UK Fishing Industry

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) for initiating it. I know of her great experience in the fishing industry. As she, above all others, will know from her personal loss from fishing, safety at sea is paramount. I pay tribute to her.

We look forward to our very able Fisheries Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), going to the December Council and coming back full of fish, and making sure that we have sufficient quota for our fishermen, because there is the science now to be able to say that for most quotaed species there are enough there for our fishermen to catch.

I am amazed that the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) is so pessimistic about the common fisheries policy. Whether we were a Brexiteer or a remainer, I think we can all accept that the one section of society that got well and truly stitched up when we first went into the Common Market was the fishing industry, because it put forward quotas that were reasonably accurate, while others put forward quotas that were not, and we landed up with a very small supply of what were potentially our own fish.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I completely agree: I think we were stuffed —is that parliamentary language?—when we joined. But I am not pessimistic about the common fisheries policy; I am realistic, and the hon. Gentleman must acknowledge that in the last 15 to 20 years, since we undertook these reforms, the picture has been improving.

[Neil Parish]

I accept that there have been improvements to the common fisheries policy, but there were many improvements to be made. We are getting on now to having discards banned from the common fisheries policy, which we as a nation can work on much better. We can also use a fishing management system similar to that of the Norwegians, where we can shut down an overfished area very quickly; they can do it within a day, whereas it is impossible to move that fast when there are 27 countries trying to come to an agreement. There are great opportunities to be had. There is no doubt—there are figures to prove it—that the European fishing vessels take from our waters some £530 million-worth of fish and we take about £110 million-worth of fish from their waters, so whichever way we look at it, there will be benefits for our fishermen.

[Mr Charles Walker]

As Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, will my hon. Friend look at the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) about making bass a recreational species only? Will he and his Committee look into that?

[Neil Parish]

As Chairman of the Committee, I would be delighted to look at that. We look at all the evidence and look at exactly what can be done. There is a real place for recreational fishing, just as there is also very much a place for professional fishing. I would be very happy to look into that matter.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

As part of the study that the hon. Gentleman has agreed to undertake, will he look at the value to coastal towns of recreational fishing? In 2012, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimated that it was £2 billion a year. My angling shops, my coastal bed and breakfasts and my hotels all benefit from bass fishing, but the moratorium on anglers taking sea bass is a disaster for coastal towns.

[Neil Parish]

I actually believe that, as we come out of the common fisheries policy, there will be enough fish for everybody. If we manage the fish stocks much better, we will have every opportunity. We need to make much more of the fish that we catch, not only in the area of recreational fishing but in areas such as fish processing. I believe that we will have greater access to fish and be able to land much more of our fish on to our own shores, but when we do that, we must ensure that we process it and add value to it. We must also—dare I say it—say to all our population that we eat many types of fish when we go to the continent and to other parts of the world that we will not eat here. That is key, because we still have a huge market. Some 70% to 80% of the fish we land in the west of England is exported to France, Spain and across the rest of Europe. Those markets are very important, so we need to ensure that we get the fish, manage the fish stocks and market the fish.

On the question of Brexit and the common fisheries policy, we have a moment now, as we negotiate, when we have very positive cards in our hand. We can say to our neighbours, “There are historical arrangements that we will look at, but at the end of the day, you will fish the amount that we agree under our rules, and that is the way it will be.” If we are absolutely firm with them —I expect the Minister to be exactly that—we can get a reasonable deal with our neighbours. I think our neighbours will deal with us in a fair way on this issue because, to be absolutely blunt, they have two choices. They can have the fish under our rules or they will not have the fish at all.

I want to reinforce the point that we must not negotiate away our fisheries again. Our fishermen did not forgive us when we did that the first time round. If we do it a second time, they will never forgive us. This is not just about our fishermen and what percentage of the overall economic benefit comes from fish; it is also about what is morally right and wrong. This is something that we can now put right. I am convinced that this can work, with the right policies in place. I suspect that the Minister is minded to keep a lot of our existing systems of catching through quota in place. Let us have evolution, not a revolution.

On discards, let us ensure that we land everything that we catch, so that we know exactly what the stocks are. Let us also look at which types of fish will recover if we put them back into the sea. Let us have a smart system of managing our stocks. I believe that we will do well in the future. We can manage our fishing better, and we must ensure that we police our waters as we leave the common fisheries policy.