Recreational Sea Bass Fishing

Scott Mann Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that the recent EU restrictions on recreational sea bass fishing are unfair and fail to address the real threat to the future viability of UK sea bass stocks; and calls on the Government to make representations within the Council of the EU on the reconsideration of the imposition of those restrictions.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this very important debate. Let me place my cards firmly on the table: I am a recreational angler, and a very passionate one. I have cast from many a beach in Cornwall. I have fished with plugs and lures from rigid-hulled inflatable boats. I have regularly fished and ledgered on the Camel estuary and taken great pleasure in digging my own lugworms—big long trenches of lugworms—and ragworms. It is great to be on the coast looking out over Daymer bay and Padstow with the sun going down, the tide coming in and the lines dipping into the sea, waiting for that bite.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Am I right in thinking that my hon. Friend enjoys visiting The Art of Fishing in Wadebridge—one of the best tackle shops in the country, let alone Cornwall?

[Scott Mann]

That is a shameless plug, but it is a fantastic fishing shop, I have to say. The chap there has some very good fishing rods and tackle that can be purchased at very reasonable rates.

I have set the scene for my fishing expeditions on the Camel. However, the situation this year is very different from that in previous years. For the first six months of this year, if I, as a recreational angler, caught a bass that was of legal size, I would not be allowed to keep it—I would have return it to the estuary—yet a commercial fishing boat that was netting on the estuary would be able to claim that fish and take it for the table.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that he has to differentiate with regard to commercial fishing nets, because driftnet fishermen are banned from landing any bass whatsoever?

[Scott Mann]

I will come on to some of the different elements of the fishing industry when I talk about the Cornwall inshore fisheries and conservation authority.

I am here today not just to speak for myself as a recreational angler but to speak up for the 900,000 recreational sea anglers in the UK. There are many parts of the fishing industry, as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) pointed out. When I served on the Cornwall sea fisheries committee, we saw people with beam trawlers, people from the under-10-metre fleet, rod-and-line anglers, and many others who made a living out of fishing. There needs to be a properly managed inshore fleet so that we can have a sustainable future for our fishing industry.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

As another MP with a coastline, may I ask my hon. Friend to acknowledge that not only are some 10,400 jobs dependent on sea angling, but there is a whole lot of leisure industry business that supports sea anglers—accommodation and everything else—with sea bass fishing being, of course, the most popular form of sea angling? An enormous business worth over £1.2 billion, it is estimated, lies behind this.

[Scott Mann]

My hon. Friend makes an exceptionally good point, and I fully agree. I will go on to talk about some of the tourism benefits. We have seen some great uplifts in places such as Ireland and the USA, where there have been big recreational fisheries for a long time.

The crux of my argument is that it is grossly unfair to penalise rod-and-line anglers for the first six months of the year while commercial boats are allowed to operate in that period.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that there is a real need to have some data to support any action that is taken? Otherwise. it will be very difficult for us to work out a strategy as to what we should be doing.

[Scott Mann]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important to have data. The issue is that the data recently presented to the EU show that the bass fishery is in decline and needs to be managed effectively.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and on being so generous with his time. He mentioned Ireland. My understanding is that following the depletion of sea bass stocks in the ’60s and ’70s, Ireland banned commercial fishing and concentrated on the recreational side, which has expanded its tourism base. Despite the expansion and re-strengthening of the stock of sea bass, Ireland continues to ban commercial fishing.

[Scott Mann]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. I believe that Ireland relies solely on the recreational sector, but that has been of huge benefit to the tourism industry. In the spirit of the Opposition, I will read not from Jeff or Rosie but from Paul. Paul is a sea angler in north Cornwall who wrote to me:

“After enjoying free and unfettered access to the inshore bass fishery for countless generations, it is understandable that many anglers feel aggrieved that they are suddenly having the right to take fish for the table so severely limited that in effect for many it will equate to zero.

