Fisheries Bill (First sitting)

George Eustice Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am delighted to welcome the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and the National Fisherman’s Federation Organisation to give evidence. For the sake of Hansard, will you kindly introduce yourselves before we start questions?

Bertie Armstrong: Certainly, in alphabetical order, I am Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, which is the trade association that looks after the catching sector in Scotland. It has nine constituent associations and a geographical spread. It covers some 450 fishing boat businesses from smallest to largest.

Barrie Deas: I am Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, which is the representative body for fishermen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)]

Q What have been the main shortcomings of the common fisheries policy from your perspective, and what would you hope to achieve through a domestic fisheries policy?

Bertie Armstrong: The central ill of the common fisheries policy is the matter of the distribution of catching opportunity—the so-called relative stability—which places us, from our waters, in the position of 60% of the seafood assets removed from our waters being in the hands of non-UK EU fishing nations. The relative figures for other coastal states, one of which we will become on Brexit day, are Norway 85% or thereabouts and Iceland 90%. So the primary ill is common access to our waters and statutorily giving away that amount of our natural capital.

The second ill of the CFP is that it is distant and remote, and the process is effectively moribund. It is dysfunctionally distant. It is centralised by treaty and cannot be uncentralised or regionalised to any proper extent. The Bill must seek not to replace one unworkable system with another.

Thirdly, and finally, some political elements of the CFP in terms of practical fisheries management are counterproductive and unworkable. For instance, no one wishes to discard our perfectly edible fish, but the way it is linked to the CFP will simply not work.

Barrie Deas: I very much share Bertie’s views. The essential problems with the common fisheries policy for the United Kingdom lie in its inception, which was based on the principle of equal access, and ten years later, the principle of relative stability that allocated shares that do not reflect the resources that are in our waters. The comparison is with what we would have been had we been an independent coastal state for the last 45 years, like Norway. It is a huge disparity.

We are tied into an asymmetric and exploitative arrangement. The departure of the UK from the EU and therefore from the common fisheries policy provides us with the first opportunity to break free of that. The content of the Fisheries Bill is extremely important in terms of taking the powers to control who fishes in our waters—the access arrangements—and to renegotiate the quota shares.

I very much share Bertie’s view that the common fisheries policy has been cumbersome to deal with and very remote from where the impact of the decisions are felt, which has led to a huge gulf between fairly grandiose legislation and failure at implementation level. The gulf between primary legislation and its implementation has been recognised by the Commission and in the common fisheries policy. In recent years there has been an attempt to address it by introducing an element of regionalisation. Unfortunately, the treaty of Lisbon and the introduction of co-decision making into fisheries involving the European Parliament has moved active decision making even further away from where it counts and where its effects are felt. In that sense, we have moved in the opposite direction.

[George Eustice]

Q Obviously, at the moment every part of the UK has access to each other’s waters. The Bill protects that in the first clause by having a key purpose of equal access. Are you happy with that approach?

Barrie Deas: Yes. I think there always has been the right of UK fishing vessels from any part of the country to fish anywhere in the waters. We think that is an important principle that should be retained. The NFFO has some problems with the impact of the devolution settlement on fisheries, which makes it much more complex, but the fundamental principle of equal access for UK vessels is one that we support.

Bertie Armstrong: Likewise, the Scots fleet would like to continue to be able to catch its prawns off South Shields as well as in the Fladen Ground, but we are too small. I think the central and relevant point is that there has been no arm-wrestling and no desire for regionalisation of the catching area. The heft of the UK exclusive economic zone is great because of the area and its seafood contents; it is not great in terms of home nation fleets. I do not think there is any sense in splitting it up, or any requirement to do so.

[George Eustice]

Q Finally, on the issue of a fair sharing methodology in future international negotiations, do you share the approach outlined in our White Paper, which is a move to using zonal attachment as the basis for future sharing arrangements?

Bertie Armstrong: From my point of view, in the strongest possible terms, there has to be some sort of principle for division. Given the fact that there will be access as we have access, for instance, to Norway, there will be access by European boats to UK waters. We need to be very careful not to put anything on the face of the Bill that is obstructive.

