Fisheries Bill

Owen Smith Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I would like to take as many interventions as possible, in fairness to all those Members who necessarily cannot stay for the duration of the debate.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

A moment ago, the Secretary of State offered the House some warm words about his commitment to sustainability. Could he therefore explain why the Bill contains only one vague mention of maximum sustainable yields? Can he give us a guarantee that, under his new vision for fisheries management, we will adhere to maximum sustainable yields and to scientific advice, as opposed to what we have done for years and years, which is to allow total catches to exceed those sustainable yields by up to 50%?

[Michael Gove]

The short answer is yes.

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[Michael Gove]

It will be easier for those who are responsible for that bycatch to ensure that they can continue to fish in a way that is both environmentally sustainable and economically resilient. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman in due course.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; he is being very generous. I am trying to reconcile two things that he has said: first, that we are going to be more mindful of sustainability, and secondly, that we are going to catch more fish. The total allowable sole catch in the Irish sea is currently set at 40,000, when the scientific advice is that it should be zero. Will we be catching more or fewer sole in the Irish sea under the Secretary of State’s future plans?

[Michael Gove]

When it comes to individual species, we will follow the scientific advice that CEFAS and others give us. Overall, however, as we take back control we will have the opportunity to catch more fish in our own waters. The majority of the fish that are caught in UK waters are not caught by UK vessels. Let me give the hon. Gentleman one example. I do not know whether he knows what percentage of cod caught in the English channel is caught by French boats—I do not know whether anyone in the House does—but it is 83%. What percentage of cod caught in the English channel is caught by UK vessels? Just 7%. That is a fundamental inequity in the allocation of national resources. The Bill will allow us to decide who catches what and where, and in line with which environmental principles.

It is not often that a piece of legislation comes before the House that provides us with an opportunity to say to some of the most fragile communities in our country, our coastal communities, “There is real hope and a chance of an economic renaissance. Your suffering has been recognised and we can make a positive difference.” It is not often that legislation comes before the House that, if passed, would see an industry potentially double in size and in its capacity to generate new jobs and new economic opportunities. It is very, very rare that legislation that comes before the House achieves such social and economic goals and at the same time allows this country to underline its credentials as a leader in environmental practice of a kind that other countries would wish to emulate. Not only does this Fisheries Bill manage to bring hope to coastal communities and to reinforce the economic gains of leaving the European Union, but it underlines our credentials as an environmental leader, which is why I commend the legislation to the House.

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[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to take part in a fisheries debate and, more importantly, a debate on a fisheries Bill. This Bill is naturally important to my constituency, and I welcome what it sets out to do. Fishing is an integral part of our coastal communities and their economy and culture, and it is part of our proud heritage in Cornwall, so I welcome this ambitious Bill for the fisheries industry as we leave the European Union and the common fisheries policy.

The CFP has damaged the whole UK fishing fleet. I am slightly concerned about the impact that the current withdrawal agreement could have on the UK’s sovereign control over our fisheries, but I commend the Bill and what it sets out to do. In North Cornwall, many of my constituents are quite rightly concerned about the impact that the CFP has had on coastal communities and the economy. I therefore welcome the revocation of the requirement for equal access rights for EU boats, which sits at the core of the Bill, to truly take back control of our waters and its resources within the UK and the Northern Ireland Executive economic zone. It is important to recognise that, as an independent coastal state under the UN convention on the law of the sea, nothing short of the UK Government having full control over access to fishing waters, sustainable quota and environmental measures being set in the UK is acceptable.

As the UK parliamentary bass champion, I fully agreed with Samuel Stone of the Marine Conservation Society when he said:

“This is the time for the UK to demonstrate strong leadership and to show that it can be ambitious and serious about the protection of our seas.”

I welcome the discard objectives in the Bill, which aim to gradually eliminate discards on a case-by-case basis by avoiding and reducing unwanted captures; that is particularly difficult in communities like mine, which are mixed fisheries. However, my understanding is that if the implementation period is extended, we will still effectively be in the CFP, we will still have to bid for quota and we will be subjected to the discard ban and the fines imposed under it.

[Owen Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is worse than that? Not only will we still be in the CFP, but we will not be formally taking part in those discussions about quota. We will be invited to attend, and we may be consulted, but we will no longer have any proper influence.

[Scott Mann]

That is my understanding of the withdrawal Act. The implementation period should come to an end as quickly as possible, because the discard ban and the fines that might come about from it would place our fishermen under immense pressure.

I welcome the commitments made to supporting sustainable fisheries by ensuring that all our harvested stocks are in line with maximum sustainable yield. I was told recently that we must follow the science, and that is equally important with fisheries management. It is great to see the UK committing itself to internationally defined standards adopted by most successful fisheries and fisheries management regimes around the world.

However, more could be done through the Bill to ensure that we meet those targets. A light-tough approach to the duties placed on authorities to deliver on these objectives risks the complete undermining of the Government’s stated ambition. There is an absence of duty on fisheries managers to set fisheries limits on exceeding levels, to restore stocks or maintain maximum sustainable yield, and a lack of deadline for restoring stocks above maximum sustainable levels. I therefore recommend a binding duty to ensure that, as soon as the Bill comes into force, fisheries managers cannot set fishing limits above scientific recommended levels. That would deliver the UK Government’s objective to restore stocks.

