Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Fisheries principles
(1) Marine stocks within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone are a resource that belongs to the nation as a whole.(2) Any quotas or other rights to harvest marine stocks whether allocated to vessels, public bodies, or persons natural or corporate remain the property of the nation.(3) No vessel, public body, or person natural or corporate shall have a permanent claim over quota or other rights granted to them by a public authority or authorities.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment makes clear that UK fish stocks belong to the nation and not to private organisations.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it seems that whenever we start a fisheries discussion there is rather a lack of sustainability among our Members. One of the useful things between Second Reading and Committee is that we can reflect on the arguments and the Bill until we get into the discussion of amendments. One thing that struck me very strongly after Second Reading, on looking through the Bill again, is that it has hardly any ambition whatever. The withdrawal Act effectively makes us an independent coastal state, which we will be after the transition period, but, apart from that, all the Bill does is provide an administrative framework to keep the status quo.

I do not think that the status quo is good enough for the fishing industry. For instance, there is no provision for new entrants into the industry, which is important. There is no improvement in sustainability methods for fisheries. In fact, the Bill fudges sustainability even more than when we were in the common fisheries policy. There is no particular help for the small under-10 fleet. Because of that, there is no specific help for coastal communities either.

That is why I tabled this amendment, which goes to the fundamental matter of who fish stocks belong to, because the Bill does nothing to change that. At the moment, we have a situation where half of English stocks are owned by companies that are effectively owned by Iceland, Holland or Spain. In Scotland, a vast majority of the industry is owned by a very small number of people. It is a very efficient operation and I certainly have nothing against that, but we have an industry that has become quite fossilised and significantly foreign owned, with no apparent appetite to change that.

We will come on to a number of those issues as we go through the Bill and the amendments, but we are trying to state the completely obvious: if fish stocks belong to anyone while they are in the UK EEZ, they should belong to the nation. That is simply what the amendment says: they are not the everlasting property of a vessel, an individual, a company or even a public body such as the one we have in Cornwall that buys up quota for the local fishing industry. They do not belong to them for eternity; they belong to the nation.

I do not understand how anybody could argue against this concept, but it is really important, since it is fully in line with the ideals of Brexit, becoming an independent coastal state, and Parliament and the nation having control, that we notice and mark that these fish stocks belong to the nation. That does not mean that there should not be, through the Secretary of State or the devolved authorities, a way that those fish stocks—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord about the fish stocks in the zone belonging to the nation. Presumably that could never have occurred had we remained a member of the European Union. Will he confirm that?

[Lord Teverson]

Absolutely. I agree with that. That is what I am saying. Given the new opportunity that we have, we should take advantage of being an independent coastal state. The Bill does nothing to change the status quo in any way. This is one thing we can do—lay down a marker on the ownership of those stocks. As to how those stocks are distributed, the amendment does not prevent them being leased for a period, rented or allocated without charge. We are trying to make the point that, at the end of the day, these stocks belong to the nation and not to any individual.

Coming back to the point made by the noble Lord, 17 million people voted for Brexit and for taking control of our own resources. They did not vote for—in relation to fishing—a profitable industry keeping all the advantages that it has at the moment. They were thinking more of the smaller fleets and the fact that those fishing stocks should belong to us rather than to individuals and perhaps, if you would like to call them that, to the elite of the fishing industry at the moment. I beg to move.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. At the beginning of last year, in Committee in the Commons on the earlier incarnation of the Bill, the Minister—who is now Secretary of State—George Eustice MP, said:

“I do not believe we need a statement that fisheries resources are a national asset or public property, because that is self-evidently the case and our common law has always held as much.”—[Official Report, Commons, Fisheries Bill Committee, 13/12/18; col. 285.]


At the time I took that as gospel. I admire his legal confidence—I say that in a “Yes Minister” context—because I am not certain that the legal confidence is supported by all involved in the industry. There is a famous case where Justice Cranston suggested that there was a type of property right attributed to a fixed quota allocation and that owners would probably need to be given in the region of seven years’ notice of the intention to move away from those FQA units as a type of property right. Such a legal hitch—this is important—might hamper the Government’s intention to move away from relative stability to zonal allocation.

The point I am making is that if the Government believe that quota and marine stocks belong to the nation as a whole, it cannot possibly do any harm to make that clear in the Bill right at the start, so there is absolutely no doubt throughout the industry; and, more importantly, that in any future court case, trying to prove the opposite will founder on the rock of this legislation, set out in 2020, at the start of a new fishing era by the express will of Parliament.

