Non-EEA Visas: Inshore Fishing

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I commend the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) for bringing this important debate. I will mention a few points raised by him and by other hon. Members.

The hon. Gentleman highlighted the concerns he had received directly from fishermen. Those personal testimonies and experiences illustrate for us—better than the very good briefings we have received on this matter—the precise nature of the problems, including the Government’s policy on the 12-mile limit and their attitude to migration. I will come on to that later. The fishermen also called for the more customised approach for which the Scottish Government have also called for some time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) is an excellent constituency MP, and he spoke with his usual passion on how much support there is across the board for non-EEA workers coming here, and of their being in many ways the lifeblood of fishing communities up and down the coast. He also mentioned how many allies the proposal has, and insisted that the UK Government begin to act on it.

The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) highlighted the difficulties that the industry has experienced in recent years in attracting local youngsters to the profession. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave us the Northern Irish perspective, as always, but also a personal viewpoint, given his family associations with the industry. He called for the UK Government to acknowledge the industry’s simple point: that it needs people who can do the job now, not in 10 years’ time. He also said that all in the UK are on the same hymn sheet.

However, it is worth remembering that Ireland is a part of the British Isles, and because of its independence it can in many ways make better choices specific to its own requirements; that contrasts with the situation that we are discussing, in which it seems that one size fits all. As I said, that is worth remembering. The hon. Members for Angus (Kirstene Hair) and for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) reminded us of the UK Government’s role, still, in turning on and off the tap of this vital labour source for Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom and Great Britain without due regard for the devastating impact on small coastal communities.

It is very good to see cross-party consensus on the need for concessions on visas for non-EU crew to keep our fishing fleets safely on the seas. A sticking plaster over a rotten immigration policy it may be, but it is a much-needed one. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, along with others in this place, has been championing this cause for some time, and it is good to see more recognition now of the absurdity of boats being tied up for lack of crew when people are available to do the job.

One of the things that sticks in my craw most about the rules on transit visas is that they squeeze hardest the smaller boats—those with one or two crew members, fishing daily from local ports. They struggle the most when staff are hard to find. The recent fishing White Paper said that the Government would encourage growth in the small boat sector. If they mean what they say for once, fixing this issue would be a good start.

I hope that the Security Minister and, through him, the Immigration Minister will reflect on the strength of the evidence that has already been presented and the importance of the fishing industry to Scotland and will act with greater urgency than they have indicated they are willing to do so far. It is clear from the figures that we have heard how dependent the whole industry is on non-EEA staff, so concessions should be the easiest decision that they have ever made. There are precedents: the offshore wind farm sector has a concession to allow non-EEA crew to operate inside 12 miles.

There is surely no need to wait for the autumn report from the Migration Advisory Committee, particularly as the MAC does not seem to be flexible itself when it comes to recognising shortage occupations and sectoral needs in Scotland. The issue seems to be that deckhands are not regarded as skilled by the great and the good who decide such things. I suggest to anyone who defines being a member of a fishing crew as unskilled work that they take time out this summer and get some work experience on a Scottish fishing vessel. When they have successfully mended a torn net in the face of a howling storm, they can come back to us and tell us that it is unskilled.

Fishing is not an industry that easily fits into a tick-box system for staff, but it clearly takes unique skills, experience and a certain type of character to do this job. The Scottish White Fish Producers Association, which knows a bit more about it than we do in this place, identified the need to recruit fishermen from outside the EU and found a similar skillset in fishermen from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Skilled fishermen who are willing to leave their families and come to do a tough job over here should be welcomed and given all the rights and protections of our EU workers.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend is summing up the debate fantastically well. I want to reiterate that I have prepared a press release into which I will insert the name of the Minister who lifts the pen and makes the change, with high praise. I hope that a Government who need some good news will at least grasp this one little straw and ensure that what we have asked for happens, and this summer. This is not a question of reports; we know what the arguments are. It has just got to happen.

