Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Neil Parish Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to very much welcome the Bill. In 2017, the previous Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee ran an inquiry on fisheries, focusing on the fisheries White Paper and the Fisheries Bill of 2018. The new Bill is largely the same and I welcome it because it takes back control of our fishing policy from the EU, which is something we have been trying to do for years. It will give Ministers and our devolved Administrations the power to decide fishing policy as an independent coastal state for the first time in more than 45 years.

If we implement the Bill and negotiate well with the EU and our other trade partners, fishing can be one of the great benefits of Brexit. In coastal communities such as mine in Devon, people write to me about the sell-out of our fishing communities in 1972, because it hurt their businesses and our towns and coastal communities. The Government are therefore right to drive a hard bargain on fisheries, because people really care about it. It is of social and economic importance to see the regeneration of our coastal communities after Brexit, and there is a huge benefit to catching more fish and then processing and eating it here.

Our fishing sector employs more than 25,000 people and around 18,000 work in the fish-processing industry. Most of our fisheries businesses are small family businesses, with more than 80% employing fewer than five people. These businesses are expecting a great boom from Brexit, so I hope Ministers are mindful; otherwise, perhaps they might be on the hook, too. There is great scope for growth under new fishing arrangements and I hope that UK negotiators will hold firm.

The UK has a very large fishing zone compared with many of our continental neighbours. Under the common fisheries policy, EU fishermen benefit hugely from reciprocal access to UK waters. In 2015, for example, EU vessels caught some 683,000 tonnes in UK waters, raising some £484 million in revenue, but UK vessels caught only 111,000 tonnes in EU member states’ waters, raising £114 million in revenue. That means that EU vessels benefit by a ratio of 6:1 under the common fisheries policy. It is time to put that right. We need to rebalance things and reduce EU vessels’ access to a more sustainable level. Of course, EU vessels will need to have fair access, but not at the same level as they have under the CFP. We need to get British fishing rights back.

If we grant access to EU vessels, we need to make sure that our fishing businesses can still sell into Europe as part of the deal. About 70% of fish and 85% of shellfish caught in the UK is exported to EU countries, but although we export most of the fish we catch, we import the same amount; between 70% and 80% of the seafood consumed in the UK is imported, with only about 30% of that coming from the EU. The fish we eat most comes from distant waters, not from UK waters. Cod, haddock, salmon, prawns and others are abundant in the northern waters between Norway and Greenland, and more than 80% of the cod and haddock we eat comes from those waters, so I hope that Ministers are also looking carefully at that. While negotiations with the EU are taking all the headlines, we need also to make sure that we have new deals in place with Norway, the Faroes and Greenland so that our businesses can access those waters.

On sustainability, we must remember that many fish stocks move between national waters and, because there is common access to them, they are at risk of being over-exploited. The Government are therefore right to put sustainability at the heart of the Bill. When we leave the common fisheries policy at the end of this year, we will have more control over our waters. That will be good for our environment but also for our local fishing industries and coastal communities, which will benefit from a greater cap, particularly for the under-10 metre fleet.

The Government are also wise to look at the Norway model for fishing. Norway has far greater control over its waters and acts quickly to shut down areas of over-fishing and to open up others. The Bill is a great opportunity to ensure that we can operate a more dynamic fisheries management system that can respond rapidly to changing circumstances and science.

The Bill is a significant opportunity to deliver a much needed revival for coastal communities and small-scale fishers, and I greatly welcome the direction of travel that DEFRA Ministers have set. It is also a great opportunity to put right the fact that we have discarded, over so many years, so many millions of tons of healthy fish. We have an opportunity now to make sure that we catch what we land, so that fishermen will target the fish that they can catch and sell, and we do not have that huge waste of resource in the future. The Bill is a great opportunity to realise a huge benefit from Brexit and to ensure not only that we catch more fish but that we and our coastal communities prosper from this extremely good legislation.