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[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made an interesting and important point. He assumed that this was already the case, but the British courts do not see it that way. The Minister, now Secretary of State, tried to reallocate quotas towards the under 10-metre fleet, but that was disputed within the legal system. There is an underlying assumption here that this is a privatised resource, not a resource of the nation. That is why, to deliver what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, wants, it is important to have an amendment like this in the Bill.

As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out, this makes no difference to the quota allocation in Scotland: the devolved management authorities can make what decisions they want in allocating harvesting rights in those territorial areas. We are saying here that, ultimately, fundamental ownership of those rights is not for keeps, whereas at the moment they can be interpreted that way. I am not suggesting that, as part of this amendment, we should not allow a degree of certainty and ability to invest, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, put it very well, these rights are in trust to the nation.

As to how one interprets “the nation”, I see our fishing stocks as a national resource, not as devolved. Clearly, however, how they are shared out and used is an issue for the devolved authorities. I look forward to the later amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which come back to this subject, but I believe that this is fundamental to the way in which we should view this national resource and how that affects policy decisions as we go through this Bill and make fisheries policy. But, for the moment, I am content to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert—
“( ) the socio-economic objective,”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that socio-economic issues are included in the fisheries objectives.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, as the Minister said, we have here a list of objectives of great importance. I would not disagree with most, but one or two I have an issue with. There is always a danger in having too many objectives: which is the important one that guides regulatory authorities and which guides legislators in drafting subsequent secondary legislation? That is difficult, because it is almost impossible to meet all objectives at the same time. This amendment, and the others in my name—Amendments 6, 10 and 27—are based on my belief that sustainability is the most important objective. I take “sustainability” as here meaning the aquatic biosphere and the health of our fish stocks.

I do not accuse the Government of putting it this way, but the Bill reads to me as having a muddled sustainability objective, because it is prejudiced by the addition of what is almost a socioeconomic objective. A socioeconomic objective is very valid. In fact, one of my amendments in this group states that there should be a socioeconomic objective. The sustainability objective should, however, relate to the marine ecology, fish stocks and the wider marine inhabitants. I therefore suggest that we leave out subsection (2)(b), which states

“the fishing capacity of fleets is such that fleets are economically viable but do not overexploit marine stocks.”

That is a socioeconomic objective and should go under that heading. The sustainability objective has to be the lead objective. There are various ways of sorting out the socioeconomic objectives, including financially, and that is how we should do it.

We need clarity; we need the sustainability objective to be the prime objective, and we need it to be well policed. That is why my Amendment 27 would bring in the office for environmental protection. I would be interested to hear what the Minister says. He may tell me that this is unnecessary, and I could well be persuaded that it is, but it is vital that that office, once founded and operational, has full oversight of the fisheries industry and the protection of our marine environment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, Amendment 7 is in my name. I support many of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. My amendment would change Clause 1(2)(b) simply to state

“the fishing effort does not overexploit marine stocks.”

The Bill states

“the fishing capacity of fleets is such that fleets are economically viable but do not overexploit marine stocks.”

The purpose behind trying to simplify the provision is to make it clear that we cannot have a sustainable long-term fishing effort if we overexploit stocks. That should not need to be said, but we have seen routine overexploitation of stocks as a consequence of how the common fisheries policy is interpreted, with member states then allocating quota to private fishing enterprises.

To state first that fleets should be economically viable and then to qualify it by saying that they should not overexploit marine stocks gives entirely the wrong impression. It implies that we are to continue with the belief, commonly held in Europe, that fishing rights and the economic viability of the fishing industry are the first and foremost concerns. That speaks to short-term political considerations because these are entities that employ people and pay taxes. My amendment tries to correct for that short-termism endemic to political thinking by stating that it is the sustainability of the stock that we should regulate for, not the commercial viability of the entities that exploit it. The latter is entirely what has been wrong with the common fisheries policy since we have been in it. There is an assumption that the exploiters’ rights should come first, with the environment an afterthought. We must turn that around. It is short-termism not just politically but in the context of the changing climate. Nothing from now on is business as usual; everything is shifting. We must put the resilience of our marine resources at the heart of everything we legislate on and at the heart of everything we do today in considering the Bill.

