UK Fisheries Policy

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

There is growing concern among the members of the fishing community in west Cornwall, including the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation, about the terms of the UK Government’s proposed implementation period for Brexit and the potentially disastrous implications for the fishing industry. That is why I give particular credit to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) for securing such a timely debate for our fishing industry. We never seem to have enough time to discuss this very important subject.

It is imperative that the UK Government confirm and demonstrate their commitment to leaving the common fisheries policy, and that commitment can be clearly demonstrated only by ensuring that fishing is not part of any transition or implementation deal and by the UK taking full responsibility for British waters on 29 March 2019. The entire UK fishing industry and its many supporters would consider a failure by the UK immediately to assert control of UK waters and manage fisheries as an independent coastal state extremely damaging. It would certainly be unacceptable to the Cornish fishermen I know and meet regularly.

It is clear that it would be a complete disaster for the UK to hand responsibility for its waters straight back to Brussels at the point of Brexit. In fact, it would be worse than an extension of the status quo, because we would be powerless to prevent French, Belgian, Dutch and other EU fleets from continuing to operate in UK waters and catch the fisheries resource there, under rules that they had decided without the UK having any say at all. The sector has been consistent and unambiguous in its expectation that full control over access to UK waters and management of our fisheries as an independent coastal state genuinely begins from March 2019, when we withdraw from the EU and CFP. An implementation period may make sense for some business sectors, but for the fisheries sector it would be disastrous.

The Cornish Fish Producers Organisation has set out a number of real and important reasons why fishing should not be part of a transition or implementation deal with the EU. I am sure that many hon. Members in the Chamber are aware of the things that the organisation has said. Logically, fisheries jurisdiction, access rights and quota shares should be dealt with separately from trade arrangements when the UK’s legal status in relation to fisheries changes on 29 March 2019. Norway, for example, maintains access to the EU single market under specific agreed arrangements, but it manages the fisheries within its own exclusive economic zone and enters into annual agreements on the management of shared stocks and quota exchanges as an independent coastal state. It is patently obvious that once the principle of the status quo on quota shares and access has been conceded for a transitional deal, the EU will use the same tactics and leverage when the UK seeks to negotiate a long-term trade deal with the EU. Fishing will again be a sacrificed pawn, irrespective of our legal status as an independent coastal state.

At the point at which the UK leaves the EU, in March 2019, UK Ministers and officials will no longer be party to decisions within any of the European institutions, including those that set quotas and make other rules on EU fisheries. It is an extreme understatement to say that it would be completely prejudicial to the interests of the UK fishing industry to tie us into fisheries management decisions in which we in the UK are mere rule takers. As an independent coastal state, the UK would be expected to take its seat in international fisheries negotiations, including those with Norway, other coastal states and the EU. Even the European Commission recognises that separate, bespoke arrangements will be required to include the UK in the decisions when setting total allowable catches in the annual year-end negotiations.

There is no legal or fisheries management reason why the UK should accept any precondition or artificial constraint on its right to negotiate the best deal that it can, including on access arrangements and quota share. I accept that a one-off, stand-alone arrangement for fishing in 2019 might be necessary, given that the UK leaves a quarter of the way through the fishing year, but it is essential that we leave the CFP this time early next year.