Fishing Industry

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and my friends the hon. Members for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie) for helping to secure it. I also pay tribute to my friend the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who has just spoken in his final annual fisheries debate. He has been a steadfast supporter of the industry in this place for almost four decades, and I wish him all the best as he leaves not for pastures new, but for fresh waters.

As we consider the future of the industry, my views are mixed. On the positive side, from the beginning of this year the new common fisheries policy is in place, which provides an opportunity for the industry and those who work in it to have a better future. Special thanks are due to the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who worked so hard to secure that deal. However, there is a great deal of work to do to secure that better future, both for the industry nationally and locally in Lowestoft in my constituency.

There are numerous hurdles to overcome. Achieving maximum sustainable yields by 2015 where possible, and by 2020 at the latest, will not be easy. Neither will the elimination of discards, for which it is vital that the Government work very closely with the industry to ensure a smooth transition. Improved nets and gearing, good use of the best science, such as that provided by CEFAS in my constituency, and such initiatives as “Fishing for the Markets” will be vital, but it will not be straightforward.

The forthcoming meeting of the Fisheries Council on 15 and 16 December presents the Minister with a real challenge. Some of the proposed total allowable catches, if implemented, will place some fleets at real risk of being unable to survive, and the current parlous state of bass stocks must be addressed urgently. I also urge the Minister to take steps to stop electric fishing by Dutch trawlers inside North sea special areas of conservation, particularly the Haisborough, Hammond and Winterton SAC and the north Norfolk SAC. That activity is potentially in breach of article 6 of the habitats directive in an area where the UK has environmental obligations.

The issue that I really want to home in on this morning is the reallocation of quota. The fleet in Lowestoft today is a pale shadow of what it used to be. It is an inshore fleet of under-10 metre boats. Their fishermen, like so many of their colleagues around the coast, get a raw deal. Altogether they comprise 77% of the UK fleet and employ over 65% of its total work force, yet they currently receive only 4% of the total quota available in the UK. Unless that problem is addressed, they will continue to dwindle, and that will be a real tragedy for so many communities.

What is good for the under-10s is largely good for the ports in which they are based. They deliver significant economic, environmental and cultural benefits for their communities, many of which are among the most deprived in the country. The income they generate stays largely in their communities and permeates down a supply chain that has been built up over many decades but has sadly been much eroded in recent years. That is very much the case in Lowestoft, where it is now a small industry, although the infrastructure is still there and, with the right policy framework, it could deliver a lot more for the area.

The reallocation of quota is not an easy task. Fishing communities around the UK have their own unique special interests which they rightly guard jealously and fight for vigorously. In some respects, the Government could not be blamed for taking one look at the problem, placing it in the “too difficult” category, and moving on to the next challenge. This would be completely wrong and a dereliction of duty. It is vitally important that they, and all of us, face up to this problem. Article 17 of the new common fisheries policy sets out the criteria that member states should follow in allocating fishing opportunity. If the Government pursue that course and take full account of economic, social and environmental considerations for local communities, many of the problems faced by the inshore fleet can be addressed.

At present, under-10 metre boats fishing along the Suffolk coast receive what one fisherman described to me as a “miserable share of catch quotas”. The under-10 metre fleet is allocated a very small percentage of the TAC decided at European level, which is then augmented by swaps organised by the Marine Management Organisation from the producer organisations. Without these swaps, the under-10 metre pool would not exist. The MMO allocates catch limits to each vessel on a month-by-month basis. Individual skippers will be unaware of what their respective catch limits are until the envelope drops on their doormat at the beginning of each month. In practice, vessels can often end up with high catch levels for one species when it is not available and low levels for others when they are abundant. Reallocations of quota are neither predictable nor permanent, and they invariably take place towards the end of the season. This month-to-month, hand-to-mouth approach is not conducive to building a sustainable business.

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the MMO is maintaining its function in monitoring the data in a timely and accurate way, or even competently?

[Peter Aldous]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that intervention. I would say that there is certainly room for improvement. The way in which we collect the data needs to be addressed, and I will come to that in a moment.

The work of fishermen still fishing out of Lowestoft in the inshore fleet should be contrasted with that of the seven affiliated vessels of the Lowestoft Fish Producers’ Organisation, which are now controlled by fishing interests based in the Netherlands and in Aberdeen. These large vessels hold fixed quota allocations totalling 79,097 units, but their contribution to the local economy is limited. When they were based in Lowestoft, they helped to sustain the smaller boats. Their departure has partly contributed to the collapse of the port as the capital of fishing in the southern North sea, and has exacerbated still further the decline of the inshore fleet. Across the UK, Dutch-controlled vessels fishing British quota boast a total annual turnover of £48 million, yet only 1% of the fish they catch is landed in the UK.

Article 17 provides the cornerstone for a root and branch reform to address these inequities and to ensure that economic, social and environmental benefits accrue to local communities. The judgment in the High Court in July 2013 in the case that some producer organisations brought against the Secretary of State for carrying out a very modest redistribution of unused quota—the case was dismissed—provides helpful guidance as to how we can move forward. Mr Justice Cranston was sympathetic to the view that fishing quotas and the fixed quota allocation system should always be considered against the backdrop, and based on the principle, that fish are a public resource. This dates back to Magna Carta. He also expressed the opinion that the producer organisations and their members have no proprietary interest in the fishing stock itself and that fixed quota allocations give no right to any specific amount of fishing stock in advance of the annual ministerial decisions on quota that will take place later this month.