My amendment would simply take away the qualifier; there is no need to qualify this. It is simply logical that we legislate so that we do not overexploit fishing stocks. That is the only purpose of this legislation. Therefore, it must be stated unequivocally in the Bill.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I will conclude on this, otherwise the “Ah, buts” will lose the force of the sustainability point of this debate. It is clear, I believe—as I always have—that the House and your Lordships need to make a compelling case, which a government Minister will always want to listen to. If a compelling case is made, as I have said previously, my answer will be, “Gosh, I wish we’d thought of that.” I emphasise that the Bill has been considered over a very long time. We have one go at this Bill and there have been a lot of representations. It has gone through a mincer in a way that most other Bills do not. Given our very close connections and our responsibilities, and given that fishing is devolved, we have worked collaboratively and positively with the devolved Administrations. I emphasise to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, that I do not use that as an excuse. It is a statement of fact that we are legislating on behalf of all parts of the kingdom. That is really what I wish to say at this point.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for probably one of the most important debates during this Committee and for all the points made. They were made pretty much in the same direction, even if they did not totally agree on the detail.

I was very grateful for the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—I thought it was fantastic. The sad thing to someone like me is that, apart from relative stability and technical regulations, which are not dealt with in the Bill, we could have done everything else over the last 40 years, but we did not because we just went along and did what was easiest. We did not need to let our quotas go to foreign owners, we could have changed the balance between the large and small fleets completely, and we could have put far more European money into our coastal communities when they did not have enough quotas. We could have done all those things, but we did not. However, the noble Lord was absolutely right: we have here an opportunity to really open our minds. The Minister says, “We’ve gone through all of this before, it’s been looked at before and we’ve talked to all the other sides”, but we have had a break, we are now out of the European Union, we have opened our minds and we have had some really good suggestions on the Bill. We should not be railroaded by past negotiations. Clearly, devolution is key—we do not want to change that settlement in any way—but that cannot prevent our making some changes.

One fundamental thing, on which I disagree completely with the Minister, is that referring to “balance” between socioeconomic issues and sustainability was exactly the argument that Ministers used on the common fisheries policy from the 1980s to about five years ago, when the whole regime changed. Because of that so-called balance, stocks disappeared from the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and were depleted from western waters. If we do not decide to make sustainability a prime objective, that is what we will end up with. The history shows that the politics takes over from the science.

I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Randall, mentioned Newfoundland. I went out to Newfoundland in 1996 at the height of the conflict with the Portuguese and the Spanish. I went out on an aeroplane with the Canadian fisheries department to look at the line of big Atlantic fishing vessels fishing right along the EEZ line. I saw the communities of St John’s in Newfoundland that were unable to fish their own waters because there was nothing left. That was due to the short-term socioeconomic objective taking the place of the sustainability objective. That is exactly what you get and exactly what we must not have in this country, whether in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England. We cannot afford that.

If I was chief executive of a company and somebody gave me eight different objectives and did not rank them, the first thing I would do is ask the chairman to fire the non-executive directors, because it is absolutely impossible to have eight equal objectives in any subject. That is for running a company; if you are running the marine environment of a nation, surely it is far more important.

To come back to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, we absolutely need a socioeconomic objective. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is absolutely right as well—we will come to the financing part of the Bill. There are amendments to that part to say that we will need to intervene when there is a socioeconomic problem and that we should not be afraid to do so. We should protect those communities in that way. We should not pretend that we are protecting them by letting people go out for fish stocks that are not there and are not sustainable.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. She made her argument very strongly. The same goes for the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the points he made. Although my amendments may not be perfect, I have tried to stick within the Government’s framework by changing around some of the words but using the Government’s own settlement with the devolved authorities. I am absolutely sure that we will come back to this on Report, but at this point I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 4 in my name I shall speak also to Amendment 25, which is grouped with it. I also seek permission to speak to Amendments 47 and 56, which will come up later in Committee but are related to this point, so I hope I can speak to all four in this speech.

The purpose of Amendment 4 is to add a new fisheries objective to the Bill stating that there is a “marine planning objective” in relation to fisheries management. The reason is that there is a real need to integrate fisheries into our wider marine planning processes. The phrase “fisheries exceptionalism” has been used. In essence, what is being got at there is that the way we plan for our use of the marine environment for fisheries is very separate from our wider spatial planning that we use for other activities that occur in the marine environment. Sometimes we forget that, although fishing is a hugely important part of our marine environment, it is certainly not the only economically productive activity that occurs within our seas. It is important that we integrate fisheries into marine planning and that marine planning integrates fisheries into its processes.

Therefore, there is a very clear objective missing from the Bill, which is to accomplish that wider integration in public policy. Many users of the marine environment interact with fisheries, not least the growing and highly profitable energy sector. We are shifting towards greater use of our marine environment for the production of sustainable energy. That has an interesting intersection with fisheries: the offshore wind farms that we are putting into the marine environment can act as no-take zones for vessels over a certain size, and as hatcheries and protected areas that allow fish stocks to return to an area that would otherwise be decimated through overexploitation by large vessels with large gear. There is a real benefit to be gained from integrating fisheries with our spatial planning.

