Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, although subsection (2) of the new clause proposed in the amendment states that the UK Secretary of State must consult fishing bodies and the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the clause would require this United Kingdom Parliament to legislate for the devolved Administrations in a manner that is not consistent with the devolution settlement. I do not think that Mrs Sturgeon would like that very much, and I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell.

The Bill is carefully constructed to devolve as much power to the devolved Administrations as legally possible, and we should not adopt an amendment that requires the UK Secretary of State to legislate for the devolved Administrations on a devolved issue. Furthermore, it is not necessary. I refer noble Lords to Schedule 3 to the Bill, which states, inter alia:

“Power to attach conditions to sea fishing licence


1(1) A sea fish licensing authority may, on granting a sea fishing licence, attach to the licence such conditions as appear to it to be necessary or expedient for the regulation of sea fishing (including conditions which do not relate directly to fishing).


(2) The conditions that may be attached to a sea fishing licence include, in particular, conditions—


(a) as to the landing of fish or parts of fish (including specifying the ports at which catches are to be landed);


(b) as to the use to which the fish caught may be put”.


There is more but it is not relevant to this part of the debate. Therefore, the Bill already provides the powers necessary for each of the fisheries Administrations of the United Kingdom to introduce a landing requirement designed by them for their own specific national conditions. Thus, it is not a national landing requirement for the UK; it is four national landing requirements for each of the countries of the UK.

Indeed, each fisheries Administration has a landing requirement as part of the economic link condition in the licences it issues. This is one of several economic link criteria that ensure that the UK receives economic benefit from UK-registered vessels that fish against UK quota.

The amendment requires 65% of fish caught in UK waters to be landed in the UK. That is a desirable aspiration. Superficially it is appealing, and it appeals to me instinctively. However, at the moment there are good reasons—commercial or economic—why a vessel might want to land its catch abroad. The current economic link criteria allow this flexibility while requiring vessel owners to contribute to the UK economy in another fashion. The amendment would seem to place unjustified restrictions on the ability of vessels to seek the best market for their catch and therefore would not necessarily be in the best interests of the industry.

I suspect that I am the only Peer taking part who is a supporter of Fishing for Leave. Indeed, I am probably the only Peer in the whole House who is a member and supporter of this organisation. I commend Fishing for Leave for its splendid work during the referendum and its campaigning on fishing issues since. I think I am right in saying that it is a Fishing for Leave point that the UK has lost fish processing capacity. It must be a key objective to rebuild that capacity in our ports once again. However, at the moment our UK fishing ports cannot handle and process the fish which British boats could land. The noble Baroness made the point that some ports cannot take big boats, and time is required to reconstruct those ports. Now that our fishing grounds, catches and landings will be back under UK control, I look forward to that capacity being rebuilt, but we are not nearly there yet.

Finally, the fishing industry has long objected to the inflexibilities imposed by the common fisheries policy. One of the much-anticipated outcomes of Brexit is the opportunity to move away from the CFP. That was a key demand from Fishing for Leave, which I strongly support. The amendment requires that the landing requirement be imposed by secondary legislation, but the current economic link criteria exist in licensing conditions, enabling alterations to be made fairly quickly in response to changing circumstances. I do not think that we want to leave the CFP while introducing a more restrictive approach to our management of the economic link policy. That would seem to waste the opportunity that leaving the EU has provided us with to improve our fisheries management.

Therefore, although the amendment is well intended, I submit that it is wrong in devolution terms; it is unnecessary, since Schedule 3 already provides for it; and it is inflexible when there are faster solutions.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I can see the superficial attraction of this amendment but, in my view, very serious questions arise from it. First, I understood that this was just a consultation but, of course, it is not. The proposed new subsection (1) makes it clear that

“the Secretary of State must make regulations establishing a national landing requirement”.

One has to remember that we are still negotiating fisheries arrangements with the EU. If there is an obligation on the Secretary of State to make such an order as this, it must be possible under the negotiations with the EU. It does not seem wise to make these negotiations more difficult by interposing a requirement of this sort.

On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, made an impassioned speech on the difficulties of the arrangements with the EU on fisheries. He inclined to the view that they might lead to a difficulty about the whole arrangement, with prejudice to other matters which, in his view, held larger significance economically for the United Kingdom. That is my first point. It is a requirement to regulate, not just a consultation—and it is a requirement that would impinge on ongoing negotiations between the European Union and the UK.

