Fisheries Bill (Second sitting)

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

Q On that point, there seems to be universal agreement that personal locator beacons attached to lifejackets are a good thing, but we know there is a cost to fishermen of buying new lifejackets with PLBs and registering them. Do you think that, if there were a specified improvement on marine safety in the Bill, lifejackets with PLBs could be one area that might make a big improvement in marine safety?

Jerry Percy: Yes. Under the International Labour Organisation’s convention 188, it is now mandatory for fishermen to wear lifejackets unless the owner and/or skipper of the vessel can prove that he has sufficient guards in place to ensure that fishermen do not go over the side.

I still go to sea quite often. I have a personal locator beacon that I bought myself for about £170. It will tell the rescue people where I am in the water anywhere in the world. It is cheap. As far as I understand it, European funding would probably cover it because it is not a mandatory requirement, but surely, in terms of safety, it is a few pounds and it makes all the difference in the world.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Q My question is a variation on the Opposition spokesman’s point. It is commonly recognised that the inshore fleet—the under-10s—has had a raw deal as far as access to quota and fishing opportunities is concerned. The Bill is largely based on the assumption that an increase in opportunities, as a result of taking back control of our waters, will give us an uplift that will provide additional fishing opportunities for the inshore fleet. Do you think that goes far enough, or do we need to look at something bolder and more radical in terms of quota allocation or fishing opportunities?

Jerry Percy: Our main concern is that the Bill is predicated on a successful fisheries Brexit, if I may call it that, with a significant windfall of quota. Again, with the greatest respect, that would get the Government out of the hole that successive Governments have painted themselves into—if I may mix my metaphors—in that because there is only so much in the UK pie of quota, they are somewhat hamstrung, in their view, in their ability to reallocate more fairly and effectively. Not surprisingly, we disagree with that version and there is legal argument that they could do so, albeit slowly—that was said by the judge in a judicial review in 2012.

I gave an answer earlier about moving the method of allocation to become genuinely reliant on the social, environmental and economic criteria, but I do say genuinely because the UK Government are also already subject to article 17 of the common fisheries policy, which says something similar about allocating quota on those three criteria. The Government have argued that they meet those criteria. I personally do not think that they even remotely reach them in many respects. If we are going to have a revised method of allocation, we need an undertaking or to ensure that the Bill does what it says on the tin.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Q Thank you for coming along, Mr Percy. We have heard a lot about control of our own waters, but that has to be set against access to markets, particularly for your members. How confident are you that the interests of your members are fully understood and fully protected by what is in the Bill?

Jerry Percy: I do not think it goes far enough in some respects. Again, going back to the common fisheries point, the European maritime funding document says that member states shall produce an action plan for the development of their small-scale fleets. To date, we have not really seen anything to that extent, and there is nothing specific in the Bill in that respect.

Our main concern is that, from a non-quota, shellfish perspective—this is particularly reflected in our members and colleagues in the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, who asked me to mention it, which I am more than happy to do—the whole business of hundreds, if not well over 1,000, boats around the west coast especially, and the east coast of Scotland to some extent, as well as Wales and the rest of the UK, is based on seamless transport across the channel to our markets in France and Spain. Their main concern, of course, is that if any issues come up in a post-Brexit scenario where we seek to take back control, not only will we get tariffs, which will make a big difference, but what is more, there will be non-tariff barriers in terms of the requirement for veterinary inspections of live shellfish. At the moment, the only two ports with those facilities are Dunkirk and Rotterdam, neither of which we use and neither of which, effectively, is a Channel port. To date, the French have not exactly been quick off the mark in building new facilities in time for next year.

We are equally concerned about the fact that French fishermen, like French farmers, are renowned for taking very direct action should they feel that something has upset them. You will remember that when the French farmers got upset about some aspect of Welsh lamb exports, they actually burned the lorries as they came off the ferry in France. We are very concerned that if we do have an independent coastal state, and so on and so forth, it would kill that transport overnight. We only need a few hours’ delay for it to make all the difference in the world.

