splendid piece in Fishing News, where he is pictured heroically holding what I am told is a large cod. I also associate myself with all the positive comments made about his predecessor, the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis). She did a very good job and was always helpful. I wish her well in her new role.

I am interested that the Minister’s first visit in his role was to Peterhead. When I started my tour—which is ongoing and has taken me north, south, east and west around the country—my first port of call was the hard-pressed fishers of West Mersea. That area has a different set of problems and challenges, which shows just how different the challenges are around the country. However, wherever I have been, similar concerns have been raised, and some of those will come up in my comments that follow.

I pay tribute to all the fishers who go out in all weathers, day after day. We know that it is still a dangerous job and the sea is unforgiving. Too many lives are still lost; too many life-changing injuries occur. All those who are out there working on our behalf deserve our thanks.

Post-Brexit fisheries management has to start with the experience of the last couple of years. Although I will not be quite as colourful in my language as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), there are elements of his ascription that I definitely recognise. The travails of the shellfish export sector, for instance, are well known. One of my early visits was to King’s Lynn, which confirmed the huge amount of extra bureaucracy encountered by workers. I felt for them in those circumstances, although they were at pains to point out that they felt it would be worth it in the end. We have to make sure that we do our best to make the situation work.

The fishing industry, like so many UK sectors, was made a lot of promises in the run-up to 2016. It is fair to say that many feel that those promises are yet to bear fruit. I quote the opening lines of the recent report by the APPG, which has already been referenced:

“Since Brexit was fully brought about from the beginning of 2021, the fishing industry has seen a range of impacts, many of which industry members have reported to be unexpected and unwelcome.”

That is delicately put.

On top of that, the industry faces a range of other challenges; we have heard reference to many of them. It is fighting to keep afloat against the rising tide of rocketing fuel costs, rising interest rates that devalue the pound, new post-Brexit red tape, the labour shortage that I mentioned, the spatial squeeze, and pressure—rightly so—to maintain stocks while protecting and maintaining our precious marine environment. It is tough out there, and it is made tougher sometimes by the attitudes of our regulators. The catch app, the inshore vessel monitoring system and boat inspections by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency pile pressure on people, with the consequence that too many are suffering stress and poor mental health. I hope the Minister will address the issues that are in his power; I urged his predecessor to do the same.

We need to start by establishing what we are trying to do on fisheries management. It is widely agreed that we are trying to balance food production, ensuring sustainable stocks, undoing damage to the marine environment and moving to a long-term, more sustainable approach. I recognise that there are difficult trade-offs, such as what the NFFO describes as the spatial squeeze. We hardly need telling that energy security is key at the moment—it should always have been key. In some ways, this is similar to the debates raging on food security, energy security and environmental sustainability on land. I am not sure whether the Minister would like to wade into that issue; I suspect he will not be drawn on it.

On land and sea, we need processes and structures to allow us to make these trade-offs in a fair and civilised way. What are those frameworks? Where are we exactly in terms of legislation and Government action? How are we helping our UK fleet of some 4,300 fishing vessels to provide work for some 11,000 people?

At the end of 2020, Parliament passed the Fisheries Act 2020, which gave the Government the authority to act for us as an independent coastal nation outside the EU and outside the common fisheries policy. It allowed us to embark on bilateral agreements with our closest neighbours and potentially negotiate much more favourable fish quotas for UK fishers. How has that gone? Under the terms agreed between the UK and the EU in the trade and co-operation agreement back in December 2020, the Government ceded access to fish in UK waters to EU vessels for six years and failed to establish an exclusive 12-mile limit—not exactly what had been hoped for. In July, Paul Gilson, chair of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said:

“The Trade and Cooperation Agreement laid bare the hollowness of the government’s rhetoric as we left the EU and the Common Fisheries Policy. The gap between the promise and reality was spelt out in quota shares and access arrangements little changed from the Common Fisheries Policy and very far from what any self-respecting independent coastal state would expect.”

As so often, views on the financial benefits differ. We have touched on them in previous debates. The Commons Library brief tells us,

“The Marine Management Organisation estimated in September 2021 that the TCA delivered an average increase to the UK fishing fleet of £143.9 million a year”,

but the NFFO analysis challenged that. It details that the sector will see losses of £64 million or more a year, totalling more than £300 million by 2026 unless changes are secured through international fisheries negotiation.

Let us hope that the bilateral agreements made this year with Norway and the Faroe Islands, which the Government failed to reach last year, will result in changes to those figures for UK fishing fleets. Let us hope that Government negotiators get a better deal for our distant fleet. I echo some of the comments made about our negotiating capacity. The fate of the Kirkella, based in Hull, is well rehearsed, and there is something deeply troubling about our dependence on Russian fish for our much-beloved fish and chip sector. I hope the Minister will say something about that.

Maintaining stocks must be a prime goal for the fisheries management plans under negotiation. It hardly needs saying that, for the industry to flourish, it needs fish. In some areas, the basic lack of fish is the biggest challenge. That was certainly the strong message to me from West Mersea.