There is a need for more information and a better understanding of what is happening in the industry. The fixed quota allocation register first published last December is a welcome step forward, but more information is required on how much quota is held by non-working fisherman, and on quota transactions. The current trading system is complex and opaque. This information will show who benefits from the nation’s fish resources and whether they are providing maximum economic and social benefit to their local communities. This is the first necessary step to the introduction of a new, fairer quota allocation system.

There is also a need to gain a full understanding of the under 10-metre fleet as to what percentage of those licence holders in receipt of monthly catch limits are active and how many may have made no or minimal landings in the past six to 12 months, and if not, why not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

It has been a great privilege to listen to the speeches of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray). Like the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), I cannot possibly emulate the extraordinary accumulated knowledge of the previous speakers.

On 12 October, as I sat in my office in this place, a bomb was dropped on the northern Devon fishery. The Marine Management Organisation announced that the entire fishery would have to cease fishing for ray. Ray accounts for 60% of the landings in the northern Devon fishery. The fishery supports about 100 fishermen and their boats, and 650 fish processors. The industry is worth about £100 million per year. Local authorities together with local enterprise organisations clubbed together over several years and, some years ago, invested more than £2 million in a new fishing dock and quay so that fish processing could take place in Appledore. But at one stroke of the pen, the livelihoods of those people were wiped out.

Last weekend, Mr Tony Rutherford, the boss of the Bideford Fisheries, came to see me. He is always a cheerful chap, as northern Devon fishermen seem to be, and on this occasion he was looking for a silver lining. It is hard to find one, however, when someone wakes up one morning to the sound of a letter dropping through their letterbox or of an e-mail arriving on their terminal saying that they no longer have a business.

That situation cannot continue. I was shocked. I am a lawyer and I have no sea in my veins—I get seasick in the bath—but the truth is that, when I started to look at the reasons why this extraordinary situation had arisen, I was shocked. For example, I found out that the MMO had traded away more than 100 tonnes of ray earlier this year. Just a few months later, three months before the end of the season, it told my fishermen and the northern Devon fishery that they could not fish for ray.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the MMO seems to lack the expertise for quota management that it used to have? Will he join me in calling on the Minister to ensure that adequate quota management measures are put in place for under-10 metre and non-sector vessels?

[Mr Cox]

Of course I join my hon. Friend in doing so. I was about to say that; she has stolen my thunder.

[Sheryll Murray]

Sorry.

[Mr Cox]

Not at all. My hon. Friend has every right—probably a greater right than me—to make such a point, given her experience.

As I started to look into this question, simply applying such intellect and abilities as I have, I could not believe the absurdity of the system we are operating. I was contacted by several marine experts from Plymouth and the south-west who had worked with the MMO. They did not want to be named—that is perfectly understandable—but they told me their experiences of looking at the data. Frankly, if it had been done by an accountant, the accounts would not be signed off. The quality of the information, the timeliness, or lack of it, of the data processing—none of those things has been done adequately or robustly enough to make any proper statistical judgments about what is swimming in the seas or what quota has been exhausted. We are doing no more than informed guessing, and on the strength of that we are playing with the lives and livelihoods of decent men and women up and down the country.

Northern Devon fishery is a fine fishery that has pioneered conservation for many years. The island of Lundy, as many hon. Members will know, lies in my constituency and within the fishery. For many years the fishermen have agreed to no-take zones, and to allow the area to lie fallow for certain periods of the year. Around the country and the world that fishery has been praised as highly responsible and one that—if any deserve the name—warrants the description “sustainable fishery”.

Ray is abundant in the northern Devon fishery and the Bristol channel. When the stroke of the pen came down, the Cornish fisheries association still had 100 tonnes of its quota left uncaught. How can that be right? How can guessing about over-fishing in one area of England mean that fishermen in the northern Devon fishery—where ray is abundant and makes up 60% of the take, and where people have worked night and day to ensure its sustainability—should find themselves with nothing to catch and literally nothing to put on the table the following week for their families? It is criminal!

As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, we sometimes sit here and say, “It’s too difficult” and move on. However, occasions such as this are opportunities for Members of the House at least to put on record our forlorn and probably vain protest against the bureaucratic juggernaut that seems to be for ever steamrolling over common sense in its absurd and surreal way. If I sound indignant, it is because I have had to see so many fishermen in recent weeks, and I feel profoundly indignant on their behalf. They have no quota for sole or spurdog; they can catch a tiny amount of plaice, and their cod quota could be caught in a single day. How are they supposed to survive?

I believe, as does my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, that the time has come—I am addressing the Minister directly—to examine and review whether the MMO is fit for purpose and how its data processing is conducted. Has the Minister been to its offices and looked at its techniques and methods? Will he get a grip on that organisation, which has lost the trust of the fishing industry from top to bottom? If the information I have received from well-placed and expert sources is correct, something is gravely wrong with the system of examination, data processing and monitoring. I hear stories of data being processed weeks if not months late, and of inadequate or inefficient data processing. Those stories reach the fishermen I represent. If their livelihoods are to be in the hands of those people—a few months ago around 100 tonnes of ray were traded away and now fishermen have been told they cannot catch any more—the Government must be sure on their behalf that the MMO is doing its job properly.

Speaking directly to the Minister, for whom I have great fondness and regard, it is time for us to get a grip on the MMO and go in there, find out what it is doing, and insist on seeing exactly how it is processing the data. We must put experts in there to see whether the MMO will bear up to scrutiny as it should. If we do not do that, the continuing spiralling loss of confidence among the fishermen we represent will continue, and it will be fully justified.