UK Fishing Industry

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Sir Henry, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on securing what has become a useful annual fixture in the calendar, ahead of the Fisheries Council that the Minister is now very familiar with. I will take this opportunity to remember and commemorate all of those who go out and fish for the benefit of their communities and the whole country. Those people are in what is still the riskiest occupation in the whole of the country, and they deserve our thoughts and our thanks for the work they do, as does the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I notice that a small situation occurred off the coast of the hon. Lady’s constituency in recent days, when the RNLI was required to go out and rescue a French vessel that broke down. It is not just those directly involved in the fishing industry, but all those associated with maritime activities, who deserve our thanks.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

I wholeheartedly support what the hon. Lady has said. Will she also recognise the work of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, which provides support not only for UK fishermen, but also for those from other member states who find themselves in trouble or hardship off the coast of the United Kingdom?

[Melanie Onn]

Yes, absolutely. The hon. Lady makes a powerful point, and she is right to recognise the work of that organisation. I will also take this opportunity to remember our colleague and former Member of this House, Margaret Curran, who has been very unwell. She used to make valuable contributions when she was an elected Member, and we are the poorer for her no longer being in this House.

The hon. Member for South East Cornwall was assiduous in pointing out how important this Fisheries Council is going to be: this will be its final meeting, and will set the tone for all our future fishing relationships. The general nature of fishing lends itself to becoming quickly adversarial over territorial and quota disputes, but there is an enormous amount of room for generating good relations with those countries that have traditionally fished alongside UK vessels. We might not like it, and the fishing industry of the UK might not like it, but even if we eventually are in the driving seat, taking back control of our waters—that is language that I do not like to use, but that is what is hoped for within the industry—so that we can decide who fishes, where they fish and how much they fish for, we will still require good relations in the future, because we do not want to see any conflict or aggression over borders or quotas. I cannot see how this House could possibly wish to encourage any kind of negativity or conflict over those issues, which is why it is all the more important that the Minister sets the tone and the boundaries of expectations going forward.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) said that successive Governments have failed on the CFP, and have not taken a strong enough stand. I suspect that the Minister may wish to dispute that, given his endeavours in recent years, but it seems that the selling out of the UK fishing industry in the withdrawal agreement is history repeating itself a little bit. There is no guarantee in the withdrawal agreement that anything will change: the Minister has said that for the next two years, he does not expect a great deal to change, and beyond that, we really do not know. The withdrawal agreement is wholly unsatisfactory to an industry that is looking for more certainty, and for a redress—a rebalance—of the inherent unfairness that they see as having been inflicted on them for a number of years.

I recognise that other hon. Members want to contribute to this debate, so I will just touch on the east coast specifically. We have traditionally had a very different industry from that of the south-west or Scotland: we were a deep-sea area, with deep-sea fisheries that were going into Atlantic waters—although the people of Whitby and Bridlington will no doubt say otherwise, because their fleets were much more inshore and smaller. The instrumental thing for Grimsby, about which I cannot get a satisfactory answer from the Government, is our relationships with Iceland and Norway. We will still want access to those waters, so what will be the impact of the European economic area and European Free Trade Association agreements that Norway and Iceland have with the EU? How will that affect the UK once we have left the EU? That is if we actually leave—it is all looking decidedly ropey today. How will that affect those agreements? That is why I urge the Minister to continue those good relations, because we will still need good relations with those countries and with the EU if we are to continue the relationship that we have at the moment.

I am going over time—sorry, Sir Henry. I will just say that to some of those larger fleets, as UK Fisheries Limited has said, for the east coast of England, Brexit means that

“UK fishing opportunities, including access and quota, will only be traded if there is a reciprocal benefit to the UK and that there will be a fairer share of the fish in UK waters allocated to UK fishermen. This has the potential to correct the current situation where fishing vessels from the East Coast are prevented from going to sea due to lack of quota, while those from other countries can continue to fish. There are, however, a number of threats that are particular to the fleet based in the area.”

I will write to the Minister with more detail, if that is okay, to allow colleagues to make their contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I thank my neighbour from the far south-west, the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), for introducing the debate so well.

I join in the tributes to all those fishers who have lost their lives since our last annual fisheries debate. Since I was elected last year, we in Plymouth have lost two trawlers at sea, with a death on each boat. I pay tribute to all those who risk their lives in the most dangerous peacetime activity in Britain to catch the fish that we have on our dinner plates. I also pay tribute to those who keep our fishers safe and supported: the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, HM Coastguard, the Fishermen’s Mission, the Royal Navy and a group that is so often overlooked—the family and friends of fishers, who provide the support network, encouragement and understanding, and without whom the industry would not work.

I speak not only as shadow Fisheries Minister, but as an MP who represents Plymouth—a proud and historic coastal community with 1,000 jobs in fishing, both in catching and in processing. We have not said much about processing today, but it is a vital part of our fishing industry.

[Melanie Onn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the processing sector, which employs approximately 5,000 people in my constituency and is intrinsically linked to the catching sector. It should not be forgotten in these debates.

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The question we need to ask about processing is where the fish will come from in the future. We need to ensure that fish can be imported and exported with the added value that comes from processing, creating more processing jobs in the UK rather than putting the jobs we have at risk.

Fishing was the poster child of the leave campaign. It is one of the few industries in the entire UK—if not the only industry—that could be better on day one of Brexit than before it, but only if tariff-free access and frictionless trade can be achieved, in terms of making sure that we can export to our important export markets. I am no fan of the common fisheries policy—that has been briefly discussed here—and it needs to change and reform, but whether we are in it, or without it, we need to make sure that our fishing is more sustainable, both economically and environmentally, for UK fishers.

There are big challenges for fishing, which have been discussed today. The Fisheries Bill currently in Committee smacks of legislation that has been hurried out to reach the exit deadline. It needs many amendments. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) spoke passionately about the advisory council and dispute resolution mechanisms, and I am grateful for that. I can see why the Whips kept him off the Fisheries Bill Committee, because, sadly, the Conservatives on the Committee voted down an amendment on the dispute resolution mechanism yesterday. More lobbying of the Minister to encourage him to bring back amendments at Lords stages will be gratefully received.