Barrie Deas: The most extreme example of the distortion in quota shares is English channel cod: the UK share is 9% and the French share is 84%. Other examples include Celtic sea haddock: our share is about 10% and the French share is 66%. Those kinds of distortion have been part and parcel of relative stability and equal access, and they need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

The principle of zonal attachment is used in the division of quota shares between the EU and Norway, so it is already accepted by the EU in that context. Obviously, it does not work to their advantage in relation to the UK, which is why it is not unexpected that they are very unhappy about the change. The broad picture is that the principle of zonal attachment, reflecting the resources that are in the UK water, should be the basis for allocating quotas in the future, in our view.

Bertie Armstrong: May I add a practical example of the ills of not doing that? To make a discard reduction or ban, or a landing obligation, work, the fishing opportunity in the area has to resemble what is in the ocean. The great distortions of the CFP mean that you simply cannot make that work, because you get choked immediately on having caught all of one species and still having quota for another. There needs to be an underlying principle, and zonal attachment is the one that, by common sense and instinct—apart from the fact that Norway has accepted it—makes the most sense. If we approach the whole of our new role as a coastal state with the idea that common sense and sustainability are central, we will do well.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q With no further ado, I welcome the representative of the UK Seafood Industry Alliance. Will you kindly introduce yourself for the record?

Andrew Kuyk: Thank you, Mr Gray. My name is Andrew Kuyk. I am director general of the Provision Trade Federation, which is a food trade association, but as part of that role, I also represent the UK Seafood Industry Alliance, which represents UK fish processors and traders.

[George Eustice]

Q We heard earlier about the problems with relative stability as a sharing basis. I know that in a former life you had a role in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when things such as relative stability were set up and principles such as the Hague preference were established. Could you explain to the Committee the genesis of the existing relative stability shares and why the UK ended up with a smaller share than has seemed appropriate?

Andrew Kuyk: How long have you got?

[The Chair]

We have until 10.55, so let us try to keep it brief.

Andrew Kuyk: This is going back into history. At the time, I was first secretary, fisheries, in the UK permanent representation in Brussels, so I was the desk officer for these negotiations. I will not go into it in too much detail, but Committee members may recall that we had already joined the EU by that stage. The common fisheries policy had to wait another four or five years; it was a lengthy and difficult negotiation. The background was that, at the time we joined, we did not have an exclusive 200-mile zone, although the concept existed. We joined the EU and became subject to what was known as the common pond. There was equal access within that, save for some coastal rights under the London convention. Also, prior to the CFP, fisheries were managed by things such as the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission—NEAFC. There was a concept of high seas and so on. Total allowable catches and quotas, as a management instrument, were familiar, but they were not done within the EU, so we had to invent that system.

The reason why there is an apparent imbalance in some of the quota shares is that the negotiation was done with reference to what was called track record, which was the catches historically taken by the various component parts of the EU fleet. Prior to our joining, most of the fish that were relevant to our domestic market were fished off countries such as Iceland and Norway. We had what then was our distant water fleet—large vessels based in Hull and Grimsby that went quite far afield to get the main species on which our market depended. Therefore, our track record was on those vessels, in waters that were not immediately covered by the EU common pond.

Also at the time—this is going back some 30 years—there was not—

[The Chair]

Mr Kuyk, I am keeping a close eye on the clock and would be most grateful if you would restrict your remarks as much as you can.

Andrew Kuyk: I will get there quickly now. The smaller vessels were not subject to logbooks and recording of catches. Our track record was good in relation to the bigger vessels, and the track record used for the decisions was going back 10 or 20 years prior to 1980. The track record for the smaller vessels was not so good. Therefore, one of the reasons why the quota shares do not necessarily reflect current realities is that they were backward-looking and based on partial data. That is the short answer to your question, Minister.

[George Eustice]

Q Thank you. Now I fast-forward to your current role. Most of your members import large quantities of cod, predominantly, from Iceland, Norway and even, I think, Russia, Finland and the Barents sea. Can you explain the nature of the preferential trade agreements we have with Iceland and Norway, and also the process of autonomous tariff rate quotas for other countries?

