East Anglian Fishing Fleet

George Eustice Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing the debate. He is a long-standing champion of the fishing industry generally and the under-10 metre sector in Lowestoft in his constituency specifically. Lowestoft is also home to CEFAS, the world’s greatest centre of excellence for fisheries science, and long may it continue to be so.

My hon. Friend described some of the history of the decline of fishing in areas such as Lowestoft and along the east coast. The reasons are varied. He highlighted the decline of the herring industry, for example, and the fact that herring became a less popular fish in this country. Further north, the decline of fishing in places such as Grimsby can be plotted against the cod wars and the UK long-distance fleet being displaced from the waters around Iceland. Now that we are leaving the European Union, however, we have many opportunities to reform and change the way we manage fisheries in our exclusive economic zone.

My hon. Friend made it clear that he had campaigned to remain. I should probably point out that I campaigned to leave, and one of my reasons for doing so was my experience as a Fisheries and an Agriculture Minister over three years, which meant that I saw up close how EU law works in practice, as well as in theory. That made me conclude that we would do better if we took back control and made our own laws—we could get things done and change things when they needed changing.

In the specific context of fisheries, I highlighted two issues in the referendum campaign. First, at the moment we allow the EU to lead for us in important negotiations on pelagic species such as mackerel, and on the North sea with countries such as Norway. Those negotiations would be more effective if we had a seat at the table. Secondly, leaving the EU gives us an opportunity to revisit the allocation of quotas, which in some cases is unfair—parts of the fleet do not get a fair share of the agreed international quota.

Now the referendum is over, however, it is important that we all stop fighting the referendum campaign. For me, the real challenge is to put together a new type of partnership to recognise what the people of this country were telling us: they want us to take back control, although they also want us to put in place a close working partnership with other countries. They want us to be an outward-looking country, which we certainly will be as the UK.

In the referendum campaign, I was also clear that some things would not change. First, we will still fish sustainably and in line with the science. The UK has been the champion of sustainable fisheries. Secondly, we need to have some kind of quota or effort regime to restrict fishing effort, because in a mixed fishery that is the only way to have sustainable fisheries. Thirdly, I was very clear that we must continue to strive to end the shameful practice of discarding perfectly good fish back into the sea. That remains a manifesto commitment and an objective of future policy. Finally, the reality of fisheries is such that there will always need to be a large degree of international negotiation. That will not change.

We are working on new policy, and a huge amount of analysis is going on. My hon. Friend will be reassured to know that many of the issues that he highlighted towards the end of his speech are indeed ones that we are looking at—I will touch on some in more detail. Broadly speaking, however, we have a good starting point in the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, which sets down certain principles on how we should manage fisheries in our exclusive economic zone—inside 200 nautical miles or the median line—and requirements such as the duty to co-operate with other countries, which we of course would do. They, in turn, have a duty to co-operate with us. The convention sets it down that we should have regard for historic access rights, but other countries should have regard for ours. Crucially, however, in our exclusive economic zone we will have the opportunity to change technical measures when they need to be changed, far more quickly.

My hon. Friend raised a number of issues specific to Lowestoft that I will touch on. First, he highlighted the fact that many of the vessels in the Lowestoft Fish Producers Organisation are foreign-owned—many are Dutch—and that a large amount of the catch is landed in the Netherlands and in Scotland. We are looking at that issue. We are about to review what is called the economic link, which is a set of conditions and criteria with which foreign-owned vessels must comply. We are looking at strengthening the link so that more benefits can be returned to local fishing ports such as Lowestoft, for whose vessels the quota was intended. We are planning to consult on the link and we will be looking at it as part of our longer-term review of things such as the concordat with other parts of the UK and as we develop future fisheries policy.

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

Will the Minister comment briefly on the point I made about the shrimp fishery and the Wash, and the damage that could be done by the MSC?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend has raised the issue with me. It is a matter for the IFCA, but I have asked officials to keep me informed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney drew attention to the under-10s. As he knows, we have a manifesto commitment to rebalance quotas towards the under-10 metre fleet, because the historic problem from when the quotas were set is that the under-10s probably did not get a fair enough share of the quota. We are already delivering on that manifesto commitment. Only this year, we made it clear that in the discard uplift of the quota, the first 100 tonnes and then 10% thereafter would go to the under-10s. That means that this year alone they have already had 1,000 extra tonnes of fish, 573 tonnes of which are in the North sea, including more than 200 extra tonnes of haddock, 100 tonnes of saithe and 159 tonnes of plaice. We have already started to deliver on that and, as we roll out the discard ban, there will be further increases for the under-10 fleet—notably, cod is likely to be added for the North sea.

My hon. Friend mentioned access to the six-to-12 nautical miles zone, which dates from the London convention of 1964 and so predates us entering the CFP. We have had strong representations from the industry, however, that it would like to see that reviewed and to have exclusive access for our inshore UK vessels in the nought-to-12 zone. We are looking at that, but we have not yet taken any final decisions.

My hon. Friend mentioned the challenge of pulse trawlers. Indeed, I visited Lowestoft in his constituency back in June and I met local fishermen, who expressed that concern to me. I then asked CEFAS to do some work urgently to review the impact of pulse trawling, because there are potential issues of concern—countries such as Japan have already taken action to curtail or prevent pulse trawling. I therefore assure him that CEFAS is looking at the issue.

My hon. Friend mentioned flagship issues. A lot of that goes back to the important Factortame test case, which was a big tussle between the sovereignty of Parliament and EU law. There is an opportunity to re-examine that as we leave the EU, but again we have made no prior decisions. The area is complex and we should recognise that the licences, vessels and attached quotas were sold by UK fishermen—we have to recognise that—but I also believe that through the changes to the economic link, which we are planning to consult on, we can go some way towards addressing that concern.

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of trade. It is important to note that for countries such as Norway, which are in the European economic area, the customs union does not cover fisheries. Norway and Iceland, for example, therefore have separate preferential trade agreements with the EU. We will obviously be seeking to do something similar as we negotiate future trade agreements with our European partners. We are also keen to open new markets in countries such as China, Japan and others in the far east.

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of science. We will continue to engage CEFAS closely on that. We are committed to sustainable fisheries. When it comes to adding value to fisheries in the supply chain—something else he mentioned—we have set up a seafood working group led by Seafish, pulling together industry to see how we can improve the structure of the industry and the value it gets for its catch.

Finally, I confirm to my hon. Friend that as we approach Brexit the Department is working closely with every other Department, including the Department for Communities and Local Government, and he is absolutely right that we have a great opportunity as we negotiate future policy to get something that works for our coastal communities.

Question put and agreed to.