[Deidre Brock]

I absolutely agree. I certainly hope that something will happen along those lines, although I remind my hon. Friend that last November the then Immigration Minister, now the Minister without Portfolio, promised to look into the possibility of running a pilot scheme in which seasonal workers coming from non-EEA countries could work for nine months to help the fishing industry on the west coast of Scotland. As of yet, I think, we have heard nothing further about that proposal.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I do not know how many Immigration Ministers we have dealt with and had this same discussion with. We have to educate them, tell them, inform them—whatever. We get the promise of jam tomorrow, and before we know what is happening, they have been promoted, sacked, moved on or whatever and we are dealing with another one. It is groundhog day on this issue with each and every different Immigration Minister; and in a few months’ time, given the rate of attrition in this Government, we will probably have someone else again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is very difficult for the industry to deal with the revolving door of Ministers who constantly have to be informed of the important parts of their brief that they need to get up to speed with and deal with. Then they need to go round and visit all the different and important stakeholder groups and get to know them. Things are very difficult for the industry in those circumstances.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the contribution that she is making to the debate. Does she agree that the pilot scheme that has been intimated to us on a number of occasions—indeed, the last occasion was the last meeting that we had—is something that we are all very eager to see coming into place? It is one that the industry and the sector will work with, as the hon. Lady said, and elected representatives will also endeavour to ensure that it works. All the safety and all the employment rights that are important for it to go forward are things that the industry is committed to. If ever you wanted a good scheme, do the pilot scheme now.

[Deidre Brock]

I absolutely agree. There is nothing to be lost by looking at this proposal. There is a general will across parties and across the industry to make the pilot scheme work. I am sure that if a Minister fronted up and actually committed to it, all of us would be cheering to the rafters, as my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar points out.

I was referring to skilled fishermen and the fact that they are willing to come here to do this very difficult job. They should be welcomed and given all the rights and protections that EU workers have. The SWFPA chief executive, Mike Park, says that people have presented the case to the MAC and to various Immigration Ministers over the last few years, but on each occasion they were

“basically told to go away”.

A new scheme for non-EEA workers would be lifeblood to our fishing fleets—we have heard the evidence that it could take 10 to 15 years to get fully staffed from local sources—but it would of course be even more sensible for the Immigration Minister to accept that the one-size-fits-all immigration system is not the right solution. If she is worried that any sensible concession for fishing might open the floodgates for other shortage occupations, the solution is not to bolt the door and hope that they go away. Perhaps she ought to ask how the MAC compiles its list, why so many sectoral cases can be made and whether the committee’s approach to immigration is working in the best interests of the economy. Reducing dependency on migration by killing an industry that wants to employ people hardly seems a sensible way to go about things.

The root cause of the problem is surely inflexible, old-fashioned British bean-counting bureaucracy. The UK Government cannot blame Brussels. As has been pointed out, this mess was made entirely in Whitehall. Defying logic, the Conservatives continue to pander to those who want to cut the number of foreigners in the country, setting policies that satisfy those who blame immigrants for all the economic woes that this Government have presided over. That approach is a disaster for the Scottish economy and the demographic challenges that we face. As an inquiry by the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs found, the populations of more than one third of Scotland’s local authority areas are projected to decline, and future population growth in Scotland is expected to depend entirely on inward migration. We have the space and the need to welcome more people who want to live and work here, yet we are enforcing net migration targets that are entirely counterproductive.

The ever more hostile approach to immigration has not only been damaging economically; it has been distasteful and inhumane and it reeks of racism. Despite all the evidence of the benefits that migrants bring, the Tories have doggedly stuck to the notion that cutting numbers is more important than meeting need. I continue to hope for a change of heart from the Government, or for devolved control of immigration policies so that we can do that better in Scotland, but this concession for fishing would not even ruffle the feathers of the people counters in the Home Office. The number of skilled fishermen affected would be some 1,200 or so—a number far too small to make a dent on its silly targets, yet crucial enough to have a massive knock-on impact for coastal communities across Scotland.

I urge the Government to do the right thing for the fishing industry for once. Our fishing communities need flexibility from the immigration system if they are to survive. They need support from this Government through their currently reserved powers on immigration, not intransigence. The need and the solution are clear. Decisive action would be welcome.