Common Fisheries Policy and Animals (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his explanation, although I was disappointed in that he pointed out that there will be greater opportunity for scrutiny in future, as I assure him that my colleagues on the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, including the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, scrutinise very carefully all the Explanatory Memorandums and everything else that comes through the department as does, I am sure, my colleague in the European Parliament, Mr Chris Davies, who is chair of the Fisheries Committee there. The scrutiny might be different, but it will be, I hope, as good as what we do at the moment.

That brings me to one of the items that we looked at in our committee meeting this morning, although it might seem slightly irrelevant: the Council regulation on fish stocks in the Baltic Sea, an area of European waters that has particular issues. I was interested in a comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on the previous SI about dates, because that Explanatory Memorandum said that the UK is leaving the EU whatever the circumstances on 31 October 2019. I am not making a point on that. My serious point is that I note from the Explanatory Memorandum that this SI is necessary partly because the date of 29 March is no longer applicable. I would like reassurance that whatever date we leave—if we leave—we will not have to go through this process again; for example, if the date moves from 31 January to, say, 14 January, because Brexit gets sorted out earlier. Is this SI now robust in respect of dates?

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He struck a key point in relation to the office of environmental protection, which was in the draft environment Bill but was, to a degree, amended to become more robust in the Environment Bill that will now be lost with the Dissolution of Parliament. Will the Minister confirm two things? First, when that body is established, will it include the marine area? I am almost certain that it will because the Bill mentions waters and so on, but I would like to understand that more clearly. Will the responsibility of the OEP extend to the territorial waters, the EEZ line, or, indeed, to wherever British fishing vessels fish, even in international waters? More importantly—this is exactly the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson—how long are we likely to have to wait until that body is established and what will happen in the meantime? How will we make sure that the decisions made post-Brexit by Defra are enforced and that, exactly as the noble Baroness said, Defra is not just marking its own homework.

It seems to me that our marine environment is as important as our terrestrial environment. On that theme, as the Minister will know, there is an overall target for all stocks in the common fisheries policy to be sustainable in terms of MSY by 2020. That is next year, and the rest of those stocks will be agreed, with scientific advice, in December this year. One of the cod stocks in the Baltic Sea is not at a sustainable level, so this principle has already been broken. If that is true for some of our own stocks in the North Sea and the western waters, will Defra actually change the stocks post Brexit—if that happens—to a sustainable level in the waters over which we have control, thus at least maintaining the government policy, as I understand it, to retain sustainability not just within a CFP context but in our own waters?

Another area mentioned by the Minister, which is in the Explanatory Memorandum, is regional management fisheries organisations beyond territorial waters and EEZs. Through the EU, we were signatories to a number of them, and I know that we are trying to rejoin a number of them, including the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. The most important one is the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, an important if imperfect conservation organisation. Have we now joined it? Are we a member of that organisation so that we can participate in its actions?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said, enforcement is key to this. I entirely accept that the Government wish the landing obligation to remain, so that the discard ban will continue and will be enforced post Brexit. However, and I understand the questions here, traditional control methods do not work to stop discarding. Just having a fleet of vessels that plod around inspecting other vessels does not really work in terms of the landing obligation. I would be very interested to understand the Government’s position on this and whether they have started to move on remote electronic monitoring, which is the only tool in the box that really works for this challenge.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this SI and for organising a helpful briefing beforehand. I also thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion.

At the outset I will say something about the overall content of this SI. I find it amazing that an SI dealing primarily with amendments to the common fisheries legislation also has buried away in it amendments to the transport of animals regulations. This is particularly irritating as we dealt this afternoon with a separate SI on animal welfare; it would have made much more sense to have included these amendments in that.

It is even more concerning since the Minister of State, George Eustice, stated in the other place that the Government had no intention of consolidating these SIs into a meaningful piece of legislation, which would have made more sense for those working in the sector and abiding by the rules. So do the Minister’s civil servants consult before issuing what seem to be random pieces of legislation that do not bear any connection? Does he agree that this is not the best way to go about making legislation that could be on the statute book for some time before being superseded by new primary legislation? While we are on the subject of primary legislation, can the Minister shed some light on when the fisheries Bill is likely to see the light of day? It might address some of the issues raised this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

I have a caveat. I fully welcome the extra resources that the MMO has and the fact that the Navy is doing that. The Navy has been largely absent from monitoring recently, because it has been dealing with other border security issues. However, the difficulty is that that budget is mainly financed from the Brexit process. Many of us do not have a lot of faith given the fact that, as the Minister will know, Defra is always on the front line regarding budget cuts, and once we get through Brexit—if indeed we do— frankly, those extra budgets will disappear and we will be back to where we are, with all the enforcement challenges that we had prior to that. I am not asking the Minister for a reply but warning him, in case he stays in office.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I am not sure that I am allowed to comment, but I was rather reassured by the list that that my noble friend read out and the fact that the Navy will now be more involved—as indeed it used to be historically, before Defra experienced cuts. It feels as though fisheries, if we get Brexit, will become a more important national asset, which will therefore justify the expenditure. I hope that that will be respected by Ministers when they come to look at these budgets.