Fisheries Bill (Fifth sitting)
Luke Pollard ExcerptsTuesday 11th December 2018
(5 years, 4 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Fisheries Bill 2017-19 View all Fisheries Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 December 2018 - (11 Dec 2018)
Peter Aldous
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I will seek to abide by the house rules you set down.
I have tabled quite a few amendments, so, if I may, I will say a few words of introduction about what is behind them. I represent Lowestoft—it is the largest town in my constituency—which I think we would say was formerly the fishing capital of the southern North sea. It was possible to walk on water from trawler to trawler, from one side of Hamilton dock to the other. That is not the case today; the trawl basin is largely empty. In Lowestoft, we have the worst-case scenario—we have seen how fisheries management can go horribly wrong.
We have rich fisheries off the East Anglian coast that bring very little benefit to East Anglian coastal communities. We do have a producer organisation—it is run from Lowestoft and has accountants in an office overlooking the trawl dock—but no fish are landed in Lowestoft. The trawlers in the Lowestoft PO land fish predominantly in the Netherlands. We are left with a small inshore fleet that lives a hand-to-mouth existence, unsure what quota of fish it will be able to catch from month to month. We might say it lives off the scraps from a rich man’s table.
With that in mind, the Bill needs to address three challenges. It needs to address the lack of fishing opportunities for fishermen such as those whom I represent; ensure we have a sustainable fishing management system; and ensure that we can bring significant benefits to coastal communities such as Lowestoft, many of which feel they have been left behind over the past 40 years.
The Bill provides us with an opportunity to put things right. Taking into account the short time that the Government and officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have had to put the Bill together, we can say that they have done a good job with a lot to be commended. I acknowledge that it is an enabling Bill, and we probably do not want to get involved with or bogged down by a lot of detail. However, over the next two weeks we have the opportunity to scrutinise provisions that will provide the framework within which we can revive coastal communities—not just Lowestoft, but all around the coast of this country.
Let me turn to amendment 78—I am inclined initially to think of Julie Andrews, so I am starting at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start. Clause 1 sets out the fisheries objectives. There is concern that as currently drafted it does not provide a binding legal duty on all public authorities to achieve those objectives, so the amendment seeks to address that concern. It will ensure that the environmental and socio-economic protections that the authorities provide are implemented effectively, and it will help to secure the Government objective of delivering a truly sustainable, world-leading fisheries management system. It is complemented by amendment 80, to which I will speak later in our proceedings. Amendment 78 would impose an obligation on all public authorities. I acknowledge that in drafting terms that may not sit all that well with the Bill, but it raises genuine concerns, and I would welcome the Minister’s feedback on that issue and on how he will best take that concern on board.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I will speak to amendment 36 in addition to amendment 78. It is an honour to speak on behalf of the Opposition, not only as Labour’s shadow fishing Minister, but as an MP who represents a constituency that has nearly 1,000 fishing jobs in both the catching and the processing sectors. The Bill is a missed opportunity, and although we do not oppose it we have tabled a significant number of amendments to improve it and reflect the changes that the industry needs from a new regulatory framework. We seek to ensure that there are enough fish to catch in our ocean, and that the industry is truly sustainable, both economically and, importantly, environmentally.
There is perhaps just one sector of our entire United Kingdom economy that could be better on day one of Brexit—fishing—but only if we can ensure that our fish exports to markets are free of burdensome and expensive customs checks, and free from tariffs. Brexiteers and those behind the 2016 referendum made much of promises to the fishing industry, and Labour’s amendments seek to make real many of the promises that were made during the leave campaign, and since by Ministers, but that are missing from the Bill as drafted. Labour wants to work constructively with the Minister to improve the Bill, and I hope that he does, too.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start afresh and create a truly world-leading fisheries policy, and we must not waste that opportunity. There are good things in the Bill that we want to support, but there are far too many missing pieces. As I said on Second Reading, the Bill smacks of something that was pushed out hurriedly to ensure that a regulatory framework is in place in the event of a no-deal hard Brexit.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed the UK Government to leaving the natural environment in a better state than we found it, and rightly so. That is good and welcome, but we need more than soundbites—we need action, and many of our amendments would put such measures into legislation. There are significant concerns about the gap between the Government’s stated ambition, as set out in the White Paper, to deliver world-leading fisheries, and the duties currently in the Bill to deliver that goal. It is critical for the health of our oceans that the Bill includes a duty to deliver sustainability objectives as set out in clause 1. Without such a duty, targets are established but there is no clear obligation on authorities, other than the Secretary of State, to deliver them. There should also be a requirement for annual updates on progress made against those objectives.
Amendment 36 is vital. I am glad that the hon. Member for Waveney tabled a very similar amendment. He and I may sit on opposite sides of the House, but we have both spent a lot of time listening to our fishing communities in our respective constituencies, so we seem to be doing a cross-party tag team on many of our amendments. The purpose of the Opposition amendment is to place a legal duty on any public authority with any fisheries-related function to achieve the objectives set out in the Bill. Without such a duty, objectives are established but there is no clear obligation for authorities to deliver them. The Opposition seek an explicit carry-through of duties, rather than an implied or suggested one, as is currently the case.
We heard last week from Debbie Crockard, senior fisheries policy advocate for the Marine Conservation Society. She said:
“The ambition here is for world-leading sustainable fisheries management. At the moment we do not have a duty in this Fisheries Bill to meet the objectives in the Bill. Those objectives cover a lot of very good things—sustainability and a precautionary approach—but without the duty there is no clear obligation to deliver those objectives. Without that clear obligation you are in a situation where they might not be met and there is no obligation to meet.”––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 80, Q157.]
Our amendment would make a simple but effective change. We are pleased with many of the words in the objectives, but it is important that we carry those through. I would be grateful if the Minister would say how he will ensure that those objectives are properly implemented and do not just exist on paper in the Bill.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I commend the hon. Members for Waveney and for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport for tabling these amendments, which deal with an important point. I have a concern about what is described in the briefing we received today from Greener UK as a “fundamental flaw”. The more I think about it, the more I understand that to be the case. The concern is that public bodies currently have to act in accordance with the joint policy statements. That may be good in so far as those statements marry up with the Bill’s objectives, but it leaves rather a lot depending on the content and substance of the statements.
The advantage of the amendments, which are essentially the same in their import, is that they would place a duty on public bodies to have regard to the objectives. Those objectives are good—there is broad consensus that they are exactly the objectives we ought to set in respect of fishing policy. It seems to me that tying public bodies into the objectives, rather than just the policy statements, is a good idea that would strengthen the Bill significantly. I suspect such a provision might have been put in the Bill anyway, had it spent a little longer in the oven of Government.
I am interested to hear the Minister’s thinking. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Waveney intends his amendment as a probing amendment, but Members inevitably will wish to return to this matter, either in Committee or at a later stage.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(g) the public asset objective.”
This amendment would add to the fisheries objectives the “public asset” objective, defined in Amendment 38.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 38, in clause 1, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
“(7A) The ‘public asset objective’ is to manage fisheries, and the rights to exploit those fisheries, as a shared resource and public asset held in stewardship for the public good.”
This amendment defines the “public asset” objectives.
Luke Pollard
Members will see from the amendment paper that the Opposition propose a number of additional objectives, including a new public asset objective, a new marine planning objective, a new safety and workforce objective, and a new climate change and international agreements objective. The first—the public asset objective—would deliver on the pledge in the Government’s White Paper, which states:
“We aim to manage these fisheries—and the wider marine environment—as a shared resource, a public asset held in stewardship for the benefit of all.”
That sounds brilliant, but it should have been included in the Bill.
Listing fish as a public good in the Bill would allow us to say definitively that fish should be allocated for the benefit of the country. I am amazed that Ministers did not set that out clearly in Bill. I encourage the Minister to accept the amendment so there can be no doubt, no obfuscation and no sleight of hand in policy from this Government or any that might follow—particularly in the coming days—that fish is a public good and their benefits should be shared by the nation.
We heard evidence last week from Griffin Carpenter, an economist at the New Economics Foundation. He agreed with that point, stating:
“When I have spoken to stakeholders, even the quota holders, everyone starts from the same premise that fish is a public good, but from my perspective that has not been followed through in the way we treat the opportunity to fish that public good.”––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 104, Q200.]
The hon. Member for Waveney expressed similar concerns. I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the House know Aaron Brown from Fishing for Leave, who is a key supporter of the amendment. He said in evidence last week:
“Fish always has been a public resource. Various judicial hearings have defined that as well. Indeed, it probably stretches all the way back into Magna Carta right back through our constitution.”
That is slightly before my time, I am afraid. He continued:
“At the end of the day, we as fishermen, as the members of the public who catch, are only custodians of what is the nation’s; we look after it and husband it well for current generations and future ones. We would very much like to see a clause put in”.––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 4 December 2018; c. 62, Q134.]
Importantly, clause 1 sets the tone for how the Bill will be regarded. There is much discussion about fish in our political debate. It is vital that we make it clear right from the start that fish is a public asset and should be distributed accordingly—a key argument that I believe Members on both sides of the House have advocated. Its omission from the Bill is regrettable, which is why the Opposition seek to insert it as one of the Bill’s early objectives.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. We will be happy to support the amendment if it is pressed to a vote. Clearly, clause 1 is all about setting objectives. The Minister may argue that the amendment is superfluous, but we are setting objectives and, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport touched on, we heard clearly in evidence that there is a desire for the Bill to state that fishing is a public good. That would set a marker for the future, when we look at reallocating quotas for the benefit of that public good. We are certainly happy to support the amendment.
Luke Pollard
I welcome the Minister’s words about allocation of quota. We will come to that in due course. In consideration of the first two amendments, an awful lot of fishers will watch this Committee and will ask why Ministers are resisting fish being a public asset in this Bill. They will ask, “What are they trying to hide or trying not to say?”
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman seeks to downgrade something that is a fact—fish are a national asset—to become a mere objective.
Luke Pollard
For someone who is still quite fresh in Parliament, it is very curious that a downgrade to an objective is better than not having something in the Bill at all. Not mentioning it seems to be the higher state for something—that is not what most fishers will take from this debate.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend will know that many fishermen will watch the Committee and note the rather peculiar point made by the Government. Surely, this is a belt-and-braces approach, not a mutually exclusive option to define fish as a public asset. Many small fishermen, particularly those who seem to be crowded out as a result of large-scale private fishing interests dominating the sector, will view the Government’s proposals with cynicism.
Luke Pollard
Fish is a public asset and that should be in the Bill. That is the position of my hon. Friends, and I am disappointed that we have not been able to find a form of words to convince the Minister to be clear that fish is a public asset and should be in the Bill. This is one of the fundamental principles that fishers say to me when I go down to the quayside in Plymouth: they want the Government to come to an honest set of words that says, “Fish is a public asset.”
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman and I need to challenge the assertion that the inclusion of an asset is a downgrade from what was already there in common law. There is no such thing. All it says is that this is a fisheries objective; it does not change the status of public assets or the view of fish being a public asset in the way of jurisprudence.
Luke Pollard
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We need to make that clear, because this is not a Bill that seeks just to refresh and update the regulatory environment around fishing. It is a Bill laced with politics and other meaning, because of the importance of fishing to the Brexit debate. That is why setting a tone for fishing is so important.
The Minister claims that that is not necessary, but it is certainly desirable. We should ensure that the Bill, and all the fishers who will be governed by it, have a sense of the Government’s priorities. Having fishing as a public asset should be high up as one of the key priorities of the Bill and the Government. It is fine to mention it in statements, which we will come to in due course, but being clear that fish is a public asset should be at the front of the Bill, because that is what our fishing communities want it to be. That is why I will not withdraw the amendment but will push it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 39, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(g) the marine planning objective.”
This amendment would add to the fisheries objectives the “marine planning” objective, defined in Amendment 40.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 40, in clause 1, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
‘(7A) The “marine planning objective” is to ensure that any policies are compatible with any marine plans prepared pursuant to Part 3 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.”
This amendment defines the “marine planning” objective.
Luke Pollard
The amendments relate to the importance of marine planning in the conservation and exercise of the fishing sector. We have tabled new marine planning objectives and I am grateful for the work of many stakeholders in reinforcing the importance of marine planning, in particular the Blue Marine Foundation.
The UK and devolved Administrations are preparing marine plans under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and the Marine Act (Northern Ireland) 2013. It is important that marine plans are incorporated in the joint fisheries statement and the Secretary of State’s fisheries statement, and vice versa. It is vital that the Fisheries Bill works in concert and tandem with the existing legislative framework.
The Marine and Coastal Access Act is an important piece of legislation passed in the final years of the Labour Government, as was mentioned by the Minister. It is curious that there is not an automatic read-across from that Act to the provisions in the Bill. The amendment seeks to reflect the importance of marine planning in the Marine and Coastal Access Act in the Fisheries Bill.
We heard in evidence last week from Dr Amy Pryor, who is the programme manager at the Thames Estuary Partnership, chair of the Coastal Partnerships Network and a member of the Coastal Communities Alliance. She said that she would like to see more formal recognition of that in the Bill and perhaps an extra marine planning objective that could set out these matters. The amendment seeks to ask the Minister why marine plans are not mentioned in the Bill and I would be grateful for his response.
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman asks why marine plans are not included in the Bill. The answer is really quite simple: the previous Labour Government did all that was required in this space. As he highlighted, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 already sets out our approach to marine management. Specifically, in chapter 4, section 58 (1) requires public bodies to consider marine policy documents in any decision making. Such documents include marine plans and UK marine policy statements.
A number of regional marine spatial plans are under development, and under the Marine and Coastal Access Act, we have a network of marine conservation zones and are building a blue belt around our shores. Many byelaws introduced by IFCAs give effect to the protections required under the marine conservation zones. As with some of the other amendments that the hon. Gentleman tabled, we believe that this is unnecessary, since our approach to marine spatial planning is set down in the Marine and Coastal Access Act. I would also point out that it is not really an objective to have marine planning. It has been a legal requirement since 2009, and those plans have been rolled out. It is already a legal requirement that decision makers and public bodies must follow those plans.
George Eustice
I would make two points. First, it is unnecessary, since we already have legislative requirements that require public bodies to do this. Secondly, in common with the previous amendment, it does not sit easily as an objective. It is not an objective to have a marine plan; it has been a legal requirement for almost a decade. I hope that, given the fact that I have given credit to the Labour party for introducing the Marine and Coastal Access Act, which has delivered these things, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport will not see the need to duplicate that which has already been done.
Luke Pollard
I thank the Minister for his response and for saying more nice words about the previous Government—more of his colleagues should receive that memo. I hope that was not the last mention of it.
The purpose of the amendment was to set out the importance of marine planning in general, and I am grateful to the Minister for doing that. Some good steps are being taken. I welcome the extension of the blue-belt policy. The Minister will know that my colleagues from Plymouth and I have been arguing for the creation of the country’s first national marine park in Plymouth Sound. We also need look internationally, and I hope Ministers hurry up with the designation of the South Sandwich Islands as a marine park. I do not feel that the amendment would duplicate the legislation, as the hon. Member for Nuneaton said, but I am grateful for the Minister’s words, which make it clear to all stakeholders how important marine planning is to our fragile marine environment. As a result, I will not press the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave that the amendment be withdrawn.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 41, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(g) the safety and workforce objective.”
This amendment would add to the fisheries objectives the ‘safety and workforce’ objective, defined in Amendment 42.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 42, in clause 1, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
‘(7A) The “safety and workforce objective” is—
(a) to protect and enhance the safety of workers in fishing activities,
(b) to set and protect minimum standards for wages, terms and conditions of employment in fishing activities,
(c) to prevent modern slavery in fishing activities, and
(d) to ensure the application and enforcement of the national minimum wage by HMRC on fishing vessels within the United Kingdom’s Exclusive Economic Zone.”
This amendment defines the “safety and workforce” objective.
Luke Pollard
Amendments 41 and 42 attempt to use the Bill to make fishing a better and safer place to work for all our fishers. As Jerry Percy said, when we heard evidence last week from the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association,
“Fishing, unfortunately, still carries the record as the most dangerous occupation in the world.”––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 4 December 2018; c. 39, Q67.]
Every day around the world, people who go to sea to catch fish die. We should remember that important fact. Fishing is a dangerous career.
Since I was elected in June last year, two trawlers from Plymouth have sunk and a life has been lost on each of them. To address marine safety, we need a number of things to happen. We need the rules and regulations to be better and more appropriate to the methods of fishing today. We need better enforcement by authorities, and we need better adoption of those standards and best practice by the industry.
Only last week, a report came out on the tragic sinking of the Solstice trawler—one of the boats I mentioned earlier—which sunk in the patch I represent. It is a tragedy that too many fishermen die every year catching our fish suppers. That is a reminder of just how important fishing safety needs to be. I am aware that fisheries safety is a responsibility of the Department for Transport rather than DEFRA, but in setting the tone, requirements and objectives for how fisheries should be governed in future, it would be remiss of us not to discuss the importance of marine safety.
Marine safety is increasingly an issue—in particular for small boats, because of the pressures of the regulatory environment that have led to many of those boats perhaps being slightly less stable than they were originally designed to be. In one of our evidence sessions, I spoke about the development of dumpy boats, which has been a direct consequence of the regulatory environment, which has given rise to an under-10 metre fleet. Instead of having a larger boat that trips over that line, boats have become dumpier. In addition, given the need for small boats, especially, to be able change their gear, there have been concerns about stability.
Alan Brown
Nobody is going to argue about the importance of improving health and safety. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, there are many risks in the fishing industry. I am just seeking clarification. Having the objective is fine, but how will the objective in itself lead to improvements in health and safety? Regulation and enforcement are required—we need that linkage.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful for that intervention; it is a good question. The important thing about including this objective is that there would be a requirement for Ministers in their annual statements to report on progress on marine safety. As we have seen, sadly there has not been sufficient progress. Given that responsibility for marine safety is shared between a great number of stakeholders in government, it is important to have an opportunity to bring all those efforts together and share best practice. Having a clear objective that the regulatory environment we want to create around fisheries after Brexit is one where marine safety is prioritised is a key message that we should be sending to the fishing community.
The Minister will know of a brilliant scheme from Plymouth that provides lifejackets personal locator beacons to fishermen with. That is an example of how we can make real our proposed objective, if implemented. Personal locator beacons activate when they come into contact with water, enabling the search to be taken out of search and rescue. I have seen for myself the registry and met the team at Falmouth coastguard who manage this system: it is a good one that we need to roll out more comprehensively.
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)
As I recall, the Government considered it important that such health and safety provisions apply to vessels coming into our waters post-Brexit. Does my hon. Friend agree that that makes it doubly important that we include these issues in the Bill?
Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is important that we set high levels of safety standards for all fishing boats in UK waters, whether they are UK or foreign-registered. The highest safety standards, including wearing lifejackets with personal locator beacons, should be something that we demand. I would like to see every fisher in UK waters wear a lifejacket with a personal locator beacon. I want to stress the feedback from families of fishers who have been lost at sea. Wearing a lifejacket with a PLB might keep someone alive if the boat sinks or they go overboard, but if the worst happens and that life is lost, the PLB means there is a body for the family to bury or cremate. It is important that we recognise that feedback from families. There seems to be universal agreement that PLBs attached to lifejackets are a good thing, but we know that there is a cost to fishermen of buying new lifejackets with PLBs and registering them. That is why we have tabled the amendment, to make it clear in the Bill that marine safety is important.
Our amendment also deals with the subject of modern slavery. As well as enhancing safety standards, the amendment would address the minimum wage and tackle the issue of modern slavery, which unfortunately can persist far out at sea. Only last year in December, nine African and Asian crew members working on a pair of British scallop trawlers were taken to a place of safety by police as suspected victims of modern slavery. The men were alleged to have worked unlimited hours at sea with very little rest. That is why it important, when we deal with marine safety, that we recognise the pernicious behaviour of those people who are engaged in modern slavery. We need to ensure that has no place in the UK fishing industry, by including it in the Bill. The Prime Minister herself has championed the case against modern slavery. I am certain that if the Prime Minister, who does not seem to have much going on today, were serving on the Committee, she would vote in favour of the amendment, to support action against modern slavery and ensure not only that our fishing industry is as safe as such a dangerous pursuit can be, but that there can be no examples of modern slavery in it.
Mr Carmichael
Like many Members of this House, I am often wary about using legislation to send signals, because most of the time I do not think it necessarily ends well. However, from my experience personally and as a constituency MP, I think the hon. Gentleman’s amendment would send a very important signal, so I commend him for tabling it.
One of my formative experiences in the area came when I was still in legal practice. I was instructed to appear at a fatal accident inquiry at Lerwick Sheriff Court on behalf of a family from Banff, or perhaps Macduff, whose son had been swept overboard from a trawler, the Alandale, which is no longer at sea. In a force 7 or force 8 gale, the young man had gone over to the ledge around the side of the boat to fix a trawl door. The boat was hit by a big wave—a lump of water—and he was washed away. The skipper said that the crew saw a flash of orange oilskin in the water, but that was the last they saw of him. They looked for him for some time, but the search was ultimately futile.
When I was instructed in that case, the grief of the young man’s parents formed my view, which I hold to this day, that the matter requires our attention and every possible signal needs to be given. The other thing that struck me during the fatal accident inquiry was the evidence of the other deckhand, who was still in his late teenage years. He said that for a few weeks after the incident, he had worn a life vest of some sort; when asked on cross-examination why he had stopped wearing it, he said that he had been subject to ridicule from others in the industry. Nobody of that age, and nobody who had witnessed what that young man had witnessed, should be subject to such pressure. I have noticed that the situation has improved since, but there is still a lot to do. I still hold the view that there is a job of education to be done within the industry, and making it an objective of the Bill would be a significant improvement.