Andrew Kuyk: Briefly, for the benefit of the Committee, we have what I term the supply paradox. Roughly two thirds of what we eat in this country, we import, and a lot of that is not from the EU. Some 80% of what is caught by UK vessels is exported, mainly to the EU. The reasons for that are largely to do with consumer choice. The main species consumed in the UK are cod, salmon, haddock, tuna, shrimps and prawns. Obviously, the tuna and most of the shrimps and prawns are not available in UK or EU waters. The salmon is largely aquaculture. On species such as cod and haddock, we are very far from self-sufficient. Our total consumption of cod in the UK is about three times the total EU TAC for cod, so we are about 10% self-sufficient in cod.

We import that raw material because that is the market demand. A lot of that does not come from the EU, but a lot of it comes via the EU, which complicates the trade statistics. The Minister has referred to the autonomous tariff quota system—ATQs. This system is a regulation that normally runs for three years. It recognises that the EU, not just the UK, is a deficit market in fish. That relativity—about two thirds imports—applies to the EU market as a whole, so the EU recognises that the fish to meet consumer need are not available under its jurisdiction. Although there is an external tariff, it has these autonomous tariff quotas. Specified quantities are admitted, either tariff-free or at a reduced tariff, and they are negotiated on a three-yearly basis. We are just about to conclude the next agreement, which will run for only two years, rather than three.

Most of those imports come in through some kind of preferential arrangement. We pay some tariffs on some of them. There is the complication of trans-shipment through the EU; some of those are landed in, say, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven or wherever and then come to us as part of free circulation within the single market.

In summary, imports come through a variety of arrangements; some come as a result of the EU-Norway agreement. Various agreements are in place that give us the benefit of significant tariff reductions. Those are necessary, because otherwise we would not be able to supply market demand in the UK.

[George Eustice]

Q Finally, leaving aside shellfish and some of the species that we export for which tariffs are quite low, and looking specifically at your members who predominantly process highly processed cod products, what proportion of their production is re-exported to the EU, and what proportion of those highly processed products is sold in the UK?

Andrew Kuyk: I am not sure I would use the term “highly processed”. Quite a lot of it is things such as bread-crumbs; I do not know whether you regard that as a high degree of processing. It is to do with the presentation. These are consumer-ready, convenience products—fillets with some kind of coating. There is a growing line in ready meals—a meal opportunity: a fish product with vegetables and a sauce, and so on. Most of those imports are for domestic consumption, because we are a deficit market. There is some re-export. I do not have an exact figure, but I would imagine it is something like 10% or 15%—not more than that. The vast majority is to supply our domestic market.

[Luke Pollard]

Q The Bill does not talk very much about processing. If we were to include an economic link for anyone catching fish under a UK quota, where more fish was landed in the UK ports, what would the impact of that be on the UK processing sector?

Andrew Kuyk: It is difficult to say. Again, without going too much into the history, we used to have what I would call an end-to-end processing industry in the UK, where a whole wet fish would go in one end of the factory and a product would come out of the other. Over the years, that has become rationalised and specialised, and a lot of that first-stage processing now happens elsewhere. Some of it happens on board vessels, on factory ships. Some fish—I know this sounds anomalous, but it is sheer market economics—are sent to places such as China, where they are filleted, and come back as frozen blocks. The raw material for quite a lot of our processing industry at the moment is a pre-prepared product—it is not the fish straight from the boat.

That could be a problem on two or three different levels. It is a problem and an opportunity. Clearly, if there was more domestic supply available, the UK processing industry would do its best to cope with that, but that would require investment. I was listening to the earlier session. The front end of the processing factory does exist on a smaller scale in some parts of the country, but for the people who supply the vast volumes—a sort of 80:20 thing—that front end, the lines of people physically filleting the fish and so on, does not exist any more. To reinvent that, you would need the labour, which I know is a tangential issue not to do with the Fisheries Bill, but it is a broader issue for the food industry in relation to Brexit—the supply of labour—and you need the skill. You need both the people and the skill, and you would need some physical investment in capacity, more storage, more chilling and so on.

