Fishing Industry

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid]

Sadly, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. Fishing, like farming or going offshore and working on an oil rig, is not for everyone; it is a hard life and a hard job. In many ways, we need to have grown up around it or been born into it. It is a generational thing. I will come back to that point later in my remarks, if my hon. Friend can be patient.

While we were under the control of the common fisheries policy, decision making always felt distant and imposed on our fishing industry from afar. Fisheries management is now managed more locally, with fisheries management plans run by local management groups to provide a formal and regular forum for engagement between fishermen, policymakers, scientists and regulators, not just for the good and the prosperity of the industry but for sustainability as well.

I have welcomed the fact that funding has been maintained, with £37 million being provided to replace the European maritime and fisheries fund, about £16 million of which goes directly to the Scottish Government to spend on fisheries and maritime issues. The £100 million UK seafood fund, which has also been welcomed, has been split between the topics of science and innovation, infrastructure, skills and training, and promotion of exports, which is a key element.

Can the Minister tell us what plans there are to help fund domestic marketing? She may be aware of the issues faced by those catching and supplying small haddock, for example, which is not traditionally an export species. How can the Government help to either promote more haddock consumption across the UK or open up new export markets for that fantastic product? I would also be interested to know what discussions the Department has had with Seafish, which I am told made a commercial decision last year to no longer promote seafood in the UK, preferring to focus on those growing export markets. I think everyone here would agree on the merits of fish as a high-quality, high-protein source of food with a relatively low carbon footprint.

On the subject of exports, I acknowledge that not every seafood exporter was fully ready to deal with the new export systems when they came into place immediately after we left the EU. I should also stress that many exporters—usually those who were already accustomed to exporting outside the European economic area—were ready to go with those new systems. The border operating model had gone through a few revisions, but had been available since it was rolled out in July the previous year. Funding and support had also been provided to impacted industries to help them prepare for the inevitability of the new systems. That included funding to devolved Administrations: for example, some £180 million was provided to the Scottish Government, which sadly I do not think was adequately applied to help exporters in Scotland. I also do not think the SNP Scottish Government helped the preparedness of our seafood exporters. I respect the view of the SNP as a political party that it did not want to leave the EU, but leave the EU we did, and it was something that we had to be prepared for.

It is also fair to acknowledge that even those exporters who had done everything right, who were accustomed to exporting around the world and got their paperwork systems in place, sadly fell foul of some of those IT systems crashing through no fault of their own. As such, I ask the Minister what assessment her Department has made of those export systems, and what improvements—for example, digitalisation and other time-saving methods—remain to be implemented.

I will now move on to the subject of spatial squeeze.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves off the subject of Brexit and fish processors, he has talked about mitigations, for example. Does he now admit that for fish processors and those exporting, Brexit has been a negative, not a positive?

[David Duguid]

I go back to the response I gave to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). In the last few minutes, I have acknowledged the challenges that leaving the EU has brought, but also the mitigations that have been put in place. Ultimately, though, the fishing industry and the seafood processing sector in my constituency do not have an appetite to return to the EU and the common fisheries policy. I take on board that there have been challenges, but as Elspeth Macdonald of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation said, whether we are talking about Brexit, access to labour or access to exports, those issues all pale into insignificance compared with the impact that covid had, for example, and certainly the impact of the highly protected marine areas, which I will also talk about.

Spatial squeeze is brought about by less and less of our seas being available for commercial fishing. That can be for a number of reasons, such as offshore wind or the imposition of the marine conservation areas I have just mentioned. Neither I nor the fishing industry are against renewable energy or marine conservation in principle, but it is worrying to read last year’s combined report from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, which predicted that almost 50% of waters could be restricted for fishing by 2050, compared with less than 1% in the year 2000. I realise that there are some special interest groups out there that would quite happily see the demise of the fishing industry for various ideological reasons, but I have already mentioned the huge impact that that could have, not just on the industry but on coastal communities as a whole.

On offshore wind and other renewable projects, all the industry is asking is to be at the table when planning decisions are being made—to be in the loop. I have seen that happen to reasonably good effect between the industry and some offshore wind developers, but sadly, that is not universal.

Similarly, on marine conservation, fishermen just want to be adequately consulted on not just on where but how, and even if, measures such as HPMAs should be applied. I cannot overstate how important it is to get that engagement right. In Scotland, the SNP and Green Scottish Government are in the process of implementing those HPMAs without adequate engagement or even a pilot scheme, not even waiting to see how the pilot schemes that are currently being carried out in English waters turn out. I completely agree with Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the SFF, who said yesterday:

“Nobody cares more about our marine environment than those who are dependent upon it for their livelihoods—from fishermen to salmon farmers to fish processors. Opposition to this policy, which lacks scientific rationale, is widespread throughout our coastal communities. The Scottish government needs to scrap it, not rebrand it, and carry out a complete rethink without pandering to the Greens whose desire to halt legitimate economic activity with a low carbon footprint is dangerous and damaging.”

[Kirsty Blackman]

Does the hon. Member agree with his Prime Minister, who has said:

“I am committed to introducing pilots of Highly Protected Marine Areas in English waters, providing the highest level of protection for our seas, and safeguarding the 372 Marine Protected Areas”?

[David Duguid]

Yes—it was a manifesto commitment. [Interruption.] No, this gets raised time and again. When my MSP colleagues raise it in Holyrood, SNP Members shout about how the UK Government are doing it and it was in the Conservative manifesto, but there are some major differences. At the moment, the UK Government are proposing 0.53% of English waters to be covered by HPMAs, while the Scottish Government are looking for 10%, which is 20 times as much. Not only that, but the Scottish Government only have the power to implement those HPMAs within the 12-mile nautical zone, so fishing could in effect be banned in a huge area of our fishing waters. Again, I go back to the points, made not just by me but by those in the industry, about how the policy lacks a scientific rationale and is just being pushed through for ideological reasons. I appreciate that the Scottish Government are due to make a statement in the next hour or so on their response to the consultation, and I eagerly look forward to hearing it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is not in his place, on their work in securing this debate. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the debate to happen.