Locator beacons are another matter that I have formed a view on over the years as a consequence of my experience of dealing with families. One constituent, with whom I worked for some years, had a brother working on a single-handed creel boat who was caught in a rope—we think—when shooting his creels and went over the side of the boat, which was on automatic pilot. The boat was eventually found a considerable distance from where the family thought he had been fishing. A locator beacon would not have saved his life, but it would have saved his family immense pain and grief to know sooner where he was. It is a relatively small and inexpensive innovation, but it highlights the importance of putting safety objectives in the Bill.
Finally, let me make a point about modern slavery. The modern slavery that we have identified in the fishing industry has generally been a consequence of the operation of transit visas in relation to crews of non-European economic area nationals. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has heard me speak about that in the House times without number. It is a ridiculous use for transit visas and the Government should get real and identify the need for non-EEA nationals to be employed in the industry, and make a sectoral provision about it.
If the objective were included in the Bill, arguably the Home Office’s current approach to visas for non-EEA nationals would be in breach of it. For that and other reasons, the proposed change to the Bill is eminently sensible and supportable.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the Minister for those words. It is especially important that we look at marine safety in relation to fishing, because although marine safety is spread across different aspects of Government, in many cases the unintended consequences of fishing regulation have an impact on fishing operations and fishermen’s lives, so it is right that we consider it.
When we consider what can be done to improve safety standards in fishing, it is also right that we consider the differing distribution methods to which the Minister referred in his opening remarks—he talked about the distribution of any additional quota drawn down from our EU friends. That level of detail is not highlighted in the Bill, but the Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport who has responsibility for shipping have great concerns about it, as do I.
I am grateful to the Minister for his comments on the under-10 definition, which is unhelpful across the board. I recognise that a lot of homework still needs to be done to find a better definition. Measuring engine size and hold size are two potential options. However, in the fishing area of DEFRA-land in the bigger sense, unintended consequences can have the most profound effects. We need to be cognisant of safety implications in respect of regulations in the Bill and in the Minister’s secondary powers, even if safety responsibilities sit with the Department for Transport.
The Minister is right to talk about IVMS, which will be a positive development as long as the technology concerns can be addressed. It is certainly an improvement on the behaviour that we see around the automatic identification system, which fishers sometimes turn off when they find fish. I would be grateful if the Minister could maintain his focus on marine safety and continue the discussions with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport. I am seeing her tomorrow to continue those conversations on the Solstice incident.
On the basis that we will revisit marine safety in our consideration of later amendments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(g) The climate change and international agreements objective.”
This amendment would add to the fisheries objectives the ‘climate change and international agreements’ objective, defined in Amendment 44.
The Chair
With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment 44, in clause 1, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
“(7A) The climate change and international agreements objective is to ensure that fisheries policy aims to ensure compliance with the United Kingdom‘s obligations under—
(a) the United Nations Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
(b) the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora,
(c) the Convention on Biological Diversity, including the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity,
(d) the Convention on the Law of the Sea,
(e) the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),
(f) the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”
This amendment defines the “climate change and international agreements” objective.
Luke Pollard
The amendments, which aim to update the objectives at the front of the Bill, refer to climate change. It is important that we talk about climate change in the context of fisheries. Climate change is a challenge facing every single sector of the UK economy, but the impacts of climate change are being felt in fishing communities in respect of the availability and location of the fish stocks that our fishers are trying to catch.
At a time of global uncertainty, we could not let the omission of the phrase “climate change” from the Bill slip by. We know from the evidence we heard last week that climate change is affecting fishing, be that through the availability of food stocks for fish, through the changes in spawning and breeding grounds, or through different migration patterns, which affect where fishers go to catch fish. Climate change is real and it affects fishing, as it does every other economic sector, so it warrants a mention both in the Bill and in DEFRA’s serious considerations and actions.
If Labour had been in government and we were introducing this Bill, I imagine that we would be doing it ever so slightly differently from how the Minister is doing it. The amendment is key in addressing climate change and reinforcing sustainability.
I am grateful for the words of the Secretary of State on not rolling back environmental protections. It is important that those words are met with actions, including in the Bill. In addition to talking about climate change, we talk about the international agreements objective, which lists the other international agreements that have a bearing on fishing, and in particular on the conservation and environmental aspects of fishing—if we overfish, there will not be enough fish in our seas to sustain a fishing industry. We need fisheries that are sustainable both economically and environmentally. The amendment seeks to make a reference in the Bill to the other international agreements.
Alan Brown
Perish the thought that I am starting to think like a Conservative. However, although those are laudable conventions by which we need to abide, is not the key issue that, as a signatory to the treaties, the UK has to fulfil those obligations anyway? Therefore, it is superfluous having them in the Bill, regardless of the signals that would be sent by the amendment.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that, because it brings us on to maximum sustainable yield, which is one of our rationales for talking about this. The UK is committed to achieving maximum sustainable yield by 2020—that commitment is in a variety of international treaties and agreements. That target is hard to achieve, according to the feedback we have had from stakeholders and to some of the evidence we heard last week. That is why, in creating a new regulatory environment for fishing, we need to have due regard to the commitments the UK has signed up to elsewhere across our international conventions—MSY by 2020 is one such commitment. It is mentioned elsewhere but not in the Bill, which is why the Opposition seek to raise awareness of not only the importance of climate change to our fisheries but our international obligations and commitments as a nation. I would be grateful therefore if the Minister could expand on the Government commitments given elsewhere to sustainability, and on how they will be reflected not only in the Bill but in its implementation.
Luke Pollard
Given all the Minister’s praise for the good done by the last Labour Government, I am amazed at his temerity for even wanting to stand against them at the 2010 election.
George Eustice
It would go well beyond the scope of the Bill, but I could give many reasons why I did not stand for Labour.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the Minister for stating that he remains a Conservative.
When considering this type of legislation, it is important that we raise the volume on climate change. Labour’s genuine concern is that, since the abolition of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, the political priority and the volume of the debate on climate change has been much reduced. It is not spoken about as frequently and it needs to be.
I am grateful to the Minister for setting out our international obligations and for spending so much time talking about how it is in our country’s interest to pool our sovereignty and to work with our international partners where there are common interests. I am also grateful to him for expanding on the list of international obligations that the UK has signed up to and that we need to continue to be involved in to ensure that our waters are properly managed.
I beg leave to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 45, in clause 1, page 2, line 11, after “marine” insert “and aquatic”
This amendment would add the avoidance of the degradation of the aquatic environment to the definition of the “ecosystem objective”.
The amendment is about the ecosystem and aquatic environment around our fisheries. The aim is to tidy up a part of the Bill that is inconsistent across the board by enhancing the ecosystems objective and ensuring that it includes the avoidance of degradation of the aquatic environment.
Hon. Members who have had the fortune of sitting in Westminster Hall with me will know of my passion for protecting our marine archaeology, and shipwrecks in particular. I talk a lot about shipwrecks and the importance of creating a wrecks at risk register to ensure that we understand what those pieces of marine heritage are and better protect what lies under the sea. I am pleased that clause 40 refers to
“features of archaeological or historic interest”
in the definition of marine and aquatic environment, as it means that every time there is reference to the marine environment, heritage should be included automatically. That is a useful inclusion, consistent with the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 in respect of the responsibilities of inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. However, the definition and scope of the marine and aquatic environment is not taken up consistently in the rest of the Bill, which is a missed opportunity.
The matter should be dealt with consistently. It seems odd, given the power of the Secretary of State and devolved Ministers to make provisions for a conservation purpose which includes the marine and aquatic environment, that this is not mentioned as an element of the fisheries objectives or within the scope of the fisheries statement. Will the Minister confirm where we are in relation to the aquatic environment, as well as the marine environment?
George Eustice
First, I will explain the effect of expanding the provision to include the aquatic environment. The hon. Gentleman has defined it as covering heritage assets on the sea bed, notably shipwrecks, and I will return to that, but first let me say that referring to the aquatic environment as well as the marine environment would also cover all our inland waters, so all of our freshwater bodies.
We already have a regulatory framework for the management of freshwater fisheries, and the Environment Agency is the government agency that leads on the aquatic freshwater environment. Relevant pieces of legislation include the water framework directive—obviously an EU directive, but all the domestic provisions put in place under the water framework directive will come across as part of retained EU law under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018—and the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975, which governs in particular waters in so far as they affect salmon conservation. There is also the Water Resources Act 1991 and, as I mentioned earlier, the Environment Act 1995. We therefore have a comprehensive suite of existing legislation pertaining to the freshwater environment.
Returning to the separate issue of heritage assets such as shipwrecks, as the hon. Gentleman acknowledges, the famous Marine and Coastal Access Act established a licensing regime for people exploring shipwrecks, for example. He may know of the frequent controversies, with divers complaining that some of that licensing regime is too onerous and that it affects their ability to remove ghost nets or litter from shipwrecks, for example, without a licence. There is therefore a comprehensive—some say onerous—licensing regime in place to protect shipwrecks. In addition to the licensing regime for the marine management organisation established under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, we also have the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, which allows the Secretary of State to protect wrecks in territorial waters and sites of such wrecks.
We have comprehensive legislation that covers the issue of the aquatic freshwater environment and the protection of heritage assets such as shipwrecks. Therefore, an expansion of the ecosystem objective to cover heritage assets in the way outlined by him is unnecessary in the light of the other legislation that we have in place.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful for the Minister’s response. It is important that when we are looking at our marine environment, we look at not only the fish in it but at aspects of human history. When we get to talking more broadly in this place about the wrecks at risk register, I hope we have a new ally. Given what the Minister has said, I do not wish to press the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Peter Aldous
I beg to move amendment 79, in clause 1, page 2, line 11, at end insert—
“(c) to ensure that fishing activities are managed in a manner that contributes to the achievement of good environmental status as set out in Article 1 of Directive 2008/56/EC and is consistent with all other international and domestic environmental legislation.”
The amendment would add to the ecosystem objective. Taking account of the fact that fishing can have significant implications for the health of the wider marine environment, it would impose a duty to deliver fisheries management in a way that is coherent with other relevant environmental legislation. It would also set ecosystem management in an international context, ensuring that we adhere to international environmental legislation. In many respects, the amendment can be viewed as providing belt and braces—perhaps even duplication—but ecosystems around the world are interconnected and it is important that we recognise that. I tabled the amendment to seek assurance and confirmation from the Minister that the Government are thinking globally and are aware of their international obligations and duties.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 46, in clause 1, page 2, line 13, at end insert—
“(aa) to facilitate generation of accurate real-time scientific data from both research and all fishing vessels.”
This amendment would add the generation of accurate real-time scientific data to the definition of the “scientific evidence objective”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 24, in clause 1, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
“(c) to ensure full documentation of catches.”
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure the UK achieves full documentation of catches to give a true picture of what is being removed from the sea and in order to provide accurate scientific data to ensure effective management of the shared stocks in UK waters.
Luke Pollard
We want to strengthen the objectives to enhance the requirement for data collection. The UK’s seas have historically been an abundant source of food, income and employment, but at the moment they are failing to meet their full potential. Two thirds of UK stocks have been fished beyond their sustainable limits, but according to the New Economics Foundation, if catches followed scientific advice, the yield could deliver 45% higher landings and additional gross value added of approximately £150 million across the UK coast, and would support an additional 2,500 full-time equivalent jobs.
The UK’s fisheries are not being managed at their optimum economic output. Government figures show that two thirds of our main commercial fish stocks are depleted, overfished or at risk of being depleted, or their status is unknown. Only one third are currently operating at maximum sustainable yield. There was a vague reference to improving data in the White Paper, but that is also no longer in the Bill.
Labour would like to create a road map to take us to fully recorded UK fisheries over time. That makes economic sense. Sustain recently found that UK fisheries are losing out on millions of pounds of business from the catering sector in the UK alone, as buyers look abroad for sustainable fish instead of buying from the UK from fisheries that are not currently classed as sustainable. The market for sustainable seafood is growing 10 times faster than that for conventional seafood. The best markets within and outside the EU require fish products to be demonstrably sustainable, including a number of markets within the UK public sector. That includes our schools, prisons, central Government, Whitehall catering and the NHS. At present, a large amount of fish caught in the UK is not verifiably sustainable, and that is affecting access to those markets within the UK.
We heard a lot about data deficiency during the evidence sessions, and is one of the main reasons that much of the fish caught in UK waters cannot be marketed as sustainable. For fishing to be sustainable, there must be sufficient understanding of the population of the targeted species, the impact of fishing, and the status of our sea-floor ecosystems. Without that data, boats can be considered ineligible for Marine Stewardship Council certification or receive a lower rating from the Marine Conservation Society’s “Good Fish Guide”.
In January this year, the Environment Secretary said that
“we can still do more to improve the procurement of British food across the public sector.”
He was right, but there is no mention of that here. If data deficiency is one of the things holding back the sector, we believe that it should be addressed in the Bill. According to Government data, the status of three of the UK’s 15 main fish stocks is unknown. That would not be acceptable on a farm or in agriculture, and we should stop accepting it simply because it is underwater.
I am grateful that this topic is taken up in a similar amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. I would be grateful if the Minister told us how the current data deficiency can be remedied.
Brendan O'Hara
Although these are all good aspirations, and we recognise the need to continually improve our data and the need to contribute to better science, we have concerns about some of the practical aspects. For example, who will pay for the very costly technological change that is proposed? I also question whether primary legislation is really the place for determining such scientific measures.
I caution that some of the technological measures are still in their infancy or, in some cases, not yet possible. For example, as I understand it the knowledge around identification and sizing of catches has only just been developed in terms of camera technology.
Finally, is it not for the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to determine how to collect data, and indeed what data is to be collected? I fear that the amendments might inadvertently cut across that devolution settlement.
George Eustice
As I explained earlier, we already have full documentation of catches on the over-10s, and next year we will introduce full documentation of catches for the inshore fleet. A linked issue is so-called remote electronic monitoring, which is basically cameras on vessels. Other parts of the Bill give us the power to require cameras on vessels, which could improve our abilities on enforcement and data collection.
We have the ability now, which we will retain in future through provisions in later clauses, to make real-time expeditious changes where required. We have had, for instance, issues with spurdog bycatch in parts of the west country. We had a successful spurdog bycatch avoidance programme, which was put together expeditiously in partnership between CEFAS and the industry in the west country, to assist fishermen to avoid those bycatches or to help them deal with them when they have been unable to avoid them.
I hope that I have reassured the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen of our progress in that area and of our commitment to science. The joint fisheries statement will cover those issues in greater detail.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the Minister for setting out measures to address the data deficiency. To realise the aspiration of my party and, I hope, of the Government to have the most sustainable fisheries in the world, it is important that we match that with a commitment to having the best data in the world. Although we already have the world’s best fisheries science, fishers and stakeholders are concerned that there is insufficient coverage of that best science across every single fish stock, so I am grateful to the Minister for setting out how that can be enhanced.
We must send a loud and clear message that we need better data and baseline stock assessments. That needs to be done in conjunction, collaboration and co-operation with the fishing industry, rather than science being done to fishers, which is often their view. The more we can do in a collaborative way, the better. In the light of the Minister’s remarks and as the Committee will discuss data later on, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 1, page 2, line 21, after “area” insert
“, fishing opportunity, or entitlement for any resources”
These amendments would extend the definition of the “equal access objective” to cover equal access to fishing opportunities.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment
Amendment 30, in clause 1, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
“(c) individual measures introduced by—
(i) the Marine Management Organisation
(ii) the Scottish Ministers,
(iii) the Welsh Ministers, or
(iv) the Northern Ireland department.”
To ensure that any measures introduced by a ‘relevant national authority’ do not impact on the equal access objective.
Luke Pollard
I can deal with this quickly. The amendment relates to adding fishing opportunities or entitlement to the provision that is already in clause 1(7), so there can be no get-out-of-jail card. Fishers expressed concerns about ensuring that we have as robust a set of criteria as possible for foreign boats having access to UK waters. In the amendment, we ask the Minister to ensure that the clause and the criteria are as robust as they can be.
Mr Carmichael
Amendment 30, which stands in my name, is probing. I confess that its genesis is in briefings from the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations. I eventually tabled it because, on balance, it is an important issue that needs to be teased out. The amendment may not be the ideal way of doing it, because the enforceability of the duties of the other Administrations—Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Ministers and Governments—is questionable, but the thinking behind it is important.
Essentially, given the devolved nature of fisheries and the fact that we will have the objective of equal access, we have to find a way around the conflict between the different systems that will be put in place in the different jurisdictions. If opportunities for fishing are to be taken up in England by boats from Scotland, or vice versa, or in Northern Ireland by boats from the west of Scotland, or vice versa, we need to find a way to ensure that the regulation is as accessible as possible.
Devolution is a good and worthy objective, which my party has supported for many years, but it can occasionally trigger the law of unintended consequences. If we do not manage the different systems in good faith, the people who have to comply with or enforce the regulations may be left in a difficult position. That is the issue that we seek to bring to the Minister’s attention by way of the amendment. I will not press it to a vote, but I am interested to know how exactly he envisages that will work in everyday, or every year, fisheries management considerations.
George Eustice
To address the amendments, I probably need to explain how quota flows through the various systems at the moment from the point at which it is created internationally. Both amendments stumble into the thorny area of our devolved settlement, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out.
As an overarching point, we have sought to achieve through the Bill a system that enables us to manage our fisheries domestically in a way that respects the devolution settlement that has been established. To be honest, we sometimes have particular challenges in fisheries, because on one level they are about international agreements with other countries, which are a reserved UK competence, but on another level many elements of fisheries management have been devolved. In some areas, it has been challenging to put together arrangements that ensure that we have a UK framework, where it is needed, in a way that respects the devolution settlement, but I believe the Bill achieves that.
Let me explain how quota is created. First, we have an international fisheries negotiation between the UK and the EU, or the UK and a third country in the future, where, species by species, a total allowable catch and an allocation to the UK of that TAC are agreed. The UK Government then allocate that quota—our share of the TAC—to the devolved Administrations, currently following FQA units attached to the vessels where they are registered. That means we give Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales an allocation of quota. How they allocate that within their fleet is then a devolved competence.
A few years ago, the Scottish Government did a consultation on moving away from the FQA unit approach and allocating quota in a different way. Although they ultimately stepped back from that, it is a devolved responsibility for them to decide how to allocate that bit of the quota that the UK Government have allocated to them. The difficulty with both amendments is that they cross a line in terms of the devolution settlements, because they start to fetter the ability of the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Administration or the Welsh Government to allocate their own quota in the way they see fit.
We intend to pick up these sorts of issues through the joint fisheries statement. Indeed, we already wrestle with these challenges and we have a concordat and memorandums of understanding to manage these issues. Sometimes we have some tension between Scotland and other Administrations over where vessels are registered and where they are fishing, which can lead to disputes that we have to resolve. Due to the nature of our devolved settlement, the one thing we have become used to in fisheries is finding a way through the concordats, the memorandums of understanding or, in future, the joint fisheries statement. The challenge that both amendments alight on is not new; indeed, we have wrestled with it for some time. The solution to the problem lies in the joint fisheries statement that will set out common understandings in the way we approach these particular issues.
While I recognise that both amendments highlight an important issue, the issue goes wider than the Bill because it goes right to the heart of the devolution settlement. One thing we resolved not to do with this Bill is to attempt to rewrite or overturn the devolution settlement. In the absence of that, the joint fisheries statement is our solution to some of the problems the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has highlighted.
Luke Pollard
I am more than happy to, Mr Gray. As a Janner, speaking slowly is not something I am accustomed to doing, but I will try my best.
When considering these amendments, it is important to look at how devolution and access to water can be well managed through the Bill. We know that we have problems relating to equal access, both in internal jurisdictions within the United Kingdom and with our friends from the EU and Norway. Any access must be properly managed and properly understood. This concern is often raised by fishers in Plymouth, who sense that the rule of equal access is not currently being obeyed or applied with the same level of effort and energy as it should. That refers in particular to when there are restrictions or a closure in a UK six to 12 miles area that affects UK fishers but not necessarily others. The Minister talks about the importance of having a level playing field between all those different bits.
George Eustice
Obviously, there will be licence conditions on all foreign vessels fishing in British waters in future. Technical measures of that sort would be a requirement on those seeking access to our waters.
Luke Pollard
I think both amendments in the group are probing, designed to get confirmation. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
May I say what a great pleasure it has been chairing the Committee this morning? I look forward to chairing this afternoon, when we meet again at 2 pm. What a very well mannered and intelligent debate we have been lucky to have heard so far. It is funny how long a minute takes when you are watching the clock. Order.
Fisheries Bill (Sixth sitting)
Luke Pollard ExcerptsTuesday 11th December 2018
(5 years, 4 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Fisheries Bill 2017-19 View all Fisheries Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 December 2018 - (11 Dec 2018)
Peter Aldous
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.
Amendment 80 would add the proposed words to clause 1 and it should be read in conjunction with amendment 78. It provides for the fisheries policy authorities to publish, at least annually, an update on the progress that they have made towards securing the fisheries objectives. It would give the objectives true meaning and day-to-day relevance, rather than their being somewhat abstract from reality.
From the viewpoint of accountability and transparency, which in so many respects are missing from the current opaque fisheries management regime, it is important that this amendment should be considered. It would help to deliver a truly sustainable and world-leading system of fisheries management.
I tabled the amendment because I want to hear from the Minister what he plans to do to address these particular concerns.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure, Sir Roger, to serve under your chairmanship. The hon. Gentleman’s amendment sits in conjunction with amendments 48 and 49, which I tabled, in making sure that we would have an annual report from Ministers on progress. Given this morning’s debates, it is really important that there should be an annual opportunity for the scrutiny of Ministers in relation to this issue.
Currently there is a very unsatisfactory situation, as hon. Members need to scramble away and persuade colleagues on the Backbench Business Committee to have an annual fisheries debate in Westminster Hall. Indeed, we have one tomorrow, but I suspect that it will not attract the attention it should, because it is not in the main Chamber. The ability to have that annual presentation of reports by the Secretary of State and a good debate, with all Members of the House able to contribute, is a really important part of this amendment—in effect, that is what we seek. It also relates to when such a debate must take place.