What is not in doubt is that bass stocks are in serious decline and most anglers agree that steps should be taken to…reverse this situation. Despite the assertion that the cause of the decline has little or nothing to do with angling pressure, most anglers are content to accept reasonable reductions in the number of fish they can retain. Hence the widespread, uncomplaining acceptance of the three fish ‘bag limit’ introduced for recreational sea anglers in September 2015.

However, within the RSA community it was naively believed that the commercial sector would have been asked to make similar reductions in catch effort. No such drastic reduction in commercial effort was achieved. At this stage, many RSAs were both angry and perplexed”—

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the current proposals ban pelagic midwater trawling and impose a 1% bycatch limit on all mixed fisheries, including for fishermen who fish commercially from my hon. Friend’s constituency?

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

I am aware of those regulations, but I am also aware that gillnetting and commercial fishing are still permitted in bass nursery areas.

Paul continued in his letter:

“The results of the negotiations are well known and in effect fall a long way short of the scientific recommendation…We call for an immediate review of the regulations in respect of the daily ‘bag limit’ for RSAs and a prompt correction of ill-judged legislation. It belies the intelligence of the EU commissioners not to recognise how illogical the rule is in its present form.”

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I want to make two points. First, the Commission has proposed the measures but does not decide on them. Those decisions are made by Ministers of national Governments, including our own fisheries Minister. Secondly, is the hon. Gentleman aware that last year, Labour MEPs, having received representations from recreational sea anglers, called for a multi-annual management plan for sea bass stocks that made specific reference to the importance of recreational fisheries, but UKIP and the Tories voted against it?

[Scott Mann]

I was not aware of that, and I thank the hon. Lady for making those points. I want to talk about some of the EU changes. I welcome the ban on French pair trawlers between January and April. They account for about a third of the bass taken in British waters, and many of the bass that they catch are spawning fish. Taking large spawning fish out of the ecosystem means there are no smaller fish to grow and become bigger fish. In the EU changes, we should be talking about reclaiming our territorial waters. The EU holds the common fisheries policy up as a shining example of joined-up thinking, but I am yet to find a commercial fisherman or a recreational sea angler who believes that the CFP is a good thing.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be drawn into intervening by the hon. Gentleman. May I draw his attention to a 3-inch piece in a right-hand column in The Times about six months ago—a tiny little thing—which reported that the long-running battle to replenish cod in the North sea was being won? Cod stocks are growing bigger, as we can read in the press again today. North sea cod has been replenished because instead of cod wars we have agreements based on science to replenish the stocks. Those agreements are working.

[Scott Mann]

I will try to check out that column in The Times. It is not my regular newspaper—I normally read The Telegraph and The Sun—but I will go back and check it. Such agreements may be fine in other waters, but we should have an understanding that our territorial waters inside the 6-mile limit should be protected for our fisheries and our people.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a splendid speech, which I know will be much supported by Christchurch fishermen. Does he agree that Iceland decided to take control of its own fisheries and that those fisheries are a fantastic success?

[Scott Mann]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I agree that many fisheries people feel that that is the case.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the huge decline in cod stocks was initially caused by the highly discredited common fisheries policy implemented by the European Union?

[Scott Mann]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I recently read a book about the Bering sea and the mass stocks that it used to have. No fishery can be managed properly unless it is looked after effectively. We used to see huge shoals and salmon and sea trout regularly running the Camel, but such stocks no longer materialise.

[Melanie Onn]

The hon. Gentleman is being incredibly generous in giving way. One of the very significant reasons for the depletion of stocks is the advancement of technology in trawlers. The fact that deep-sea trawlers can go further using technologically very advanced sonar is one of the principal courses of depletion, not the common fisheries policy, as has been erroneously suggested.

[Scott Mann]

If our fishing boats have to go outside the 6-mile limit to catch fish, that surely shows that the fish are not actually within that limit and that fish stocks have been depleted over the years.

