Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Kim Johnson 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

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

Although my constituency includes the waterfront of the River Mersey, we are not a fishing constituency, but the largest number of petitions from my constituents was against supertrawlers being allowed to fish in our marine protected areas. In Britain, supertrawlers, big boats and larger fishing interests are pushing out the smaller and more environmentally friendly vessels on which local communities and economies rely. A Greenpeace investigation has revealed that, in the first six months of 2020, supertrawlers spent over 5,000 hours fishing in protected areas. These areas are meant to safeguard vulnerable marine habitats. Instead, these habitats were threatened by highly destructive industrial fishing methods, including electric pulse trawlers and trawlers that drag nets along the seabed. If this Government are going to live up to their title of global ocean champion, they must act and act fast.

Under the common fisheries policy, EU fishing vessels landed more fish from UK waters than UK vessels landed from EU waters. Between 2012 and 2016, EU state vessels annually landed fish worth £575 million caught in UK waters compared with UK vessels landing only £96 million-worth of fish caught in the waters of other member states. As we prepare to leave the EU common fisheries policy, the UK has the opportunity to regulate our coastal waters, ban destructive industrial fishing from our MPAs and strengthen marine protection. These areas are not designated protection areas for nothing.

If we are to end overfishing and to create a sustainable fishing policy, we need to move away from the supertrawlers and large-scale fleets to smaller boats, because small boats are the backbone of the British fishing fleet and they deserve the lion’s share of fish caught under the UK quota. For every fish caught, the small-scale fleet creates more jobs than larger boats. Smaller boat owners have suffered huge financial uncertainty during covid-19. For many, the biggest part of their business is their boat, which still needs to be maintained, even if the business cannot operate. The Government need to commit resources to this industry, alongside coastal communities, to ensure not just their survival, but their growth.

Small fishers were unable to adapt to the upheavals caused by the covid-19 crisis as, throughout the lockdown period, their quota allocations for the fish they catch remained unchanged. If we are to develop a sustainable and environmentally beneficial fishing policy, we need to turn to the smaller fleets, which create local jobs, are less harmful to the marine environment and can ensure more fish are landed in the UK. That is why I am supporting clause 27, requiring a minimum quota for new entrants to the sector whose boats are 10 metres or under, plus clause 1(3) on the sustainability objective and clause 18 on the establishment of a national landing requirement to support small fishers and the coastal communities they serve by ensuring that a minimum percentage of fish caught by both domestic and foreign fishing vessels in UK waters are then landed at a UK port.