Fisheries: EU Landing Obligation (European Union Committee Report)

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

Does the noble Viscount agree that we have insufficient ships within our fishery protection squadron to carry out enforcement at the level he is talking about?

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

First, I am not a Viscount—I should perhaps correct that. However, the answer is at the moment, yes, but I am assured that we are building up to it.

The Government have been slow to grasp the nettle but are moving in the right direction. That is a good thing. In the meantime, bearing in mind that fish are an international commodity, it is important that we try to persuade our neighbours also to pursue and enforce a ban on discards. There is no doubt that the reluctance to enforce the landing obligation is not only a British phenomenon; it seems to be the norm across all EU fishing states. We heard from a Dutch fishing representative, who was adamant that the whole idea was ridiculous, and there was no doubt from our conversation with the fisheries Commissioner that even DG FISH was taking a very softly, softly approach.

However, Brexit gives us an opportunity to lead by example. In spite of the dog’s dinner that will be the fisheries negotiations, I believe that we should end up with at least some extra quota. Thus, it should be possible for us to devise a system of a government-owned reserve of quota, especially in the choke species, while also granting some additional quota to the under-10 and under-15 fleet in order to relieve some of the existing social and economic tensions.

We must then be rigorous in our enforcement of the landing obligation, not only within our own fleet but in relation to EU and other visiting vessels in our waters. To my mind, and clearly to others in the debate so far, that means having compulsory remote electronic monitoring—REM—on every boat. In the argy-bargy of the fisheries negotiations, we should insist on cameras on every boat fishing in our waters. I realise that we will encounter strong opposition, particularly among the French and Spanish, to our desire to enforce the landing obligation. However, the landing obligation is the law, and both the French and the Spanish signed up to it, so there can be no legitimate excuse for them to object to it, or to its enforcement.

It was interesting that during our earlier inquiry, we heard the view that applying universal REM among a whole fleet—for example, in Iceland and Canada—could be a boon to fishermen where choke species were a problem. Because all boats would have instantaneous knowledge of who was catching what and where, they could more easily avoid catching unwanted species. However, I suspect that not telling your fellow fishermen where you go to find your catch is so ingrained in the competitive nature of boat captains that they would probably still prefer to do without this particular aid to avoiding choke species. However, I regret to have to tell them that, if they want international equity in the catching of fish, they will have to accept REM as part of that agenda.

The second aspect of our post-Brexit fisheries that I would like to see is a commitment by the buyers, both processors and supermarkets, to ensuring that all their suppliers always—and I mean always—fish according the highest principles of sustainability. They ought to insist on REM on all their boats. As I see it, only when their marketplace is threatened will the fishing industry as a whole conform.

I am glad that we have produced this follow-up report after our earlier intervention, because there is always a tendency for everyone to focus on an issue for a moment, but then real life reasserts itself and we carry on as usual. Even some of the NGOs, having been very fired up about discards a few years ago, seem to have let this issue slip off their radar, possibly because they thought it was fixed. I believe that for the long-term future of our fishing industry and, more importantly to my mind, the communities it supports, we must not let go of this issue.