Fisheries Bill [Lords]

Robert Goodwill 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

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend is a long-time expert in fisheries policy, with direct experience of all the difficulties and shortcomings of the CFP, and she makes an important point. We have a particular problem, due to the unfair sharing arrangements under relative stability, of what is called choke species affecting our fleet, where there simply is not enough quota for fishermen to even be able to land their by-catch. As she says, the lack of quota for choke species causes a risk that the fleet has to tie up because they simply do not have the quota available to them. We set out in our White Paper a fairer sharing arrangement, so that there will be fewer choke species, but also an approach to managing discards that will enable us to charge a disincentive charge on fishermen who land out-of-quota stock, rather than force them to discard it at sea in a very wasteful way—so we remove the incentive to target vulnerable species but give fishermen left in a difficult position an option that they can exercise.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Will the Bill allow us to give grant aid to fishermen to have more selective fishing tackle, to enable them to not catch the choke species that cause these problems?

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. I know that he was involved in crafting some of these measures during his time in DEFRA, and I can confirm that those measures remain in place. We have powers in the Bill to make grant payments to fishermen, in particular to support them in fishing in a more sustainable way and investing in the gear that enables them to do that. I was about to come on to that point.

As we plan for our future, we need to recognise the immense value of fishing to our local communities, and we want to ensure that our own industry is able to benefit from the new opportunities that will arise. The powers in clause 35 mean that we can set up new funding schemes and grants to support the development of port infrastructure, the development of our fishing industry and its capacity to manage an increased catch and to manage those sustainability issues.

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[Luke Pollard]

I hear that argument, but I also hear that it is not in support of British ports when landing more fish could create more jobs, and I think we need to think about what benefit will be gained from leaving the common fisheries policy. If there is an argument for only supporting those with fish caught under a UK quota and landed in foreign ports, creating jobs in foreign ports, that is an argument the hon Member is free to make, but it is not one that will be made by the Opposition.

Labour’s jobs in coastal communities amendment is designed to ensure that whether the boat is Dutch, Spanish, French, actually British or just flagged that way, boats fishing under a UK quota would be required to land the majority of their fish in British ports. This would create a jobs boom for fish markets, processers, fuel sellers, boat repairers and distributors. With the virus, the recession and the consequences of austerity, could our coastal communities not do with more jobs? I hope the Government will agree with that, not continue to support fish being landed in foreign ports and not creating jobs in our communities.

[Mr Goodwill]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Luke Pollard]

No. I am going to make some progress, because I have gone on for some time.

The backbone of British fishing is our small boat fleet. These boats and businesses are the ones the British public want to see benefit most from our exit from the common fisheries policy. While industrial fishing has its place, I make no apology for wanting a fairer share for our small fishers. With just 6% of the quota, the small boat fleet has two thirds of the jobs, and I think it could have more quota. Reallocating quota along social, economic and environmental grounds, even if just 1% or 2% of the total catch were to be reallocated, could increase what small boats can catch by 25%. This is the second jobs multiplier that Labour has proposed in this Bill. It would be huge for our small boat fleet, helping give them a platform to invest in new gear and boats and to hire more crew.

Such rebalancing could easily be absorbed by the big foreign-owned boat operators within the current range of variation of total allowable catch, yet this is a policy yet again opposed by the Conservative party. I know the largest fishing companies, mostly foreign-owned, are strong supporters of the Conservative party, but, to borrow a phrase, Labour’s policy is for the many fishers, not the few. I hope Tory MPs will not be looking at their feet as the Whips demand total loyalty to Downing Street and require them to vote this amendment down when the time comes, because our fishing communities need a strong voice in Westminster, not just more Whips’ instructions at the expense of coastal towns.

Labour will be tabling an amendment to ban supertrawlers pillaging Britain’s marine protected areas. The Greenpeace campaign on this issue has attracted the signatures of a number of Ministers, but, sadly, of not a single DEFRA Minister. Labour will table an amendment to ban supertrawlers of over 100 metres fishing in marine protected areas. Britain has not one supertrawler of over 100 metres, so Ministers and Conservative Members have an easy choice to make: whether they are on the side of British fishers or foreign-owned industrial supertrawlers, harvesting huge quantities of fish and plundering the very habitats that Britain regards as special. I hope that would be an easy decision, but we will have to see.

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[Deidre Brock]

I absolutely agree. I think there are major concerns on this and the Bill does not provide any sort of genuine framework. It is full of unknowns. It is built on the shifting sands of a Trade Bill where we have no idea what the outcome will be. Should we just shrug our shoulders and crack on? The fact that this Government have had more than four years to come up with this Bill and this is what they have arrived at is a disgrace. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) is interrupting from a sedentary position.

We may be no longer contributing to the discussion on the common fisheries policy at the EU, but we will still, in effect, be subject to it or, even worse, getting the even less savoury end of the stick. Scotland’s fishing community is being sold out by the Tories once again: they were sold out as they went in and they are being sold out again as we leave the EU. Control of who can fish in Scotland’s waters will not be exercised by the Scottish Government, control over fishing in Wales will not belong to the Welsh and control over Northern Ireland’s fishing will not be decided in Stormont. Despite the bluff and bluster, that back door is wedged open.

There is a similar situation on the landing requirement, which was a creation of the amendment in the Lords—that only goes to show that it is not just the Government who do not get devolution. The landing requirement would be decided in Whitehall, after a brief consultation with the devolved Administrations—not an agreement with them, but a consultation. There is no scrutiny role for the legislators of the devolved Administrations, which are, after all, supposed to have a devolved competence in this area. The Scottish Parliament is being sidelined, as are the Senedd and Stormont.

