Fisheries Bill [Lords]
Debate between Holly Mumby-Croft and Lia NiciTuesday 1st September 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lia Nici
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. What the industry has been telling us for the last few years, and for the last few months that I have been working with him to ensure that we are listening to it, is that although we hear the EU talk about reciprocal arrangements, there is nothing reciprocal about the current arrangements. The fish that the EU catches in our waters is eight times the value of what we can catch in EU waters. We talk about the common fisheries policy following sustainability, but it does not. It does not do what we need it to do it all. To take a particular cod species, under the common fisheries policy we can currently catch 20% of the North sea saithe. If we had zonal attachment where the fish are actually in our waters, we could catch 75%, but at the moment our fishers have to steam away from our own fish. It is therefore absolutely vital that we are able to build on that.
The common fisheries policy, as we all know, is not fit for purpose. We need to make sure that we change it so that we are in control of what we want. The common fisheries policy is what really tore the heart out of Great Grimsby. For 40 years we have struggled to recover from that. The decline in the fishing industry in Grimsby is because we are not able to catch in the way that we want to or do what we want to ensure future sustainability. The reason for a decimated fishing industry in my town is not that we were not efficient in catching or because our customers did not want to buy fish from us.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and allowing me the opportunity to mention the great British fish and chip shop. I grew up enjoying delicious fish and chips from Jimmy and Jenny’s chippy in Scawby. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that they fry a lot of British fish. Does she agree that across the House and across the country we can all help to support our fishing industry by being a part of her excellent campaign to encourage us all to eat more British fish?
Lia Nici
I thank my hon. Friend. Yes, I heartily agree with her. We would like to process and fry more British fish, but unfortunately we are not able to catch it at the moment. I had a meeting with Seafood Grimsby and Humber a few weeks’ ago. It said that if every household in the UK had one extra portion of fish, it would bring in an additional £2 billion per annum for the Grimsby fish processing industry—and that is just to Grimsby. Think of the power of us being able to have more influence on how, when and where we catch our own fish in our own waters.
The decline in the fishing industry is something we really need to consider. Our constituents in Grimsby are looking for us to make a change. What happened with our fishing industry was caused by political events and decisions over which people in Grimsby had no power or say, and our industry was cut. After 40 years there is ongoing anger and resentment about that, but we can change it. We now have the ability to become an independent coastal state.
Today’s debate is the first step in this Parliament to making sure we are able to bring these decisions and accountability back home. The people of Grimsby are under no illusion that we will go back to the glory days of the 1950s, when they say you could walk from one side of the dock to the other on trawlers and not get your feet wet. What they are looking forward to is having a new modern fleet that they can welcome to the port. Our local trawler companies, with whom I have been speaking, have said that they have the men, they have the trawlers and they are ready to go from 1 January 2021. Today—