UK Fishing Industry

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

As is customary, I would like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to those who have lost their lives at sea over the past year, and to pay tribute to the work of the RNLI volunteers, our coastguards and the Fishermen’s Mission. They all play an essential role in the lives of our fishing communities. Earlier this year, I joined the crew of Fraserburgh lifeboat on a training exercise to raise awareness of its “Respect the Water” campaign. Every time I go out on the North sea, I am reminded of the dangers that our fishermen face in their day-to-day working lives.

More fish were landed in my constituency last year than in Wales and Northern Ireland combined. In fact, Peterhead and Fraserburgh alone landed about three quarters of the quantity of fish landed in the whole of England. No communities anywhere in the UK are more heavily dependent on fisheries than those of the Buchan and Banffshire coasts, and the industry supports thousands of jobs onshore, offshore and in the wider supply chain.

The UK’s decision to leave the EU has enormous implications for our fishing and fishing-related industries and coastal communities. It might present significant opportunities, chief among which would be the possibility to right some of the historical wrongs of the common fisheries policy. However, there are also big uncertainties, as well as questions that have not yet been answered and, indeed, possible risks for some sectors.

The nature and timing of the UK’s exit from the EU, and the tone of the negotiations, including on what type of Brexit the UK pursues, will be of enormous consequence to our fishing industries, both onshore and offshore. It is no secret that many fishermen voted to leave the EU, and the main driver for that among those whom I have talked to is the failures and frustrations of the CFP. When I ask them what they want, however, most of them say that they want to be in a similar position to Norway: outside the EU and the CFP and able to negotiate for ourselves; but within the single market and able to export produce easily to lucrative EU markets and to take advantage of free movement.

Scotland exported fish and seafood worth more than £438 million to EU countries last year. That represents nearly two thirds of our entire food exports, so the industry is hugely important. We need to maintain that ease of market access, but we also need to acknowledge that access to many of our non-EU export markets is currently facilitated via EU trade agreements. It is absolutely imperative for our fishing industry that the UK does not fall off the cliff edge of a hard Brexit. That would create huge problems for parts of our processing sector, and a bonanza for our neighbours—and competitors—in Norway and Iceland.

The other benefit of retaining single market membership is that there is no part of our fishing industry that does not rely on the free movement of labour. That is particularly acute in the processing sector, where EU nationals make up a large proportion of the workforce.

[Callum McCaig]

Aberdeen no longer has a fishing industry—it is safe to say that it was lost to the advent of oil, not to the EU—but it retains a processing sector, a significant proportion of whose workforce comes from elsewhere in the European Union. Does my hon. Friend agree that the sector is at risk if there is no protection for those workers?

[Dr Whiteford]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. That point has been raised by Members from many parts of the UK.

A significant proportion of the fish caught by Scottish boats is already landed in ports overseas, notably in Norway. If we were to lose any processing capacity in Scotland because of labour shortages, we would lose part of the high-value end of our supply chain. We would lose exports and revenue and, critically, we would jeopardise hundreds of local jobs that the free movement of labour has anchored in our geographically peripheral coastal communities.

I am desperately disappointed that the UK Government have chosen to use the status of EU nationals living and working in the UK as a bargaining chip in their Brexit negotiations. That has not just set a poor tone for what lies ahead, but created uncertainty for businesses and for ordinary, hard-working folk who have made their homes in our communities and do not deserve to become pawns in this unedifying game.

In or out of the EU, it is overwhelmingly in the interests of our fish processors and exporters to stay in the single market. Whatever our eventual constitutional destination, even the most ardent Brexiteers recognise that we will still have to negotiate with neighbouring coastal states over shared stocks and reciprocal access to our waters. It would be absolutely daft to get ourselves into a position where we can finally ditch the problems with the CFP and recover access to the fish in our own waters, but be unable to get that fish to market. In that regard, I was surprised to hear the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) say that he was in favour of leaving the single market, because I was looking the other day at a video clip of him on the “Murnaghan” programme saying

“only a madman would actually leave the market.”

