Fishing: France

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The Commission has a duty to abide by the trade and co-operation agreement and discussions are now taking place on that. I hope that all sides of the House have been disappointed by some of the rhetoric that has been coming our way. I am pleased that the Prime Minister had a thorough and open conversation with President Macron in Rome, and those conversations will no doubt continue in Glasgow.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the triangular relationship between Great Britain, the Channel Islands and France. Can he explain that relationship to us? Do the Channel Islands issue their licences entirely autonomously? Can they be overridden by the UK? How is the process co-ordinated between the Crown dependencies and Her Majesty’s Government?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Your Lordships will grumble if I go on too long and into too much detail but, broadly speaking, to give the noble Lord an example, Jersey has issued licences to 113 French vessels for access to Jersey waters, with 166 applications for non-vessel monitoring system vessels—the smaller ones—and further applications are being considered. That is done directly with them and the Marine Management Organisation is very much part of that conversation. There are other Channel Islands which also issue licences to French vessels.