Recreational sea anglers fully accept that fishery resources are finite and that there should be controls on their activities—minimum landing sizes, bag limits, seasonal closures—to protect this public resource from over-exploitation. The Council of Minister’s recent decision to prevent recreational fishers from taking any bass for the first six months of 2016, while sanctioning commercial fishing for bass for the first four months, is irrational. The decision is a symptom of a fisheries management regime that is broken and a common fisheries policy that is unfit for purpose. The EU has displayed utter contempt for our recreational sea anglers and those whose livelihoods depend on recreational sea angling.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Scott Mann]

I will give way one more time, and then I will make some progress.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does he agree that, as those of us with coastal constituencies know, there is real anger about this interference? Does he also agree that we need to send a message from this House that we want locally line-caught sea bass back on our menus?

[Scott Mann]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Locally caught sea bass has a premium price. It can be sold in local restaurants, and local businesses can make a profit from it.

I want to point out the madness of the current situation. Recreational sea anglers are members of the public who equip themselves with the tackle and knowledge necessary to access and enjoy public fishery resources. They selectively retain some fish for their own consumption, just as other members of the public enjoy Dartmoor, the New Forest or the Forest of Dean to forage for wild mushrooms, nuts and so on for their personal use. I believe that the EU is preventing our UK anglers from exercising their right—the right of our ancestors—to claim fish for the table, which is very wrong.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made an interesting point about tourism, something I want to comment on. The Invest in Fish project, which was funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was launched in 2004 and ran until 2007. It was a multi-stakeholder steering group that included fishermen, restaurants, fishing producers, merchants, recreational anglers and a number of other organisations. The objective was to examine ways in which fish stocks might be restored. In the south-west, it covered Bristol, Cornwall, Weymouth and Dorset.

The project involved numerous work packages, one of which was a study of the demographics and economic impacts of recreational sea angling. I will give some of the figures. The south-west has 240,000 recreational anglers, who cumulatively spend £110 million on their pursuit. In addition, some 750,000 days are spent at sea and the visitor spend is about £55 million. Recreational sea angling across the south-west therefore generates a total of £165 million of expenditure on bait, clothes, charter boats, boat ownership, fees, travel and accommodation.

Some places have recreational angling only, and I want to outline the benefits that that has brought. In the USA, the striped bass recreational fishery attracts anglers from all over the world and makes an estimated economic contribution to the country in excess of $2.5 billion. We must learn from the good practice in the USA and elsewhere, which delivers agreed resource sharing by species in line with fishery management advice, the best scientific evidence and economic objectives, as was said earlier.

There are jurisdictions in the British Isles, such as Ireland, that have fishery management policies that operate in favour of the most sustainable forms of bass fishing and the conservation of stocks. Bass has been a recreation-only species since the 1990s in Ireland, as was illustrated by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). That delivers an estimated €71 million to the Irish economy annually and supports 1,200 jobs. The Isle of Man is about to change the legislation covering sea bass to include a ban on all commercial bass fishing within 12 miles of the coast. Changes are happening around the world and we seem a bit slow to keep up.

Many of the fishing ports of north Cornwall used to be utilised regularly for fishing. In Padstow, back in the ’80s and ’90s, many people used to sit around rodding and lining off the pier. We do not tend to see that as much nowadays.

There are huge economic benefits to recreational angling. There are almost 900,000 recreational anglers in the UK and they pump £1.23 billion into the economy. There are almost 11,000 full-time jobs in sea angling alone. The “Sea Angling 2012” report found that the direct expenditure of sea anglers, after deductions, was £831 million. English anglers pay as much into the Treasury as the entire value of English fish landings, but receive no consideration in the reallocation of resources.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that we must consider not just the direct value of angling, but the wider impact on the economy? For example, those who come to Torbay for the sea angling will not only stay in a hotel, but buy a scone done in the correct way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point.