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)
As I recall, the expert witness from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was talking positively but incrementally about the movement towards opening out quotas, although that will take some time. Does my hon. Friend agree that such debates would help to monitor the situation?
Luke Pollard
I agree with my hon. Friend. When we are looking at such potentially seismic changes as doing away with the fixed quota allocation system and reallocating quota on a larger basis, it is important to have an annual opportunity in the parliamentary calendar for the Government to present the evidence, statistics and science behind where fisheries stocks are, along with progress towards any reallocation.
The other part of amendment 48 relates to the statement being published annually. There is confusion about when precisely the UK will exit the European Union and under what arrangements, but the amendment states in proposed new subsection (3B) that there would be a fisheries statement within 12 months of the provision coming into force. Effectively, whenever we left the European Union, be that in the fashion planned by the current Prime Minister or in a way not planned by her, within 12 months there would be a statement and we would have an opportunity to update and see progress against the fisheries objectives we debated this morning.
[James Gray in the Chair]
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)
All the amendments seek a statutory requirement for the Government to publish an annual statement, updating the House and others on progress towards the fisheries objectives, but we already have a number of plans that mean we do not need to place a statement on a statutory footing. The White Paper commits us to an annual statement on our assessment of the state of stocks that are of interest to the UK and of our approach to setting fishing rates and other management measures.
Fisheries negotiations take place annually, which is why we have an annual fisheries debate. Next week is December Council, at which fishing opportunities for next year will be discussed. We have just been through the various coastal states, and the EU-Norway negotiations are concluding as I speak. To inform our approach to annual negotiations, we will inevitably feed data into organisations such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas—ICES—and publish both the data we have on progress on the state of fish stocks and our approach to doing that, so we do not need to place this on a statutory footing.
If something more formal were to be done, if it were judged that there needed to be more formal oversight of our progress towards the objectives, the right place to do that would be in the forthcoming environment Bill, which will establish an independent environmental body to monitor our progress towards the objectives set out in the 25-year environment plan. In relation to a more strategic approach to the delivery of the objectives and the plan, that is the right place to consider such an oversight role. We have in the Bill a statutory requirement for a joint fisheries statement and for a Secretary of State fisheries statement setting out our approach to delivering the objectives.
Finally, it is important to recognise what we already do. Every year, before we go to December Council we lay before the House a written ministerial statement that sets out our approach to the negotiations and the agenda for them, and we always lay a written ministerial statement after the negotiations have concluded, to update the House on progress.
George Eustice
We have had a comprehensive discussion about clause 1 through the consideration of a series of amendments. The key purpose of the clause is to set out our fisheries objectives, which are largely taken from the existing objectives in the common fisheries policy. The clause also commits us to all those objectives and includes descriptions of them. I do not intend to dwell on the clause any further, since, as I said, we have spent the past few hours discussing each of those objectives in great depth.
Luke Pollard
The Opposition will not vote against clause 1. However, I invite the Minister to reflect on some of the changes to the objectives that have been discussed. I also invite him to look at whether amendments can be introduced in the other place, especially in relation to fish being a public asset and marine safety. I think there was widespread agreement on that on both sides of the House, even if there was not necessarily agreement on the wording.
Mr Carmichael
Among those who gave evidence to the Committee last week, a common recurring theme was that there was something of a disparity between the vision that was laid out in the White Paper, which the Liberal Democrats broadly welcomed, and the rather narrower vision that was left in the Bill. It is also fair to say that we would have hoped to find in clause 1 a number of aspects of the White Paper’s vision. It is disappointing that we have not made more progress. I have been around this place long enough to know how these things work, so I am not necessarily very surprised, but it is fair to put the Minister on notice that the Liberal Democrats will wish to return to certain issues in relation to clause 1 when the Bill goes back to the Floor of the House. Failing that, I am fairly certain that my noble Friends at the other end of the building will also have thoughts on this matter.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Fisheries statements
Peter Aldous
These two amendments seek to obtain clarification on what one might describe as the elephant in the room in current fisheries management—that is, the fair distribution of fishing opportunities. The current situation is one of haves and have-nots, and we have heard that what is now known as the under-10-metre sector falls into the have-nots. The Bill provides no clear forum for the four nations of the UK to discuss and consider appropriate methods of distributing fishing opportunities to their fishing vessels, and that needs to be better co-ordinated and more coherent. These amendments would require the pursuit of a detailed, decided and considered approach to the distribution of fishing opportunities, and I would welcome clarification on the approach that the Minister is pursuing in order to address this issue.
Luke Pollard
The hon. Gentleman’s amendments are worthy of decent consideration, because the distribution and redistribution of fishing opportunities plays a key part in what we are discussing today. It is therefore worth spending a few moments reflecting on what has been said. The amendments are brief, in terms of the number of words, but substantial in their potential impact.
More transparency about how quota is allocated to our fishing fleet would be welcome, because the allocation causes much distress among fishers. Some want more, and some do not have any at all. We would support transparency, but we would like to go further. We have tabled amendments, which we will come to later in our consideration, that would ensure that future and existing allocations of quota were distributed under social, environmental and economic criteria. There was much talk on Second Reading and in the evidence sessions about the unfair imbalances of quota between large and small fleets, and the amendments would improve transparency and accountability in how those quotas are given out.
Even under the common fisheries policy, the Minister has the power to reallocate quota, so it is important that we understand the approach taken to allocating quota annually, whichever party is in power. An often-cited critique of the European Union is that the size of the pie, in terms of quota, has been restricted. The debate needs also to focus on where that pie is shared out—how it is distributed between large and small boats and different fisheries—and its economic contribution to the UK.
The fixed quota allocation system, which was heavily criticised for being unfair at the outset, has not really been updated since the 1990s. Indeed, in the evidence session last week, the hon. Member for Waveney made a strong case as to why there is an opportunity for understanding how quota is allocated. As a result of the existing system of ownership, fishing quota has become increasingly consolidated among large-scale interests. Griffin Carpenter from the New Economics Foundation said:
“In essence, fisheries have been accidentally privatised. Every year, quota is allocated to the same holders”.––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 102, Q196.]
Luke Pollard
I thank my hon. Friend for his point. The opportunity to redistribute quota could have a beneficial effect on coastal communities across the country, from the west country to other parts of the UK. That is effectively what Griffin was saying in his remarks about understanding how quota has been allocated, and it is why the amendment is so important. It would help us better to understand the basis on which quota is allocated, particularly as a quarter of the UK’s fishing quota is owned or controlled by just five families on The Sunday Times rich list.
The small-scale fleet has generally been excluded from the FQA system and producer organisations. Quotas should be allocated on transparent social, economic and environmental criteria to the benefit of fishing communities and coastal communities. We heard that in our evidence sessions, and the idea enjoys support from both sides of the Committee, although we are yet to find a form of words on which we can agree. A greater share could be offered for complying with relevant regulations, such as taking part in data gathering, fully monitoring and recording catches, complying with discard rules and applying high standards of workers’ rights, welfare and marine safety. Through that, we have an opportunity to allocate quota in a fairer way that supports greater public goals and assets. Those are objectives that we all share.
There may be more fish after the UK leaves the common fisheries policy if we get a drawdown of the quota held by our EU friends, but not amending the distribution of quota would exacerbate existing levels of inequality between parts of the sector and would fail to incentivise best practice. Small boats provide the backbone of our fishing fleet and make up the majority of the fleet, in terms of employment. They generally use low-impact gear and provide more jobs per tonne, but their share of quota has been limited to 4% to 6% of the total available quota, even though they employ 49% of the fleet. A greater understanding of how that can go, how quota is currently allocated and how it will be allocated in future will help transparency and, importantly, confidence among fishers in the system.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman is right about the evidence and discussions about how future quota should be allocated. The benefits need to be considered. Does he accept that the amendment could impact on the devolution settlements, because quota allocation is devolved to the respective Administrations?
Luke Pollard
It is really important that we are part of the devolution debate, to ensure that where powers have been devolved to a devolved Administration, they can take decisions on how to distribute their quota accordingly. Quota drawn down from our EU friends is additional quota, which can, in theory, be shared across all UK fishers across the four home nations. An under- standing of how that is allocated is an important function of transparency and part of how we make the system work.
Peter Aldous
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. I hear what he says about amendment 87 and the fact that, as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun said, it stumbles into devolution issues. However, I am grateful for the Minister’s undertaking to look at clause 88 in more detail with a view to coming back with more information addressing my concerns on Report. On that basis, I do not wish to push the amendment to a vote.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 50, in clause 2, page 3, line 17, at end insert—
“(j) promoting the development of fishing and aquaculture activities that conserve, enhance or restore the marine and aquatic environment.”
This amendment would add promoting activities to conserve, enhance or restore the marine and aquatic environment to the policies to be included in the fisheries statements.
Amendment 50 seeks to continue the discussion we had this morning on aquatic environments and the preservation of marine heritage on the seabed. Recognising the conversation we had earlier, I suspect the Minister may not be minded to support the amendment. However, it is worth spending a moment on the “marine aquatic environment” wording to ensure that it is consistent throughout the Bill. The concern is that the wording is inconsistent with, for instance, clause 31(2)(b). The amendment would ensure consistent application on the same basis in promoting the development of fishing and aquiculture activities that conserve, enhance or restore the marine and aquatic environment.
The Minister spoke earlier about the importance of protecting the marine environment and I am grateful for his words. We recognise that the fishing industry has played an important part over many years in discovering much of the marine heritage that has been snagged in its nets or gear and brought to the attention of archaeologists. Some of the UK’s most significant marine heritage assets have been discovered by fishermen. The important part of this measure is recognising that, although fishermen undoubtedly seek to avoid snagging their gear on underwater heritage assets because of the hazards and costs involved, impacts that cause damage to underwater heritage sometimes still occur. The stakeholders that we spoke to in advance of the Bill are keen that the relationship between those marine heritage assets and the fishing industry is understood in the Bill.
There are two elements. The Minister touched on the heritage aspect earlier when we discussed a similar amendment. The application of the consistent wording of marine and aquatic environment is also worth looking at.
George Eustice
We covered a lot of the substance of this in an earlier group of amendments. However, in clause 2(2)(c), we already have measures to adjust the fishing capacity of fleets to levels of fishing opportunity consistent with the precautionary objective. The need to fish sustainably and to control fishing so that it is sustainable is therefore covered. Delivering the precautionary objective is effectively to conserve and enhance the fish in our waters. Subsection (2)(d) promotes the development of sustainable aquaculture activities. The use of the words “sustainable aquaculture” picks up all that is needed in managing our approach to aquaculture.
The final bit, which is new, is a repeat of a discussion we had this morning regarding whether the wording should be “marine and aquatic environment”. As I said this morning, this is a Fisheries Bill about the marine environment and marine fisheries. We have a suite of separate legislation that deals with our fresh waterways. For instance, the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017 cover in detail the approach the Environment Agency should take to deliver good environmental conditions in the freshwater environment. We have the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 and a licencing regime established through the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 that provides protection for heritage and shipwrecks and the like. The addition of “aquatic” is not appropriate for the reasons outlined this morning, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise that fishing sustainably and having a sustainable approach to aquaculture are already dealt with in paragraphs (2)(c) and (d).
Luke Pollard
There is an element of ensuring consistency. The phrase “aquatic environment” is used in the later parts of the Bill under clause 31, so there is a consistency problem. I take note of what the Minister has said and, as a result, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 48, in clause 2, page 3, line 19, at end insert—
“(3A) For the purposes of this Act, a “UK fisheries statement” is a statement made jointly by the fisheries policy authorities on progress towards achieving the fisheries objectives.
(3B) The first UK fisheries statement must be published within 12 months of this section coming into force, and each subsequent UK fisheries statement must be published within 12 months of the previous statement being published.”—(Luke Pollard.)
This amendment would add a requirement on the fisheries policy authorities to publish a joint “UK fisheries statement” within 12 months of the section being brought into force.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Mr Carmichael
I confess that I did not anticipate, when we started scrutiny of the Fisheries Bill, that issues of such high constitutional importance would feature so prominently in the debate. One never knows how Committees will proceed.
The hon. Member for Waveney makes a good point. The current constitutional architecture remains unfinished. The unfinished business is the position of England, and whether it is England as a whole or the constituent parts of England is a debate that, frankly, people in England need to have. I wish them as much joy as we have had with that in Scotland for the past 30 years.
The hon. Gentleman’s amendment comes to the crux of the matter. As matters are currently ordered, the Secretary of State has a clear conflict of interest. On the one hand, he is expected to act as the UK Minister, holding the ring, as it were, between the different constituent parts of the United Kingdom, and at the same time he is supposed to be the English Minister. That is not a sustainable situation. It requires to be remedied and should be remedied, I suggest, through a more comprehensive and holistic approach to constitutional reform for our English cousins. It is also fair to say that this is not a situation that can last indefinitely. If we have to go through another round of salami slicing, taking it subject by subject, instead of region or nation by region or nation, then so be it, but clearly something has to change.
Luke Pollard
The amendment goes to the heart of many of the gripes about fisheries regulation in England. Who speaks for English fishing? There is an inherent conflict in the roles of the Fisheries Minister and the Secretary of State holding both English and UK-wide portfolios. Although it is tempting to engage in a debate about the emerging need for a federal settlement in the United Kingdom, that is probably a decision above our pay grades for the purposes of the Fisheries Bill.
However, the hon. Member for Waveney’s suggestion to look at where this will go is not necessarily a bad one. We have the opportunity to reset and reformulate fishing regulation and to start the journey on those bits that will take longer. The Minister has said that re-allocating FQA will take seven years, if that were to start straightaway. We recognise that some of the changes that the Bill is seeking to effect will not come into immediate force on the day that the Bill comes into force. The discussion that we need to have about the more devolved nature of fisheries is part of that.
If I may go further than the hon. Gentleman, there has also been talk about devolution within England. For instance, there is the potential with more empowered inshore fisheries and conservation authorities, and greater powers at a local level, to have a more thorough set of powers regionalised and localised, rather than just held in Westminster with an English Minister. This is therefore a good debate to have. I am not certain that the amendment will carry favour, but the hon. Gentleman is right to raise the concern.
On the question of who speaks for English fishing, I am sure the Minister will say that, currently, he does. That is something that we need to delve into, though it is probably a discussion for another day.
George Eustice
As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney pointed out, this may be a variant of the famous West Lothian question. Perhaps we could dub it the Waveney question, as he has raised it. It is an interesting point, but as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, it goes much wider than what we will be able to resolve in this particular Bill.
In this country we have a devolved settlement; we do not have a federal system of government. The reason that a federal system of government would not work in the UK is that England is so much bigger than the other component parts. Under any kind of qualified majority vote we would still, effectively, have the dominance of England. It is because such a federal system would not work in reality, given the structure of the UK—unless we were to break up England, as the previous Government intended to do through a series of regional assemblies—that we need to make our devolution settlement work.
Devolution means that, ultimately, something is either devolved—in which case it is for the devolved Administrations to lead on—or it is reserved, in which case it is for the UK Government to lead on. Where there is a need for co-ordination and frameworks, it happens through a series of memorandums of understanding, concordats and other such arrangements, which feature prominently in this Bill and have always been prominent in our approach to fisheries.
The amendment would have no legal effect as it stands, because the Minister with responsibility for English fisheries is indeed the Secretary of State, so they are one and the same. For a Minister with responsibility for English fisheries to be able to do anything other than what the Secretary of State wanted, he would need to have an English Government who were separate from the UK Government; and if we had an English Government who were separate from the UK Government, we would need an English Parliament to hold that English Government to account. I do not think that that is an approach that we want to take at the moment, for all the reasons I have outlined.
Peter Aldous
I accept that the Bill is not the right place to take account of these concerns, but it is important to air them, and that is what I have done. I sense that there might be a problem further down the line. I hope that I have fired a warning shot that that might be a problem and that we need to be awake to that, and to address it.
In the Fisheries Bill, we are setting out the new UK fishing policy—the UKFP—which will replace the CFP, in which we had the EU. I am not saying the EU is necessarily an umpire or an adjudicator, but it is another party, and it will be removed from future discussions. I suggest that the Secretary of State’s role could well come under closer scrutiny, and I sense that this issue could materialise as a problem sooner rather than later. On that note, although it is important that we have aired the issue, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Preparation and coming into effect of fisheries statements
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 51, in clause 3, page 3, line 38, at end insert—
“(5) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a system to resolve disputes between fisheries policy authorities that result in no joint fisheries statement being published.
(6) In establishing the system under subsection (5), the Secretary of State must in particular ensure that the dispute resolution system makes provision to require the fisheries policy authorities to make use of the system if it appears that no JFS will be published by 1 January 2021 due to disputes between the fisheries policy authorities.”.
This amendment would provide for the Secretary of State to establish a system for resolving a dispute between the fisheries policy authorities which could otherwise result in no joint fisheries statement being published.
Amendment 51 seeks to establish a dispute resolution mechanism, should there not be agreement between the partners on a joint fisheries statement. This week is a perfect example of how dispute resolution mechanisms are actually quite useful and should be put in place before the dispute that needs to be resolved has arisen, and that is what the amendment seeks to do.
Of course, we hope that all fisheries policy authorities representing each part of the UK will be able to agree their joint fisheries statement without problems or roadblocks emerging in the discussions—the parties involved may even go into those discussions fully intending to reach agreement as swiftly as possible—but we know that in real life these things can sometimes turn out rather differently to what everyone intended.
The amendment, which has been suggested by the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations and the Blue Marine Foundation, therefore seeks to discover what the Government think should happen in the event that reaching an agreement on the joint fisheries statement proves to be a more difficult and protracted process than expected, or in the event that one or more of the authorities wishes to have fishing opportunities distributed on a very different basis to the others, where there is a conflict between that distribution method and the methods of their neighbours.
We need to bear it in mind that in many cases the stock of fish will be passing between shared waters and around our islands. In that respect, what happens in one jurisdiction has an impact on what happens in another jurisdiction. Therefore, the amendment seeks to place duties—
Alan Brown
Will the hon. Gentleman outline how he sees this system being set up and how it will actually operate, because right now the amendment is structured so that the Secretary of State sets the system up, which clearly indicates that there will be no input from the devolved Administrations into how the system will operate? He highlighted the example of a situation where one Administration might want to allocate in a way that is vastly different from the other Administrations, but the Secretary of State might have too much control through the way they have set it up. Is that not a risk with regard to the devolution settlement?
Luke Pollard
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion. In this amendment, we have not attempted to prescribe exactly how the dispute resolution should operate nor how it should be established; we have merely said that there should be one. Given that the powers flow from this Bill into the hands of the Secretary of State, it seemed logical that the Secretary of State—whoever that may be—should have the initial responsibility of establishing that mechanism, obviously in conjunction with the other parties involved.
We feel that a firm deadline should be set in the Bill so that these matters are not allowed simply to drift. Therefore, the amendment proposes that the fisheries authority should be required to use the system set out by the Secretary of State in regulations, as soon as it becomes apparent that it will not be possible to have an agreed fisheries statement published by—in this case—1 January 2021. Equally, the date could be set 12 months after the commencement of the Act.
The Minister may try to persuade us that we are perhaps being too gloomy and that the scenarios that we are trying to prepare for are remote possibilities. If he is not inclined to accept this amendment, as I suspect he may not be, it would be beneficial if the Minister explained to the Committee what plans he expects to be put in place if there is a situation where the fisheries authorities are unable to reach an agreement, and that in itself causes a—
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Further to that point, the Minister said previously that he would be, in effect, the English Fisheries Minister and the Secretary of State. Does the hon. Gentleman have concerns that the English Fisheries Minister is also the arbiter in such a scheme? How would that work out? Would there not be a complete conflict of interests if we were to put the Minister in that situation?
Luke Pollard
The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is a valid one, and it relates to the difficulty of having a UK role and English role simultaneously. The importance of creating a dispute resolution system ahead of any dispute happening is that the rules of engagement are already set out if those conflicts and the issues that may arise from people being double-hatted come about. That assumes that the English Fisheries Minister is indeed an English MP and there is not a Welsh or Scottish MP in that role, because that would create opportunities for other types of conflict within that scenario.
We need to get that settled from the outset and that is effectively what the amendment seeks to do. The amendment says, “In the event of there being a problem, how will it be addressed?” It would be good if the Minister set out his Department’s thinking. If there is a scenario in which conflict happens, we need to be clear about how it will be resolved, because fisheries is a very political issue. We know from the Fisheries Councils that there is an awful lot of national bravado, national posturing and national importance in respect of the deal, and the agreement that emerges is a really important one. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister set out how he would address that in responding to the amendment.
Mr Carmichael
We used to say that strong fences make for good neighbours, and the same is true when applied to the principles of constitutional law. The effective working of an emerging asymmetric system of devolution within our government requires strong systems to be put in place. Yes, as the Minister suggested this morning, it is all fine and well while everybody is happy, stocks are plentiful and there is no real disagreement. One of the difficulties with the operation of the devolution settlement between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom was that such concordats as were put in place were put in place with little consideration of how they might work with Governments of different colours in Edinburgh and London. As a consequence, these areas have become fractious, and occasionally friction has ensued. We risk missing an opportunity, because there will be times when some sort of friction will occur.
To anticipate the question from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, such arrangements would have to be put in place after full agreement with the different devolved Administrations. It would be wrong of the UK Government—because they are the UK Government and the English Government at the same time—simply to go ahead. That is the essence of the conflict the Minister faces.
No one should have a veto in these matters, but that should mean that no one has a final say in defiance of everyone else either. A veto can block an arrangement, but a final say can force through an arrangement that does not suit and is not agreed by everyone in the different Administrations concerned. At the end of the day, we may need to come to something that looks much like a system of qualified majority voting. Heaven help us, but some mechanism must be found to resolve these matters.
