Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As with all the work we are doing, this work is under way and we will be consulting the industry on it. I am not in a position today to give him an actual date for the completion of that work, but I can assure him—I know he has been a long-time campaigner on this issue—that we take this issue very seriously. We do want to strengthen the economic link. That is likely to include requirements on vessels to land more of their catch in UK ports. However, we have to proceed with some caution because the right economic link will vary depending on the species of fish. It is important that we do not inadvertently deny fishermen the ability to sell their fish at the best possible price by requiring them to land everything in the UK. That is why some balance has to be struck.

We will seek to remove clause 27 because a proportion of quotas is already guaranteed to the under-10 metre fleet and neither will the drafting of the clause address the need to attract new entrants. We will also be seeking to overturn clause 48, which is unnecessary and too prescriptive. We already have powers to increase the use of remote electronic monitoring, which we will be able to do once we have a greater understanding of how it would be deployed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Minister referred to the viability of the under-10 metre fleet, which is very important to us in Northern Ireland. Just last week the Northern Ireland Fish Producers Organisation gifted an extra quota to the under-10 metre fleet to enable it, with the help of Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland, to continue to be viable. As the Minister rightly says, it takes all the devolved Administrations, across the whole of the United Kingdom, to work together on behalf of those fleets, which is why the way in which this is managed locally is so important.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I know that fishing in Northern Ireland is particularly important to some communities, particularly when it comes to nephrops, and he is right that it has been a long-standing practice that producer organisations with unutilised quota will often gift some of it to the under-10s so that they have access to more fishing opportunities. In the longer term, it is important that we have a better framework to ensure that inshore vessels do not necessarily have to wait for a gift of quota, but have access to a fairer share of the quota in the first place.

We will also be seeking to overturn an amendment made to clause 1 that would seek to create a hierarchy in the objectives. We think this is unnecessary and unhelpful. Environmental objectives have already been given a degree of priority through the requirement for fisheries management plans, which is how we have addressed that issue.

In conclusion, I have always been clear that the UK will continue to be a world leader in promoting sustainable fisheries, so that we stop hammering vulnerable stocks and think about the longer-term future of our marine environment. We must follow the science, and I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our fisheries science agency, CEFAS––the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science—which is home to some of the world’s most talented marine scientists. There are wonders swimming around our shores—some 8,500 different species. As an island nation, the UK can show the world that a better approach can deliver more balance, profitable fisheries and an enhanced marine environment. This Bill sets in stone our commitment to improve the health of our seas and gives fishermen the better future they deserve. This Fisheries Bill gives us the powers we need to do all these things as an independent coastal state for the first time in decades, and I commend it to the House.

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[Luke Pollard]

I thank my neighbour for that question. I know this is a point that she raises frequently, but it is probably one that she needs to raise with the Government rather than with the Opposition. We want to see our fishers supported, and I want to ensure that they get a greater and fairer share of quota.

Compared with the previous version, this Bill has thankfully been much improved, in part by Ministers adopting many of the amendments that Labour proposed in Committee during the Government’s first attempt at this legislation. I am glad that Ministers have taken the time to reflect on their decision to vote down those Labour amendments, and I am glad that this time round the Bill includes as much Pollard as it does pollock. I am sure we can agree that it is a good demonstration of constructive opposition.

I also want to note the improvements to the Bill that were passed by the Lords and in particular to thank Baroness Jones of Whitchurch for her efforts in the other place. The question now, which the Secretary of State has answered, is whether he will see fit to accept those amendments that improve the Bill. It is especially sad that he is choosing to reject the sustainability amendments and those that would generate more jobs in our coastal communities.

[Jim Shannon]

I respect the hon. Gentleman greatly, and he knows that, but does he not accept that the fishing sector wants a sustainable industry for the future, and that to achieve that, we need the co-operation of the sector? Does he acknowledge that the sector does not want the amendments that have come from the House of Lords?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that mention. I think he is choosing to call the fishing sector one single sector, but he knows as well as I do that the fishing sector has multiple sectors with different catches, different gears and different fishing approaches in different parts of our coastal waters. I know that not all fishers share the view that he has just put forward, because they have told me so.

