Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Peter Aldous
Main Page: Peter Aldous (Conservative - Waveney)Department Debates - View all Peter Aldous's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The voisinage agreement gives Northern Ireland vessels and Irish Republic vessels access to one another’s waters, and it predates the existence of the EU. Following a decision by Ireland’s Supreme Court, its side of this has been suspended, pending further legislation. We intend to put further pressure on the Irish Government to raise this issue to ensure that they act on the undertaking they have given to re-establish their side of this agreement.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Can the Minister confirm that he has a plan to get the UK fleet through the implementation period, in order to tackle the challenges of ensuring we have enough fish to catch and implementing the discards ban?
George Eustice
Yes, I can confirm that we do. We have been working in regional groups on the discards plan, looking at ways to deal with the problem of choke species. In the past week, I have written to Commissioner Vella with some suggestions on how we can adopt the right approach to deal with choke species, particularly hake in the North sea and haddock in the Celtic sea. I assure my hon. Friend that we are still working on these issues.