The point the Minister hears from our discussion of this amendment, and from his hon. Friend the Member for Waveney on the previous amendment, is that once we have brought the powers back from the European Union, the status quo will no longer be fit for purpose.
Luke Pollard
Mr Pollard, Mr Gray. We look nothing alike; one of us has a beard.
At some point in the future, the Hansard report of this Committee will be dug out by an industrious journalist and politicians, and they will inquire why a dispute mechanism was not put in place when the Bill was formed. They will look at the debate and see a Government that did not want to do so because they either failed to predict a problem or were so opposed to accepting amendments to the Bill that they knowingly proceeded with a hole in it. That is what we have here.
This is an enabling Bill, designed to create a system and framework for the proper governance of our fisheries in future. We should be taking the opportunity to look into every aspect, to ensure it will work in all circumstances and scenarios. There will be a problem in future in the event of one of the devolved Administrations or the UK deciding not to agree with the others on what is, as we all know, the most political part of DEFRA’s responsibility around fishing. Be that a manufactured concern or a valid concern on stock assessment or different elements of science conflicting, there will be a point of conflict in future.
Owen Smith
My hon. Friend is right. Is it not entirely predictable when that moment will come? It will be when the Secretary of State has the first opportunity to distribute fishing opportunities across the new UK waters and there is a dispute between the Administrations as to the fairness of that distribution, when those other Administrations are only consulted but do not have to consent to those changes. Is that not precisely when the rubber will hit the road?
Luke Pollard
My hon. Friend is right that is a possible scenario. There could be a multitude of other scenarios where that is a real risk.
Brendan O'Hara
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he is being very generous.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North East said he was looking for a situation that was equitable and democratic. That is motherhood and apple pie to a place such as this, but he was lacking any details of what was being proposed and guarantees that it would not impinge on the devolved Administration, and something that takes into account—as we have talked about before—the asymmetrical constitutional set up that currently exists in the United Kingdom. Yes, we would love to see something that was democratic, accountable and equitable, but at the moment there is nothing on which to hang any of that.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but I disagree. We do not know what the cause of that dispute will be or what form that dispute will take, but we can predict that there will be a dispute of some form in and around the formation of these joint fisheries statements in the future. We also know that at a time when climate change is changing the stock levels in our seas, when there is a real concern about how fishing quota is distributed—between ourselves within the UK, and with our EU neighbours and Norway—disputes will arise. It is inevitable that that will take place.
The summary of the debate we have had so far is that there is a hole in the Bill, which needs to be fixed. Ministers need to be seriously concerned about the fact that there will be a problem here and the relevant Hansard will be dug out. Whether the Minister is still in his place or not at that point—I suspect, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd says, it may come sooner rather than later—we need to resolve this. As a result, we will push this amendment to a division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
George Eustice
In the last group of amendments we covered many aspects of clause 3, which sets out the procedures that the four fisheries administrations would need to follow when preparing and adopting the joint fisheries statement. It also sets out the procedures for the Secretary of State to adopt a Secretary of State fisheries statement for England. This clause makes it clear that maintaining sustainable fisheries is a joint effort and requires the involvement of all four fisheries administrations. It requires all four to jointly prepare and adopt the joint fisheries statement for the statement to come into effect. The precise mechanism for preparing and publishing both the JFS and the SSFS are contained in schedule 1, which must be followed for the statements to come into effect. This sets out the provisions for consultation with industry and other interested parties. This clause is integral to both the joint fisheries statement and the Secretary of State fisheries statement.
Clause 4 makes it clear that any amendment to the joint fisheries statement can only be made by the fisheries administrations acting together. This clause is important in allowing the statements to be amendable, as a changing environment may require. For instance, there may be a change of Administration, Government, approach or circumstances, which would mean that it would be necessary, where possible, to amend and adapt the joint fisheries statement and the Secretary of State fisheries statement.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the Minister. The Opposition has no issue with clause 4 and we are happy that it should stand part.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 5
Deadline for first fisheries statements and obligation to review
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 52, in clause 5, page 4, line 10, leave out “before 1 January 2021” and insert—
“at the latest one calendar year from the date of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”.
This amendment would ensure that the fisheries statements are published no more than one year after the UK leaves the EU.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 53, in clause 5, page 4, line 12, leave out “before 1 January 2021” and insert—
“at the latest one calendar year from the date of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”.
This amendment would ensure that the fisheries statements are published no more than one year after the UK leaves the EU.
Luke Pollard
Amendments 52 and 53 would ensure that the fisheries statements are published no more than one year after the UK leaves the European Union. Much debate has been had as to when that date will be, and I am sure that the Minister will not seek to deviate from the line that he has been given by the Whips on that date. However, given that this is a situation in flux, and the uncertainty in the Government at the moment, and without wishing to apply any normative judgment on whether that is a good or bad thing, we do not know the date on which we will be leaving. The amendment would therefore make the Bill more flexible, should the date of exit change.
We have established today that UK fisheries management policy needs to be dynamic and reactive to the fluctuating marine environment. As the fisheries management policy manages a national resource, it needs to be accountable through Parliament as well. The joint fisheries statement is also the first proper acid test for the state of UK fisheries post-Brexit, and will be Parliament’s first opportunity to hold the Government to account against the promises made in the referendum and in the Bill. The idea that we would have to wait almost two years for the first joint fisheries statement if we leave the EU in March 2019 without a deal is not good enough.
Early scrutiny is particularly necessary, given the lack of guarantee in the political declaration that a new fisheries agreement will be completed before the end of the transition period, in July 2020. Instead, parties will use their “best endeavours”. Despite endless gold-plated promises, there is a real fear among fishers that that vague language means that there is a final betrayal coming for the industry. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) said that
“sovereignty of our waters could be sacrificed for a trade deal. That is unacceptable.”
I am sure that is a view shared by many in this place and in fishing communities around the country. Because there is no guarantee that there will be a new fisheries agreement with the EU by the end of the transition period, only a hope, there is a fear that once the spotlight has come off fishing a few months or years down the line, during a quiet moment of transition, the industry will be taken off to a quiet corner and betrayed in exchange for a free trade agreement with the EU. That is a real concern that fishers have expressed to me, sometimes in more colourful language than I have chosen to use. It is a valid concern that we need to address.
The Leader of the Opposition stated in the Commons that the concern is that all that we will do is enter into a new CFP but under a new name. I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity in wanting to leave on the day that is Government policy today—rather than the one we might get tomorrow—but we do not want that to happen. It is out of his hands and I appreciate that. A hard date in the Bill may be useful for party political management on the Government Benches, but in creating an enabling Bill, we need to recognise that the date of exit may change and, therefore, 12 months from that date of exit is the first time that a fisheries statement should be presented to Parliament. That is the purpose of the amendments.
George Eustice
Setting out a particular date for completion when there are a number of scenarios that could unfold in respect of the withdrawal agreement and the nature of our exit from the EU does create some uncertainties—I would be the first to acknowledge that. As the hon. Gentleman said, things are currently in a state of flux.
I want to explain why we have chosen the 1 January 2021 as the date. When we drafted the Bill it was on the understanding and expectation that there would be an implementation period, during which we would be bound by the terms of the common fisheries policy until December 2020, when we would negotiate as an independent coastal state. The appropriate time to have this plan in place seemed to be January 2021. We chose the date on the basis of an expectation of an implementation period running until December 2020.
The second reason was that it gave us time to ensure that we can work through our differences across the four Administrations and have a plan in place. As well as the neatness of the measure commencing at the point at which the implementation period ends, it ensures that we give ourselves sufficient time to agree the plan and put it in place.
I know that a long-standing concern for a number of fishermen is that their interests may be traded for other elements of the future partnership. We have made it absolutely clear that we will not do that. We are absolutely clear that trade negotiations are separate from negotiations about access. The Government have tabled some amendments that we will discuss at a later date that I believe will give some reassurance to fishermen about that.
While I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, by the time the Bill reaches Report stage, we may all be slightly clearer as to the length of the implementation period or whether there is to be an implementation period at all and whether we leave without an agreement next March. I that suggest the hon. Gentleman keeps his powder dry on this issue until we all have greater clarity about what the future holds.
Finally, when making the case for his amendment, the hon. Gentleman suggests that the date on which we withdraw from the European Union could be a movable feast. I do not accept that. We are leaving the European Union come what may in March. The issue is whether there will be an implementation period and how long it will be. Will it go for the full duration until December 2020 or will it be possible to conclude it expeditiously? I therefore accept that there is an element of doubt about the length of the implementation period and whether there will be one. I suggest we revisit the issue of timescales for the production of the joint fisheries statement on Report, when I hope things will be clearer.
Luke Pollard
There are no surprises in the Minister’s response, but I enjoyed the phrase “we will work through our differences across the four Administrations”, given the time required to do that. I suspect that was the exact opposite of the sentiment that was exhibited in the dispute resolution debate.
There is significant concern among fishing industries that they will be sold out, just as they were during the transition period. Ministers, including this Minister, were advocating that fisheries should be excluded from the transition period up to a week before that policy changed. Fishers around our coastline have every reason to be sceptical about some of the promises that have been given.
George Eustice
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept the ultimate sell-out for British fishing would be to stay in the European Union and therefore stay in the common fisheries policy?
Luke Pollard
I understand that fishing was sold out on the way into the EU and there is a risk of it being sold out on the way out of the EU. A lot of our fishing communities share that concern. We need to recognise that. I respect the Minister’s desire to leave on the date that has currently been stated by the Government. As the Government are changing their mind about a lot to do with Brexit, and as this is an enabling Bill, should we not be flexible and be able to reflect possible changes during this period?
I am happy to take the Minister’s suggestion to keep my powder dry on this one and revisit it on Report. However, there is a genuine concern that fishing will be sold out, given any hard dates, and more work needs to be done to reassure fishers that they will not be sold out when it comes to the political agreement further down the line. A flexible date would be one way of doing that. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 54, in clause 5, page 4, line 15, leave out “6” and insert “5”
This amendment would ensure that the fisheries statements are subject to review every five years, instead of every six years.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 55, in clause 5, page 4, line 17, leave out “6” and insert “5”
This amendment would ensure that the fisheries statements are subject to review every five years, instead of every six years.
Amendment 56, in clause 5, page 4, line 22, leave out “6” and insert “5”
This amendment would ensure that the fisheries statements are subject to review every five years, instead of every six years.
Amendment 57, in clause 5, page 4, line 24, leave out “6” and insert “5”
This amendment would ensure that the fisheries statements are subject to review every five years, instead of every six years.
Luke Pollard
These amendments make a similar point to the earlier ones, in respect of the timeframe that we are looking at. They would remove the restriction of six years and replace it with five years. Six years is far too long to leave the Executive unaccountable if it is necessary to force them to change bad policy. That is why we wish to change the period from six years to five years.
Five years is the length of a fixed-term Parliament. It would mean that, in any given Parliament, there can be accountability for the policies that the Government are seeking to put in place via the Fisheries Bill. Otherwise, in a fixed-term Parliament of five years, there may not be an opportunity due to the period being set at six years. I encourage the Minister to look again at the arbitrary six years. We want to ensure that, every five years, at the start of a new parliamentary term, fisheries is right up there as one of the main policy items under review. Every new Parliament should have the ability to review fisheries policy.
As drafted, the Fisheries Bill gives the benefit of the doubt and too much discretion to people in office. There is not enough of a guarantee that the policies will achieve our fisheries objectives. We tabled the amendments to enhance scrutiny and to ensure that the Government’s aim to have truly sustainable world-leading fisheries is delivered.
George Eustice
It has been a little while since I mentioned the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government. I want to explain where the allegedly arbitrary figure of six years came from. It mirrors the approach set out in the Marine and Coastal Access Act in respect of the production of marine spatial plans. There is a requirement in the Act to review the marine spatial plans at six-yearly intervals. Our officials, when considering what would be appropriate—we wanted to have a consistent approach to the marine environment—took the view that, as marine spatial plans are reviewed every six years, that would seem to be the appropriate precedent to follow in respect of these other plans.
Six years has a precedent, and indeed one that some Opposition Members might have voted for—not the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, but other hon. Members—when the Marine and Coastal Access Act was passed. There is no precedent for five years. I understand that hon. Members may take the view that, under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, five years is the typical duration of a Government, but clause 4 creates a power to amend the plan at any time.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the Minister for setting out why five years is not as good as six; none the less, I think there is a point about our effective scrutiny of the system. When the Marine and Coastal Access Act was initially enacted, it was at the start of that journey of organising marine plans and policies. We are now in a very different place, both politically and environmentally. I am grateful for the comments about climate change made by the hon. Member for Stafford. Our world is changing and our fisheries need to be more adaptable to the concerns around climate change.
Alan Brown
In support of the principle of reducing the review period from six to five years, I tried to get in earlier on. I have concern about linking it to a parliamentary term, because as we know, despite the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, we have already had one Government that did not last five years, and the way things are going, it is highly probable that this Government will not, either, so I would be wary of linking it to a Westminster parliamentary term. That would also override the parliamentary cycle of the devolved Administrations. I am happy with five years, but we should be wary of how this is linked to the parliamentary cycles.
Luke Pollard
In seeking to move from six to five, that was merely to move from six years to five years, rather than necessarily to align with that parliamentary cycle.
Mike Hill
Would moving the period to five not mean that the Government of the day were accountable for actions they had taken, rather than leaving it to a sixth year, when potentially it would be a different Government and it could trigger a new way of assessing things? It could be a false trigger for the future.
Luke Pollard
I agree. Although I take the point made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, that Governments may not last for five years—indeed, the reason that I am here and not doing my former job of advising on how to build skyscrapers is that the House decided to have an election and not use the Fixed-term Parliaments Act to see out five years—there is a possibility that these plans may not be reviewed within an entire, normal Parliament, which means that an entire batch of Members of Parliament for that parliamentary term will not have the chance to do this. I recognise the flexibility that the Minister has outlined.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Bearing in mind the rationale that the hon. Member is now using, surely he should have drafted his amendment in the context of this being looked at within each term of Parliament, rather than on an arbitrary five-year basis?
Luke Pollard
No, I am quite comfortable that the words “leave out “6” and insert “5”” are entirely sufficient to deal with this clause; none the less, I take the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make. There is concern here about the frequency of scrutiny. If the Minister can reflect on that, there is a strong sense of our wanting to be sure.
George Eustice
Will the hon. Gentleman explain why he chose five years rather than four or three?
Luke Pollard
I can indeed; it is because two was suggested. Feedback from stakeholders was that they felt that six years was too long. A number of suggestions came back for different periods, two and three being some of those—indeed, Fishing for Leave was strong in its advocacy of two years. I felt that two years is too frequent, but six years is too long. Therefore, looking to lock it into the period during, in theory, a parliamentary five-year term, seems to be the right amount of time.
I am grateful for the flexibility that the Minister has set out. Should the Government change, I would expect that flexibility to be used by a Labour Government in moving that to five. I think that would be the right thing to do. However, on the basis of the discussion we have had, I am content not to push the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Effect of statements
Peter Aldous
I beg to move amendment 89, in clause 6, page 4, line 29, leave out from “authority” to end of line 34.
Peter Aldous
Thank you, Mr Gray.
I will highlight two points on which I hope to gain clarification from the Minister. First, it is important for all public bodies involved in fisheries management to adhere to the principle of the fisheries statements. The amendments therefore seek to expand the scope of the list of those authorities to which the statements apply. I have also sought to ensure that the list is not exhaustive.
Secondly, the amendments would reduce those authorities’ discretion not to comply with the obligation. They would provide a legally binding commitment on the public authorities to achieve the fisheries objective. I am concerned about what appears to be some wriggle room for authorities not to comply with the statements. I would be grateful if the Minister allayed my concerns.
Luke Pollard
Although this might be the kiss of death for the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, the Opposition are minded to support it, because it seeks to improve the duties in the Bill.
The Bill’s wording gives significant powers for a relevant national authority to amend policies contained within the joint fisheries statement with little scrutiny or challenge. The amendment would remove the vague and meaningless “relevant considerations”, a term that appears to be a get-out clause to allow authorities to act as they please when it suits them.
Earlier, the Minister said that the power would enable reaction to a huge surprise event, but how can we be sure that it would not be abused? The clause is not specific enough, and no safeguards are in place to stop it being used as a “Get out of jail” card. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd did, I ask the Minister what “relevant considerations” mean in this context. That is the nub of the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Waveney.
In the evidence session last week, Tom Appleby from the Blue Marine Foundation criticised the clause as it stands:
“Our fisheries statements are a bit woolly. I notice that there is a bit in here that says that they do not have to adhere if relevant considerations are taken into account. What is a relevant consideration? I could not find a definition of that.
We have not nailed the Secretary of State to the floor in this Bill, and that could be done.”––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 4 December 2018; c. 56, Q120.]
I am not, of course, advocating nailing the Secretary of State to any floors—[Interruption.] Indeed. Government Members might like to go there, but not Opposition Members. Debbie Crockard of the Marine Conservation Society said something similar at another of our evidence sessions:
“the problem with the joint fisheries statement is that, under clause 6(2), if a national authority takes the decision to act other than in accordance with the JFS, it simply has to state the reason why. There is no binding duty to follow that JFS. If it goes against the JFS and sets fishing limits that are not legally bound, there is nothing to hold it to account in that situation.”––[Official Report, Fisheries Public Bill Committee, 6 December 2018; c. 77, Q152.]
Both the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Waveney, and that concern about the lack of any dispute resolution, go to the heart of the weakness of the joint fisheries statement that he rightly highlighted.
George Eustice
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney for tabling the amendments and highlighting an important issue. I understand why some might be concerned about the inclusion of the provision, because they judge that it to be a “Get out of jail” card which means that people would not have to follow the statement at all.
As with earlier amendments, I will explain the genesis of the language chosen for the clause. Again, I am afraid, I have to pray in aid the Marine and Coastal Access Act. Section 58(1) states:
“A public authority must take any authorisation or enforcement decision in accordance with the appropriate marine policy documents, unless relevant considerations indicate otherwise.”
The claim by some that the language in the Bill is random, new language that has never been used in legislation before is therefore not true. It is a form of words that was used in the most recent piece of marine management legislation available, which was introduced by the Labour Government.
The reason we have the provision is to ensure that in instances where we have a sudden change in circumstances, which might put us outside a joint fisheries statement, there is, in a sort of force majeure—
Peter Aldous
I beg to move amendment 21, in clause 8, page 5, line 13, leave out “a” and insert “an annual British”.
The amendment applies to clause 8 and to schedule 2. There is concern that there are no provisions in the Bill for foreign vessels to comply with the same standards as UK vessels. Foreign vessels’ access to UK waters must be contingent on compliance with the same environmental standards as are applicable to UK vessels. That way, there will be a level playing field and the same high level of environmental protection will apply to all fishing in UK waters.
There is a worry—perhaps I am being alarmist—that the Dutch might be allowed to continue with the environmental vandalism that is electro-pulse fishing, which takes place off the East Anglian coast, and which we may or may not debate in more detail later.
I would welcome clarification from the Minister. I ask that he allay my concerns and assure me that the same level playing field will apply to all vessels in UK waters.
Luke Pollard
The amendment seeks to limit the time foreign boats have a licence to fish in UK waters to a single year. It is important that British boats take back control of our waters and the lion’s share of our quota, consistent with moving from relative stability to zonal attachment, which is where the hon. Gentleman is going. With regard to foreign boats, we need to explore this issue in much more detail and depth. There is concern about the simple timeframe, but the general principle the hon. Gentleman is following is a good one to explore further. I will sit down so the Minister can do precisely that.
Jeremy Lefroy
A brief point: we talk about access to British fisheries, but I imagine we are talking about United Kingdom fisheries. I wonder whether British and United Kingdom are being used interchangeably, because we talk about United Kingdom later on. Could I have some clarification on that?
George Eustice
Clause 8 simply sets the terms under which foreign fishing boats may enter British fishery limits and replaces section 2 of the Fishery Limits Act 1976. Under that section, as amended by the Scotland Act 1998 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the Secretary of State and Ministers of devolved Administrations may designate, by Order in Council, the foreign countries whose vessels may enter British fishery limits.
Paragraph 8(1)(a) provides that a foreign vessel can enter British fishery limits only if it has a sea fishing licence. The effect of the clause is that all foreign fishing vessels will need the express permission of the UK to enter into our waters to fish. Subsection (2) requires that foreign fishing boats must leave British fisheries limits as soon as their fishing activities or other purposes for entering British fishery limits have been completed.
The purpose of the measure is to ensure that foreign vessels entering UK waters leave once their permitted purpose has concluded. Subsection (3) creates an offence against the master, and an offence of vicarious liability against the owner and the charterer of a foreign fishing vessel, for entering UK waters for any purpose other than fishing in accordance with a sea fishing licence, and under international law agreements or arrangements.
Luke Pollard
As we prepared for the Bill, a number of stakeholders expressed concern about a missing element: a requirement for foreign fishing boats to abide by the same standards as British fishing boats. As that is covered by an amendment we seek to table elsewhere in the Bill, I will not push it to a conversation or debate now. That is the only omission and, as the clause stands, we will not oppose it.
Mr Carmichael
That is undoubtedly the case, but I said right at the start that the issue is one of transparency and accountability. Such things are best hard-wired into the Bill, rather than being left to the vagaries of the written parliamentary question system. The Minister says he will take the matter away and report back to the Committee at a later stage, so I will not press the amendment to a Division, but, as a caveat to that, I reserve the position with regard to later procedure. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Luke Pollard
I beg to move amendment 63, in clause 12, page 8, line 10, at end insert—
‘(3A) No licence may be granted under this section unless conditions are attached to that licence so as to require the foreign fishing boat to comply with any standards in relation to environmental protection and marine safety that would apply to the same boat if it were a British fishing boat.”
This amendment would require licences granted to require foreign fishing boats to comply with the same environmental protection and marine safety standards as British fishing boats.
