Fisheries Council

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his help and advice as I have progressed in this job. It is useful to have Members of the House who know what it is like to go through this charade—I use the word carefully—of a process, which requires decisions to be made after two or three days of heavy negotiations that run right through the night. We must have meaningful reform and it must have regionalisation at its heart. We need to be able to define in the new year exactly what we expect when working with partners in the sea basins around the UK. I pledge to keep the House informed of our progress.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the considerable disquiet among British fishermen about the deal, particularly the breaching of the Minister’s own red lines, is the deal not further proof of the catastrophic loss of influence in Europe since the Government parties came to power?

[Richard Benyon]

No, the hon. Gentleman probably was not listening when I said that we have been working extremely closely with our European partners. I think that he would really benefit from seeing just how well we worked and how we joined forces to defeat a proposal that, had it been implemented, would have been utterly devastating for our fishing industry.