Fishing Industry

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

I was coming on to that exact point. Considering the balance in the industry is not about undermining the contribution of one, or ignoring the contribution of the other. The hon. Lady makes a valuable point.

The quotas were set 25 to 30 years ago, and there has been a decreasing allocation for small inshore fishing vessels. The 5,000 small vessels, as the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) highlighted, currently have only 4% of the quota. It is increasingly difficult for inshore fishermen to make their small businesses—for that is what they are—viable, but they are part of the supply chain and they bring money into local communities.

I do not accept everything that Greenpeace says, but it is worth highlighting the article alluded to by the hon. Member for Waveney. A large Dutch ship, the Cornelis Vrolijk, flies a British flag—my understanding is that one can get a British flag by registering and paying £111—and currently takes up an enormous proportion of the UK quota. All of the 34,000-tonne ship’s landings go to Holland. Nothing goes to any UK port. The implications for the local economy, the processing industry and so on cannot be underestimated.

I understand that one of the criteria for registering for a British flag is that an economic link with Britain be demonstrated. Will the Minister explain the economic link between the large vessels that are scooping up—legitimately—their quotas and Britain, which allows those vessels to fly a British flag without landing in Britain? What efforts will he make to rebalance the quota allocation? What engagement has he had with inshore fisherman? Can the UK take that process forward unilaterally or does it have to be part of a wider engagement within the EU?

It has been suggested, and I have seen nothing to the contrary, that the fishing industry will be represented at the Fisheries Council by the 7th Baron De Mauley. As Scottish National Members know, although I agree with their party on some areas, I have difficulties with some of its policies. However, I find it astonishing that this year’s fisheries discussions are not being led by the most experienced Fisheries Minister in Europe, the current Scottish Fisheries Minister. I do not know why that has happened. I do not know why the noble Lord De Mauley has been hauled in—an appropriate phrase, given that we are talking about fishing—to these discussions. Why should fishermen have confidence in somebody with no apparent connection with the fishing industry?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I think the right hon. Lady is labouring under some confusion. I will be at the December Fisheries Council next week, representing the interests of the whole UK. The purpose of this debate is for me, as UK Minister, to receive representations from Members throughout the UK. One major problem with being represented by the Scottish Fisheries Minister is that he would not be here, at this Dispatch Box, to take representations from across the UK.

[Mrs McGuire]

I hear what the Minister says.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I congratulate hon. Members and the members of the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries on securing the debate and on obtaining the support of the Backbench Business Committee for it. I also acknowledge, as a number of other hon. Members have, the commitment to the fisheries debate over many years of the hon. Members for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). Once again, it has been a spirited debate with many questions, and I will try to cover as many of those as I can.

First, it is important to take this opportunity to remember the eight men who lost their lives at sea during the past year in incidents involving five vessels—the Eshcol, the Diamond, the Ronan Orla, the Barnacle 3 and the Ocean Way. The contribution from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North about the importance of improving safety at sea was particularly powerful. We all recognise the difficult and dangerous work that fishermen do to bring food to our tables, and I know that the House will wish to join me in paying tribute to those men and offering sincere condolences to all the families and friends who have suffered loss.

Many important points have been raised in today’s debate, and I shall try to cover as many as I can. This year’s December Fisheries Council will be particularly challenging, with Commission proposals for reductions in the quotas of most stocks, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out. However, I aim to negotiate a fair and balanced package of fishing opportunities for our fishermen. The quotas set should be consistent with our objectives: they should be based on the best available scientific advice; they should aim to achieve maximum sustainable yield where possible; and they should help the industry with the transition to the discard ban.

[Sheryll Murray]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I will carry on, because I want to cover as many of the points that have been raised as possible, including many that she raised.

In the run-up to the December Council, we have already secured successful outcomes in three major international negotiations on fishing opportunities this year. The outcome of the EU-Norway talks last week was particularly encouraging. The agreed increases in quotas—5% for North sea cod and 7% for haddock and plaice—show the benefits of responsible management. Some difficult decisions taken in previous years are now starting to pay dividends for the fishing industry in the North sea.

I am also pleased that the EU secured a three-party north-east Atlantic mackerel agreement last month. That sustainable agreement will bring around £250 million to the UK. The EU also successfully negotiated an agreement with the Faroes this week. The result is a very good one for the UK, providing our fishermen with opportunities to catch a number of species in Faroese waters, including 817 tonnes of cod and haddock and 696 tonnes of saithe.

Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), mentioned crab allocations in the south-west. I can confirm that just today a swap agreement has been secured with Irish producer organisations that will enable our very important crab fishery in the far south-west to remain open until the end of the year.