Amendment 63 seeks to put into the Bill a common and very serious concern of many of our fishing communities around the country, which is that the regime that might exist after we leave the EU will see one set of rules for UK fishers and potentially another set of rules for EU fishers, because access to our waters will still be on the basis of fixed quota allocations and many foreign boats will still own quota to access UK waters after we leave the UK, and a drawdown period, if one exists, will take a while to achieve. The amendment seeks to create in the Bill the very clear, in stark plain English, description that says that foreign fishing boats should obey the same rules as British fishing boats. It is a principle to which there is huge agreement across the country from Plymouth and Cornwall right up to the north of Scotland. It would not create extra burdens for our EU friends entering UK waters. It would create the same burdens—the same regulatory requirements—to which any UK fisher must adapt.
In particular, the amendment deals with environmental protections and marine safety. It is vital, when it comes to safety, that we do not inadvertently create incentives for foreign boats to cut corners and take risks with their crews that we would not allow on our own boats. We already know from anecdotal evidence that safety standards on different EU countries’ boats are very different. There are different levels of enforcement and compliance with existing regulations.
If we say—rightly, and as the Minister did in the earlier discussion on marine safety—that we want high levels of marine safety for UK boats, we should require the same high levels of marine safety for foreign boats. If we do not, there will be a regulatory gap, potentially, between UK and foreign fishing boats. There will be an efficiency in having lower marine standards, in relation to the cost of compliance for UK and EU fishers. Potentially, a situation could be created where our EU friends might, while fishing in our waters, get into trouble more often because of the lower levels of protection.
The amendment is simple, and would put into the Bill something that fishers across the country want—a clear prescription that EU fishers will obey the same regulations as UK fishers. It is essential to the Bill, and I am surprised that it has not been included. There would, I think, be support for it on both sides of the Committee. I suspect that the Minister will oppose it, and I should be grateful if he set out his reasons for doing so, and explain how the same thing can be achieved by other means. There is concern in fishing organisations because the detail in the Bill includes no such clarity about the same regulatory standards applying to EU and UK fishers.
Mr Sweeney
I support the amendment. Coming from a shipbuilding background with, perhaps, issues not entirely dissimilar to those affecting fisheries, I know the frustration in many industries about having a level playing field and the opportunity to compete on the same basis. That is the reality facing many fishermen in the UK.
Many boats adhere to onerous constraints, such as the environmental standards and safety requirements that govern their operation. That is right, and respects the way we do business. It is therefore only right that all fishing boats operating in British territorial waters should adhere to the same conditions. Not only does that reduce risk to our maritime patrol agencies that would have to intervene in certain scenarios, if people’s safety was at risk; it also improves the environmental situation—and environmental damage would cause damage to many stakeholders in the industry and the country.
For those reasons it is critical that the Minister should include the measure in the Bill. Not only would that safeguard the UK fishing industry and its interests, including in the Western Isles, Fraserburgh, Peterhead and the big commercial areas, but it would ensure that other stakeholders, many of them around the UK coastline, would be protected from the negative effects of incursions by boats that did not adhere to the same standards within UK territorial waters. That would be a very worthwhile thing to do.
Luke Pollard
I have to say to the Minister that I am not reassured by that, and neither are fishing communities up and down the country. They are looking for wording in the Bill that says that EU fishing boats will have the same standards as UK fishing boats because of the widespread perception and reality that, at present, they do not have the same standards. Although I appreciate the Minister’s efforts to explain why there is an existing equivalence, that is not the lived experience of fishers across the UK today.
George Eustice
The cause of that is European law, and the fact that we have to abide by it and sometimes accept certain practices in our waters that we would otherwise choose not to. The premise of the Bill is that when we take control of these matters and have a proper licensing regime, it is for us, and us alone, to determine the conditions that we place on vessels that want to enter our waters. That is not the case now. That is why fishermen feel aggrieved.
Luke Pollard
Indeed they are. Those are fine words, which I wish I had used in my opening remarks, because that is exactly the point of this amendment. As we are now taking back control of our waters, it is up to us to set the standards that we wish the fishers in our community to be governed by. That is why it is important that we include in the Bill a clear set of words that say that EU fishers must abide by the same regulations as UK fishers, because the sense of betrayal, which I spoke about earlier, is not just about giving away access to waters, but about having different rules that they play by. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East was exactly right about the requirement for a level playing field. There is a real concern among fishers that a level playing field will not be achieved by this Bill. The refusal to put into the Bill clear wording that says that EU fishers must obey the same rules as UK fishers will worry an awful lot of our fishing communities up and down the country. I will therefore not withdraw the amendment, but will press it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Fisheries Bill (Third sitting)
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
George Eustice
Q
Debbie Crockard: That may be a good place to define it, but the problem with the joint fisheries statement is that, under clause 6(2), if a national authority takes the decision to act other than in accordance with the JFS, it simply has to state the reason why. There is no binding duty to follow that JFS. If it goes against the JFS and sets fishing limits that are not legally bound, there is nothing to hold it to account in that situation.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Helen McLachlan: That is one of our concerns. It is not really addressed fully by the CFP either, which is why we think the Bill is a great opportunity for the UK to start to fill that gap. You are absolutely right: we do not have an effective means of documenting what we remove from the oceans. There are requirements to log what is taken. We have operated a landings-based system to date, but we should now move over to a catch-based system, with which we should be able to monitor what comes up in the net. We are not able to do that now; the systems are simply not in place. We would like to see the Bill address that with a verifiable, fully documented catch commitment, supported by the use of electronic monitoring in the first instance, for example.
As you say, it is not only the catch but what else comes up in the nets that we can start to gather data on, which can be fed into stock assessments, increasing confidence in those assessments. That, circularly, is good for best management practice. We advocate a verifiable, fully documented fishery approach with the support of electronic monitoring on the vessel. When under a piece of legislation that prohibits discarding, as we are now, that activity occurs at sea, so we need some means of monitoring effectively at sea to take account of that. Improving data collection would be absolutely fulfilled by that requirement.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Clayton: I certainly agree that it is a de facto reduction as the Bill stands. I would not necessarily make the assumption that the UK will miss the 2020 deadline, because the power is with the UK to set fishing limits, or for the Council as part of the EU process. The only difference between an overfished stock and a sustainably fished stock are those decisions, and they are in the power of Ministers. I therefore think that we should certainly stick to that MSY commitment.
We have made a huge amount of progress, which is an important point. This is not about some far-off aspirational aim when it comes to setting fishing limits in line with the MSY objective. For 2018, about 44% of fishing limits were set higher than the scientific advice, but for stocks with MSY advice the percentage in line with that advice was about 75%. We have made good progress; we have taken a lot of pain on the way but the UK’s stocks are moving in the right direction, with fishing pressure being brought closer to scientific advice, biomass recovering as a result, and profits for the fleet on aggregate rising at an all-time high as a result of that progress. The important thing is not to go backwards.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Clayton: I would emphasise that the precautionary objective in the Bill refers to harvested species. The Bill aims to deal with all those stocks, whether they currently have a fishing limit or not. It is a note of concern that the CFP also does that—it talks about harvested species—and the CFP is going in the opposite direction and removing fishing limits. Six limits for deep sea species were removed just in November. It is a good opportunity for the UK to show more ambition in managing those species better and gathering the data that is needed as the starting point.
Luke Pollard
Q
Rebecca Newsom: Absolutely. Greenpeace is working with the Greener UK coalition as well as the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association, the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation and Charles Clover’s Blue Marine Foundation, to push for a more robust approach to distributing quota—existing, new and future—on the basis of environmental and social criteria. It stands to benefit the entire fishing industry in terms of driving a race to the top for fleets of all sizes, which would have the opportunity to access fishing opportunities as long as they conformed to environmental standards and things such as giving local employment to communities. We see that as a huge opportunity.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Q
Andrew Clayton: Referring to the objectives again, I think the fanfare with which the Bill was published emphasised sustainability and put it at the heart of what the Government are trying to achieve. The language in the objectives is ambitious to the extent that it mirrors some of the existing commitments. I have already described the serious concerns I have about the shortfall in the sustainability and precautionary objective.
Learning the lessons from the CFP, the important thing under this Bill is that the Government pave the way for implementation—that is why it requires slightly more binding commitments in it—and through the joint statements, to ensure that is implemented in practice, with sufficient deadlines and some concrete detail. Fisheries is a policy area that suffers constantly from short-termism and highly politicised annual decisions. It is important that future Fisheries Ministers are not put under as much pressure to make short-term, short-sighted decisions as previous Fisheries Ministers have been.
Debbie Crockard: The ambition here is for world-leading sustainable fisheries management. At the moment we do not have a duty in this Fisheries Bill to meet the objectives in the Bill. Those objectives cover a lot of very good things—sustainability and a precautionary approach—but without the duty there is no clear obligation to deliver those objectives. Without that clear obligation you are in a situation where they might not be met and there is no obligation to meet.
George Eustice
Q
Andrew Brown: Of course, we do not welcome such a tariff. We have to remember that the shellfish sector is not really gaining anything in additional quotas through Brexit. These are non-quota stocks, other than the langoustine, which we already have a very large share of, so there is no benefit to us—to the shellfish sector—from the Brexit process. We do not expect our catches to be able to go up much, and we require access to some European waters for scallops and crabs, so there are multiple threats to the shellfish sector. We need to ensure that the sector is not forgotten about in the larger discussion on fin fishing.
Luke Pollard
In previous sessions, you might have heard me asking about a national landing obligation—a requirement to land fish caught under a UK quota in UK ports. Would that have an impact on the processing side of the businesses that you represent? In the interest of complete disclosure, I also declare an interest, because Mr Pillar and Interfish are based in the constituency that I represent. What impact would a landing obligation to land fish in UK ports have on your sector? Would it be beneficial?
Andrew Pillar: One of the key things in the port that we originate from, in Plymouth, is the market—the auction—and the opportunity for fishermen at all levels to access that and sell their catch. That is from the under-10 fleet right through to larger vessels. As it stands, that business has absolutely no security and no certainty that there will be a supply of fish coming into that marketplace if operators were to choose to put their fish into the back of a lorry and send it directly overseas, which can and does happen. In some ports around the country, that has evolved under the CFP to a situation where markets have failed and there has not been the opportunity to have a diverse marketplace for small, medium and larger vessels.
In the pelagic sector, the opportunities around employment export, upstream and downstream, are wide-ranging. To be competitive in many of those markets, it is essential to have a critical mass—a business must have that critical mass. In the UK, we operate with very different bases for business in terms of business rates, labour costs and harbour costs, which do not put processing on an even playing field with many of our competitors, but we must recognise that it is a competitive market. What we do have is some of the best, highest quality seafood that we will stake our case for being sustainably produced within British waters. That is a highly desirable product and not to be undervalued.
Mike Park: From a Scottish perspective, in terms of landing to the market, up in Scotland all our vessels operate locally. We do not fish north Norway, the Mediterranean or the Pacific or anything; we fish around our coasts.
The vast majority of the demersal fish comes in to ports such as Peterhead, which is the largest white fish port in Europe, and Fraserburgh, which is the largest nephrops port in Europe. You see the investment going on there: we have a new fish market there, and last week we landed 36,000 boxes of fish into that fish market, which is unprecedented elsewhere. You see a significant investment in new vessels—replacement vessels, not additional vessels. You see an enthusiasm up there, which is built on the fact that the stocks are on our shores, we take care of them and we land it back to our markets. There is a small amount that goes to northern Denmark for the Christmas market—we utilise their market for saithe over that period—but apart from that, everything largely comes back home to Scotland.
Luke Pollard
One of our concerns about the Bill is the potential for standards to be different on British fishing boats versus foreign fishing boats fishing in British waters. From your point of view, for those who trade here, is there a concern that there could be a differential in terms of cost base, compliance and regulations, environmental protections and marine safety if there is not a level playing field between British fishing boats and foreign fishing boats in our waters?
Daniel Whittle: I have a suggestion on that front. There was discussion about remote monitoring. You could make that part of a requirement of fishing in UK waters, so that there would be a level playing field.
To give our perspective on the landing obligation, in Northern Ireland, it is challenging that there is a whiting bycatch. There has been a lot of work on selectivity to reduce it. I fear that the approach being taken, which is “Let’s have a deadline,” is not a practical approach. The approach should be that fisheries continue to try to remove unwanted catch from their nets, but it should not be deadline-driven; it should be a continuous improvement approach.
Andrew Brown: On the foreign vessel conditions, the Bill needs a little more explanation. Each fishing administration is able to establish its own licence and therefore its own licence conditions, and each fishing administration can in principle establish licences for foreign vessels as well. A problem could exist whereby a British or a foreign fishing vessel, fishing in different waters around the UK, might be subject to different licence conditions. It is not clear to me in the Bill how that will operate. That could indeed have an effect on UK fishermen who fish in more than one fishing administration’s waters and on what licence conditions will apply.
Mike Park: In Scottish waters, we do a lot to try and protect the stocks. We have closed areas for spawning females of cod. We have other areas for abundances, and of course we have a network of marine protected areas, like everyone else. One of the things that we ask for going forward—it is a positive, but a negative for our fishermen—is that we avoid the areas of high density. Chances are that that means we catch less fish in terms of economic viability. We could go to area A and catch loads of fish, but we do not; we avoid it. We go to area B where we catch less, but it allows stocks to recover. We do not feel there is equivalence across the EU because some of our EU colleagues enter these areas while we have them closed unilaterally. On issues like that, in the future we would have to ensure that whatever happens there is a degree of equivalence, so that when we make a rule in UK waters, that rule applies to everyone. I am sure it will.
Luke Pollard
Q
Daniel Whittle: Can I ask a question? Where did your suit come from? [Laughter.] And where was it made?
Luke Pollard
It’s from Marks and Spencer, like all the best suits.
Daniel Whittle: Are you bothered about where it has or has not been in the supply chain? You trust Marks and Spencer to act ethically, so why would you scrutinise a fishery?
Luke Pollard
Q
Daniel Whittle: Ethically, should you not be wearing a British wool suit?
The Chair
Order.
Mike Park: Perhaps I can answer the question that the hon. Member posed. In Scotland, I chair a group called the Scottish Fisheries Sustainable Accreditation Group. That group focuses on ensuring that we build stocks up to sustainable levels and that our fishermen harvest stocks appropriately in terms of selectivity and other things. Once we reach a certain standard, we put them through the gold standard of the Marine Stewardship Council certification. The consumer is more concerned about whether she is buying a sustainably caught fish—quality fish—than she is about where it is filleted. By attaching that mark we ensure we give comfort to the consumer. I think that where it is filleted or whatever is a bit of a red herring—excuse the pun. At the end of the day, the consumer is focused on whether the fish comes from a sustainable source and whether it is of good quality. That is what we as an industry group actually ensure.
Andrew Pillar: One of the things that we would like to see strengthened is the recognition around labelling and for labelling to be consistent with the chain of custody and provenance—where a fish has been through its life cycle. That really is driven by point of landing. If something is British, that point of landing is key because you start to derive the value upstream and downstream in the chain of jobs dependent on that fish being produced.
Andrew Brown: I agree with what Mike said about accreditation. Macduff is working hard on accreditation for nephrops stocks and scallop stocks. That is important to us, and, post Brexit, accreditation and certification will become that much more important to guarantee the sustainability of our stocks.
Fisheries Bill (Fourth sitting)
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
George Eustice
Yes. A seven-year period might not be fair for everyone because some might have paid more for different types of entitlement.
Griffin Carpenter: No. If we are dealing with this as a public resource, the claim is the same no matter which fish species it is. The idea is that it is a public resource. We are happy for some members of society to have that right to fish, and not others, but we still reserve the right to change that in future. That is true whether it is mackerel, herring, cod or haddock.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Griffin Carpenter: There are two different types of potential reallocation: one from European fishers to UK fishers, including the small scale; and the question whether we change those distributions in the UK share. The principle is the same: can the small-scale benefit from having additional fishing opportunities, however those come? Our research has shown that there is a desire for fishers.
There is some confusion because small-scale boats often target shellfish. They are not fishing a lot of quota right now; they are catching crab, lobster, cuttlefish and anything they can get their hands on. Nephrops are subject to quota. People say, “They don’t have quota so they don’t need quota,” but if you speak to them, they say, “If we had it, we would love to use it,” because a lot of small-scale fisheries are mixed—they will do something for one season and then switch to quota species if they have it.
There is also a problem with new entrants, which overlaps a bit. You heard earlier that, traditionally, the route into fisheries for young people—fewer are entering at the moment—is through shellfish, because it is so hard to get your hands on quota. You might be able to buy a fishing licence, but buying a quota is too much. Having some quota set aside for small scale, and the overlap of small scale and new entrants—young fishers—is a huge opportunity.
There is a sustainability point, too. There is increasing pressure on shellfish stocks and we do not have good stock assessments on those. Some of the warning lights are coming up now: we are getting lower catch per unit effort, which means that where you do not have stock assessment, that is the warning light. If there is too much pressure on shellfish, what will these guys do? They need some quota to release the pressure on shellfish stocks such as crab or scallops, so they have another seasonable fishery.
Luke Pollard
Q
Griffin Carpenter: Absolutely. When I have spoken to stakeholders, even the quota holders, everyone starts from the same premise that fish is a public good, but from my perspective that has not been followed through in the way we treat the opportunity to fish that public good. It is only in a couple of hands. You and I cannot go fishing; we do not have fishing licences and we certainly do not have quota, so that opportunity is limited. How do we think about that, as the public? I think we do so through having conditions attached to those licences: “If you’re going to fish, then X, Y and Z.” I know that you are interested in the economic link as an issue, but allocating quotas and the distribution of that matters as well.
Luke Pollard
Q
Griffin Carpenter: I guess the first point to make is that every trend or practice we see in the industry is there for a reason. I am sure you are aware of that, but we need to think, “Why are the landings not taking place in the UK right now?” The first reason is probably the price effect. If you can get a higher price elsewhere, you land it elsewhere. If we are going to change some of the incentives, or have a conditional policy such as the economic link, be aware that basically we are accepting a trade-off: fishers might not be as profitable in the catching sector because they are getting lower prices on first sale in the UK, but we may well make up for that later in the value chain. Just be aware that that is the trade-off you are accepting.
The idea of an economic link as a principle that the public resource should be landed in the UK is a valid economic one. I would go about designing the policy a bit differently. The economic link is very rigid; you are either above the line or below it, whether that is 50% of your landings or 60% or 70%. If you are already landing 90% of your catches in the UK, this policy does not really address you at all.
I would rather have a marginal incentive. For example, funding for fisheries management is not really talked about in the Fisheries Bill, although it is in the White Paper. That is fine, but let us think about it this way: if we are going to have a landings levy—in the same way that you might have a levy on stumpage fees in forestry—on aggregate extraction or on other resource industries, and if we are going to have the fishing sector pay for management, why not differentiate so that 1% of your landed value in the UK goes to resource management, but if you land abroad it is 3%? The idea is that there is a marginal incentive for every trip you make, rather than a threshold that, as far as I can see, would not affect most of the fishers who already land in the UK.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Q
Griffin Carpenter: Absolutely. I am not a lawyer—I am an economist—but the legal advice I have heard is that the use of a notice period goes a long way. I mentioned the international examples. We have to make some claim on FQAs as a public resource. Where you might get buy-in for this across the whole sector, including the large-scale fleet, is on something such as flagged vessels. When you hear about Spanish vessels in UK waters, they are almost never Spanish vessels in the sense that they have a Spanish flag and are fishing the Spanish quota; they have purchased UK fishing vessels and are fishing with UK quota, and a lot of coastal communities do not like that. For example, in Wales, most of the quota is caught by those vessels and either landed in Ireland or taken straight to Spain.
The problem is that, if you want to address this issue of flagged vessels—those who are foreign nationals but have UK quota—you must do so by saying, “FQAs are a public resource and we are going to take that away from you and then revisit the issue of distribution.” In a political sense, you can get buy-in for that idea. In a legal sense, I get that the notice period goes a long way. We heard the point made this morning that, because this is new legislation, some of the case law around the previous FQA distribution under the common fisheries policy might not apply. I am actually not sure about that.
George Eustice
Q
Dr Carl O'Brien: Norway, like Iceland, although it wants to follow the general principle of maximum sustainable yield, is not wedded to it to the exclusion of other principles. There may be reasons why one year you might choose to exploit at a slightly higher rate than MSY, rather than at or below MSY.
The Norwegians also have the idea of so-called “balanced harvesting”. Rather than trying to decide how much cod, haddock or whiting you want, you decide, based on the trophic level of where species live, how much you could take out of that part of the system for it to remain balanced. That includes not only the fish species that we look at, but seals, seabirds, whales and other parts of the ecosystem.
We can learn from Norway that if you focus just on fish themselves and the fisheries, you will lose a part of the ecosystem around seabirds, cetaceans and whales. That is something that we need to incorporate into our models. The Government’s 25-year environment plan mentions an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, which I interpret as, starting with the mixed fisheries models, asking how you expand those to take into account other aspects of the ecosystem.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Carl O'Brien: I think you would be surprised how much evidence has been gathered for non-quota species. Seafish had a project called Project Inshore, which I think is now in its second phase, looking mainly at shellfish species. Quite a lot of data has been collected from around the ports by Project Inshore, with the support of the fishermen and the IFCAs. There is a lot of information from that project.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is committed to progressing its assessments of species like scallops, whelks and crabs. There is a commitment from the Minister’s Department to actually improve data collection and the assessment of those species. I think things are all going in the right direction. At CEFAS, we started this work back in 2010 with ICES, recognising that not having assessments of non-commercial species or data-limited stocks was a drawback to fisheries management.