It is not just about reducing fishing effort, although another key part of planning—now in UK law—is the protection of areas of high biodiversity interest or sites of scientific interest in the marine environment. We have a marine planning process that designates marine planning areas, some of which are working well while others need to be better thought-through and planned. It would be much more effective if, when setting these new fishing policies, we think of them as an integral part of our marine planning for conservation.

There are other uses of the marine environment that require planning, including dredging the shipping channels. It is an environment that requires careful management and balance—I agree with that—but not to mention the existing marine plans that are required to be made, and not to integrate them with the fishing objectives, feels like a missed opportunity. I tabled this amendment in the hope that we can have a wider debate about spatial planning and how it relates to fisheries management. It is not a negative proposal: it could bring greater benefits as we think about how we manage our seas. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that we have a good debate. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much welcome marine planning. I should perhaps declare a past interest as a board member of the Marine Management Organisation, which is responsible for marine planning in England. Last week I talked to Gillian Martin, the convenor of the environment committee of the Scottish Parliament, about marine planning. It is happening in Scotland, too.

I am certainly not advocating this as yet another objective—we have too many already—but it is important that the Bill takes account of marine planning and all the work going on in that field. Today our seas are, to put it mildly, used in multiple ways—for trade, renewable energy, undersea carbon capture and storage, and lots of other areas. I am not sure that the Bill even mentions things such as marine conservation zones, which are part of marine plans and, inevitably, part of the management of the fishing regimes. I would like to think that there was a way to refer to marine plans in the Bill, although not quite in this way.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for tabling these amendments. As she said, they relate to the importance of marine planning and the conservation obligations of the fishing sector.

The Marine and Coastal Access Act is an important piece of legislation, passed in the final years of the Labour Government, of which we are very proud. It already requires the UK and devolved Administrations to prepare marine plans. The point made by the noble Baroness was important: new legislation should incorporate the marine plans where they overlap and apply. With this Bill it is sensible to incorporate them into the joint fisheries statements and the fisheries management plans. We should not risk one piece of legislation overriding the obligations of another: the case for integration is well made.

As marine plans have been with us for some time, there is an argument that they should provide the bedrock on which other policies are built and developed. There is little sense in having marine conservation measures in place if certain protections are at risk of being disrupted by fishing activities authorised under the Bill, so the case for integration is strong.

We have raised previously with the Minister the wider challenge of how all Defra Bills integrate; for example, how this Bill will integrate with the Environment Bill. They all need to interlink and create a bigger whole. I am sure that we will be told that a number of the issues that we raise here will be dealt with in the Environment Bill. We need to make sure that everything is in its place and is interlinked. Everything should be developed as a package. The points made by the noble Baroness about the links between this Bill and marine conservation are well made. As with all these things, it is about finding the right wording and the right place in the legislation, but the principle is one that we should adopt.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I should have made another declaration: I am co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. Obviously, being surrounded by sea apart from the Tamar—which is an even more important boundary with our brothers in Devon—Cornwall has a marine interest.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for her amendments. Together, they would require policies made to achieve the fisheries objectives to be consistent with the objectives and policies in relevant marine plans.

I want to take this opportunity to make it clear that the UK Government recognise the importance of marine plans, which enable the increasing and, at times, competing demands for use of the marine area to be balanced and managed in an integrated way—a way that protects the marine environment while supporting sustainable development. Using our marine resources effectively and sustainably has the potential to provide significant benefits for the UK economy and for coastal communities. The economic contribution of marine-related industries to the UK’s GDP in 2015 was estimated at £27 billion, with scope for further growth.

In England, the East Inshore and East Offshore Marine Plans were published in April 2014 and the South Inshore and South Offshore Marine Plan was published in July 2018. The remaining marine plans for England are out for consultation by the Marine Management Organisation and will be in place by 31 March 2021, delivering the Government’s commitment in the 25-year environment plan.

Marine plans support economic growth in a way that benefits society while respecting the needs of local communities and protecting the marine environment. That is why I understand the importance of the points that the noble Baroness has raised. We believe that what her amendment requires is already provided for. As was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Section 58 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 requires public authorities to have regard to

“the appropriate marine policy documents”—

which could be a marine policy statement or a marine plan—when taking decisions affecting the marine environment. The amendments would therefore duplicate this requirement. I am advised that the requirement is already sufficient to meet what I know are the noble Baroness’s positive intentions.

With that explanation and the assurance that I have been advised that Section 58 covers this point and that the amendment would merely duplicate what is already a legal requirement, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.