I do not know what has prompted this turn of insanity, but I think the right hon. Gentleman should clarify.

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me a chance to clarify. Perhaps she should have watched the Andrew Neil programme a little later, on which that ridiculous video was completely shredded. A number of us—about four or five—who campaigned to leave were absolutely and totally misrepresented—[Interruption.] I went on to say, if the hon. Lady will just restrain herself for a moment, that there are about two countries in the world—I think it is Somalia and North Korea—that do not sell into the single market. We want to sell into it.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am very confident that I have quoted the right hon. Gentleman correctly from the clip I saw. I think it is exactly that kind of two-faced language that discredits politicians and makes people doubt our integrity on issues that we are concerned about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

I would have jumped up anyway if the right hon. Gentleman had not. I think that the hon. Lady should withdraw “two-faced”.

[Dr Whiteford]

I will withdraw “two-faced”, although I said that it was that type of two-faced behaviour that discredits politicians. I did not make any reference to the right hon. Gentleman, although I think my context is very clear. I am happy to withdraw.

Arguably the biggest opportunities for the fishing industry in the current scenario will be: the ability to negotiate more effectively on our own behalf in future negotiations, rather than as part of the EU; and the possibility of securing a fairer share of the resources in our waters. A report published in October by the NAFC Marine Centre demonstrated that more than half the fish harvested in Scottish waters is caught by non-UK boats. I do not understand how anyone can see that as fair and equitable. The situation cannot be allowed to continue, and it must be addressed as a priority.

Inevitably, the run-up to next week’s fisheries talks has been somewhat overshadowed in this debate by Brexit considerations, but there are two major issues that I want to bring to the Minister’s attention. The first is the implementation of the discard ban. I know that I have been banging on about this for years, but the situation is urgent. Even if article 50 were triggered tomorrow, our demersal fleet would still be subject to the ban in 2018 and 2019. I do not think that there is a realistic way of implementing it in its current form, and I also do not see how it can be easily enforced.

There is a consensus about the idea that it is undesirable to throw marketable fish back into the sea, but I am not sure that we are any nearer to finding a way to make the discard ban work in the mixed fisheries of the North sea under our current quota allocations and arrangements. It has been relatively straightforward to do so in the pelagic sector, but there is a major problem for the white fish fleet with so-called choke species, such as hake and saithe, which are abundant in our waters but for which we have insufficient quota. Selective gears, quota swaps and other avoidance measures will take us only so far, and we absolutely must not get ourselves into a position where boats are tied up because of this. That cannot be allowed to happen.

We should focus our energy on securing healthy stocks that are sustainably harvested. Reducing discards is obviously one part of that, but it is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. I hope that the Minister will make addressing the situation a priority at the December Council, because we urgently need a workable solution.

The other issue on which I want to push the Minister echoes a point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael): the untenable situation regarding the EU-Faroese bilateral deal on mackerel. The deal that was reached in 2014 allows the Faroese fleet to fish 30% of its coastal states share of mackerel in Scottish waters, and that is not an acceptable or sustainable position. I think that a reduction is an achievable goal, so I hope that the Minister will work for it.

Finally, I want to make a key point. Our fishing industry has unprecedented opportunities to recalibrate and to flourish on a sustainable footing, but the biggest risk that we face is that those potential opportunities will be squandered and traded away in the wider Brexit negotiations. We know that there will be many competing priorities in the days ahead, and it is vital that fishing is not simply thrown into that mix to be horse-traded away against bigger, more powerful and more vocal industries, or strategic interests, as we try to secure trade deals. We need to recognise that our abundant fishing grounds are an invaluable natural resource and that we have a responsibility to steward them sustainably in the interests of our maritime communities and for future generations. Fishing has probably more at stake in this process than any other UK industry. I want assurances from the Minister that we will not see a repeat of the 1970s, when fishing interests were subjugated to other strategic economic priorities. The UK Government considered fishing to be expendable at that time, but they must not treat those industries as expendable now.