I will give two accounts from different parts of the sector before I wind up. The first is from a tour guide in the west country, who writes:

“About to start the new fishing season with a great deal of concern and trepidation for the future of recreational angling and how it may affect my business. Prior to the new rulings regarding Bass, I had a full diary for the year ahead, due to the uncertainty of our weather patterns in this country, this has proved to be an economic necessity as we lose so many days.

Now I find myself shielding daily emails from booked customers asking if the new rulings will apply to them, and would I consider turning a blind eye to the odd fish for the table as opposed to a cancellation!!!!”

I do not want anglers to be criminalised—that seems ridiculous. He continues:

“I consider myself as indeed are most of my customers to be conservation minded, but find these new rulings to be extremely harsh, especially when you consider that commercial fishing with rod and line and indeed netting will be allowed to continue within my ‘low pressure sector’. It is highly possible that I will be forcing anglers to return a fish right in front of a commercial line drifter”,

which could then keep the fish that has been returned. He went on:

“There is also the wider picture to consider, local cafes, tackle shops, bed and breakfasts”

and all the people who rely on that sector.

TV fisherman and bass guide Henry Gilbey—one of my personal favourite fishermen—stated:

“I am a full time fishing writer and photographer with a ridiculous obsession for bass fishing. I live within walking distance of the sea in south east Cornwall yet I spend more than two months each year in Ireland. Why? Because the bass fishing is better. I run guided bass fishing trips and I need as many photographs of bass fishing as I can get, and I would love to be promoting bass fishing in Cornwall. But I can’t. My local bass fishing isn’t good enough. The fact is that to access really good bass fishing I need to travel away from my home in Cornwall and help promote Ireland as a sport fishing destination. We could have bass fishing like they have in Ireland though…but we don’t. We need more and bigger bass for anglers to catch, and this can only come about via better management of the stocks. Bass are the king of our saltwater species and anglers want to catch them.”

They are simply being denied.

[Melanie Onn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Scott Mann]

I will not give way because I want to make progress.

To conclude I will quote from John Buchan who said:

“The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.”

I do not want to take that hope away from our recreational sea angling community, and I urge the Government to do a few things. First, will they review this decision and reverse the unnecessary catch-and-release policy for recreational sea anglers? Will DEFRA consider making a study of how much benefit rod-and-line angling produces for British tourism industries, and will it consider a complete ban of gillnetting in bass nursery areas? I look forward to hearing the views of other hon. Members, and I hope to sum up the debate at the end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to this exceptionally good debate. I am pleased that the 900,000 sea anglers have had their voices heard today, and that we have had the opportunity to express their concerns. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) made some interesting points about ecology, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) spoke eloquently about the benefits of coming out of the EU, and how we might be able to control our own inshore fishing fleet. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) always speaks eloquently about her inshore fleet, and I invite the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) to partake in a charter boat catch-and-release opportunity with Bass Go Deeper, a bass fishing company that works out of Cornwall.

What has come out of this debate is that we must follow the science, because without fish in the water there will be no recreational or commercial fishing. I thank the Minister for his response and for his idea of exploring how tourism could benefit from recreational angling. I urge him to consider the views expressed by hon. Members, as well as those of the angling community, and to fight as hard as he can in future weeks, months and years for the recreational angling community.

Question put and agreed to,

Resolved,

That this House believes that the recent EU restrictions on recreational sea bass fishing are unfair and fail to address the real threat to the future viability of UK sea bass stocks; and calls on the Government to make representations within the Council of the EU on the reconsideration of the imposition of those restrictions.

[Heidi Alexander]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During today’s oral statement on the junior doctor contract, the Secretary of State for Health said, “Along with other senior NHS leaders…Sir David has asked me to end the uncertainty for the service by proceeding with the introduction of a new contract”. The Health Service Journal has this afternoon contacted the 20 senior NHS leaders the Health Secretary referred to in his statement, and at least five have replied to say that they do not support his decision to impose a new contract. I am concerned that in making this claim the Health Secretary may have inadvertently misled the House. Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how best the Secretary of State can correct the record?