The next piece of the puzzle is the joint fisheries statement and the fisheries management plans. Those are the frameworks for the Government to deliver on their commitments in the Fisheries Act to ensure the UK develops a

“vibrant, modern and resilient fishing industry and a healthy marine environment.”

The objectives of the JFS and the FMPs are positive: planning to ensure we have a sustainable fishing industry while protecting our precious marine environment. I am grateful to the marine conservation organisations for their account of some of the challenges. As outlined by the report by the Blue Marine Foundation, stock levels of cod in the west of Scotland have declined by 97% since the 1980s, and trawlers continue to operate in 98% of offshore protected areas. As we know, bycatch remains a serious problem. The Future Fisheries Alliance highlights studies that show that bycatch is responsible for the catching and killing of around 1,000 harbour porpoises, 250 common dolphins, 475 seals, and 35 minke and humpback whales in gill nets and other fishing gears in UK waters every year.

We know that there is much to be done and that limits based on properly agreed scientific data will be required. It is disappointing that two thirds of UK fishing limits are currently above the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, according to the Government’s own report.

I welcome the objectives of the JFS and the fisheries plan. They are a good basis on which to start, but there are significant question marks over some of the detail. The NFFO raised some key questions, which I hope the Minister will address. The NFFO seeks clarity on how UK fishing plans will interact with third countries. There are questions around the extent to which plans will be based on data, and around a potential lack of transparency on data exchange—similarly on quota and access exchanges.

The NFFO is concerned about the spatial squeeze. What can the Minister tell us about the potential displacement of fishing areas as more marine protected areas are, rightly, introduced, as well as about the need for offshore wind farms? How will the Minister ensure that fisheries management is simplified in future, and not made as complicated as under the CFP? Is there not a danger that Brussels red tape will simply be replaced with UK red tape?

I remain concerned about DEFRA and the devolved Administrations working together. I again ask the Minister: who speaks for England? The Scottish and Welsh Governments have their roles, but DEFRA has a dual role, and it seems that England all too easily loses out. Perhaps the Minister can explain how that conundrum is to be resolved. DEFRA will shortly release the final JFS following the consultation, and I am sure that we all look forward to reading it closely to see whether the concerns raised by the sector have been addressed and clarity delivered. Any early conclusions that the Minister can share with us today would be welcome.

There has been plenty of law making. The Fisheries Act set the structure. The inshore fisheries and conservation authorities are busy setting rules, even if in some places there is clear unhappiness with the way they are operating. Fisheries management plans will play an important role. However, the big overall questions about the future of our fishing industry remain. To me, everything seems piecemeal. I do not see a vision for the next 25 years. The Conservative approach to trade deals and negotiations with countries in distant waters is too often naive and amateurish compared with our long-experienced and wily competitors. What is the plan? Where is the vision? Maybe the Minister can enlighten us now, or perhaps, as the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), tellingly revealed in recent evidence to a Lords Committee, there is no land use framework because he did not put too much store by plans.

The Labour party takes a different view. We think that knowing our destination makes it more likely that we will get there. A Labour Government would guarantee action on three priorities for the fishing sector. A Labour Government will back our British fishing industry and work together to see them get a fairer share of the quota in our waters: more fish caught in British waters and landed in British ports, supporting British processing jobs. We will work directly with fishers themselves to deliver improvements in safety standards. We will ensure that foreign boats that are allowed to fish in our waters follow the same rules as British boats. We will use the many frameworks and conventions already in place to ensure that we have a sustainable marine environment that is safeguarded for future generations, while ensuring that our food security needs are met. There is always more to be said, but that is our goal, and we are determined to deliver on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

Of course I will, and I have done so already, to be honest. There have been some challenges for Marine Scotland, and covid brought its own challenges. I think the right hon. Gentleman referred to monkfish in particular. They are bottom trawling fish that like to hide and are quite difficult to spot. Getting that data is quite a challenge. There has also been an issue with the Scottish boats getting out there to collect the data. Of course, we commit to working with the industry and finding a way through that.

Science is our friend in these circumstances. I think data and science will lead us to the right conclusions. As the right hon. Gentleman identified, there is a recommendation to increase whiting quotas by 80-odd per cent. I recognise that the industry does not think that is sustainable. We have some very skilled negotiators. There was a bit of criticism, shall we say, about our negotiating skills. That is not my experience, and it is not what I have heard. We enter into negotiations from a very informed perspective and with a clear plan, but of course so does the other side. We cannot get everything we want, but we have to find a way through. We will do our best.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I hear what the Minister says, but could he say something about the prospects for the distant fleet? They seem to have suffered out of this process.

[Mark Spencer]

I do not want to jinx us. That is the last thing I want to do going into these negotiations. I do not want to identify our red lines or what we want to achieve, because that makes our negotiating position weaker. We enter these negotiations in good faith. We recognise the fleet that the hon. Member mentioned as well as our inshore fleet. We want to do the best we can. Not only do we want to secure a sustainable quota, but we want to secure our access to the market so we can actually sell the fish we catch. That is a delicate balance, but we are very much up for the negotiation and the fight. We will be in there punching very hard for our industry.