However, I recognise that there are challenges in other areas, particularly the south-west, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, and I have taken those into account when deciding our negotiating position. Let us be clear that we cannot increase quotas if the science does not support it. I do not believe that to do so would be in the long-term interests of our fishermen; if we fish unsustainably, we simply rob them of their tomorrow. If we want a long-term, viable industry, we must fish sustainably. However, while having science as our guiding principle, we have to ensure that we use the best and most up-to-date science available and take decisions that are right for the fish stocks and right for the fishing fleets that depend on them.

Last Thursday I had a meeting with Commissioner Vella in Brussels to begin the negotiating process for the December Council. I made a number of key points on the science. First, we should use the most recent data available where they are relevant. In the south-west, in particular, there is a lot of evidence of a late recruitment of haddock this summer, which we want to be taken into account in the December Council. Secondly, when it comes to data-limited stocks, we oppose simply having an automatic, precautionary approach. We believe that we should make the best possible judgment with the data we have, rather than having arbitrary cuts, and we have made that point already to the Commission. Thirdly, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby highlighted, it is important to have what we call mixed fisheries analysis. There is no point in dramatically cutting the quota for one species if it is in a mixed fishery, because fishermen cannot avoid it and will therefore end up having to discard it. Finally, we want to ensure that account is taken of the increased use of more selective gears.

I particularly welcome the progress that has been made so far in implementing the reformed common fisheries policy, especially in advancing regional fisheries management. The first part of the discard ban for the pelagic fisheries will come into force on 1 January 2015. That is a significant milestone in the new CFP. The new rules that will implement it were developed not in Brussels, but by regional groups of member states working together. I think that the new regionalised approach, as the hon. Member for St Ives noted, is working well. Rather than having top-down decisions from the Commission that the Council of Ministers must then try to mitigate and argue over, we are getting a multilateral agreement where member states with a shared interest in a fishery work through their differences and then take the solution to the Commission. We will shortly begin the work to prepare for the demersal discard ban in January 2016. The regional groups will meet early next summer to take those discussions forward, and in the next year we will issue a consultation to the industry so that we can take on board its views.

I know that fisheries closures have been a prominent issue this year, particularly in the Bristol channel. As a number of Members have pointed out, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) made a forceful intervention in that regard. The point I would make is that the closures are a last-resort mechanism used to protect the long-term future of the fisheries industry. He asked whether I have raised the matter with the Marine Management Organisation. I can confirm that after he raised it with me a month ago I had a meeting with the MMO to explore exactly what went wrong. It is going to set up a panel, which will include fisheries leaders. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes asked why that had not yet progressed. It has been in transition to a new chief executive, but John Tuckett is now in place. I will take up the issue with him, because I want us to learn lessons.

We must also recognise—I went through a number of these issues with the MMO—that managing quotas is a difficult task. The reality is that last year we had a very bad winter, so fishermen could not get out and catch their quotas. We then had an incredibly good summer, so the under-10 fleet, in particular, managed to catch its quota much more quickly than it normally does. Indeed, this is the first year we have had a problem with skate and ray quotas. In defence of the MMO, had it intervened earlier, that would have restricted the amount of quota that fishermen could fish over the summer. There is a fixed amount of quota, and we could not allow them to overfish it. I am sure that there are fishermen who would have said, “Now you’re making me go out and fish in November and December, but I could have caught the quota in the summer.” These are not easy issues.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon pointed out that the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation still had 100 tonnes of ray quota at the point at which the closure took place and wondered why that was. It turned out, when the figures came through, that 100 tonnes of quota were needed to cover overfishing that had already taken place in other parts of the fleet. He also mentioned a transfer that was agreed by the MMO from a Scottish producer organisation. We will want to look at that, but it has to be said that that was held by a Scottish producer organisation, not one in the west country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) proposed the idea of having compulsory log books for the under-10 fleet, which would obviously improve the speed at which we can get the data, but I am not sure that it would be universally popular with the under-10s. The reason we do not require them to have compulsory electronic log books is that they claim it would be disproportionate to the impact they have.

I will move on to some of the other points that were raised.

