UK Fisheries

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Murray]

If the right hon. Gentleman is patient, I will come to that.

To reiterate, my friend wrote that the Marine Management Organisation has introduced a new licence condition that requires skippers of under-10-metre boats to estimate, or guess within a 10% tolerance, the weight of all fish caught, species by species, before the fish have been landed. He went on to say that, with small quantities of fish, it is almost impossible to estimate that reliably within 10%. If a fisherman gets it wrong, he is liable to criminal prosecution, with a maximum fine of £100,000.

Given the mixed catch in the south-west, my friend continued, that could put an extra hour or two on the end of a long working day for an under-10-metre trawler. That is totally unreasonable and is not safe. There is no de minimis exemption for small catches; every fish has to be counted and its weight estimated. Over-10-metre vessels are exempt from having to log catches of less than 50 kg per species, which obviously reduces the problem of trying to estimate the weight of small quantities.

I have used the app myself, so I have seen some of the problems that fishermen encounter. My friend added that there has been a string of technical and practical problems with the app and the contact centre, which is open only during office hours. According to the app, some harbours and landing places do not exist, and it does not recognise that fishermen catch more than 10 different species. People have had problems getting through to the contact centre. As far as the app is concerned, the threat of criminal prosecution for estimating outside the 10% tolerance should be removed, and there should be a complete rethink about the new system.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on landing this timely debate. I apologise to her—and to you, Sir George—that I cannot stay for the whole debate; unfortunately, I have a clash, which I discovered only this morning.

My hon. Friend touches on all the problems with how to fish in a mixed fishery. Does she agree that one of the real horrors of the CFP is the extraordinary level of discards? The industry has said that the level widely across Europe is beyond 1 million tonnes; the House of Lords says it could be up to 1.7 million tonnes.

Our great advantage now is that we can design a system that is tailored to our fisheries and works with the grain of nature, so we can stop that horrendous waste. The only way to do that, which my hon. Friend touched on—it would be great if the Minister confirmed this—is not to trade the allocation of fish stocks in the upcoming negotiations. We must take back 100% control of our exclusive economic zone and all that is in it, and then negotiate—in a friendly, amicable way, as my hon. Friend said—annual reciprocal deals, so we have complete control of what is in our marine waters. That would bring a huge advantage to our coastal communities and, potentially, a massive improvement to our marine environment.

[Mrs Murray]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great authority. I congratulate him on the Green Paper that he produced. I cannot remember how long ago that was, but I congratulate him on his expertise and on his record as shadow Fisheries Minister. I concur completely with what he just said.

Will the Minister please meet fishermen’s representatives and fish auctioneers to ensure that the app is operated in a way that reassures fishermen? Something that could benefit UK fishermen is being interpreted as a tool to use against them because of the complexity of the app and the worry that it will be used as a tool for prosecution.

There is also an opportunity to introduce a new registration and licensing regime, and to reintroduce the terms of vessel ownership and associated conditions that were first introduced by the Merchant Shipping Act 1988. That Act was introduced to stop other nations from benefiting from UK fish quota by registering their vessels on the UK fishing vessel register. People who did that were commonly described as “quota hoppers”. Although the European Court of Justice ruled that that Act of Parliament was contrary to the treaty, the fact that we are now not members of the European Union provides us with an opportunity to ensure that those so-called quota hoppers comply with UK law.

I acknowledge that some measures have been introduced at EU level to provide that an economic link must be shown, but, as is often the case, those measures are at best weak. By restoring the terms of the Merchant Shipping Act, we could require individual owners, or 75% of the registered owners of a company, to be UK citizens. We could couple that with a requirement to land all catch in UK ports. That would not only bring economic benefits but allow us to enhance the enforcement of UK catch rules on vessels. Will the Minister speak to the Minister with responsibility for shipping to explore that? I have been considering introducing a private Member’s Bill based on the Merchant Shipping Act.

In summary, I thank the Minister both for his Department’s commitment to UK fishermen and for the Prime Minister’s commitment. I am sure I speak for all wives, husbands and partners of fishermen, present and former, when I say that we have seen the price they have paid while operating under the disastrous common fisheries policy. All they were doing was trying to provide an honest living for their families—fishing provided a comfortable living for my family for 25 years—and that is a tribute to those men and women who put to sea to put fish on our table.

Some of us have seen our husbands pay the ultimate price, but we have never lost hope. I look forward to seeing us adopt a strong stance in the forthcoming negotiations, and I urge the Minister and the Government to never surrender to the unacceptable demands of the European Union. We must not allow the pillaging of UK waters to happen ever again.