Oceans and Marine Ecosystems

James Paice Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

Good morning, Mr Gray. I start by congratulating, as others have, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on obtaining the debate. I apologise for my presence and, more importantly, the absence of the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who the hon. Lady had presumably expected to reply to the debate. Unfortunately, he cannot be here this morning. I assure her that most of what I have to say addresses the points she quite properly raised. If I miss or am unable to respond to any points, I will ask my hon. Friend to write to her with more information.

The Government recognise, as the hon. Lady does, that marine ecosystems are central to human well-being as a source of several important marine ecosystem services. The sustainable management of oceans and seas is essential to achieve the goals of a blue economy in terms of sustainable economic growth, poverty eradication and job creation. As she has rightly pointed out, oceans are globally, regionally and nationally important.

That is why, as she has described, the Government are acting on all fronts, pressing for action on a global scale in Europe and nationally. The Government have been quick to realise that there is an urgent need for a governance structure for areas beyond national jurisdiction to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of those vast areas. In June 2011, in the White Paper on the natural environment, the Government committed themselves to working towards delivering a new global mechanism to regulate the conservation of marine biodiversity in the high seas. As she says, even though marine issues were not the main focus of Rio+20, there was tangible progress on them, which is good news.

Against a background of delay and intransigence that has dogged previous negotiations on the issue—and as the hon. Lady said, still persists in some quarters—agreement was secured that a decision on the matter should be taken by the UN General Assembly in 2014. I can assure her that we will continue to work to ensure that such an agreement provides a coherent structure for the conservation and sustainable use of those areas beyond national jurisdiction, including a globally accepted mechanism for the designation of high seas marine protected areas and the effective use of environmental impact assessments in so doing.

In the absence of such a global agreement, the UK continues to work through regional sea conventions such as OSPAR, which is the convention for the protection of the marine environment of the north-east Atlantic, and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which is known as CCAMLR, to protect those high seas. Following the establishment in 2009 of the world’s first high seas MPA under CCAMLR at the ministerial conference to OSPAR in 2010, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, together with fellow Ministers from OSPAR contracting parties, agreed to establish six marine protected areas in the high seas of the north-east Atlantic. A further site was added at the OSPAR Commission meeting in June this year. I assure the hon. Lady that the UK will continue to work within OSPAR and other regional conventions to consider other designations on the high seas.

There was also consensus at Rio on understanding and dealing with the effects of climate change and, consistent with the Government’s position and that of the hon. Lady, a more sustainable future for fisheries. We agreed on the need for better implementation of the UN fish stocks agreement and the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s code of conduct from countries to ensure that they ratify and implement the provisions quickly to demonstrate their international commitment to the protection of fisheries resources.

We welcomed recognition of the efforts made by regional fisheries management organisations to improve the management of resources for which they are responsible. As the hon. Lady said, illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing—IUU—is a blight on our seas. The regional management organisations have a key role to play in combating IUU fishing and in ensuring the sustainability of fishing stocks, and we will continue to work within those of which we are members to step up those efforts.

At this year’s International Whaling Commission meeting in Panama last week, we were successful in demonstrating the UK’s commitment to the IWC’s conservation work and our fundamental support for the moratorium on commercial whaling. The meeting delivered positive results for the conservation and welfare of whales. However, we must match our efforts on the global and regional stage with our own implementation.

It is surprising to some that the UK has established the world’s largest marine protected areas, including the world’s largest no-take zone—I speak of the vast biologically rich marine resources of our overseas territories—and in February an area of more than 1 million sq km around South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands in the Southern ocean was designated a sustainable-use marine protected area, establishing one of the largest areas of sustainable managed ocean in the world. That built on the equally impressive no-take marine protected area around the British Indian Ocean Territory of 640,000 sq km, designated in 2010. As the hon. Lady knows, it includes the protection of some pristine coral reefs, to which she referred. Further work is under way elsewhere.

The recently published White Paper on overseas territories illustrates the Government’s commitment to enhance our work in partnership with overseas territories so that we understand, value and preserve their rich natural heritage appropriately, and ensure that their resources are managed sustainably, building on measures already in place. However, as the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) said, the UK itself has a rich, diverse and economically important marine area.