Before I get into much of what I am going to say, I just want to confirm an announcement that has been made in the Scottish Parliament today by our Minister for Net Zero and Just Transition, Mairi McAllan. She said: “I can confirm today that the proposal as consulted on will not be progressed. This means that we will no longer seek to implement HPMAs across 10% of Scotland’s seas by 2026.”

As Mr Deputy Speaker will be aware, I have been sitting here during the course of this debate, so I have not had an opportunity to listen to the entire contents of what has been said. I direct Members to have a look at that statement in the Scottish Parliament if they want any more information on what is happening in that regard.

I wish to start my contribution with a few comments on Brexit. As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said, there have been some issues and concerns along the way, particularly for fish processers and those who are choosing to export. It has not so much been the sea of opportunity that was promised, but more that people have been set adrift. The number of fishing vessels is continuing to go down. The number of fishers has also been down over the last period. I wish to quote from a number of different articles—not the one that was quoted earlier—including from Politico. Charlie Waodie from Hull said:

“I wish I had never voted for Brexit. They told us everything that we wanted to hear.”

James Wilson, the Welsh shellfish exporter said:

“Brexit has been absolutely, fundamentally, profoundly devastating. It’s utterly ****** us.”

You can imagine what the missing word is, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is the case that people feel that they were told lies in advance of the Brexit vote. They were told how great things were going to be, and they are not as great as they thought.

[David Duguid]

As I acknowledged in my opening remarks, a lot of concerns have been raised with me, as they have no doubt been raised with her. But may I just point out that it is very easy to cherry pick certain quotes from certain individuals at certain times. What I have found when talking to people in the industry as I do, week after week, some of those quotes are not necessarily generally indicative of the overall feeling.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I agree, and I said earlier that the hon. Gentleman had talked about some of the problems people have encountered and the barriers they have faced as a result of, in his words, not being as prepared as they could have been for Brexit. I did not shy away from that or suggest he was entirely positive about the whole thing in his speech. I understand, but I feel that, particularly for fish processors and those who are exporting, it has been a much more difficult process and situation, certainly than they were led to believe, but also than before Brexit.

Things are more difficult for people exporting to the EU now than they were previously. That is particularly important with shellfish or fish that will go off very quickly and require to be exported as quickly as possible to get to their final destination. In some cases, those exports are not taking particularly longer than they were before, but in other cases it is the level of uncertainty about when that shipment will arrive that is causing problems, as well as the number and cost of the additional hoops that businesses have to go through in order to export that excellent produce.

I want to talk about the UK visa schemes. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan talking about the importance of coastal communities, as he often does. Coastal communities are incredibly important and they are at risk of depopulation. That is a problem that we see particularly across rural Scotland and it is exacerbated by the earlier situation with visas and the current situation with immigration.

When Brexit was first on the cards, I made the case that in negotiating it, the Prime Minister should say, “Which are the industries that bring in the most money to the UK, the ones that are best for our economy and most important for our economy? Those are the industries we should protect. Secondly, which are the industries whose loss would cause decimation for communities? Those are the industries we should protect.” The Government chose not to negotiate in that way but, if they had, we would not be seeing the immigration system being obstructive to people who are looking to come and live in our rural communities. We would have seen the protection of fishing and farming communities.

We know that the loss of even a small number of people from those communities will have a devastating impact, because there are not that many people living there. My colleague the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan talked about the people who grow up in those families and who go into those industries as a result. I am originally from a fishing family, a couple of generations back. Their surname is West, a name that hon. Members have probably heard—certainly in Scottish fishing circles, if not in the rest of the UK.

I have some questions for the Minister on the expansion of the UK visa schemes and the shortage occupations that have been added. We have called consistently for more occupations to be added to the shortage occupation list. The UK Government need to make decisions on that with thought and care, but they also need to make them at speed, and to put the views and expertise of the industry ahead of any ideology about stopping immigration.

The shortage occupations that have been added are share fishermen, trawler skippers and experienced deckhands. I want to ask the Minister how many businesses have been in touch to seek support in applying for sponsorship for those new shortage occupations. I am led to believe that the Government are providing a dedicated visas contact for individuals, so they should have the ability to track the number of businesses that have been in touch. What percentage of applications for those occupations are being granted? Are they generally being granted? Do the Government feel that adding these three occupations is enough or are there more that require to be added?

The announcement was made at the end of May in the hope that it would be in time for the beginning of the summer season. Given the length of time it is taking to process visa applications, is the Minister clear that they are being expedited in order for the workers to be able to come here in time for the fishing season to start?

[David Duguid]

rose—

[David Duguid]

I just want to make the hon. Lady aware that, around the same time—I think it was a couple of weeks earlier than the shortage occupation list announcement—the Home Secretary wrote to the industry, offering the fish catching sector additional facilitative support in getting visas through more quickly.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I appreciate that, but I want to know how it is working. I know the promises that were made, but what are the outcomes?

Lastly, fishing means a lot to Scotland. It means a lot to us. It is significantly higher proportion of our economy than it is for the rest of the UK. We care passionately about it, and fishing in the north-east of Scotland, or Scotland in general, is often different from fishing across the UK. We will do what we can to put the interests of those living, working and hoping to have successful businesses in Scotland first. I hope the Minister will take on board the questions and concerns we have raised, in order to ensure the continued prosperity of our fishing communities, rather than a continuation of the decimation that is happening.