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[Luke Pollard]

Q Finally, one of the areas that seems to be weaker in the Bill than in the common fisheries policy is the area around maximum sustainable yield and the removal of a commitment to achieve it by 2020. Where there are difficulties in achieving maximum sustainable yield by 2020, do you think that the MSY provisions in the Fisheries Bill are sufficiently robust to make sure that we are restoring stock levels in our oceans, especially as climate change seems to be missing as a theme from much of the Bill? Is that something that we could address?

Dr Appleby: What does maximum sustainable yield actually mean? The European Union defines it as something like the highest theoretical equilibrium yield. It says something like that in the basic regulation. You take a basket of theories and you use the highest one. It has been knocked around as a term for a long time. Our rights in our EEZ only go up to maximum sustainable yield and we do not have a right to fish beyond it. We can take the interest off our fish stock outside our territorial waters, but we cannot spend the capital. This is the way to look at it.

To some extent, that is all the rights we have. I have not explicitly looked at that, but my sense on the way this works is that we would be bound by MSY targets anyway. The other thing is that the UK has access to judicial review, whereas trying to review the European Commission is interesting. It is very difficult to get a standing in the European Court of Justice, particularly on maximum sustainable yield. A few years the World Wildlife Fund tried to get access on cod quotas, I think, and they failed. So the European Union is good at giving rules to other people, but not so good at looking after itself. From an environmental charity point of view, we are not so concerned as long as there is something in there that does allow some conversation about moving to the right stocks that produce more fish, more jobs and a better environment. We could get hung up on this if we are not careful.

[Peter Aldous]

Q Tom, you were expressing concern at how a public asset might have inadvertently become a property right, and how that might constrain more radical reforms of the quota system. Could we go back to the court case of 2012-13 when Lord Justice Coulson put down his determination? I have heard some suggestions that the Secretary of State won that case against the POs, because what he was proposing was very reasonable and small-scale, and the POs were acting unreasonably. Is that a view that you would share, or would you say that Coulson allows one to go a step further?

Dr Appleby: An FQA is a possession under the European convention on human rights. There is a distinction. “Quota” is once it is distributed, and FQA units are about your expectation of how much of a share of the UK’s TAC you are going get every year. That was based on the historical landings data, traditionally. He said that unused FQA units could be reallocated without compensation. FQA units are a possession, so the corollary of that is that used FQA units—and most of them are used—would require some sort of compensation payment. I have not been privy to the subsequent legal advice, and I took a sharp intake of breath when he said that at the time. In fact, I went to court to watch some of the court proceedings—it was quite interesting; it was right up my field. It is inherent in the UK that we do not take assets off people without compensation. It is part of our culture—way before the European convention.

There is another point about that redistribution and the immediate way it would have ramifications on how the whole commercial sector is constructed, which you need to be mindful of. Once you put that whole lot into a bag and shake it up, you could design a scheme to reallocate quota, but it would need to be done in a sensible, crafted way.

[Owen Smith]

Q Dr Appleby, you say that MSY is not necessary, and that hardwiring a greater onus on Ministers to adhere to MSY in terms of the allocation of future quotas is not necessarily the way to go. If we had more time—I take what you say about there being limited time—is there a way in which we could hardwire sustainability in respect of future fisheries management into this Bill?

Dr Appleby: That is a good question. There are things that you can do. The Australian legislation, for instance, makes it a legal duty to fish sustainably and according to the plans that they come up with. We could put that in. Our fisheries statements are a bit woolly. I notice that there is a bit in here that says that they do not have to adhere if relevant considerations are taken into account. What is a relevant consideration? I could not find a definition of that.

We have not nailed the Secretary of State to the floor in this Bill, and that could be done. Again, it would have to be done in the context of devolution, so we would have to nail everybody’s feet to the floor around the UK, because we cannot have a situation in which one part of the UK can fish non-sustainably and the other parts cannot. There are things that you can do. There are tweaks and modifications that can be made to harden up that duty.

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[The Chair]

Mr Aldous wants to ask a question and we have just less than a minute left.

[Peter Aldous]

Q The Secretary of State has to consult with Welsh and Scottish Ministers and the Northern Irish on this. Are the English put at a disadvantage?

Dr Appleby: There is an argument. If we were to try to stick an English Fisheries Minister into this Bill, which is kind of where you are going, that is the West Lothian question. I almost feel we should ask the Minister what he feels.