Fisheries interests—that is, people who are actually involved in fishing—have suggested to me that these are impractical requirements being set down from above when, in fact, the conditions under which a vessel goes to a particular port vary from time to time. For example, if a good market is near the fishing ground—nearer than any route that would get to that market otherwise—there is no economic reason why the boat should not go there and get a higher price for the fish than it might get if it had a much longer journey.

Secondly, there is the problem of the weather, an important consideration in deciding which port you go to. I also take up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, as well as my noble friend Lord Naseby, about the nature of the arrangements available at the different ports. I am an ardent supporter of the ports in the north-west of Scotland, particularly Lochinver and Kinlochbervie, which have a considerable number of landings from vessels other than British vessels. It means a tremendous amount to them, but that is because people choose to do that—fishermen choose to do it because of the convenience to them. Surely, if we are to have a flourishing fishing industry, it is important that we do not put obligations on fisherman which are not particularly good, from their point of view, for the practice of fishing.

I am also told that it is quite common for people to find the nature of the establishment at the port an important consideration in whether they can go there, and whether it could be suitable for them to land there; the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, has already made this point in relation to ports near the area in which she has an interest. It is really not wise for us to legislate in this way. It is much better that we rely on the economic link arrangements in the licensing. My noble friend Lord Blencathra has referred to this in some detail, which I do not need to repeat. It is a very flexible arrangement with regard to particular licences and therefore much easier to apply than a top-down thing that is supposed to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom.

It would not be wise for us to go down this road at present. It may be that, at a later stage in the history of this matter, some consideration could be given to it, but to do it while the negotiations with the European Union are still open and being conducted would be unwise.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone [V]]

My Lords, we talked a lot about REM in Committee, and it remains the case that, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson’s Select Committee report stated, without REM there will be no real way of establishing whether discards are still happening and whether catch limits are being observed. Universal REM would mean better data for fisheries management, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, has just outlined—and of course, for enforcement.

At the moment about 60% of the UK’s shellfish stocks have unknown status, and not much is known about several vulnerable bycatch species. Enforcement is patchy, with the current at-sea inspections regarded as just bad luck by some operators, since less than 1% of trips are independently monitored. REM would vastly increase the level of enforcement in a cost-effective way.

In their response to the Committee’s report, the Government recognised the effectiveness of REM in monitoring fishing activity and bringing full compliance with the landing obligation. We know that many other countries have adopted or are adopting REM—New Zealand, British Columbia, part of the US—and in this post-Covid period of digital leaps forward, it seems sensible for us to adopt a modern methodology for the collection of data and for monitoring and enforcement. So let us just do it—and if it is for England only, let us still start there.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern [V]]

My Lords, the matter of REM is of the utmost importance. Of course, it already exists in the industry. For example, vessels over 12 metres carry transponders which provide data on vessel location, being satellites at sea. This is a strong aid to effective monitoring, control and enforcement in relation to the work that the boat does. Likewise, electronic logbooks for vessels over 10 metres in length and a mobile phone catch app for vessels under 10 metres, have strengthened the flow of information necessary for the effective management of our fisheries.

CCTV cameras have already been used successfully on a voluntary basis in the United Kingdom and Denmark in projects to provide assurance that cod catches, for example, are kept within permitted limits. Other initiatives using CCTV in a similar way have helped scientists understand specific catch patterns, and provide useful advice to fisheries managers. REM undoubtedly has an important role to play in the future management of UK fisheries.

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[Lord Mackay of Clashfern [V]]

My Lords, it seems to be my privilege always to follow my fellow Scot. I do not think that the data being relied on is being referred to as theoretical. What is theoretical is the MSY itself, which is basically a modelling of the future from the data of the past. Strictly speaking it is theoretical, because it is in the nature of a prophecy about how matters will proceed.

As for the second amendment, by “reproduction” it means the full process that reconstitutes the stock from time to time—the process going on continually to bring the stock up. The Members who tabled it are not thinking particularly of one aspect but of all aspects and, in my view, the definition can be understood. It may well be that—and I have the greatest respect for the ICES—there are other possible definitions, but I do not think that this one is based on theoretical data. It is based on real data, but it is a theoretical calculation.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much support this amendment. I want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his work in this area. He was a member of my EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, when he really went through this issue of the drawbacks of MSY. I am very grateful for all his work on that, and I wish to show my support for this amendment.