The Minister answered a parliamentary question in January, when we came back from December Council, which quoted 31 stocks out of 45 being exploited at MSY. We do not exploit just 45 stocks as a nation—we exploit in excess of 150. A lot of those are data-limited and they may be small tonnages, but they are very important species for local fishermen, certainly down in the south-west. I think we are improving the quality of the data we have available. It is not just for scientists; it is for the fishing industry and for the likes of Seafish.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Carl O'Brien: I think it depends on the size of the vessel. Large offshore vessels already keep logbooks. A lot of the English fleet has cameras on board, so that is helping the documentation. I am aware of projects down in the south-west, such as Fishface, where they are trying to use cameras on under-10 metre vessels, with quite a lot of success. It is making the best use of the technology that is available. A few years ago, with DEFRA funding, CEFAS developed apps for mobile phones so skippers could go out on smaller vessels and their positions were known through the apps. They could also fill in electronic log sheets, certainly for shellfish species, and record how many pots were put in the water and what quantity of shellfish was being lifted from the sea.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Carl O'Brien: I agree.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Carl O'Brien: The answer is that it is variable, depending on the country. The Danes are quite well advanced and are similar to us, in that they have cameras on board their vessels. If your question is about vessels that might have access to our waters in the future, then I think whatever measures we use or apply to our own fishermen should be applied to other vessels coming into our waters. If we require cameras then that should be a requirement for a French or German vessel to come into UK waters. It has to be a level playing field. It is not necessarily just to focusing on making life fair. What you do not want to end up with is very accurate data from our fleet, and very bad data from everybody else, because you know what the consequence of that is. You end up penalising those that provide you with perfect information and those that do not provide you with information get off.
George Eustice
Q
Dr Amy Pryor: I really think it should be left to the IFCAs. I must admit that I am not very up on lobster and crab fisheries. We do not have them here in the Thames estuary, as much as we would like them. It comes back to my point that, if it is locally managed and the IFCAs are running those decisions, they will have all the information, along with the stakeholder engagement consultation from the wider coastal community, to input into those management decisions. I think regional and local would work best.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Amy Pryor: There is actually a very large correlation between small inshore fleets and coastal deprivation in some of our most deprived areas along the coast. There are two things. First, there is a lack of join-up between marine planning and land planning processes. Each goes to the relevant high or low water mark, but they have different types of indicators and they do not link in any meaningful way.
Coastal areas tend to fall down the cracks between two planning systems, and what goes hand in hand with that are the financial funding streams that go along with it. The coastal communities fund, for example, is fantastic for the coastal communities that can access it, but if you look at the local economic plans of each of the coastal community teams, very few of them even recognise fisheries as an industry that is relevant for the area. That is obviously a massive missed opportunity. They also do not really recognise the water—the role of the health of the marine environment—in driving the tourism that is central to their local economy.
In terms of the financial assistance elements of the Bill, it would be fantastic to see recognition of the need for a more holistic, integrated approach to our funding streams that recognises those multiple benefits so that we can really generate them. That would ultimately benefit the fishing industry, but in a way that better embeds it in the wider coastal community and opens up the routes to market and the innovations in marine businesses that we would all like to see on the coast. That could contribute to the local economy, instead of thinking that tourism alone will drive that. It would also recognise that fisheries are a major part of tourism. They shape the cultural identity of—
The Chair
Order. Apologies—with two witnesses, we have only half the time, so we have to keep the answers short.
Elaine Whyte: I see potential, because I see those communities that are quite sea-blind at the moment. Local authorities are saying that they have never had a fisheries policies, or that they do not know that they have active fishermen on their doorstep. That is a massive opportunity. We just have to look at how Norway has taken 60% of quota allocations and given them to the coastal communities to see them thrive. I would like to see that.
I am slightly worried about the concept of auctions, which is obviously more English-based. I do not know how that will be reflected in UK fisheries in general. However, I see potential here for all communities around the coast.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Amy Pryor: It depends on what you call the small fleet; I prefer to call it a coastal fleet. Again, I would say that you should look at what Norway has—their coastal fleet is 5 metres up to 30 metres. I think the definition can be quite wide. We have mobile guides and keel guides. We have to be just a bit more flexible about opportunities. It is about ensuring that we have the quota and licences available and that we are providing grants to get new starts into the market and giving them a leg up.
Dr Amy Pryor: I agree with all of that. I also second what NEF said about using transparent and objective criteria in quota allocation so that you really do start to recognise the sustainability credentials of the small-scale inshore fleet; it is common sense that they are much more sustainable by being local and non-nomadic and using smaller vessels. Seafarers UK is very concerned, though, that that can lead to a lack of safety at sea, where individual fishermen are piling as much gear as possible on to tiny vessels and souping up the engines, which is highly dangerous. It is about finding a balance between keeping fisherman safe and having a fairer distribution of quotas.
Peter Aldous
Q
Dr Amy Pryor: Gosh, absolutely. In the last year or two, some LEPs with coastal areas—in fact, most have them—are starting to look towards the coastal communities, but it certainly has not been that way since the beginning. It was a fight to get them to take notice of the coastal areas and the role that they play. I see a role for LEPs and for coastal partnerships, because they have a lot of trust from the local community and have been around for about 20 years; they pool all the different strengths together. I would like to see more formal recognition in the Bill—perhaps an extra marine planning objective that could actually set out these things. The Fisheries Bill cannot remedy everything, but it could take steps towards providing that integration, which would also achieve the objectives of the 25-year environment plan that the Government are committed to.
Elaine Whyte: To be fair, it is not just in marine planning, but in science. We always find that the science is lacking at local inshore levels. Again, we should be looking to Norway and at our local fleets as reference fleets and get the fishermen working with the scientists to provide that reflexive data that is needed. A lot of planners and other people sitting around the table do not quite understand what is happening. There is a major problem there for stakeholders as well. What we do have around these timetables are a lot of stakeholders; we are very happy to have them, but sometimes they bring their own science and ideologies. What we really need is an honest broker—that is how we can do it through marine planning and through local authorities.
Fisheries Bill (First sitting)
Luke Pollard ExcerptsTuesday 4th December 2018
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Fisheries Bill 2017-19 View all Fisheries Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 4 December 2018 - (4 Dec 2018)
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Bertie Armstrong: The Bill in its present form enables the UK to work as a coastal state in the way that other coastal states do, so the answer to that is yes. We would be greatly comforted by the insertion into the Bill of a date of assumption of sovereignty. The self-suggesting date is the end of the transition period—the implementation period, in our parlance. In other words, the end of December 2020.
The Chair
I am very sorry, but I am finding it hard to hear you, perhaps because I am a bit deaf. Would you mind speaking up a bit?
Bertie Armstrong: I will, forgive me. The date of the end of December 2020 should therefore be inserted into the Bill so there is a commitment to becoming, in practical terms, a coastal state.
Luke Pollard
Q
Bertie Armstrong: There is a whole fisheries agreement laid down in the withdrawal agreement, which is yet to happen. That is the point. Your question does not indicate from whom I would seek that answer. There is a whole fisheries agreement to be negotiated. Well, we say negotiated, but you need to ask, “Who owns this place?” After Brexit, we own this place. This is the UK’s natural capital. That places a pretty strong trump in your hand of cards for the negotiation.
At one end of the spectrum of the fisheries agreement is, “None of you get in at all and fish anything,” which is absurd. At the other end of the spectrum is, “We’re going to give up and shut the fleet down. You can have at it and have the lot.” The negotiating ground is in between. We would like to see, in the fullness of time, the UK’s fishing opportunity representing zonal attachment or something close to it. That is what should be the result.
Barrie Deas: The UK will be an independent coastal state under international law. The United Nations convention on the law of the sea carries certain rights and responsibilities, including the responsibility to co-operate on the shared management of shared stocks. That is a starting point. There is a very important link between access rights and the renegotiation of quota shares. You can use the EU-Norway example as the most relevant model for future management. The UK is engaged in bilateral negotiations with the EU. That will be about setting quotas and total allowable catches at safe levels. It will also be about access arrangements for the coming year, and it will be about quota shares. That link between access and quota shares is the key to delivering a change and rebalancing of quotas to the UK, where needed. There will be a certain degree of access for European fleets—how much is to be negotiated—and there is the rebalancing of the quota shares. Those two things should be inextricably linked, and that is where our leverage lies in addressing the quota distortions that are there at the moment.
Luke Pollard
Q
Witnesses indicated assent.
Luke Pollard
Q
Bertie Armstrong: It is a complicated question. We should look to other coastal states. There is great assistance in looking at other models. Iceland and Norway—to cite the pair of them again—place much stronger economic links on ownership of vessels and ownership of the stewardship of the fishing opportunity, which is less strong in the UK because of EU regulation. Everyone will know that in the late 1970s the UK attempted to apply a 75% ownership limit to foreign investment in fishing vessels and lost in the European courts because that was illegal under European law. It had to be 75% European ownership. There is an opportunity downstream to have another look at ownership.
Luke Pollard
Q
Bertie Armstrong: The first thing that happens if you make rules about landing is that you have a boat full of mackerel and you cannot land it until Friday, which is very prejudicial. If we are to make rules about landings which make instinctive perfect sense, to capture the economic activity into the land, we must have a sensible vision of how much volume we will need to cope with and how that will be done seasonally. Making simple rules is likely to produce more problems than it will solve. It would be more helpful to have a vision for the UK fishing industry. In the withdrawal from the EU lies the opportunity effectively to double the economic activity associated with UK fishing, including the whole of the supply chain. As long as we are ready for that, the landings will take place into the UK. We look forward to the day when all UK fishermen will want to land their fish into the UK, because we are a world seafood leader and that is where they will get their best price.
Barrie Deas: The principle is that UK quotas should bring proportionate benefits to the UK. That is the starting point. The question is how you do that. The obligation to land a certain proportion of the fish is there in the current arrangements—the current economic link—but there are other options to meet that question of equivalence. Requiring all fish to be landed in the UK would mean an intervention in the market, because if there are economic benefits to landing particular species abroad where there is higher value, there is obviously an economic purpose to doing it that way, so we have to be careful about that. It is right that the economic link requirements are reviewed in the new circumstances, but I quite like the idea of having the flexibility, as long as there is an equivalence, and it is all linked back to the fundamental principle that UK quotas should bring proportionate benefit to the UK.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Q
Barrie Deas: On increased fishing opportunities and how they could be allocated, for a number of reasons, including case law in the English courts, but also the stewardship that comes along with rights of tenure, which have been an important factor in stabilising our fisheries over the last 20 years, our federation takes the view that for existing quota it should remain the same, but for additional quota we think there is a conversation to be had on the most appropriate use of that. There is a range of options.
Perhaps we are being a bit narrow here. You alluded to the division line at under-10, which has, I think, caused distortions in the fleet and unintended consequences —you have a cohort of high-catching under-10s, sometimes called rule beaters or super-under-10s, that have kind of distorted fishing patterns. There is recognition that we need to move beyond that now. In that context, there is an issue about how you define genuine small boats—genuine low-impact vessels—and I accept that. My organisation would be very interested in taking them out of the quota system altogether. That does not mean not taking into account their contribution to mortality. In a sense, it is a reversion to what we had in the early days of under-10 metre management, where sufficient quota was allocated and we did not have to have monthly quotas for that class of vessels. There is a very interesting conversation to be had about the future and new entrants and how the genuine low-impact fleets fit into that.
Equal access has been an important principle and there are dissatisfactions wherever you have a nomadic fleet arriving on the doorstep of a local fishery. That would be true of our boats fishing in bits of Scotland, I suppose, and certainly you hear these kinds of things about Scottish boats fishing off the Northumbrian coast or down in the south-west. Fishermen are competitive. They are competing with each other as well as with foreign fisherman. That is the context in which you have to situate that particular issue.
Bertie Armstrong: Mr Aldous, your question was about new entrants in under-10s. The enabler for a better deal for new entrants in under-10s will be the uplift in opportunity for fishing that comes with Brexit; otherwise, we presumably have fixed the problems already with the fishing opportunity available. The situation is different as you go around the coast. The small-vessel fleet in Scotland has a different character and tends to use creels, or pots, to catch shellfish—that is a great generalisation; there are others—so there is a different set of problems. It is generally inshore and small scale and is therefore best sorted out locally, but I think there will be a better deal for all with the uplift in opportunity.
There is another abiding principle here. If you are going to make alterations to arrangements for fishing, the fish need to be there to be caught. It is one thing to give someone tons of fish; it is quite another if the fish are not there in prime condition with a business plan for getting them landed and into a logistics chain. Much is made of the big mackerel catchers in the pelagic fleet, and much is made of rather lurid statistics about what percentage is held by what number. You cannot catch 250,000 tonnes of mackerel in winter, 100 miles to the west of the British Isles, with hand line under-10s—you simply cannot. But a few hundred tonnes to the hand line under-10s, provided the local arrangements pay attention to making sure there is a whole logistics chain and they are going to get that fish to a place where somebody wants it, is where the opportunity lies.
My final input, on behalf of slightly larger-scale fishing, is: be careful what you mean by low impact. The carbon footprint per kilogram of fish of a pelagic trawler catching mackerel is very much smaller than any other form of fishing, because you catch volume efficiently and quickly. There are many aspects to this.
In answer to the question, yes, there is extra opportunity, but there has to be extra opportunity to distribute. The problems are largely regional and should be sorted out regionally. We need to be careful not to place excessive detail on the face of the Bill. I suggest that a lot of this is best done by secondary legislation.
George Eustice
Q
Andrew Kuyk: I am not sure I would use the term “highly processed”. Quite a lot of it is things such as bread-crumbs; I do not know whether you regard that as a high degree of processing. It is to do with the presentation. These are consumer-ready, convenience products—fillets with some kind of coating. There is a growing line in ready meals—a meal opportunity: a fish product with vegetables and a sauce, and so on. Most of those imports are for domestic consumption, because we are a deficit market. There is some re-export. I do not have an exact figure, but I would imagine it is something like 10% or 15%—not more than that. The vast majority is to supply our domestic market.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Kuyk: It is difficult to say. Again, without going too much into the history, we used to have what I would call an end-to-end processing industry in the UK, where a whole wet fish would go in one end of the factory and a product would come out of the other. Over the years, that has become rationalised and specialised, and a lot of that first-stage processing now happens elsewhere. Some of it happens on board vessels, on factory ships. Some fish—I know this sounds anomalous, but it is sheer market economics—are sent to places such as China, where they are filleted, and come back as frozen blocks. The raw material for quite a lot of our processing industry at the moment is a pre-prepared product—it is not the fish straight from the boat.
That could be a problem on two or three different levels. It is a problem and an opportunity. Clearly, if there was more domestic supply available, the UK processing industry would do its best to cope with that, but that would require investment. I was listening to the earlier session. The front end of the processing factory does exist on a smaller scale in some parts of the country, but for the people who supply the vast volumes—a sort of 80:20 thing—that front end, the lines of people physically filleting the fish and so on, does not exist any more. To reinvent that, you would need the labour, which I know is a tangential issue not to do with the Fisheries Bill, but it is a broader issue for the food industry in relation to Brexit—the supply of labour—and you need the skill. You need both the people and the skill, and you would need some physical investment in capacity, more storage, more chilling and so on.
It is not as if there is under-utilised capacity. It is a function of modern business that capacity matches throughput and the market, so there is not excess processing capacity waiting for new supplies of fish. It would have to be put in place. It would require money, people and skills. To invest the money, you would need a sound business case that could give you a projection of what your price and what your market share would be. The price, critically, would depend on what your broader trading relationship was—tariffs and currency—and what the competition was. It is quite a complex jigsaw, but the short answer is that there is not significant under-utilised capacity that, at the flick of a switch, could suddenly cope with an influx of domestically caught fish.
The Chair
Before we go on, Mr Grant looks as if he has a question on this particular point.
Bill Grant
Q
Andrew Kuyk: I think not, in the sense that those are not areas that are covered in the Bill. It does not cover trading relationships or the kinds of issues that you are raising. From our point of view, is that a significant omission? Not necessarily, because my understanding of the Bill is that it is a piece of framework legislation, which gives the Government the necessary tools to manage fisheries in the UK and the marine environment, in a changed legal situation where we become a sovereign coastal state. It is the tool box for the management of fisheries. It does not address those issues. Do we have concerns about those issues? Yes, we do, but I am not sure that the Bill is the appropriate place for those concerns to be addressed.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Kuyk: It is because they are not the same species.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Kuyk: I am not a parliamentary draughtsman, and I am not sure it is relevant to the subject of the Bill. I suppose it would be possible for the Government to include a trade section in the Bill. One of the things that unites the people I represent and your previous witnesses is that we do not think there should be a link between trade, access to waters and quotas. We think those are separate issues. I know, Mr Gray, that you do not want to go too near Brexit and the backstop, but there is a relevance, given that in the backstop you have a carve-out in article 6 of the Northern Ireland protocol, which exempts fish and fishery products from the single customs territory that would otherwise apply in the backstop, so there is the potential for tariffs to be imposed on UK exports.
To recap, the main things we catch are things like herring, mackerel and shellfish, for which there is not great demand on our domestic market—people prefer cod, tuna and salmon—but there is a good market in the EU. In that succession of hypotheses if there is not an agreement and we come into the backstop, UK exports would potentially face significant tariff barriers. There may be opportunities elsewhere, but that would have a significant impact on the trade. I genuinely do not know how you would guard against that in the Fisheries Bill.
In terms of our access to the raw materials we need, we have the ATQ system and the benefit of some EU trade agreements with third countries. Again, I do not know how you make a reserve carve-out and preserve that position in the Fisheries Bill. That would be our aspiration. As processors, we want free and frictionless trade, like any other part of the food industry. That is our headline message: free and frictionless trade. The deal on the table—the political declaration—holds out the prospect of free trade. That would be very good.
The friction will depend on the degree of regulatory alignment. Fish fall into the category of products of animal origin, to which certain special rules apply in the EU. As a third country, things would have to go through a border inspection post, and so on. Clearly, for a highly perishable fresh product, any increase in the degree of inspection control is potentially detrimental if it leads to delay. Even if the product is not spoiled, its commercial quality and its value will have reduced.
Jeremy Lefroy
Q
Andrew Kuyk: Yes, and we have some stuff that is landed directly in the UK. There are well tried and trusted systems, and any necessary adaptations have already taken place. We have the facilities to cope with fish that are landed directly in the UK—from Norway, Iceland or anywhere else—because that is established trade. It is well run-in, it functions smoothly and it is not a problem. My general answer is that at the moment we do not have friction either through the EU route or directly. There are controls and rules that have to be complied with, but there are tried and trusted systems. The relevant capacities for handling at ports and for storage are all there for existing trade.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Kuyk: We certainly recognise that that is an issue in global supply chains. I think that both our members and our retail customers do their utmost through due diligence and audits to try to ensure that our own supply chains do not suffer from that. This is an issue in the textile industry and others; it is not restricted to the food industry. Part of our industry’s overall corporate responsibility is not just sustainability of the resource, but ethics and employment practices. That is part of the sustainability agenda of all major processors and retailers, and we do everything that we can to ensure that poor practice is eliminated.
Luke Pollard
Q
Andrew Kuyk: No. As you said, there is already modern slavery legislation. Companies over a certain size must have policies in place. We would have no difficulty with that. Obviously there are some practical issues in supply chains in terms of tracing things back and assigning responsibility. On the aquaculture side—without going off at too much of a tangent—the fish feed might come from less well-regulated fisheries, but those are known problems in the industry and people are doing all in their power to tackle them, including using the commercial power not to source from areas where there is dubious practice. There is also the EU regulation on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which I know we will wish to continue. There is no social chapter in IUU, but that is part of the approach to ensure that things are sustainably and ethically sourced.
The Chair
Mr Kuyk, I thank you very much for your most learned, well informed and well expressed evidence, which will be extremely useful to the Committee.
Examination of Witnesses
Paul Trebilcock and Martin Salter gave evidence.
George Eustice
Q
“above biomass levels capable of producing maximum sustainable yield.”
There is a legal commitment there.
Martin Salter: There is, but there is a section in the Bill about binding duties. Frankly, Minister, if I were in your shoes, I would want a binding duty. I would want to make it crystal clear that we are going to end the discredited system that has operated under the common fisheries policy and replace it with a legally backed duty to fish at sustainable levels, just as we have legally backed targets for climate change and emissions.
I am afraid I do not agree with Paul and my colleagues in the commercial catching sector about having MSY as an aspiration. Minister, you have piloted bass conservation measures more than anybody else, but usually in the face of opposition from the commercial catching sector. We have seen those conservation measures start to lead to the rebuilding of bass stocks in the UK, which is really to be commended. We need to be bold, we need to be outliers, we need to learn from the best in the world, and we need it clearly and simply on the face of the Bill.
Luke Pollard
Q
Paul Trebilcock: I think we are well down the track on that one. Increasing numbers of UK fisheries have either achieved accreditation and are now Marine Stewardship Council-accredited, or are going through the process. Growing numbers by volume and across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are achieving that. We are definitely moving in that direction, and the UK fishing industry is currently on a trajectory toward having all its fisheries on a sustainable footing. Contrary to Martin’s view, I think the people who will deliver a sustainable fishery and fishing industry are the fishermen themselves, those who are actively at sea. Currently, there are elements of the common fisheries policy, whether it be relative stability shares, access arrangements or some of the technical measures, that hamper the travel toward that sustainability.
The UK operating as a genuine independent coastal state, with a practical and balanced fisheries policy that takes into account all three pillars of sustainability—not just the environmental but the social and economic pillars—will in a very short space of time take the UK further down that track and ultimately toward our shared aspiration of all UK fisheries operating in a sustainable way that will allow the UK Government and anybody else to buy with a clear conscience.
Luke Pollard
Q
Martin Salter: Yes, thank you for that. We are promoting an amendment that states:
“Promoting the sustainable development of public access to recreational fishing opportunities as both part of the catching sector and the leisure and tourism industries, taking into account socio-economic factors.”
What is interesting, if we look across the pond at America, is that they have fishery management policies on some stocks. It is worth bearing in mind that those fish stocks that are of interest to the recreational sector do not clash desperately with the fish stocks that my colleagues from the catching sector wish to exploit. We are not interested in monkfish. We are not interested in hake. We are not interested in crabs. We are not interested in lobsters. We are actually only interested in something like 20% of fish landed into UK ports, so there is plenty of opportunity to look at sensible resource-sharing.