[The Chair]

The Minister will have several hours over the next few weeks to tell us what he thinks. Time is at a premium. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you Dr Appleby and the organisation for your submission. Watch the Bill with interest as it progresses.

Examination of witness

Aaron Brown gave evidence.

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[The Chair]

There is considerable interest in asking questions in this session. We have to finish at 4 pm, so can I ask for short questions and shorter answers, please?

[Peter Aldous]

Q I will not comment on pulse fishing, because I agree with you, Mr Brown. I think the Minister said that the Government are happy to look at an effort-based pilot. I am conscious that there was a pilot in the past. What was the outcome of that? What shortcomings were there, and what lessons might we learn for future pilots?

Aaron Brown: That is one of the areas where, when we devised this system, we realised there had been a massive failing. The days at sea scheme was blunt and there was no effective monitoring. Generally, it was with smaller boats in south-east England. I think even the fishermen themselves would hold their hands up and say they really knocked the backside out of the pilot. There was mis-reporting going on—they just went out and kind of went Tonto on it.

We are advocating an hours-based system. You would obviously have vessel monitoring systems. We want to get towards a fully integrated monitoring/management system. Vessels would have sensors, which are not expensive to put on—vessels use a similar technology for gear telemetry and door sensors—and go on any type of fishing gear, to monitor soak time, so you would know the exact time a vessel’s gear was in the water. There would be a stipulation to monitor where vessels were through your inshore VMS or your full-on VMS, and also to fill out electronic logbooks, which are here now. You would get an up-to-date, haul-by-haul update on how much fishing effort was going in. You would know, “That boat towed six hours in this area and he caught x amount of fish for this size of gear. The chap over to the side towed similar gear and caught half the amount of fish.” You would start to know where the abundancies were.

The one main control to go for with a pilot is making sure it is rigorously enforced and it is an hours-based scheme. The other main thing is the catch composition thing. That really is the main control for regulating the industry. Rather than everybody going Tonto, like they did last time, and targeting Dover sole, cod or bass, you would say, “Yes guys, you can catch them and keep them, but be aware that if you do that, your ceiling of hours is going to come clattering down to meet you.”

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Q I think you touched on this topic earlier on; you said you would probably come on to it. Do you have a view on the discard prevention charging scheme that is in the Bill and on how transparent it is and how it would actually work?

Aaron Brown: That is one of the things in the Bill that very much seems to ride coach and horses over the idea that the Bill is just an enabling Bill. Obviously, there is a bit of reticence—okay, you could say, “Understandably so”—to career on towards a different type of management on an effort-based system, yet somehow we have a scheme here that has dropped out of the air, with no prior piloting and no prior consultation, and that has just arrived on the table. We are vehemently against it, because we personally feel—and everybody who has read the Bill, both among our membership and in other organisations, feels—that only an idiot who could not understand the practical implications of such a scheme would propose it.

We feel that the scheme is there to administratively abrogate the failings of the current system. The Government are proposing to take all the repatriated resources and use them as headroom to avoid choke species, whereby, as of 2019, vessels have to cease fishing on the exhaustion of their lowest quota. What will happen is that you will have vessels going to sea. Many hon. Members are from the south-west, as the Minister is, and haddocks are a huge problem there—in the North sea, it is hakes. The Government then say, “We will honour the fish that would choke you or would tie you up. We will give you fish to keep fishing, but so that there is no economic incentive to target that species, you must land it for free.” That scheme effectively creates a giant shuttle service, where boats are going to have to run in and out, in and out of harbour, landing all this fish that they cannot profit from, to allow them to keep fishing.

The first big problem with that scheme is retention of crew. Lads are not going to work to retain—well, just now it is a 40% discard rate, so if they have to retain that 40% for free, you are going to lose your crew very quick. The next problem is that there is no provision in the Bill as to what happens to this fish when it is landed: you cannot turn around and allow processors, hauliers, markets or shore-based people to profit from it, because that would disadvantage the fishermen. Really, the logical question about that clause is, “Are we going into some sort of Soviet system, where the fishing industry is going to work for free for the Government?” It is an ill-thought out thing, and I think it needs taking out of the Bill. It needs to come back once it has been properly tested and run in to see if it actually works, because we see such pitfalls in it, and it does not actually—