Fishing Industry

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I always seem to be the tail-end Charlies in these debates in the House. Like other Members, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) for the advice that he has given to me on the fishing industry. I also wish to thank him, on behalf of many families in Fleetwood, for the work that he and the late Mark Hamer did in fighting for proper compensation. They owe him a great debt of gratitude, and I am glad to have put that on the record.

I will try not to repeat what others have said, but I should like to touch on the matter of quotas. Although I am no expert on fishing, I, like other Members, have found that fishermen tend to be extremely generous with their advice, and I am most grateful to them for that. In particular, I thank Steve Welsh for all his help.

In the 1970s, something like 9,000 people worked in the fishing industry in Fleetwood, 8,000 of whom have now gone. When the Prime Minister renegotiates terms with Europe in the next Conservative Government, he must ensure that there is something on the common fisheries policy. If he does not, we do not need a crystal ball to know how the people in Fleetwood will vote when it comes to a European referendum.

Steve Welsh goes out to sea in one of the three remaining over-10 metre boats. He is concerned about the constant expansion of wind farms in the Irish sea. I encourage people to stand on Fleetwood front, as they will see lovely views of the Lake district, but in the past, they would also have been able to see the Isle of Man. But now between us and the Isle of Man is an array of wind farms. I do not know whether anybody has produced any studies on the impact of those wind farms on marine life. Perhaps the Minister could tell us if he knows of any, because all I have seen are contradictory views. Obviously, the wind farms have reduced our fishing grounds, but they are also posing a threat to both fishermen and ferries.

The other issue raised by Members, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), is that of quotas. I will not repeat what has been said, but let me mention William Bamber, William McGough, John Worthington and Rod Collinson, who are the under-10 metre fishermen in Fleetwood. Their livelihood in winter depends on hauling in the skate and the ray. As Members have so eloquently put it, what happened in October has had a dramatic impact on the few fishermen in Fleetwood.

We have heard about the science behind the quotas, but, like other hon. Members, I really do not understand where the figures come from. Funnily enough, the fishermen say that the skate is plentiful. They say that the measurements have been cut down. We only have their subjective analysis of what is going on and they say that there is no problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) said, rather than having a regional policy towards quotas, we use a one-size-fits-all policy. Will the Minister comment further on that?

Let me give a practical example now. One fisherman arranged a meeting with the Marine Management Organisation. Funnily enough, I had been trying to arrange such a meeting myself, but all I got was its staff asking my staff, “Why does an MP want to meet us?” I will continue to pursue that. The fisherman met the staff. He said, “Why can’t the under-10 metre boats have the logbooks that the other fishermen have?” The MMO said to him, “There’s nothing against you having a log, but we are not giving you one.” He was making a practical suggestion to improve what was going on and was simply turned down by the bureaucrats saying, “Logs are not for the under-10 metre boats, so we can’t give you one.” How crazy is that? Fishermen in our most sustainable fleet—the under-10 metre boats—are offering to help out by providing evidence that the Minister needs when he goes to his meetings. Like other Members, they do not want to see any cut in the quota. They want to challenge the fact that the under-10 metre boats have only 4% of the quota. The fishermen’s livelihood in winter is based around hauling in skate and ray, and at the moment that has gone. Soon there will be nothing left in the docks of Fleetwood.

Let me finish on a far more positive point. I know that this is not in the Minister’s area, but we still have fish processing in Fleetwood. We have 600 jobs in 29 companies in Fleetwood scattered around the docks. Some are based in 19th-century buildings. Tonnes of shellfish and fish come into Fleetwood nightly by truck, and are dealt with by our workers. It is a credit to them that their skills are still used to support a work force of 600.

There is one company that is trying to expand, but it is being held back by its premises, which are old-fashioned and do not meet the standards on which supermarkets insist for fish processing. An application has gone in to the Minister with responsibility for regional growth funds. I know that it is not the Minister’s area, but I assume that with this holy grail that we all want of Government singing from the same hymn sheet, he might be willing to have a word with the Department for Communities and Local Government about this application to build a centralised fish park in Fleetwood.

We want a modern building to house and sustain all the existing businesses, with a potential to increase employment by 25%. That bid is currently with the regional growth fund, and I am asking the Minister for his support. It has the support of Wyre district council, the county council, the Member of Parliament and all the businesses that flourish around fish processing in Fleetwood. It would be the new Billingsgate for the north, and possibly a great tourist attraction, as it would be displaying the traditional skills from which Fleetwood has benefited. Those skills have enabled the area to survive the depredations to the sea-going fleet. Such a development would put Fleetwood back on the map as a major centre of the fish industry.