In America, the striped bass fishery, which was driven to extinction by commercial overfishing, has recovered as a result of tough conservation measures. They now have in place a resource-sharing operation where X percentage of the stock each year is reserved for the recreational sector, which generates huge value for the US economy. I can read the figures into the record if you like. We have the potential to do that over here. We can look at certain fish stocks and say, “Do you know what? We could deliver better for UK plc by managing that stock recreationally, or at least sharing a proportion of that stock.”
Luke Pollard
Q
Martin Salter: To be honest, Mr Pollard, I do not think that is a matter for the Bill. We are looking forward to meeting the Minister on bluefin tuna, although we accept that he is pretty busy at the moment with two Bills going through Parliament. It is interesting that the bluefin tuna is still on the endangered list, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature list goes back to 2011, which predates the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas stock recovery programme. That stock recovery programme has seen the global quota increased to something like 38,000 tonnes. The EU gets 20,000 tonnes of that. Under ICCAT rules, the EU has to allocate a small proportion to a non-commercial interest—in other words, a recreational catch-and-release interest. The recreational sector only ever needs a very small part of that quota because of the mortality rate for bluefin tuna. They are big, tough animals, and the Canadian model shows that their mortality rate is around 3.6%.
You can therefore have a very small quota in the UK and develop a thriving recreational tuna fishery. Given that the stock is slowly recovering, I should imagine that ICCAT would consider it far too early to start thinking about cranking up commercial exploitation in an area of the globe where it has not traditionally happened. A first run at tuna, if you like, really needs to be a tightly licensed, properly controlled recreational fishery that sits alongside the tagging programmes that the World Wildlife Fund is currently doing in Sweden and has also done in the Mediterranean.
We need to know a lot more about these wonderful creatures before we open the door to commercial exploitation, and the first stage would be to set up a recreational bluefin tuna fishery. That would generate an awful lot of money for the south-west and for Ireland, and it would also mean—this is really important—that there would be anglers out there looking after this resource. Frankly, if stakeholders are not engaged in the fishery, bad people will do bad things to fish, as can be seen in the amount of illegal and black fish landings that take place every year in this country.
Peter Aldous
Q
Mr Trebilcock, the Bill suggests an enhanced role for producer organisations. Are you fit for purpose—not your specific PO but generally—to fulfil such a role? At the beginning of last month the European Commission issued a reasoned opinion to the UK Government, which admittedly was about the management of POs but in which there was a strong suggestion that you are not doing what you should be.
Paul Trebilcock: You are absolutely right. The Commission is certainly having a look and gave a reasoned opinion about POs functioning in the UK, although that focused primarily on the compliance checks and the audit process by the Marine Management Organisation rather than the functioning of particular POs.
The short answer to your question is that, yes, I think POs are fit for purpose. They are primarily fishermen’s organisations, entirely funded by fishermen and run by and for fishermen to manage quota, market and represent. They have an extremely valuable role. Is there room to improve as we enter a new regime? Absolutely. Clarification of a standard that all POs across the country must deliver to, clarity of function and a greater understanding from people outside POs of what they actually do would all be really useful.
Fisheries Bill (Second sitting)
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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George Eustice
Q
Jerry Percy: In response to your first question, there is no doubt that the arbitrary under-10/over-10 metre divider has been an unnecessary nuisance, frankly, especially as time has gone on. Yes, 20 or 30 years there was a very significant difference between what was in the ’90s a much more artisanal fleet and today’s under-10 metre boats, which can be 9.99 metres and highly efficient. One of the purposes of developing the coastal PO initiative was that, rather like other examples one might think about in the current climate, you tend not to go to war with people you are trading with, and there has always been a difference of opinion between under-10s and over-10s and their POs.
Losing the 10-metre measure in the fullness of time would be a very positive step forward. Clearly, if you look at the breakdown of the under-10s, which are some thousands of vessels, you see that the vast majority are less than 8 metres in length, and again you can go down. So there is a strong argument for taking any boat up to 6 metres completely out of the quota system, whether or not you replace it with something like effort management. I can speak from experience. While a modern under-10 metre boat has a very significant fishing capacity, far in excess of what it would have been 20 or 30 years ago, it remains the case that boats that are less than 18 feet would really struggle to make any significant impact on stocks.
At the same time, we have said all the way along that although the effort management suggestion is ostensibly a fairer way of allocating access to the resource than quota, with all its issues and problems, we really need to have a proper, full-scale and focused trial before anybody could say unequivocally, “This would be the most effective and efficient way forward.”
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Jerry Percy: There are two main answers to that question. At the moment, despite the claims that we are going to be an independent coastal state and take back control, nearly 50% of the UK’s allocation of quota is held in foreign hands. Now, although a lot of that is the pelagic species, such as mackerel, herring and blue whiting, nevertheless fish quota, whether we like it or not—we do not—has become a commodity and gaining more access and a fairer balance post Brexit, when the Bill comes in, would be a particular opportunity.
There are opportunities. The Government have always been concerned that if you tried to repatriate quota, then you get a whole queue of people lining up for a judicial review, but it was clear from the judicial review in 2012 and from legal advice subsequently that that is entirely practical. In fact, the Faroe Islands has just instigated a similar sort of system. Rather than us arguing that one should rob Peter to pay Paul, it is at heart the allocation system that is at fault. It is based on historical rights.
As I said, I go back far too many years in this business. In the 1990s, the Government said to the over-10-metre vessels, “Go out and fish and record all your catches, and we will take a three-year average and provide you with your fixed quota allocation—your proportion of the overall UK cake.” Not surprisingly—the larger-scale representatives admitted this in the judicial review I mentioned—they did ghost fishing. If you went out and caught 10 tonnes, you might put down 12 or 14 tonnes just to make sure that you had good opportunities. I dare say that if I had been in that position I might have thought the same. The whole thing was predicated on a lie, frankly, and it has gone on ever since. Historical rights are really not an effective method, for any number of reasons.
The answer to your question, which we put forward in our response to the Bill, is that clause 20 effectively takes in article 17 of the common fisheries policy. We suggest that should be amended so that quotas are allocated according to social and environmental criteria and economic benefit for coastal communities. Some 80% of the under-10 metre fleet use passive rather than mobile gear, so their environmental credentials are better, and their economic credentials are certainly more significant. We would take our chances with everybody else, but that would provide a level playing field, irrespective of size of vessel, and your allocation of the resource would be based on environmental, social and economic criteria.
Luke Pollard
Q
Jerry Percy: No, it is almost exclusively landed into UK ports, although of course a very significant element is then exported to markets in France, where our European neighbours tend to pay far more for it. I think it is relevant to mention at this point that, with all due respect, we must not focus just on the quota issue, although that is vital because the quota has been so unfairly dealt out in the past. A very significant proportion of the under-10-metre fleet relies on non-quota species such as cuttlefish, shellfish, lobster and crab, and they in turn rely on direct export. About 90% gets exported, mainly to France and Spain, so the export market is key.
Luke Pollard
Q
Jerry Percy: Fishing, unfortunately, still carries the record as the most dangerous occupation in the world. I sit here having lost any number of friends and colleagues over the years in pursuit of fish. I do not think having to carry more fish should be a significant safety issue. It is going to be more relevant in terms of the forthcoming landings obligation, under which we can no longer discard any fish so we have to keep it all aboard. There are of course safety issues in that respect.
The Sea Fish Industry Authority monitors and measures, and ensures that vessels are safe to go to sea. We are effectively talking about capsize as a result of overloading, which is actually quite rare. It is perhaps more common in the pelagic fisheries, where a great bulk of fish is landed. For most small-scale fish fleets, I think fishermen and the authorities would ensure that there was no safety issue. Even in my wildest dreams, safety has never come to mind as being an issue if we had significantly more quota. I have never thought, “Oh, I’m going to catch too much fish and put myself at risk.” It does happen—even now, with non-quota species, you never throw it back.
Luke Pollard
Q
Jerry Percy: Yes. Under the International Labour Organisation’s convention 188, it is now mandatory for fishermen to wear lifejackets unless the owner and/or skipper of the vessel can prove that he has sufficient guards in place to ensure that fishermen do not go over the side.
I still go to sea quite often. I have a personal locator beacon that I bought myself for about £170. It will tell the rescue people where I am in the water anywhere in the world. It is cheap. As far as I understand it, European funding would probably cover it because it is not a mandatory requirement, but surely, in terms of safety, it is a few pounds and it makes all the difference in the world.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Q
Jerry Percy: Our main concern is that the Bill is predicated on a successful fisheries Brexit, if I may call it that, with a significant windfall of quota. Again, with the greatest respect, that would get the Government out of the hole that successive Governments have painted themselves into—if I may mix my metaphors—in that because there is only so much in the UK pie of quota, they are somewhat hamstrung, in their view, in their ability to reallocate more fairly and effectively. Not surprisingly, we disagree with that version and there is legal argument that they could do so, albeit slowly—that was said by the judge in a judicial review in 2012.
I gave an answer earlier about moving the method of allocation to become genuinely reliant on the social, environmental and economic criteria, but I do say genuinely because the UK Government are also already subject to article 17 of the common fisheries policy, which says something similar about allocating quota on those three criteria. The Government have argued that they meet those criteria. I personally do not think that they even remotely reach them in many respects. If we are going to have a revised method of allocation, we need an undertaking or to ensure that the Bill does what it says on the tin.
George Eustice
Q
Phil Haslam: Fisheries enforcement is devolved, as you state. The way the Scottish do it is to have three vessels that conduct enforcement up to 330 days a year within their waters. They contract two aircraft as well, to provide oversight. At this moment, they have the kind of surveillance capability and control and enforcement capability that we are building up to.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: Yes. Royal Navy vessels used to be contracted on a 24-hour-day basis. That was always non-exclusive, so they were not passed to the MMO, where we would have command and control of them; they would conduct our business but always with the risk of higher priority national tasking taking them away. But we did have more of them in 2010, and over time, with reductions in the MMO budget, we have had to roll back the number of hours, or days, we can contract, moving from 24-hour days to 12-hour days and then to nine-hour days.
When I came into this job we were relatively constrained regarding where we could deploy them for that part of the day. The idea of going to hours was to give us the flexibility to deploy them where the need was, rather than where they were shackled. So there has been a reduction, but on the other side of that, with the vessel monitoring system we have an understanding of what is going on in our waters. We have a picture against which we can patrol. So it was risk-based.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: There is always a risk of tensions unearthing themselves within a fishing thing, but I must say that what we saw with the baie de Seine scallop wars was an expression of discontent based on using fishing vessel rather than on non-compliance with fisheries regulation, which is what the MMO does. There is a risk—that is the risk we have analysed—and against that risk we have built a bid for increased surveillance to meet and mitigate it.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: We have to be careful. The vessels the Royal Navy deploys to meet any MMO contract that is signed in the future is within its gift. It may be Batch 2s or Batch 1s, but that is the call of the commander of the squadron. In terms of manning the ships, it is similar. If the demand is there and it is required, the Royal Navy, being as innovative as it is, will come up with manning solutions to meet what it needs to do.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: The automatic information system, which is fitted to vessels of 300 gross tonnage and above is predominantly an anti-collision device. It is to create situational awareness at sea. It is an open-source mechanism by which you can find out information about any given ship, where it is going and what type it is. In fishing, a fisherman’s mark of where he is fishing and what he is getting from it is commercially sensitive and we would not wish to openly display that. I-VMS—the inshore vessel monitoring system—is a similar system to the one on smaller vessels. It gives us a picture of what is going on within the fishery. To conduct a fishery, you need to know what the input is so that you can control the output. That is not something we have at the moment. Also, it covers off that commercial sensitivity. We are not transmitting where a fisherman is. There is a point-to-point transmission of that data, which we will take into a hub so that we have a picture of what is going on in our waters, but that is not widely accessible.
Jeremy Lefroy
Q
Phil Haslam: The enforcement action we take now is that we enforce the requirements of the common fisheries policy. In a routine inspection, when you board a fishing vessel you check the paperwork. Is the vessel licensed, in the first instance? Does it have quota for its catch? Then you would go into the mechanics of, “What have you caught? How have you caught them? Which area have you caught them in?” Then you do an inspection to see whether what is reflected in the logbook is manifest within the fishing vessel. That is what we do at sea in terms of inspection. It is everything from paperwork, to gear inspection, through to the actual catch. Ashore it is similar: it is about taking data from the logbook and then inspecting to see whether what is being landed matches that, and then goes through to the marketplace as well. All of it is in pursuit of assuring sustainable practice, but also the traceability of fish. That underpins the sustainability.
The Chair
We have five minutes left for any further questions from the Government side. If not, Luke Pollard.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: We have the latitude to make that a condition of the permit to enter.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: That is what we can do as an independent coastal state. Access to our waters will be granted by a permit, and the conditions we put on that permit are for the country to determine, so yes we can.
Luke Pollard
Q
Phil Haslam: The power in the Bill gives us the ability to regulate who comes into our waters by granting permission. I do not think the conditions of permission need to be explicit in the Bill, but they can be part of that, among other things that we would require any vessel within our waters to comply with.
Mike Hill
Q
Phil Haslam: There will be a cut-off of who actually gets fitted with it, because the point is to try to develop a picture of what is the main input into the fishery in terms of effort on vessels out there. There will be some vessels—there will be a line below which we will not need to go. At the moment we are looking to catch—not catch, that is the wrong word—fit IVMS to the active fishing vessels.
Luke Pollard
Q
The Chair
Can you answer that question quickly, Mr Haslam, because one other Member wishes to ask a question?
Phil Haslam: Okay. In terms of an effort scheme, we would just need a data flow to track how often that vessel is put to sea, and whether it is in the bounds of the effort that is available. We have effort schemes that we run now.
George Eustice
Q
Dr Appleby: We reallocated quota last time—unused quota—without compensation or additional legislation, so I think we could do that. I think you have to be careful when you do that, because a lot of people borrow money by using their quota as collateral. One the one hand, there are some very rich people sitting on quota—the quota barons we read about—but on the other hand, there are people who use quota to support their running a business. You would need to think about what you will do, but I think you can do that under the current legislation.
What has happened here is that it has been beefed up. We have put some more suggestions forward. There are two things that you could do. You could vest the fishery so that it actually becomes public property. We have done a heck a lot of research at UWE on who owns it, and we reckon it was set up by some sort of implied Crown trust that goes back to the middle ages. One of my PhD students is working on this at the moment.
It would be easier just to state in the Bill that it is a public asset and put it in some sort of trust, and then you would get the kind of things that you would normally expect when disposing of a public asset to the commercial sector. That is the way I would approach it. I appreciate that we did not start there; we started with an open-access resource, which we have tried to deal with through legislation. We are in a transition.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Appleby: I am not sure. In common with previous speakers, I liked the idea of a scientific adviser, which would be a lovely thing to have. Its constitution is probably the same size as the Act, so you can imagine the bunfight about who sits on the advisory panel, whether it is peer reviewed and whether it is devolved. That is a huge conversation to have, and it needs to be had in public. That is something I would like to see. If we had more time, I would like to see that go in the Bill.
There is a mirror piece of legislation, which is the Environmental Principles and Governance Bill. Does that apply to fishing or not? When we leave the EU, we will lose the right to infraction proceedings against recalcitrant UK—all parts of the UK. Should Scotland do something, it is the UK that gets infracted. We will lose that, and we have not quite been able to replace that kind of thing.
Those are just two examples: a good, robust, scientific, forward-looking body that looks at how to make the most of our resources, and some sort of regulatory regime to punish the hindmost, if you want to be quite so curt.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Appleby: I think you can put one in. I would love to, but given the timeframe to which we are working—having this Bill ready for March—it would almost be a wrecking amendment if we tried to put something like that in. You are going into devolution which is an enormously emotive topic, especially at the moment. In terms of the Government’s position of being able to hit the devolved administrations with a stick: it is a devolved matter. I do not think the Government can do that.
When you look at most of the Act, it is consensual and they are consulting one another. That is how it should be, to be honest. The four nations should be able to work together and that is right. At some level we have lost the outside influence that we had. The way everything is drafted is, unfortunately, currently predicated on having a common fisheries policy that kept everything together. I am talking around the subject because were you to put a drafting pen in front of me and say, “Get on and draft that,” it would be incredibly difficult. My sympathies go out to the Government for what they have done.
Luke Pollard
Q
Dr Appleby: What does maximum sustainable yield actually mean? The European Union defines it as something like the highest theoretical equilibrium yield. It says something like that in the basic regulation. You take a basket of theories and you use the highest one. It has been knocked around as a term for a long time. Our rights in our EEZ only go up to maximum sustainable yield and we do not have a right to fish beyond it. We can take the interest off our fish stock outside our territorial waters, but we cannot spend the capital. This is the way to look at it.
To some extent, that is all the rights we have. I have not explicitly looked at that, but my sense on the way this works is that we would be bound by MSY targets anyway. The other thing is that the UK has access to judicial review, whereas trying to review the European Commission is interesting. It is very difficult to get a standing in the European Court of Justice, particularly on maximum sustainable yield. A few years the World Wildlife Fund tried to get access on cod quotas, I think, and they failed. So the European Union is good at giving rules to other people, but not so good at looking after itself. From an environmental charity point of view, we are not so concerned as long as there is something in there that does allow some conversation about moving to the right stocks that produce more fish, more jobs and a better environment. We could get hung up on this if we are not careful.
Peter Aldous
Q
Dr Appleby: An FQA is a possession under the European convention on human rights. There is a distinction. “Quota” is once it is distributed, and FQA units are about your expectation of how much of a share of the UK’s TAC you are going get every year. That was based on the historical landings data, traditionally. He said that unused FQA units could be reallocated without compensation. FQA units are a possession, so the corollary of that is that used FQA units—and most of them are used—would require some sort of compensation payment. I have not been privy to the subsequent legal advice, and I took a sharp intake of breath when he said that at the time. In fact, I went to court to watch some of the court proceedings—it was quite interesting; it was right up my field. It is inherent in the UK that we do not take assets off people without compensation. It is part of our culture—way before the European convention.
There is another point about that redistribution and the immediate way it would have ramifications on how the whole commercial sector is constructed, which you need to be mindful of. Once you put that whole lot into a bag and shake it up, you could design a scheme to reallocate quota, but it would need to be done in a sensible, crafted way.
George Eustice
Q
Coming back to the principle, the difficulty with fisheries is that, while you have said effort does not work, nothing quite works on fisheries. That is why it becomes a circular argument. You seem to be arguing for a return to catch composition rules, which themselves became slightly discredited so that people tried to move away from them. The challenge is that an effort regime works best in a mixed fishery where it is harder to segregate out the fish, but a tonnage system works best in, say, the pelagic.
Aaron Brown: Absolutely. We would say for pelagic species, where you are catching an individual bulk species and vessels can reasonably accurately target that, although at times you do get it wrong, a quota system is fine. The problem is that dynamic mixed fishery—the white fish; we include nephrops in that mixed fishery. What we are saying is catch compositions but not arbitrary limits, which, again, is a problem. It has flexibility.
To avoid a race to fish, to avoid giving people a blunt dollop of time and their going off and targeting the highest value species because the economic incentive is there, what you are effectively doing under this system is a buffer scheme, if you like. It is a trading scheme. “Okay, I’ve caught the wrong fish. It’s worth money”. Then, rather than discard it into the sea unrecorded and keep on fishing and killing more of that species while trying to find one you can keep, what you are moving towards is trading overall ceiling of effort for that wrong fish. So it is a compensation scheme, effectively, in which you get the financial benefit of that fish and your men get their pay—we will come on to that with the system that DEFRA proposes for discards—but, overall, your ceiling in the year comes down to meet you.
That would solve the bass problem. You could put in a zero catch composition for bass. Any catches would have a time penalty. Boats could be tied up on the Monday but they would have that bass landed, and the financial benefit of it. It would work for spurdogs. We really believe there is a system here that merits a good look, and proper scrutiny and trial. As we say, we lose nothing if it fails and we gain everything if it succeeds.
Luke Pollard
Q
Aaron Brown: I think that absolutely, yes. I think there has always been that case. I was very pleased to hear Dr Tom Appleby state that, and many of the other non-governmental organisations have said it, about the idea of privatisation. Even with the FQA system, it says in the paperwork that people get through, that it should not be bartered, sold or bought. It just happens to be that the industry has gone and done it.
Fish always has been a public resource. Various judicial hearings have defined that as well. Indeed, it probably stretches all the way back into Magna Carta, right back through our constitution. At the end of the day, we as fishermen, as the members of the public who catch, are only custodians of what is the nation’s; we look after it and husband it well for current generations and future ones. We would very much like to see a clause put in towards that.
Luke Pollard
Q
Aaron Brown: That is one of the main five things that are in the Bill. As I said at the start, one thing that disappointed us more was what was missing from the Bill rather than what was in it. But out of the five things we are deeply concerned about, that auctioning clause is one of them. It runs coach and horses through the principle of it being a public resource. Practically, it will end up in the hands of the highest bidders.
There is no tightening of the economic link in the Fisheries Bill, which is one of the things we really want to see included, so without that, combined with auctioning, you could have massive, multinational, hugely wealthy seafood companies saying, “British fishing is on the up so we’ll come in and wave our cheque book and outbid everyone else.” Even the biggest companies in Britain could not compete with some of those far eastern ones.
If we go down the auctioning route, we have an opportunity to draw a line, as I think the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, between the current quota resources—how it has been divvied out, not in the way we would have chosen—and this clean slate of what comes back. If we go down the auctioning route, where it is monopolised into the hands of a few big interests, with their financial firepower, it rides coach and horses through the Government’s objective of rebuilding coastal communities and supporting family-based fishing.