This Bill is a framework Bill, so it is necessarily light on detail, but it does offer a centralisation of powers with the Secretary of State and does not deliver the coastal renaissance that it should have done. Ten years of austerity have hit our coastal communities hard, and now covid-19 means that we are standing on the precipice of a new jobs crisis, the likes of which we have not seen since the 1980s. The decline of fishing ports is a story told the nation over, but it does not have to be this way. Even before we see whether the promise of more fish from the Government will be delivered, more jobs could be created if Ministers were to use the powers they already have. I believe in British fishing. Growing the fleet, making fishing more sustainable and creating more jobs can all happen with improvements to this Bill.

Let me turn to the jobs in coastal communities amendment—clause 18—which the Secretary of State says he wishes to remove. I believe that if we catch fish under a British quota, Britain should benefit from that fish in terms of jobs and trade. I want to back our British ports to create more jobs and land more fish in Britain. Labour’s jobs in coastal communities amendment, which passed with cross-party support in the Lords, would establish a new national landing requirement, whereby two thirds of fish caught under a UK quota must be landed in UK ports. That would mean more jobs created in Grimsby, Plymouth, Newlyn, Portavogie, Brixham and Fleetwood, to name but a few. There are 10 jobs on land for every one job at sea, so landing more fish in Britain is a jobs multiplier.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder). I thank him for the fishy puns that he threw in. There were three of them altogether, and he probably had a few more that he did not get a chance to say.

As the representative of a fishing village who takes his place in this House, I am happy to say that I have liaised with the fishing representatives of both Portavogie in my constituency and Kilkeel in South Down. I am content that I am speaking for them both and subsequently for fishing in Northern Ireland—for the Northern Ireland Fish Producers Organisation and the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation.

With this Bill, we will free ourselves of EU bureaucracy. We will have a chance to fish in our waters, catch the fish that belong to us in our waters, land them at our ports and create the jobs. So if people want to know what the Bill is going to do for us, that is it. It is all plus, and we should look on the plus side.

It is clear that the Bill may not have all the perfections that it should have. We all know that a Bill will never be able to satisfy everybody, but I am content that the Bill contains all the principles that are needed, and while it is not everything that the fishermen would desire, it is acceptable. The Bill is workable, fair and fit for purpose. The purpose of the amendments to any Bill is to correct or improve it or to add value to what it offers. It is my opinion after careful consideration that the Bill is not improved by the Lords amendments, which will be discussed in Committee of course. Indeed, the argument has been well put to me that they detract from the purpose of the Bill to bring sustainable fishing back home. The House will have to decide whether it prioritises virtue signalling over truly effective sustainable fisheries management. I believe that the Bill retains the power within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the fishing sector must be core, as was said earlier, to delivering  truly effective sustainable fisheries management.

Of the eight objectives included in the Fisheries Bill, five relate to fishing sustainably. That is fine. Without a functioning ecosystem and policies that limit fishing to safe levels, there will be no fishing industry. That is why I believe that the Lords amendments detract from what the Bill should do. I also believe that the evidence that some of those in the other place referred to in proposing their amendments, which will be discussed in Committee, used cherry-picked evidence. The risk that that presents cannot be overstated.

There has been chronic concern in the industry surrounding UK flagged vessels with non-UK beneficial owners catching fish in UK waters and landing them abroad. This provides little economic benefit for the UK and makes it more difficult for the UK authorities to verify that illegal, unregulated or unreported fishing is not taking place, as they cannot conduct physical landing checks.

There has been a call for remote electronic monitoring. Yet again, this appears to be another instance of an attempt to turn the Bill from a fisheries management tool into an enabler of environmental agendas. I am a proud environmentalist; I believe that we must be good stewards of the land and sea that we have been granted, and that we can be environmentalists and realists at the same time. It is not a contradiction. It can be done. A study suggested that a remote electronic monitoring regime would cost £5 million. That would pale into insignificance; the real cost would be about £60 million.

I want to make a quick plea to the Minister in the last few seconds in relation to non-EEC crews. It is so important that we have them in place. I ask the Minister again to give that consideration in Committee. He should also look at how seafood transits from Northern Ireland through Great Britain on its way to continental Europe.

We are happy that the Bill is coming through the House. My party will be fully supporting the Bill and we hope that in Committee we will have a chance to have an input and make some further changes that could help us.