Non-EEA Visas: Inshore Fishing

David Duguid Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is on the path to righteousness—he is quite right. However, we can go a step further. I raised that point at the Home Office, and I was told, “Oh well Angus, it’s very easy for you to say that, but we’ve got our manifesto in one hand and the economy in the other hand”. I said, “It’s a no brainer; choose the economy”—they have ditched the rest of the manifesto anyway, as we have seen over the past couple of months. In reality, migrant workers come for 10 months and they do not affect the stats—the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) knows that as well and he is nodding. This situation goes beyond worries about stats—I think those stats are spurious anyway, and they have led to many erroneous decisions—because we have a clear economic case. Let us get those people in, and get them fishing.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on this point, but it is worth re-emphasising. These migrant workers are just that—they are not looking to come to the UK and settle. They want to go home to their families back in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ghana, and we must make that clear distinction.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I cannot understand what people prefer about the sunny Philippines when they could be living on a fishing boat in the rain on the windy west coast of Scotland or Northern Ireland, but that is just me.

The Home Office also mentioned welfare, but I would argue that welfare is far better on the west coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland, where boats go home each night. If the Government are that concerned about welfare, they should check every boat outside the 12-mile limit. As the hon. Member for Moray said, those boats are fishing 92 hours on the trot, and giving people perhaps four hours off. We do not know what is happening on those boats. People are illegally working because they are outside the 12-mile limit. Just about the entire west coast of Scotland is inside the 12-mile limit, even though the waters go further than 12 miles. That is a good thing, and we welcomed it when it happened, because we kept those waters for our own boats on the west coast. Now we have been snookered by the Government in London and the Home Office, which are focusing on security rather than the economy. With the greatest respect to the Minister, it is instructive that they have sent the Minister for Security to deal with this immigration matter, and that will annoy many people.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) on securing the debate. I recognise many of his concerns, as well as those of other right hon. and hon. Members, and they are shared by fishermen in my constituency.

The confirmation in the Government’s fisheries White Paper that the UK will become an independent coastal state and will take back control of its waters is welcome. It lays the groundwork for the revival of fishing communities long neglected by the EU and by Governments of all parties. However, leaving the common fisheries policy is the start of the process, not the end. If the Scottish fishing industry is to achieve its full potential, it needs the full support of both our Governments. It would be painful to see the industry unshackled from the CFP, only to be held back by UK immigration rules. However, we face that risk if the Government do not act urgently to ensure that the Scottish inshore fishing fleet can access the non-EEA labour that it needs.

Of the roughly 4,000 crew working in the catching sector around Scotland, around 800 come from non-EEA countries, with a further 400 from within the EEA. After Brexit, 1,200 fishermen—30%—will need to be sourced from overseas. The industry has not always been so dependent on migrant labour; traditionally, almost all crew came from local coastal communities, with few coming from inland, let alone from further afield. Due to the constraints of the CFP over the years, there were simply too many UK vessels chasing too few fish, leading to decommissioning schemes at the start of the century that cut the number of jobs.

However, the industry is already working to encourage the resurgence of fishing as an attractive career, as other Members have said, and it must be encouraged to do so. Foreign crew rarely settle in the UK or climb through the ranks to become skippers, even though in many cases they will have been merchant seafarers or captains of larger vessels in their home countries. The talented skippers of tomorrow are the local recruits of today. Young locals leaving school today are probably not as inclined to join the industry as their younger counterparts, who will progress through their education with more certainty of a bright future in fishing, assuming that we make the most of the opportunities presented by Brexit.

The Scottish White Fish Producers Association says that, as we leave the CFP, even with Government support, greater innovation and further improvements in training and upskilling, it will take at least a decade or longer for the Scottish industry to close its current local labour shortage. Our coastal communities cannot afford to wait 10 years. Without access to experienced crew members, vessels will lie idle, as they do currently. We will take back control of our waters only to let them go unfished; in many areas, there will simply be no more fishing industry.

Access to skilled migrant labour—these people are skilled—is necessary if the industry, in Scotland and across the United Kingdom, is to truly reap the benefits of exiting the CFP. After Brexit we must work on increasing the capacity of our fishing fleet, but we can only do so if the industry has enough crew to cope with the increased supply of fish. Currently, as other Members have mentioned, the industry relies on transit visas, which are conditional on non-EEA crew working outside the 12-mile limit of UK waters. That adds unnecessary complexity to the job and limits activity to where workers are allowed to fish, rather than where the fish are. For smaller vessels, which tend to fish closer to shore, these visa rules are more restrictive, if not completely unworkable.

The UK Government previously operated a concession that allowed some visas to be issued to non-EEA fishermen to work on the inshore fleet. The re-establishment of such a scheme would be most welcome, at least until a longer term solution can be developed. Since 2012, demand for experienced crew has actually increased, which we hope to see continue as we leave the CFP. Such a concession would guarantee workers the same employment protections as anyone else. As the Fishermen’s Welfare Alliance has made clear, any new scheme must have these protections. We must ensure that the sector can access the labour it needs and end the bizarre idiosyncrasies of the 12-mile limit while ensuring the welfare of the non-EEA workers in the sector.

However, there is perhaps a simpler solution: recognising that fishermen are skilled workers and adjusting our visa regime to reflect that. The industry faces not only a labour shortage but a skills shortage. Fishing is most certainly not unskilled work, and many of the non-EEA crew working in the industry here are talented, seasoned deck hands. Like the home-grown fishermen of the past, they were born into, or least grew up in, a fishing or seafaring culture. As I mentioned, crew members from marine nations such as the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ghana generally do not look to settle in the UK. In fact, much inshore fishing activity is seasonal, so a similar approach to that currently being considered for seasonal agricultural workers could be possible.

My constituents in Banff and Buchan, including in the increasingly busy ports of Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Macduff, elected me on a manifesto commitment to not only leave the CFP but to work to ensure that coastal communities enjoy the vitality and opportunity they deserve. That means ensuring that the fishing industry gets the access to the skilled non-EEA labour it needs. The industry cannot cope with the current restrictions any longer. If our coastal communities and fishing industry are to enjoy the revival offered by our leaving the CFP, we need change now.

While I am thankful that the UK Government have been willing to engage on this issue, I stress, as have other Members, the urgency with which we need that change. It is an issue that could make or break the future of our fishing industry and our coastal communities, and I look forward to the UK Government’s swift action on it.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank hon. Members for their co-operation in making their speeches in a timely way. We now move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople. They have roughly 11 minutes each in which to speak, which will leave a bit of time for the wind-up speech at the end of the debate.