“Charting Progress 2” was published by the Department in 2011, and shows the progress that the UK has made in achieving the Government’s vision of clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas, but our seas will remain sustainable, productive and healthy in the long term only if the right balance can be struck between conservation and economic activity. That will work only if marine conservation sits alongside other policies, such as marine planning and fisheries. That is at the heart of our recent consultation on targets for achieving good environmental status in our seas under the marine strategy framework directive. That consultation has now closed. We aim to publish our response in the autumn, finalising proposals for targets that are ambitious, but recognise the need to achieve sustainable use of our seas.

We remain committed to establishing a network of marine protected areas, but it is important that the right areas are designated and managed, as opposed to simply designating a large number of sites.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Paice]

Let me say what I was about to say because it relates directly to the right hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in response to the right hon. Gentleman that we already have a network of 84 marine protected areas in English seas out to 12 nautical miles from the coast. We plan to complete the set designated under the EU habitats directive this year. In addition, we are working to designate more sites under the EU birds directive, and marine conservation zones provided for in the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, for which he was responsible.

[Mr Bradshaw]

The Minister is quite right to say that such areas need to be properly designated, but two years of painstaking work went into identifying the potential 127 sites, involving all stakeholders: commercial fisheries, recreation fisheries, environmental groups and others. The fear among most of those groups now is that the Department is selling out to small but very powerful commercial fishing industries by dragging its feet in setting up those areas. We would be grateful for his reassurance that that is not the case.

[Mr Paice]

I am very happy to give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. The information I have is that the problem is not, as he implies, special interest groups, but simply that there is insufficient evidence for some of those zones. That is not to say that they will be ruled out, and the delay is because of trying to find sufficient evidence to justify their inclusion. I hope to reassure the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Bristol East a little more.

More than 22% of English waters are protected by European marine sites, and we have set a target that at least 25% of these waters will be covered by well-managed marine protection areas by the end of 2016. By then, we expect the coverage of all UK waters to be consistent with the 10% target for marine areas agreed at the convention on biological diversity in 2010. The first tranche should be designated in summer 2013, after we have held our public consultation on recommended sites and examined all the evidence before us. We fully expect further tranches of sites to follow in future.

That MPA network is central to achieving good environmental status by 2020 under the marine strategy framework directive, and as implementation of management measures will take time, and biological recovery from pressures can be slow, early action, when possible, is a pragmatic approach. However, marine protection areas are only one tool we are using to deliver clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas.

[Katy Clark]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Paice]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I want to deal with the fishing issue, which the hon. Member for Bristol East addressed. I believe, as did the right hon. Member for Exeter when he had responsibility for the matter, that only a very urgent change in European fisheries policy can ensure that our seas deliver a sustainable future, for both conservation of biodiversity and a viable fishing fleet.

The UK has been leading the way in trialling schemes to improve the selectivity of how we fish, and to tackle the waste of discards by managing fisheries by what is caught, and not what is landed. We have taken that experience into the current reform of the common fisheries policy. Hon. Members will know that the recent meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council successfully made the case for measures progressively to eliminate discards. Not all member states shared our ambition, but a commitment to implement a landing obligation with a provisional timetable is a major step in the right direction.

At that same meeting, we also secured a responsible approach to setting fishing levels. Overfishing has been a central failing of the current CFP, and the UK was adamant that the text should include a clear legal commitment and deadlines to achieve a maximum sustainable yield in line with our international commitments.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Paice]

No, I am sorry. I want quickly to finish by answering the point that the hon. Member for Bristol East made about scallops. The use of bottom trawls or other types of gear and activity must be managed appropriately in European marine sites to ensure site compliance with, as the hon. Lady rightly said, the habitats directive. Appropriate measures must be considered by regulators and relevant authorities for their specific areas for activities that may have a significant impact. Banning an activity or type of gear, such as bottoms trawls, as the hon. Lady suggested, can be one example of management action for some scenarios. Orders prohibiting bottom trawling are already in place in areas such as Lyme bay, and we are committed to ensuring that appropriate regulation is put into practice where it is important.

The hon. Lady referred to illegal fishing off Africa and the link with potential piracy, and I confess that that has never been raised with me or my officials. If she will allow me to do so, I will write to her.

I have tried to answer most of the hon. Lady’s questions. I know that she is extremely diligent on such issues, and I respect that.