Luke Pollard
Q
Aaron Brown: One of the amendments we put in was to amend it to hours at sea. It might seem contrary to Members that fishermen would want to tighten what could be perceived as a noose on themselves. That amendment was to get towards what we really need to get towards, which is some kind of catch-per-unit effort system of fisheries management.
Over the years, one of the clauses in the Bill we would like to see amended is right at the start: clause 1. It says that management will “ensure that…activities are”, which suggests that the Government kind of take a hammer and beats down the industry to meet their requirements. We would like to see that reversed so that policy requires management that delivers. In other words, the onus should be on the Government to say, “Okay, here are the objectives we want to meet. How do we move towards that?” We want it changed to hours of soak time at sea, because that is a far more accurate method of delivering catch-per-unit effort. You would be getting accurate data to deliver management that actually achieves objectives rather than just trying to take a hammer to the industry to make it comply.
Luke Pollard
Q
Aaron Brown: Absolutely. We feel it should be banned outright immediately. You could put a sub-clause in that says it should be banned until it is proved that it is not responsible for the environmental degradation that has been reported by fishermen all around the southern North sea, where the derogation has happened. I certainly do not think anyone could say that the Dutch, who are primarily responsible for this, have not taken the Michael—that’s the polite word. It started as a derogation against the ban on electric fishing that the European Commission itself got—let us remember that it was a derogation against the EU’s own scientific advice—for a trial of the method. That trial has gone on for 10 years and has 100 boats on it. That is a commercial fishery masquerading as a trial. Even the Dutch now hold their hands up to that. We would like to see that banned.
We would also like to see sandeel fishing banned in the central North sea. For years and years, that has taken away a key component of the food chain—the base of the food chain—for sea birds, fish and obviously fishermen. Neither method—pulse fishing or sandeel fishing—is of benefit to any UK vessels, and with sandeel fishing you have the double dunt that the sandeels are taken for pig feed, so the British bacon industry could see a competitor’s food costs go up.
There would be a massive environmental gain if we banned both practices. That would not affect any British industry. I am actually very surprised that a Government who extol their environmental credentials with plastic cups and wars on wet wipes have not taken the easy win of banning pulse fishing.
The Chair
There is considerable interest in asking questions in this session. We have to finish at 4 pm, so can I ask for short questions and shorter answers, please?
Oral Answers to Questions
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State is characteristically keen to keep all his Back-Bench colleagues happy, and that will have been noted by the House.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
In five weeks, the EU discard ban will kick in. While much attention is on what fishing will look like after Brexit, this poorly implemented discard ban before Brexit risks tying up our fishing fleet, especially mixed fisheries such as those in the south-west. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the concerns of the fishing industry are listened to and that this ban does not result in its boats being tied up alongside?
Michael Gove
It is not just Government Back Benchers whom I wish to be kind to; it is also Opposition Front Benchers, because the hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. It is the case that the management of the discard ban in the past, and potentially in the future, is a real issue of contention. My hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been talking to a number of fishing industry representatives to see whether we can make sure that at this December Council we can put in place appropriate mitigation measures. One thing we can be sure of is that as an independent coastal state we can take appropriate conservation measures in a way that does not lead to those who are practising mixed fisheries facing the sorts of problems the hon. Gentleman rightly draws attention to.
Fisheries Bill
Luke Pollard ExcerptsWednesday 21st November 2018
(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to sum up what has been a fantastic debate with good contributions on both sides of the House, and I echo the words expressed across the House about those fishermen who risk their lives to catch the fish we put on our tables. In particular, I add my thanks to the rescue services, the coastguard and the RNLI, who are true heroes indeed.
We do not oppose the Bill. We know that the UK needs a fishing system outside the common fisheries policy after we leave the EU—we do not dispute that—but it is clear that the Government still have some way to go before the Bill satisfies both sides of the House. The Labour party intends to work with the Government to ensure we have a good Bill that is fit for purpose. Fisheries Bills do not often trouble the House of Commons so we need to make it a good one.
There are some good things in the Bill, but there are far too many missing pieces. It smacks of a measure hurriedly prepared and pushed out too quickly by a Government who were aware of the approaching deadline of Brexit. It needed more work before its publication, and it would have benefited from a round of pre-legislative scrutiny, but as Ministers chose not to do that, I think they should not be surprised that there have been so many proposals for amendments today and that there will be more in Committee.
The Bill gives the Government a chance to make real the promises made by the Leave campaign. So far, big promises have not been matched by delivery. Fishing communities, in Plymouth and across the country, do not want grand promises; they need honesty, and clarity from the Government, and they want those to be delivered.
Luke Pollard
I am sorry, but there have been enough interventions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) made a superb opening speech, but I want to reiterate the concerns that have been expressed by Members on both sides of the House.
Luke Pollard
I will keep going. I apologise, but the hon. Lady has had enough chances.
The Bill constitutes a missed opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start afresh and create a truly world-class, sustainable fisheries policy. We need to get this right, but as it stands, the Bill fails in a number of critical ways. It fails to provide a fair deal for our small fleet, or attempt to break up large monopolies in the fishing industry. It fails to regenerate coastal communities and provide the renaissance that our coastal towns need. It fails to create a vision for the UK to have the most sustainable fisheries in the world. It fails to ensure frictionless access to the single market; indeed, given the Prime Minister’s bad deal, it poses the risk of tariffs on our fish, and we do not want tax on our fish. It also fails to ensure that there is supply-chain fairness across the board.
As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), while in theory the Bill gives us greater access to our waters, it says nothing meaningful about redistributing quota more fairly across the British fleet. The fixed quota allocation system has been heavily criticised on both sides of the House during the debate, and it is unfair, but it has not been updated since the 1990s. If I had not been updated since the 1990s, I would still have bleached blond hair, wear cargo trousers and believe that wet-look gel is a good idea. Times change, and so must our fishing regulation. As a result of the existing system, ownership of quota has become increasingly consolidated in the hands of a few, and we need to change that. We need to distribute quota so that it goes back into the hands of the many.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said earlier, more than a quarter of the UK’s fishing quota is owned or controlled by just five families on the Sunday Times rich list. Quotas should be allocated according to transparent and ecological criteria, to the benefit of fishing communities. For example, a greater share should be offered in return for compliance with relevant regulations, participation in data gathering and good science, full monitoring and recording of catches, compliance with discard rules, and the application of high standards of workers’ rights, welfare and, especially, marine safety. Given the loss of two trawlers from Plymouth since my election, and a death in both losses, I am disappointed that the Bill does not contain more about enhanced marine safety as a qualification for additional quota. We need to reward best practice, not ignore that problem.
The UK has always had the ability to allocate quota to reward particular types of fishing practice or to support broader social and economic gains, but has chosen not to do so in a broad, meaningful way. Ministers have reallocated too little quota, although they have reallocated some. Labour wants smaller boats to be given a greater share of quota after Brexit. Small boats are the backbone of our fishing industry, the small and medium-sized enterprises of the sector, and they need our backing. The small-scale fishing fleet generally uses low-impact gear, and creates significantly more jobs per tonne of fish landed than the large-scale sector. In the UK, the under 10-metre small-scale fleet represents more than 70% of English fishing boats and 65% of direct employment in fishing, and it should be supported.
We have heard that recreational fishing would have huge potential with better management, and I agree. There is not enough in the Bill that values that sector—not yet, at least. More recreational fishing and more sustainable fisheries depend on better science to plug the gap in data. That means more baseline stock levels for non-quota species such as cuttlefish. If ours are to be the most sustainable fisheries in the world, we need to have the best science in the world. Indeed, the data deficiency that we currently see in our fisheries is one of the reasons why many of our fisheries cannot market their fish as sustainable. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), we need to ensure that maximum sustainable yield is achieved by 2020, and that that date is put in the Bill.
There have been many good contributions from across the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) mentioned the governance gap and the too frequent reliance on Henry VIII powers in this Bill, and that needs to be addressed. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) talked about doubling the size of the co-operative economy, and in fishing we have a proud record of co-operatives; that should be supported. We need to ensure not only that EMFF funds are replaced—with every single penny replaced, not cut—but also that the other funding arrangements, as mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth, are put in place. Local government need to ensure that they have the funds to invest in our fishing as well. As the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said, we must make sure we have a passion about fish, not just a passion about fishing. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) said we need to talk more about processing, which has the lion’s share of employment in the fishing sector.
My party does support this Bill, but we believe it needs more work in a considerable number of areas. Serious concerns have been raised on both sides of this House about fairness, funding, sustainability and trade. The fishing industry has been given grand promises by the Environment Secretary, and many others besides, only to have some of them broken time after time. While I believe that the Fisheries Minister is honest in his efforts, I fear that those higher up in his Government are selling him out and that our fishing industries have been sold out, too. That must not be the case with this Bill: no more betrayals; no more grand promises. To the Minister I say be up front and frank with fishers about the difficulties and opportunities, because I have not met a fisherman who is not equally frank, up front and honest in their response.
I genuinely believe that there is scope for this Bill to be improved with cross-party working, and I put the Government on notice that if we cannot achieve those improvements, they should not necessarily count on our support in future parliamentary stages.
Draft Infrastructure Planning (Water Resources) (England) Order 2018
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry.
The Opposition largely welcomes the introduction of legislation that recognises that the UK, along with the rest of the world, is experiencing a water crisis. We know that more people are living in areas of water stress, of more population growth and of house building planned in areas of water stress, and we know that climate change is changing predictability and the flows of water into the system. The water industry must adapt, and the Government must adopt a more ambitious policy than is currently in place to meet those challenges.
The Labour party broadly welcomes the proposed amendments to the 2008 Act as we believe they will lead to greater water resilience in the UK, but we need more and better infrastructure to deal with increased demand. However, we must make sure that the ways in which we build infrastructure and supply water are sustainable for the environment and for local communities, and not simply profitable for the water companies involved. We must urge developers to build infrastructure that works with the natural water system, rather than disrupting it in ways that are unsustainable.
The dangers of mismanaging water are grave. I am sure the Minister will have seen the report published by WWF, which states that in England and Wales only one in five rivers are deemed to be in good ecological health, and nearly 25% in England are at risk of unsustainable water abstraction. We must make sure we take into account the risks associated with a higher number of major water infrastructure projects. First, a huge amount of water is already lost through leaks in water resources operations. Can the Minister speak about the concerns that the Government’s priority, concurrent to this order, should be to reduce leakage in water operations and not simply to provide more water resources? What progress is being made? Will the Minister also touch on what action the Government can support the industry in taking to address the leaks in customers’ homes that are outside current company remits?
Secondly, the report by WWF estimates that 9% of rivers flowing into some of the water resources covered by the order are over-licensed. That means that if permits to abstract water from rivers were fully utilised, levels of water would be unable to sustain wildlife. Does the national policy statement on water resources take into account over-licensed and over-abstracted rivers in the planning process for the new national strategic projects, and how would the order impact on that?
Thirdly, the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management has expressed concerns that the criteria for defining a nationally significant infrastructure project,
“do not consider any regional or supra-regional water resources issues”.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has let his views on experts be well known, but that view is not shared on this side of the House. Experts should be listened to as the powers in the order are used. Will the Minister’s Department provide support for regional multi-sector resources planning as well as co-ordination to ensure that the nationally significant solutions that are progressed are the right ones?
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
The Minister specified that each water company must produce a water resources plan, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not integrate them. Is it not time for a national water resources plan in which water companies have a duty to co-operate with neighbouring companies in planning water resources for the next 25 years or so?
Luke Pollard
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is exactly right. At present, water companies have a responsibility to provide a water resources plan for the area that they cover, which largely covers the water catchment area that those companies are framed around. It seems that there is an opportunity to join up those water resources plans on a regional basis, to ensure that water companies co-operate because it is not only in their best interest, but in the environment’s best interest to join up the water resources next door. I think that is especially important when we are talking about areas of water stress. At heart, the order is about providing more water storage. If the powers in it are to be used, it is important not only that the water resources plan is for one water company, but that the neighbouring water companies all join up. I think there is an opportunity to create a national water resources plan, which is not being taken at the moment. I am grateful for that intervention from my hon. Friend.
Our efforts to increase water resilience must not have unintended consequences on local people and economies. If more projects are commissioned at a national level, we need to ensure that more local engagement is undertaken to balance out the fact that that national decision making has been taken from local communities. The whole Committee will recognise that nationally significant projects are more often than not best decided at a national level, but that should not dilute, devalue or dismiss the views of local people affected by the schemes, especially when nationally significant projects can cross local authority boundaries and cause significant disruption in their construction and operation.
I have heard from Dr Derek Stork, who is leading an action group against Thames Water’s plans to build a “nationally significant” reservoir in the south-east, which he says will significantly impact his community. He shared his concerns about the lack of democratic accountability for nationally significant infrastructure projects and the way in which they are determined, given that projects can be approved many years ahead of time. People who will be most affected by these infrastructure projects must retain the ability to be involved with decisions after a project has been approved, as well as leading up to that approval, and be able to hold those delivering those decisions accountable for their actions and commitments made to local communities. Those nationally significant infrastructure project commitments should not just be about getting through the planning committee, or in this case the Secretary of State—the projects should be held to them.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
On that point, Scotland has plenty of water, but down south all we see is floods. Does my hon. Friend think the community should be involved in positions on these big planning developments, which are important to communities?
Luke Pollard
Indeed. Government can sometimes underestimate just how much knowledge and expertise can be held in a local community, especially when there is such building on flood plains and changes in how our water resources are used on a local level. Taking into account the concerns of local people can get a better scheme at the end of it, if for nothing else than for those people that are taking that project forward. Too often, some water resources, flood management and water schemes have been incentivised by spending lots of money and not working out whether there are better ways of achieving the outcome without deploying that amount of capital or carbon in an end-of-pipe solution.
There are some examples where nationally significant infrastructure projects are being done incredibly well.
Luke Pollard
That is a very good question and one that I would be grateful if the Minister could pick up on in her remarks, in terms of how these powers will actually be used.
There are some good examples of where community engagement is done incredibly well. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will know about Thames Tideway, for example, where consultation with communities was done not only through the planning process—in their case, through a development consent order process—but from the moment the spades go in, with genuine engagement and not just consultation. When nationally significant projects are undertaken, they take many years, and that engagement has to be sustained throughout the entire process.
That needs to be the case for the nationally strategic infrastructure projects that are mentioned in the order, especially as a number of them take projects out of the remit of local decision making and move it to powers held by the Secretary of State at a national level. I say that because I think there is a real fear from some of the stakeholder groups and community groups, which responded to the consultation and have serious concerns about the order, that their concerns could be steamrolled over as part of removing decision making from that local level. I trust that the Minister can reassure Dr Stork and hon. Members that this will not be the case.
Although the proposed statutory instrument is potentially a step in the right direction, resilient infrastructure deals only with the fall-out of climate change, not the root of the problem. We must lower pressure and demand on water resources. That means taking more assertive steps to reduce demand, increase water efficiency, retrofit current housing and business stock, and ensure that new homes and commercial buildings are more water efficient in a meaningful way, and prescribing that in the regulatory regime.
The Opposition will not oppose the statutory instrument, but we would be grateful if the Minister could address the concerns that I and my hon. Friends have raised.
The Chair
In calling the right hon. Member for Wantage, may I inform him that, although he is not a member of the Committee, he is welcome to speak but he will not be able to vote in the unlikely event that there is a vote?
Badger Cull
Luke Pollard Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing the debate and making such a powerful case.
Last year, almost 20,000 badgers were killed across England as part of the largest destruction of a protected British species in living memory. That policy is cruel and inhumane, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said. We need more action and a more ambitious animal welfare agenda to stop this senseless suffering.
Hon. Members will be aware that Labour is the party of animal welfare. We legislated with the landmark Hunting Act 2004 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Animal welfare has been placed highly on our party’s agenda, and that is still true today. We want to ensure that animal cruelty is consigned to the past. If animals suffer, we all suffer.
The Opposition’s position is clear: we are opposed to the culling of badgers to control bovine TB and would immediately end the ineffective and cruel badger cull. A Labour Government would instead focus on an evidence-based approach driven by science, not ideology. Every badger matters, but badgers do not have a voice. They do not have a say in politics unless we give them one. The Government are pursuing a cruel and uncaring policy towards badgers, and worst of all, it does not work.
While Ministers seek the headlines, the real hard work often goes undone. Why are Ministers not strengthening the foxhunting ban or bringing forward a Bill to increase sentences for animal welfare cruelty? We need action, not just words. Tackling bovine TB is important, especially to those in our rural communities, so we need something that actually works, unlike the badger cull. As long as Ministers cling to the ideological slaughter of British badgers, actions that genuinely tackle the spread of bovine TB are being overlooked. The badger cull is spreading, as we have heard. In Devon, the county I come from, we now have 12 culling sites—more than any other county. Thankfully, there is no badger culling yet in Plymouth, the city I represent, but I would not predict that it will not happen in the future.
A little over a month ago, The Observer published secret film taken in Cumbria, which showed a badger that took almost a minute to die after being shot in a cage, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North mentioned. In fact, recent reports say that up to 22% of badgers can take more than five minutes to die in the cull, which is needless animal suffering. Over the summer the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman), brought to the Government’s attention the horrific way in which badgers were being left to die in the extreme heat. Caged badgers spent hours on end trapped in the sun with no water, suffering from heat stress and eventually dying of dehydration. Despite that coming to light, little action was taken. That cruelty serves no purpose, and is another example of why the Opposition believe the badger cull to be cruel.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North mentioned, there is no scientific basis for the policy. The science does not support a badger cull, the evidence does not support a badger cull, and the Opposition do not support a badger cull. Why are the Government pursuing a policy that does not work? Why do they want to look like they are doing something? They need to look busy because if they U-turned, it would make them look weaker than they already do. We need something that works, not just a policy that is stuck to. We need animal welfare policies that are based on science, not ideology.
The Environment Secretary may be tired of experts, but this is what the experts are telling us about the cull: a study commissioned by the Government into bovine TB transmission from badgers to cattle, which took place from 1996 to 2006, concluded that
“badger culling can make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.”
According to the Badger Trust, an excellent organisation that does superb work, only 5.7% of all bovine TB outbreaks involve possible transmission from badgers to cattle. That means that 94% of all bovine TB outbreaks must come from other sources. The Zoological Society of London says that most herds acquire the disease from other cattle. Ministers need to consider ensuring high levels of biosecurity, tracking movements between herds, and looking at the movement of other animals, such as foxhounds, across agricultural land.
The Minister must not sit on the report that we know his Department has received. When did the Department receive the Godfray review on the Government’s bovine TB strategy? When will it be published? Will he commit to publishing it in its original form? Can he confirm whether he has asked for any edits to the report’s recommendations or alterations to its findings? I would be grateful if he could answer those questions and address the concerns expressed by farmers, especially to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), that the Department is telling them that their herds are TB-free when they know they are not. That is a serious issue that undermines the essential confidence between farmers and the Department.
Bovine TB is a cattle problem that needs a cattle-focused solution. A start would be to improve the current skin tests, which expose an infection in the herd but not the individual cow, which makes it very difficult to narrow down.
The badger cull is a phenomenal waste of money that could be better spent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North mentioned. The Badger Trust estimates that when everything has been added up, killing a badger costs about £1,000 per animal. The trust considers that more than £100 million could be spent on killing badgers by 2020. Just think how much better that money could be spent in rural communities. That £100 million could go an enormous way in dealing with rural poverty and the actual concerns of rural communities. Does the Minister not agree that the best way to save money in the fight against bovine TB would be to stop spending Government resources on an ideological policy that has no scientific evidence of reducing bovine TB?
Research shows that vaccinating badgers is not only a better and more humane way to eradicate TB, but is much cheaper. I recently had the opportunity to meet Dr Brian May with my hon. Friends the Members for Workington and for Stroud. I was a little star-struck. As well as being the legendary guitarist from Queen, he has been pioneering badger vaccinations on his farm and has demonstrated their effectiveness and suitability as an alternative to the cruel badger cull. The Badger Trust estimates that vaccinating badgers costs less than £200 an animal, as compared with £1,000 for killing it—what a saving.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
When the hon. Gentleman mentions a cost of £200 a badger, is that a lifetime sum or an annual sum? Vaccinations are an annual requirement, rather than a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Luke Pollard
That is a good point, and I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised it. When compared with the cost of killing a badger, vaccinating a badger is cheaper.
Simon Hart
If it is £200 for a vaccination and that has to be done annually, it soon gets to £1,000. We should also bear in mind that the vaccination will be completely pointless if the badger already has TB, as it is not a cure, and therefore the money is being wasted whatever the cost.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pursuing me on that point, which he has rightly spotted. However, I point him to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North raised about the cost-benefit analysis of culling versus vaccination. Clearly decent testing needs to be part of the mix. It is about the combination.
Chris Williamson
I am interested in the point that the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) made about vaccination. I am not an expert, but my understanding is that when someone is vaccinated, they are vaccinated once and that protects them. I do not know whether badger physiology is different in some way, but as my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has pointed out, it would be useful to get that cost-benefit analysis. If the Government would come clean, we would all be in the picture as to the reality of the situation.
Luke Pollard
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree with his points.
I will conclude, as the Minister has an awful lot to respond to and I would like him to get to his feet in a moment. As my hon. Friend said, there is no logical reason for the badger cull to continue, or even exist, other than an ideological one: to make the Government look busy when they are failing farmers and rural communities on bovine TB. There are less cruel ways to eradicate bovine TB than killing badgers on a massive scale. Whether it is more accurate and frequent testing of cattle, badger and cattle vaccinations or more rigid control on cattle movements, the solution should be focused on cattle, not innocent badgers. DEFRA’s priority should be to look at the other ways in which bovine TB is transmitted, rather than scapegoating badgers and perpetuating unnecessary animal cruelty. I would be grateful if the Minister could answer the points about the Godfray review in particular. An awful lot of people are waiting for the evidence base. DEFRA sitting on the report for as long as it has creates the impression that there is something in it that it wishes to hide.