Food Security

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for calling this important debate. As he said on his website,

“we take future food security seriously, given that we are an island nation”.

Food security is a subject that lends itself to a focus on agriculture, but—rather neatly, as I am following the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray)—I feel that as an island nation we should not forget in this debate the vital role played by our fisheries industry in providing food for Britain.

Fish is one of the healthiest sources of protein and a rare source of essential fatty acids, but fishing also sustains a significant industry, which employs thousands of people in coastal communities and at food processing sites across the country. To take perhaps a slightly different perspective from the hon. Member for South East Cornwall, people in the industry in my patch, Great Grimsby, tell me they are cautiously optimistic about the current state of the sector.

Not only does the fisheries industry feed people in Britain; fish exports are worth £1.6 billion a year to our economy. The industry has proved itself able to operate in a sustainable way. Fish stocks are up 400% in the last decade, allowing a welcome increase in quotas for 2016. This year fishermen will be able to catch 47% more haddock in the North sea, twice as much plaice from the channel and 20% more Celtic sea hake. While consumers have understandably been concerned about declining stocks in the past, people can now have their hake and eat it too. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I know—but the hon. Member for South East Cornwall had a “havoc” and a “haddock”.

Many colleagues have rightly raised the challenges that agriculture and farmers face, but there are very few workers who have it tougher than fishermen. I would like us to regard them as the farmers of the sea. They can be out at work and away from their families for weeks at a time. The task itself is tough, dangerous and often not well paid. It is not surprising that it can be a tough sell to get young people to consider it for a career. The workforce are ageing, and there is a risk that the skills in the industry today will be lost. I have asked the Minister before, and I will ask him again, how the Government plan to address that. The industry needs a proper strategy to secure its long-term future.

[Mrs Murray]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Seafish training authority does a lot of training for young fishermen, and in particular people who want to move into the industry? Perhaps she would like to contact Seafish to ensure that those courses are run in her constituency.

[Melanie Onn]

I believe that that was mentioned in the debate on fishing before the December break, and I feel that it needs to be expanded and heavily publicised, although the hon. Lady is certainly doing her part and assisting with that. I shall take her advice.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s predecessor, Austin Mitchell, who I knew well over 10 years as a Member of Parliament. He was a great advocate for fishermen and I would like her to take our tribute to him, if she is in touch with him.

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the hon. Gentleman; I am sure that I will be able to tweet him. I believe he is in New Zealand, but he remains a strong advocate for the fishing industry and the fishermen of Grimsby and the surrounding areas. In particular, he played a strong role in ensuring that appropriate compensation was delivered to those fishermen when trawler owners were being given significant compensation but the people doing the work were not so lucky. I entirely concur with the comments of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski).

What discussions has the Minister had with his colleagues in the Department of Health, for instance, about promoting healthy British food such as seafood? As the Government look to tackle obesity and unhealthy eating, surely fish has a role to play as a nutritious, local and environmentally sustainable alternative to other foods. What are the Government doing to encourage supermarkets to act responsibly when sourcing and purchasing fish products? That should be a top priority in securing the sustainability of this major food source. Does the Minister believe that public procurement has a bigger role to play in supporting the industry, as the hon. Member for St Ives mentioned? Does he believe that the public sector, starting with Whitehall and the parliamentary estate, does enough to support the UK’s fishing industry?