Jack McConnell is the UK Government’s latest great champion in their futile campaign against Scottish independence, so it might be advisable for them to listen to him when he says, as he did in discussing this amendment, that he had

“some concerns about the constitutional principles relating to this amendment...I am concerned that the amendment simply talks about “consulting” the devolved Governments—particularly the Scottish Government, who have clear legislative authority—rather than “agreeing” with them a national landing requirement. I am interested in knowing the thinking on having a UK-wide national landing requirement imposed from the centre rather than agreed by consensus across the four nations”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 June 2020; Vol. 804, c. 270-71.]

I think that is code, from a former First Minister of Scotland, for, “It will never work.” So fishing devolved is fishing retained, and it does not end there. The right of foreign fleets to fish in Scottish waters will be determined more by the actions of the UK Government in entering into international agreements than it will be by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, as will be quotas and days at sea—or “fishing opportunities”, to use the jargon of the Bill. There is, in black and white, the preparation for the UK Government rendering our fishing communities subject to the CFP even after we have left the EU. Clause 24 allows the Secretary of State to determine the maximum quantity of seafish that may be caught by British fishing boats and the maximum number of days that they may spend at sea. That is qualified in subsection (2) as being exercisable in relation to satisfying

“an international obligation of the United Kingdom to determine the fishing opportunities of the United Kingdom.”

That is the CFP in a bilateral agreement. Again, the Secretary of State must consult, but does not have to reach agreement with the devolved Administrations. But those Administrations will be responsible for ensuring that the rules laid down by Whitehall are enforced—hardly a partnership of equals, is it?

In clause 38 more powers are reserved to Whitehall that would be more useful in the hands of the devolved Administrations, including provision about fisheries, aquaculture and other things, again sheltering under the umbrella of international obligations. There are powers to impose quotas, limit time at sea, mandate processing procedures, determine what gear can be used and how, decide how fisheries products can be marketed, impose regulations over landings, setting targets on marine stock and to monitor and enforce compliance with all those powers. That takes enforcement away from the devolved Administrations. Again, the requirement is only to consult, not to agree with the devolved Administrations.

[Mr Goodwill]

I am confused. If the hon. Lady had her way, she would give control back to Brussels, including Ministers from many countries that do not even have a fishing industry and have other fish to fry.

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[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

The waters around the UK are some of the richest fishing grounds in the world. I am sure the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell) will be pleased when I quote Nye Bevan, who famously said:

“This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish.”

It is not so well known that he went on to say:

“Only an organising genius”—

I think he used those words ironically—

“could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.”

Of course, Nye Bevan never knew about the common fisheries policy and the destructive effect that it could have.

The coal industry is being consigned to the history books, but our departure from the EU will open a whole ocean of opportunities for UK fishermen. While one could, during the European referendum debate, debate the pros and cons of EU membership for many sectors, such as agriculture, no sane person could argue that the common fisheries policy has not been an unmitigated disaster. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said that no one could see the benefits of Brexit for fishermen—well, no one apart from every single fisherman I have ever spoken to. It is amazing that the SNP, while talking of independence, wants to consign the control of our fish stocks to the European Union once again.

It is often said that Ted Heath sold out the British fishing industry. It is not quite as simple as that, because at the point that we joined the European Union, the interest of most of the fishing industry, including boats from Hull and Grimsby, was in Icelandic waters. It was only after the seventh cod war—I think the first one was in 1898, when the steam trawler was introduced—that the Icelandics increased their limit from 3 miles, ultimately to 200 miles. The relative stability calculations were based on a British fishing industry that was in those distant waters around Iceland and the Faroes, which is why we got a bad deal at the start.

The problem is that at the same time that we were catching cod and haddock—the two most commonly eaten fish here; you can have them in either breadcrumbs or batter, and that is basically what the British people eat in terms of fish—foreign vessels were catching all those other species that are often on menus abroad but rarely on menus in the UK, such as the John Dory, the megrim, the saithe and the ling. We have tried time and again to get British people to eat those species, but no British person seems to want to eat a fish that looks you in the eye while you are eating it. That is one of the problems. We lost a vital source of that fish from Iceland, and we still import most of the fish we eat and export most of the fish we catch. We now have the opportunity to increase our share of quota over time. Just as importantly, as the right hon. Member for Tynemouth said, we need to secure a trade deal, so that lobsters caught off Scarborough and Whitby can be exported free of tariffs or impediments to France, Spain and so on.

Many wish that we could impose a strict 200-mile limit from day one, like Iceland did, and exclude foreign vessels at the beginning. That is not realistic for a number of reasons. The need for agreement on trade is one. Some of the foreign skippers bought quota fair and square from British skippers, and we need to treat them fairly. Most important, fish stocks do not respect our 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Relative stability has been replaced by zonal attachment, so the UK will, like Norway already does, have to agree the sustainable catch for each quota species and then divvy up between the EU and the independent coastal states such as the UK. Our share needs to increase progressively, by negotiation. We have a great Minister to do that, and great officials, such as Nigel Gooding CBE, who understand the complexity of the zones and species very well.

The Bill also underpins the sustainability of our seas. I mentioned the advent of the steam trawler. As vessels become more powerful and technically more advanced, it has never been more important to limit fishing to sustainable levels. If, as a farmer, I sent all my sheep to market, I would not be surprised if there were no newborn lambs the following year. We must make sure that we get the export markets, as several Members have said. On that point, I hope the Minister will say something about the nomadic scallop fleet. It is an internal issue, but every year we get nomadic scallopers off the coast of Yorkshire, destroying our crab and lobster beds, smashing up the fish and, more important, often towing away whole fleets of pots, which cost thousands of pounds.

The Bill is an important element of taking back control. I hope it reaches the statute book quickly, unsullied by any Lords amendments.