Leaving the EU: Fishing

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Goodwill]

South Korea, as we know, is not in the European Union, and therefore Brexit will not have an impact on that industry. However, the hon. Lady may rest assured that we are planning for all scenarios, as any responsible Government would, including leaving without a deal.

Today, the Government have published information about essential policies that would need to be in place if the UK were to leave the EU without a deal on 29 March. In that scenario, the Government would implement a temporary tariff regime that would apply for 12 months. Under that regime, the majority of imports would be tariff free, including the majority of fish imports. There would be exceptions for some fish products, primarily tuna and warm-water shrimps and prawns. For those products, preferential access to the UK market is important for developing countries.

In a no-deal scenario, the Government are committed to entering into urgent discussions with the EU, including Ireland, to jointly agree long-term measures to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. On a temporary basis, the Government would not introduce any new checks or controls on goods crossing from Ireland to Northern Ireland. However, fish from outside the EU would need to enter Northern Ireland through a designated entry point.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

In recent weeks, I have been corresponding with Iceland’s ambassador to the UK, who is particularly concerned about whether the tariff advantages that Iceland receives under EEA arrangements will continue. Can the Minister confirm that that will be the case?

[Mr Goodwill]

I think I will be spending quite a lot of time in Oslo, Reykjavik and the Faroe Islands, which will be our new allies in this area, particularly at the annual Fisheries Council. We will attend those negotiations as an independent coastal state like Norway, making those important decisions.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the Opposition spokesman, talked about effort-based regimes. The points I made came at the height of the discard crisis, when there was a particularly emotive story on local BBC television about perfectly good fish being thrown into the sea because the fishers had found some larger-quota fish. We are moving into a new era, and the landing obligation solves many of the problems that the quotas created, but our White Paper noted that effort-based regimes attract mixed views. We may consider a pilot, but we need to ensure that fishing is sustainable and that we do not encourage a race to fish.

The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell) made a point about investment in ports; as a former ports Minister, I refute his allegations. Ports up and down the country, including in the north-east—private ports, trust ports such as the one in Newcastle, and local authority ports—are making massive investments. In Whitby, £7.6 million is being invested in pier repairs. Sirius Minerals is investing massive amounts of money as part of a £4 billion project to deliver polyhalite fertiliser through the port of Tees, using many of the facilities that British Steel used. On 26 February this year, Hartlepool council announced a big investment development order through which many opportunities will come to Hartlepool, including offshore wind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) repeated his invitation to visit Peterhead, which I hope to do very soon.