Fishing Industry

Robert Syms Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid]

I totally agree. I would like to say that my hon. Friend had the foresight of predicting something I was going to say in my comments, but I was not, so I am grateful that he brought that up, because he is correct.

We now have control over our own fisheries regulations and management systems. Of course, we cannot apply regulations on vessels coming into our waters that do not equally apply to our vessels, but that is fine; that is how agreements between independent coastal states operate.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

The fact that we will get our own waters back in a phased way may well be necessary, because we need more boats and we need to attract people into the industry. One of the weaknesses we have is that it is a hard life being a fisherman, and many people do not want to go into the industry.

[David Duguid]

Sadly, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. Fishing, like farming or going offshore and working on an oil rig, is not for everyone; it is a hard life and a hard job. In many ways, we need to have grown up around it or been born into it. It is a generational thing. I will come back to that point later in my remarks, if my hon. Friend can be patient.

While we were under the control of the common fisheries policy, decision making always felt distant and imposed on our fishing industry from afar. Fisheries management is now managed more locally, with fisheries management plans run by local management groups to provide a formal and regular forum for engagement between fishermen, policymakers, scientists and regulators, not just for the good and the prosperity of the industry but for sustainability as well.

I have welcomed the fact that funding has been maintained, with £37 million being provided to replace the European maritime and fisheries fund, about £16 million of which goes directly to the Scottish Government to spend on fisheries and maritime issues. The £100 million UK seafood fund, which has also been welcomed, has been split between the topics of science and innovation, infrastructure, skills and training, and promotion of exports, which is a key element.

Can the Minister tell us what plans there are to help fund domestic marketing? She may be aware of the issues faced by those catching and supplying small haddock, for example, which is not traditionally an export species. How can the Government help to either promote more haddock consumption across the UK or open up new export markets for that fantastic product? I would also be interested to know what discussions the Department has had with Seafish, which I am told made a commercial decision last year to no longer promote seafood in the UK, preferring to focus on those growing export markets. I think everyone here would agree on the merits of fish as a high-quality, high-protein source of food with a relatively low carbon footprint.

On the subject of exports, I acknowledge that not every seafood exporter was fully ready to deal with the new export systems when they came into place immediately after we left the EU. I should also stress that many exporters—usually those who were already accustomed to exporting outside the European economic area—were ready to go with those new systems. The border operating model had gone through a few revisions, but had been available since it was rolled out in July the previous year. Funding and support had also been provided to impacted industries to help them prepare for the inevitability of the new systems. That included funding to devolved Administrations: for example, some £180 million was provided to the Scottish Government, which sadly I do not think was adequately applied to help exporters in Scotland. I also do not think the SNP Scottish Government helped the preparedness of our seafood exporters. I respect the view of the SNP as a political party that it did not want to leave the EU, but leave the EU we did, and it was something that we had to be prepared for.

It is also fair to acknowledge that even those exporters who had done everything right, who were accustomed to exporting around the world and got their paperwork systems in place, sadly fell foul of some of those IT systems crashing through no fault of their own. As such, I ask the Minister what assessment her Department has made of those export systems, and what improvements—for example, digitalisation and other time-saving methods—remain to be implemented.

I will now move on to the subject of spatial squeeze.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Poole is the second largest natural harbour in the world and it has a long history of fishing, particularly in the north Atlantic. Indeed, the Dorset accent can sometimes be picked up in the Newfoundland accent, because so many people from Dorset ended up going to that part of Canada. We no longer fish that distance, but we still have a live fishing industry, mainly now in under 12 metre boats. There is a great opportunity for fishing, because of our coming out of the EU and being able to catch more catch. This does require investment and persuading people to go into what is a hard living if they are to make it a success.