It is not as if there is under-utilised capacity. It is a function of modern business that capacity matches throughput and the market, so there is not excess processing capacity waiting for new supplies of fish. It would have to be put in place. It would require money, people and skills. To invest the money, you would need a sound business case that could give you a projection of what your price and what your market share would be. The price, critically, would depend on what your broader trading relationship was—tariffs and currency—and what the competition was. It is quite a complex jigsaw, but the short answer is that there is not significant under-utilised capacity that, at the flick of a switch, could suddenly cope with an influx of domestically caught fish.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

It is a great pleasure to welcome back Mr Martin Salter, who was the Member of Parliament for Reading West for a number of years and is a dear old friend of mine, and Paul Trebilcock from the UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations. Mr Salter is from the Angling Trust. Perhaps you could kindly introduce yourselves briefly for the record.

Martin Salter: Thank you, Mr Gray—I miss our late-night train journeys back to Swindon. My name is Martin Salter, formerly of this parish and now head of campaigns for the Angling Trust, the national representative body for all forms of recreational fishing. That includes sea angling, which according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is an industry in its own right worth £2 billion to the UK economy, generating 20,000 jobs and supporting thousands of coastal businesses.

One of the reasons we were very keen to give evidence before you is that, despite the warm words from Ministers and in the White Paper, recreational sea angling is not mentioned in the Bill, and we are hoping that you will put that right.

Paul Trebilcock: I am Paul Trebilcock, chairman of the UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations. All producer organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are in our membership. Our members account for more than 40% by value of fish and shellfish landings in the UK.

[George Eustice]

Q I will start with a question for Paul Trebilcock. The very first clause of the Bill sets out a number of important environmental targets for the sustainable harvest of our marine environment. In the south-west we have particular challenges with maximum sustainable yields in a mixed fishery. Would you explain, from the point of view of fishermen in the south-west, the types of challenge we have as we try to abide by that target?

Paul Trebilcock: I should probably say at the outset that the fishing industry clearly has an interest and a priority to ensure the long-term sustainability of all our fisheries. Sustainability is at the very core of what we want from the Bill and the UK acting as an independent coastal state. However, in the words of Karl O’Brien at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the MSY concept is scientifically illiterate. To have all stocks at MSY at a particular point in time is just not possible. In particular, in ultra-mixed fisheries, as we have in the south-west, there will always be ups and downs and natural variants. We are trying to manage a dynamic natural resource.

The concept of MSY is a good principle. Working towards MSY proxies on the key driver stocks is probably more practical than what we have at the moment, with an arbitrary legally binding commitment in the common fisheries policy that gives us some perverse pieces of advice. Zero TACs on stocks does not mean they will not be caught in mixed fisheries; it just means they are not taken account of in practical fisheries management. A far better way would be to have the MSY framework as an aspiration and to move towards it, and wherever possible have as many stocks as possible in that MSY range.

[George Eustice]

Q Some people say we can learn from Norway, which uses MSY and other approaches, too. Is there anything you think we can learn from that?

Paul Trebilcock: As I say, I think there are lessons to be learned from independent coastal member states such as Norway. Its approach to fisheries management takes the whole ecosystem into account and does not try just to manage stock on arbitrary numbers. There are lessons to be learned, such as using proxies or other indicators to ensure that the whole mix of stocks is going in the right direction and perhaps using the MSY as the driver for some of the key economic stocks. It is about trying to take into account that we are trying to manage a dynamic natural resource rather than something that neatly obeys some scientific modelling.

[George Eustice]

Q Mr Salter, I feel you are a bit glass half empty about the Bill. Clause 28(1)(e), which I am sure you have read, creates the powers to give financial assistance for

“the promotion or development of recreational fishing.”

That is in the Bill and it is the first time ever that we have created power to give financial assistance to angling. Is that something you welcome?

Martin Salter: What do you think, Minister? With due respect, it is obviously right and proper that the European maritime and fisheries fund makes some of it available to the commercial sector. That is fine, but you had six direct references in the White Paper to recreational fishing. One of the great failures of the common fisheries policy is the failure to recognise recreational angling as a legitimate stakeholder in the European fishery. That is a failure of the CFP that the Bill could put right. You could do that, as we state in our evidence, by putting on the face of the Bill, “The UK Government recognise recreational sea angling as a direct user and a legitimate stakeholder in the fishery.” That would be a win-win situation and it would add to the very welcome news that we are going to have access to EMFF funding.