[Dr Wollaston]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I want to carry on, because there are many questions that I want to answer in the time available.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby said that ICES advice is sometimes behind that which we can get from fishermen. We have a mixture of information and data that will inform the recommendations for the December Council, as well as work done by the Endeavour, a fantastic survey vessel run by CEFAS that goes to the same areas each year in order to get reliable data. We also sometimes put observers on fishing vessels so that we can look at the actual catch they are getting in practice.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether it would be possible to delay implementation of MSY. The regulation requires us to implement it where possible in 2015 and everywhere by 2020, and that is exactly what we will do. We will implement it where we can by 2015. Where we cannot implement it, because the science does not allow us to, there is the possibility to delay until 2020.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) talked about haddock in the Celtic sea. There is a big cut of over 40% proposed for that. We are doing two things in that regard. In the summer I visited the fishing vessel of David Stevens in Newlyn, who has been doing some fantastic work, together with the MMO and CEFAS, on using more selective gears. That scientific advice has now been validated by the EU’s science committee, and we will be using it next week in the December Council. We also want to make more use of the most recent recruitment data.

My hon. Friend mentioned the approach to data-limited stocks. As I said, we believe that we should make the best use we can of the data. That will be particularly important for some species in the far south-west, notably monkfish, megrim and sole. In parts of the south-west, a roll-over is proposed, but there are some quite big proposed cuts in sole in the Bristol channel, and we shall be trying to mitigate some of the impacts of that.

My hon. Friend mentioned CFP reform and whether we could remove access to our fleet. However, the UK also benefits from access in the 6 to 12-mile zone of countries such as France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland, and many of these agreements even pre-date the CFP, so the matter is not quite that straightforward.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted the issue of nephrops. I met Northern Ireland fisheries representatives earlier this week, and I am meeting them again later today, so they are been well represented. Back in October, at one of our stakeholder meetings, I met Michelle O’Neill from the Northern Ireland Administration, and she will be present at the December Council next week.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and several others mentioned issues relating to the under-10 metre fleet. We are going to realign quotas, permanently, and that will give a significant uplift in quota to the under-10 fleet. We are about to put out a consultation on removing latent capacity from boats that have not been fishing. About half of them have not carried out any fishing activity at all, and we need to deal with that. A pilot has been run in Ramsgate to look at whether we could give longer-term quotas to some of the under-10 metre fleet. Earlier this year we consulted on whether the under-10 metre would want to leave the pool altogether and have the certainty of an annual quota. The fleet’s reaction to that proposal was mixed, and we have not yet made any final decisions on it. When we get into the new discard ban regime, there will be the potential for a quota uplift. We are looking at whether we can reflect the importance of the under- 10 metre fleet in making those decisions.

The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) asked about the impact on ports and how they will cope with the discard ban. Two weeks ago, I met a whole load of representatives from the ports and we discussed some of these issues. We do have processing capacity to deal with some of the undersized fish, but there is often a logistical issue in transporting them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) invited me to the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. I attended a reception that the laboratory held a month ago, and I would be more than happy to visit it. DEFRA very much welcomes our partnership with it.

The right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) referred to the role of the Scottish Government. I ought to explain what happens at the December Council. I think that we engage with the devolved Assemblies more than any other Department, and we recognise that every part of the UK has an important fisheries industry. At the Council, Richard Lochhead, Scotland’s Fisheries Minister, attends all the meetings where we decide our negotiating strategy, all the bilateral meetings that we have with other Ministers, and the trilateral meeting that we have with the presidency and the Commission. We talk regularly about the position that we take as and when we change things. All the devolved Administrations are fully engaged in the approach that we take to the December Council.

[Dr Whiteford]

rose—

[George Eustice]

I want to carry on because I am conscious of the time.

The hon. Member for St Ives asked about the roll-out of the discard ban. I think that fishermen sometimes forget about the various elements, and flexibilities, in the discard ban. If there is high survivability, fish can be put back. There is inter-species flexibility whereby someone who has, for instance, a lot of cod that they do not have quota for can count it as haddock. We start with the fish that define the fishery and finish with the smaller species. There is a de minimis exemption for people who cannot avoid doing anything else. We can borrow and bank quota from one year to the next.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) talked about the omnibus regulation. The legal position is clear: the new regulations take precedence over previous ones. The omnibus regulation was supposed to deal with that. As she said, there has been a bit of a problem in getting agreement between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, and that is now at the stage of trialogues.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) asked about The Hague preference. We plan to invoke that in the usual way. We have also secured extra whiting from Norway through the EU-Norway deal. In recent years, we have diverted an extra 300 tonnes specifically to the north-east. The quota uplift that he mentioned will be finally decided in the December Council.

I hope that I have covered as many of the issues raised by hon. Members as possible. As I said, this is a challenging December Council. These meetings have a habit of going late into the night, although last year’s was an unusual exception. There are many challenging issues to address. I hope that I have managed to assure hon. Members that I am fully conscious of their concerns and will be going there to get the best possible deal we can for our fishing industry in the context of the science.