I recently held a meeting, organised by Lyn Bourne, at the Poole fishermen’s dock. It was with a number of fishermen, including Mark Goulding, the skipper of Golden Girl PE1130. They were all a bit depressed, because they feel that we have come out of the EU and yet the various agencies are bringing in regulations that ought not to be applying to them. Those regulations are making their job more difficult and, in some cases, unviable. They expressed to me in clear terms that many of them feel, “The Government do not want us to continue fishing, otherwise why on earth would they be bringing in all these regulations?” I said that that is not true and that we want a vibrant and successful fishing industry. However, a number of things are landing on them that I do not think they particularly expected.

We ought to be doing all we can to keep people in the fishing industry, for reasons that many people in this debate have expressed. It is a potential growth industry and it is important, not least because of the “tail” created by fishermen, with all the other businesses fishing supports. It is easy to drive around Poole and see that the marine industry employs significantly more people in total than just fishermen, including those in various engineering and supply companies. So we want to do what we can to keep the industry going.

A number of points were made at that meeting. They have been raised in today’s debate, but I will repeat some of them. Those fishermen feel that the regulations are unfair and that they are being pushed out of their livelihood; the MCA vessel surveys and medicals are very much to the fore in this. The catch-up was mentioned a moment ago, and it requires solo fishermen, as many of these people are, to control their boat safely on the return to the harbour, while measuring catches and filling in things on smartphone apps, often with wet hands, on a rolling boat, in the dark. A further requirement is for all fishermen to have medical fitness assessments, five-yearly up to the age of 65 and then annually, which of course is an additional cost.

On the medicals, many on the inshore fishing fleet never go over the horizon, yet they are required to pass tests required of those on offshore large ships. Lifetime fishermen are being warned that they may lose their livelihood because of minor diabetes, colour blindness or weight. A doctor’s decision from a 30-minute consultation could leave them without an income and with no right of appeal. That is a concern to them. They also see that the MMO acknowledges that there ought to be grand- fathered rights but does not spell out what that means. So there is a degree of pessimism among many of the small fishermen in Poole about what is going on.

[David Duguid]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points, some of which have, as he admitted, been made already. He mentioned diabetes as one of the conditions that would stop somebody from going out fishing in a small boat. Does he agree with the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, Elspeth Macdonald, who asked, “How can a long-distance lorry driver drive down a motorway at 50 or 60 mph with those precise same conditions, yet someone with them could not go out on a small boat within 6 to 12 miles?”?

[Sir Robert Syms]

That is a good point; there is an element of gold-plating here. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who chairs the all-party group on fisheries, made some important points about how we seem to be trying to solve a problem where there is not really one. This is rather like the British disease where members of a club start getting excited when one starts talking about the rules. Ministers ought to be a bit more robust with the agencies on what we need to do for safety and what does not make much difference but just makes earning a living far more difficult.

The I-VMS situation does not sound very good. Initially, the MMO had four suppliers. Many of the fishermen in Poole fitted an I-VMS from one of the suppliers that were subsequently suspended and are now waiting to see what happens. The MMO has said that it will provide £650,000 of grant funding to replace working equipment, but it may be replacing it with something less suitable than had been fitted. The MMO has not yet confirmed the procedure to follow for those with systems installed by the two suppliers that have been suspended. This is creating more uncertainty, because those fishermen might well be disallowed from fishing.

We need not only more clarity, but a bit of common sense in order to help and support our local fishermen. There is a great opportunity here, but we do require people who have given their life to fishing to continue with it. I get a strong feeling from the fishermen in Poole that most of them will continue to do it largely because they feel their obligation to hand on their boat to a relative, be it their son, grandson or whoever, as there is a strong tradition of fishing in certain families. They will not be doing it because they think they will be making a lot of money. Most of them think that some of these regulations are making their life more difficult than it needs to be.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to raise these issues only a few days after meeting them in the House. I hope that the Government and indeed the fisheries Minister, who has had a bit of a kicking today, review some of these things, as they ought, so that we can get a successful fishing industry that the Government support, rather than bringing in regulations that get in the way.