Fisheries Policy

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak on anything to do with fishing, Mr Nuttall. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) on securing the debate—or as we call her, the Member for down south, for her politics. We were pleased to go along with the hon. Lady and Members of the Scottish National party to present our case for this debate at the Backbench Business Committee. Of course, my opinion on Europe and the EU is very different from that of my other three colleagues who were there, but I would like to ask some questions along those lines, as it is important to do so.

First, I want to thank some people who have given us background information. In particular, I mention Alan McCulla from the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers’ Organisation, who is here in the Gallery today. I also mention Dick James from the Northern Ireland Fish Producers’ Organisation and Mark Palmer from the Northern Ireland Trawlermen’s Trading Company. Those are three people and three organisations that have given me some information on this matter.

Once again, loathed diktats from Brussels are making our fishermen’s lives much harder than they should be. First, there were the illogical quotas, on which we have all commented. Then there were the Spanish fishing fleets—the modern-day armada—robbing fish from our seas, and now we have a new threat in the form of the EU landing obligation. Although the delegation who went to the Backbench Business Committee have different opinions on Europe, we are united on how we can help our fishing industry across all the regions of the United Kingdom. Perhaps some of those hon. Members will swallow their anti-Europe rhetoric and accept that we need to work together on addressing these issues.

Fisheries up and down our United Kingdom need to be on a sustainable footing—that is so important. Fishing lobbies from across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, including the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, which incorporates all those and many more, have contacted me and others in this House, saying that the EU landing obligation was an issue that continually raised its head. I understand that it is not the aim of the new landing obligation to be of harm to the fishing industry; rather it has ended up bad for fishermen because of the way in which the EU has gone about the obligation. When it comes to addressing that issue, hopefully the shadow Minister and the Minister will be able to indicate how best we can help our fishing sectors, given the way in which the EU has gone about those obligations.

On Saturday week I will be at my advice centre in Portavogie, where fishermen will come and tell me about all these things, including the landing obligation. Looking at Portavogie as an example of one of the fishing villages that I represent, there was once a vast and vibrant sector there, with 130 boats at one time, but that is now down to 70, which indicates where things are going. The landings, by the way, are pretty much the same as they were, so the gap has been filled. However, although we used to have four fishing factories to process the landings, now we only have one small one. Some have moved to Kilkeel, and I am pleased that they have been retained and that at least one of the villages has benefited.

According to the NFFO:

“The most serious aspect of the landings obligation is its potential to ‘choke’ mixed fisheries; meaning that the exhaustion of one…quota would require vessels to tie up for the rest of the year, foregoing their main economic quotas.”

That could be absolutely disastrous for the men and women whose livelihood comes from fishing, but we have yet to hear any suggestion of EU research into how to avoid that, let alone mitigate it altogether.

It is critical that the concerns of fishermen up and down this nation are addressed in respect of the landing obligation, as we do not want to see good, honest, hard-working people falling on hard times as a result of red tape and bureaucracy. Just to reiterate, the views that I have contributed were expressed to me by not just one individual, or by one individual organisation, but by a large number of different individuals and different groups from all across our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, many of whom I am sure have never met, but who all have the same concerns and feel the same pain. I presume that some have contacted Members of Parliament who are here as well. The main concern of the people affected was not about moving toward a sustainable fishing system for the United Kingdom; we would be hard pushed to find anyone who disagrees with doing that. Their concern was that they were not being included in decisions that matter to them—decisions they care about, and which potentially have a huge impact on their lives.

We can lead by example in Parliament by listening to those in the fishing industry—as we all do, and we reflect those viewpoints in this Chamber in today’s debate—and by consulting them when deciding how best to regulate our fishing industry. We do not need the top-down diktats that we have seen in this well-intended yet hated EU landing obligation. We need to do things differently, recognising that those who ultimately know best about our fishing industry are from the fishing industry itself.

Let me come back to a point referred to by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr) about Filipino fishermen. The men in the fishing sector in the village of Portavogie—and the hon. Member for South Down could refer to her two fishing ports—want to have Filipino fishermen. And do you know why? Because they are dependable. There was a tradition of service in the boats in the fishing fleets in Portavogie, but that is not there any more. Next week, we have the opportunity to meet the Minister and we have to express these concerns. We cannot ignore the fact that the Republic of Ireland has taken a step in that direction, and next week that must be part of our attempts to persuade the Minister of the merits of our case.

The NFFO has issued a bleak warning about what may happen if we continue to do things as they are currently being done. It stated:

“The EU’s blundering policy, supported it has to be said, by UK fisheries ministers, has the capacity to derail our fisheries and put us back decades if not handled very sensitively from here on in.”

That must be addressed—if that is not a wake-up call, what is? In the future, the approach to these issues should be to include fishermen and the organisations that represent them at the heart of such legislation, whether it is sovereign legislation or imposed on us from Brussels—good old Brussels. Well, Brussels sprouts are good.

I want to mention one final quote that illustrates just how illogical the bureaucratic EU diktat on landings is. If it were true that the EU and the Council of Ministers routinely set quotas that are unsustainable, it is a little difficult to explain how our fisheries are doing so well. At the annual “State of the Stocks” meeting in Brussels, the chairman of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea advisory committee, Eskild Kirkegaard—it is hard to get my tongue around that; I imagine it does not sound right in my Ulster-Scots accent—said, importantly:

“Over the last ten to fifteen years, we have seen a general decline in fishing mortality in the Northeast Atlantic and the Baltic Sea…For the majority of stocks, it has been observed that fishing mortality has decreased to a level consistent with Maximum Sustainable Yield…meaning levels that are not only sustainable but will also deliver high long term yields.”

It is clear from that statement by that knowledgeable person, who is chairman of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea advisory committee, through the EU, that there is a sustainable industry out there. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) referred to positivity—let us breathe the positivity into this debate and make sure that we get the return, which is very important.

To refer to my constituency of Strangford, fishermen from the Irish sea and from the boats of Portavogie tell me that they have never seen the abundance of cod in the Irish sea that they have been seeing in recent times. Although the fishermen see that every week, the scientists who advise Europe do not see it, so we need to address that issue. We need to ensure that the quotas are right. The Minister knows about getting the quotas right for the prawn industry. That is very important; it is now the backbone of the industry in Portavogie and of the fishing fleets. When it comes to addressing those issues, let us have some reality from Europe in relation to a sustainable fishing industry and the fish that we have in the sea—the cod and the prawns.

I can only hope that hon. Members have taken note of these very important issues, that in the future fishermen and their organisations have a proper say in what affects them, and that fishermen from the villages of Kilkeel and Ardglass in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Down and from the village of Portavogie in my constituency are afforded an integral role in deciding the best way forward for the industry. After all, who knows the industry better than the fishermen themselves? I wish the Minister every success. I place it on the record that he has done well for us in the past few years and we look forward to his doing well—no pressure—for us again this year.