Under-10-Metre Fishing Fleet: South-West

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

It is a real privilege to be able to speak in this debate in support of our inshore fleet right across Cornwall and beyond, and to commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for securing the debate.

It was a genuine, moving moment on Sunday morning, when we in Newlyn remembered the more than 100 fishermen who had lost their lives around our waters. It was a really important thing to do, and I am glad we now have that annual service to commemorate those fishermen. I am also grateful to the Fishermen’s Mission for their work to support fishermen day and night, wherever they might be fishing from.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the extraordinary contribution that the inshore fishing fleet makes to UK plc and the UK as a country. We began to talk about national food security; it is really important that we get energy and food security in the right place. The report we launched earlier in the year, “The True Value of Seafood to Cornwall”, demonstrated that for every one fisherman, there are 15 jobs created. Whether it is enormous amounts of money or good, nutritious food, there is no real part of Cornwall that our fishing industry does not reach. Fishing provides a really important contribution to food security, and I hope the Minister can contribute to conversations across Departments about how fishing is a key part of national food security. I do not think they would, but I hope that the Government would never shy away from promoting UK fish on dinner tables around the UK.

The Fisheries Act 2020 was a fantastic thing that we delivered after leaving the European Union. It has taken time, but that has enabled us to deliver regional management plans. We now have a far better understanding and, hopefully, the ability to plan and control fish stocks, and harness and manage them around different parts of the coast. We all know that in Cornwall, for example, we have mixed fisheries, which are not typical elsewhere, so it is important that we have a regional management plan.

I commend the Cornish Fish Producers’ Organisation and others that have contributed to that work in a mature and intelligent way to help to shape the Act as well as those regional plans. However, the pace has been slow. Although the pollack ban is regrettable, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay said, the response from the Department, and the Minister in particular, to compensate and support fishermen who would rely on pollack—particularly in this early part of the year—has been really helpful. The use of regional plans could actually avoid those shocks in the future. I would therefore encourage and support the Minister’s efforts to use regional management plans to avoid these shocks, and to enhance and secure stocks in ways we have always wanted to see, but which have not necessarily been possible until recently. It would build confidence for the fishing fleet.

On infrastructure investment, we have had the £100 million seafood fund. Will the Minister be able to commit at all, or at least comment on the appetite to ensure that that fund is available again in the future? We need to continue the work to transition our fleet to meet our sustainability commitments and to invest in our harbour and port infrastructure so that it meets the requirements of not just the inshore fleet—the fishing fleet that lands, as we heard about in Plymouth—but other things that are delivered at sea, such as floating offshore wind infrastructure and so on. It is important that where fish is landed, the facilities are there to make the most of the value of that fish.

As we have heard already, a significant opportunity sits before us. The Minister is aware of our commitment. The opportunity to create the exclusive 12-mile limit with the Brexit fisheries deal renegotiation in 2026 cannot be understated; the opportunities for the initial fleet in particular are extraordinary. It offers a massive win for the UK sustainable fishing industry, offering a better way to manage, protect and enhance our fish stock. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay talked about the fact that the inshore fleet are limited in their days at sea and their efforts because of the weather. That offers a great way of managing fish stock. By protecting that 12-mile limit, we give the inshore fleet much greater access to fantastic, nutritious food for our tables, and provide the opportunity to revive and enhance our coastal communities.

There is no part of my constituency that does not have a history, and some presence still, of an inshore fishing fleet. The opportunities to continue to enhance the inshore fleet and to grow those communities and all those jobs we talked about are there to be had. Let us restore the fishing fleet and skills, and help to secure food security with a particularly nutritious offer for our UK consumers.