I firmly believe that we have a chance to invest in our fishing industry and bring innovation at a time of change and changing technology, to improve both safety and prosperity in the industry. I welcome the Budget announcement of £12 million for the fishing industry, with £10 million of that money coming from UK Research and Innovation, to establish an innovation fund to help transform the fisheries industry, and £2 million being set aside for fisheries safety projects across the UK and on-board safety equipment; I know that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) has pushed for that for some time.

The fishing industry and its practices have not developed much over the last 40 years, and it is time we brought innovation into the industry. Taking back control of our fisheries policy gives us a chance to ensure that the UK is a world leader in sustainability and safe and productive fishing methods. Investing in technology and technological change will help the UK to stick to its scientific objectives, which commit us to contributing to the collection of scientific data. An example of where we have gone wrong in the past with a fishing technique that has not evolved is the gill net. Currently, juvenile fish can be caught in an overloaded net, and this is one area where the tech innovation fund could look at new ways of developing gill net mesh.

Technology can also boost productivity for independent fishing businesses, support entrepreneurship and provide the ability to create new real-time data to allow fish to be sold directly to restaurants straight off the boats. An example of this is an independent small business in Cornwall that uses an app to register and download fish information as soon as the fish has gone into the boat, so that it can be sold to restaurants as soon as the boat comes back.

In my last minute, I would like to talk about recreational angling, which is hugely important to coastal communities such as mine. I commend the support in the Bill for promoting recreational angling. One opportunity this Fisheries Bill affords us involves Atlantic bluefin tuna. Stocks have collapsed over decades from commercial overfishing, but with the return of these iconic fish to the British Isles—in particular, to Cornwall—we now have a real opportunity to grasp the nettle and embrace this opportunity. As an independent and sovereign member of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, we have the opportunity to request a quota, and I believe we should. A fish that is caught by rod and line and returned to the sea is worth six times more to the economy than a fish that is landed, killed and eaten. I will leave it there, but I commend this Bill.

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[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Before I get into my speech, I will confess my three interests in this Bill. First, like the Secretary of State, I had family—my grandfather, not my father—who worked in the fishing industry. My grandfather worked behind the wet fish counter in Tonypandy and in Barry. Secondly, I am a very keen angler myself; and thirdly, I am implacably opposed to Brexit, and this Bill and the fisheries debate more broadly is the greatest example I can think of to demonstrate the hollowness of the claims that were made by the Brexiteers, such as the Secretary of State, as well as the hollowness of the promises that he is holding out again today to fishing industries and fishermen right across the country.

On both sides of the Brexit debate, the issue of fisheries illustrates what a dreadful discussion we had, because the remain side ought to admit that the CFP is one of the great failures of the EU. It does not work environmentally and it has not worked for the fishing industry in our country or elsewhere, and we should acknowledge that. We should not seek to stay in or replicate the CFP; we should be trying to reform it. But the biggest deception, of course, was on behalf of the Brexiteers: the promise that leaving the CFP would allow us to take back control of our seas. It is a wonderful phrase, which we have heard from the Secretary of State today, but the seas that we are talking about—the Irish sea, the North sea and the English channel—are shared with the countries on the other side of them. The fish we get out of those seas are sometimes landed and processed on the shores on the other side of those seas, and the markets we rely on are very often on the other side of those seas. That exposes the hollowness of both the Brexiteers’ claims and many promises made in the Secretary of State’s rhetoric today.

The hollowness is also exposed by a paucity of detail because, frankly, this Bill is long on rhetoric and short on detail. The reason that it is short on detail is that very little is agreed in respect of the future of our fisheries. There are lots of promises, as there were lots of promises in the White Paper in July this year, but the truth is that almost nothing is determined in respect of the future nature of our fisheries and of our agreement. In fact, throughout the withdrawal agreement, it is very clear that nothing is agreed. On page 311 of the deal, it is stated very clearly that

“(‘fishery and aquaculture products’), shall not be covered…unless an agreement”

is established. I think that the Minister wants to get that agreement by June 2020, but there is no guarantee that that will happen. As many fellow Brexit supporters of the Secretary of State have pointed out to him and to Front Benchers today, in the intervening period—during the transition period—we will actually lose influence and leverage in respect of our fisheries.

Article 130 on page 206 of the withdrawal agreement states:

“As regards the fixing of fishing opportunities within…the transition period, the United Kingdom shall be consulted in respect of the fishing opportunities…the Union shall offer the opportunity to the United Kingdom to provide comments on the Annual Communication”.

It also says that the UK shall be invited to the “relevant…fora”. We will be consulted with, we will have the opportunity to comment and we will be invited, but we will not actually be official participants in the decision making—the key decisions on the size and scale of the quotas which, according to the Secretary of State, we ought to see taken back under our control. All that is a clear indication of the hollowness of the claim that we would exercise greater sovereignty as a result of our leaving the European Union.

The Secretary of State, I am not sure whether deliberately, spoke out of both sides of his mouth today. He said that we are going to be taking back control in order to exercise greater observance of the sustainable yields that we have ignored for many, many years when in the common fisheries policy, and at the same time he said that we were going to be increasing our fish catch. Those two things, I say respectfully to him, cannot both be true. We cannot, in future, be more observant of the scientific advice about what are the sustainable yields we can take from our stocks while at the same time taking more fish from our seas. That is the biggest and most egregious example of the fib that is being told to fishermen across this country. I hope that during the passage of the Bill the Secretary of State will clear up some of these misconceptions and is very honest with people about what Brexit could mean.