Leaving the EU: Fisheries Management Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Melanie Onn
Main Page: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes)Department Debates - View all Melanie Onn's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Michael Gove
I completely understand my right hon. Friend’s feelings on this matter. I just want to reassure him that our negotiating team negotiated hard, in good faith and armed with the support of our fisheries industry to try to get the best possible deal. We did not get everything we wanted, but it is the view of this Government and, I think, the majority of people in this House that we need to make sure that this implementation period succeeds so that we can grab the greater prize that Brexit provides at the end of it.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this urgent question, on the same subject I also submitted one this morning.
The truth is that the Tories are treating this industry as expendable. The Secretary of State talked about revival, but the industry cannot revive based on the status quo that the Government have delivered on the CFP. Does he understand why my constituents will see this as a total sell-out, with us not even having a say at the negotiating table for the next two years?
Michael Gove
It is certainly not the case that anyone on the Government side of the House regards fishing communities or the fishing industry as expendable. That is why we are investing more in the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science—our top-level marine scientific advisory body. It is why we are investing more in the Marine Management Organisation, which will be responsible for making sure that our fisheries industry is effective. It is why we are investing more in fisheries protection vessels to ensure that the sea of opportunity that comes outside the CFP can be properly taken advantage of.
The idea that we do not care about fisheries and that we are not investing in their future is, I am afraid, simply not true. The hon. Lady may express disappointment, and I express disappointment that we did not secure everything we wanted in these negotiations, but it is vital that we all focus on the bigger prize ahead of us. I completely understand why some people in the House —I exempt the hon. Lady—want to make partisan points, but, honestly, the future of our fishing industry is bigger than that.