[George Eustice]

Q I have done this job for five years. We meet every year—you are always invited ahead of the December Council, along with the commercial fishing sector, to discuss our priorities. Bass has dominated discussions, certainly in the past three years. What is it that you seek for us to do with legal powers? Obviously the Bill is about legal powers. Are you saying you would like a licensing regime for recreational anglers? In what way would you like us to legally recognise you?

Martin Salter: We, like you, are looking forward to saying goodbye to the annual horse trading that takes place at the Fisheries Council. It is worth putting on the record that, despite the reform of the CFP, some 44% of total allowable catch limits were set above scientifically recommended limits. That process is far from perfect, and it is to be welcomed that the Bill and particularly the White Paper talk in terms of world-leading fisheries management.

However, the point for politicians is that it is easy to claim that we are going to be an independent coastal state, but that does not deliver sustainable fisheries. Senegal is an independent coastal state, and its fisheries have been wiped out by super-trawlers, which are mainly European and have used their economic power to destroy the livelihoods of artisanal fishermen in independent coastal states. You will deliver sustainable fisheries management by having world-leading sustainable fisheries policy. You will deliver that by looking at the very best in the world. You should look at Norway and in particular at the United States. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act 1976 puts a statutory duty on the eight regional fishery councils to take action to rebuild fish stocks.

You asked what we are seeking. We would like to see on the face of the Bill a binding duty for Ministers to set total allowable catch limits in line with scientifically recommended evidence, rather than this dreadful horse trading that takes place every year at the European Fisheries Council, which is no model of sustainable fisheries management at all.

[George Eustice]

Q Do you not think that that is there in the very first clause of the Bill, in subsection (3), which states that the “precautionary objective” is to ensure that “living marine biological resources” are exploited in such a way that they are harvested

“above biomass levels capable of producing maximum sustainable yield.”

There is a legal commitment there.

Martin Salter: There is, but there is a section in the Bill about binding duties. Frankly, Minister, if I were in your shoes, I would want a binding duty. I would want to make it crystal clear that we are going to end the discredited system that has operated under the common fisheries policy and replace it with a legally backed duty to fish at sustainable levels, just as we have legally backed targets for climate change and emissions.

I am afraid I do not agree with Paul and my colleagues in the commercial catching sector about having MSY as an aspiration. Minister, you have piloted bass conservation measures more than anybody else, but usually in the face of opposition from the commercial catching sector. We have seen those conservation measures start to lead to the rebuilding of bass stocks in the UK, which is really to be commended. We need to be bold, we need to be outliers, we need to learn from the best in the world, and we need it clearly and simply on the face of the Bill.

[Luke Pollard]

Q Paul, at the moment, not all UK fisheries are classed as sufficiently sustainable under the UK Government’s procurement policies for the Government to buy fish from them. What needs to happen for all UK fisheries to be classed as sustainable, so the UK Government’s procurement policies enable their fish to be bought and so we can be proud that all our fisheries are sustainable?

Paul Trebilcock: I think we are well down the track on that one. Increasing numbers of UK fisheries have either achieved accreditation and are now Marine Stewardship Council-accredited, or are going through the process. Growing numbers by volume and across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are achieving that. We are definitely moving in that direction, and the UK fishing industry is currently on a trajectory toward having all its fisheries on a sustainable footing. Contrary to Martin’s view, I think the people who will deliver a sustainable fishery and fishing industry are the fishermen themselves, those who are actively at sea. Currently, there are elements of the common fisheries policy, whether it be relative stability shares, access arrangements or some of the technical measures, that hamper the travel toward that sustainability.

The UK operating as a genuine independent coastal state, with a practical and balanced fisheries policy that takes into account all three pillars of sustainability—not just the environmental but the social and economic pillars—will in a very short space of time take the UK further down that track and ultimately toward our shared aspiration of all UK fisheries operating in a sustainable way that will allow the UK Government and anybody else to buy with a clear conscience.