UK Fisheries Policy

Scott Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered future UK fisheries policy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.

I am sure right hon. and hon. Members know that the demise of our fishing industry under European Union membership was frequently discussed in the lead-up to the referendum in June 2016. Leaving the EU is a huge opportunity for UK fishing and for our fishermen, who need a positive vision of what can be achieved as a wholly sovereign nation. As we continue to debate and discuss what types of agreements and frameworks we should put in place for access to trade, we should not forget one of the easiest wins we can have from this whole process: taking back control of our fishing waters and handing them back to UK fishermen.

I commend the Minister, who gave great support to farmers and fishermen leading up to the referendum and continues to show diligent support to the fishing and farming communities. It is great to see the environment leading the way in Parliament and in the media, and I know the Minister will be fighting the corner for farmers and fishermen over at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, alongside the Secretary of State. I also know that he is currently working toward a new fisheries policy to be published in the next few months, and I hope that the contributions from right hon. and hon. Members today will help to shape that debate.

Brexit and fisheries in general should be considered in two phases: the implementation period and the end state. I will put on record my concerns about how an implementation or transition period could harm fishermen if not done correctly. Ideally, at 11 pm on 29 March 2019, we need to have absolute and 100% control of our fisheries, without it being part of any implementation or transition deal. If not, we could lock ourselves into future EU treaties and regulations, including the discard ban, which could see many of the boats that currently work in the UK going bankrupt.

One of the hardest things to see, as a member of the public, is dead fish being thrown back into the ocean due to a dysfunctional and rigid EU quota-based system. The discard ban could have huge ramifications for our fisheries. If, however, the Government enter into a transitional or implementation period that includes fisheries, there must be a clear and final termination clause so that the UK fishing fleet is not part of any EU treaty or regulation. We cannot be in a situation where we leave the EU for a few seconds and then join through the back door. I urge the Minister to stress those points to the Department for Exiting the European Union to ensure that fisheries are protected and treated separately.

On future fisheries policy, we need a system that no longer means our fishermen throwing tonnes of fish back into our oceans and our fishing fleet restricted by arbitrary quotas. We need a system based on sound science, and one which effectively monitors how many fish are being caught.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that any future fisheries policy must have buy-in from experts who work in the industry? Even I would not dictate to fishermen how the stocks should be managed. The fishermen themselves know best, and they should have input into a management system.

[Scott Mann]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am sure she agrees that we need to look at the science, Government legislation and the industry. A holistic approach must be taken to ensure that our fishing industry is protected.

As I said, we need a system based on sound science, and one that effectively monitors how many fish are being caught, where they are being caught and what is being caught, so we can get an up-to-date and clear picture of the state of the current fishery and the health of the fish stocks within it. Throwing fish back into the sea gives distorted information and it is not good for conservation or for public perception. Only by landing everything we catch can we properly monitor our fisheries and implement appropriate fisheries measures to preserve stocks.

I know the Minister is aware of the work currently being undertaken by Fishing for Leave, the organisation that has set up a new fisheries model. I have met with the group recently, and it has shown me its proposals for an effort control system and a hybrid system. The organisation has modelled it, and it shows the principles of a time-at-sea model and a quota-based system. I will briefly explain what that means.

A time-at-sea model is already in place in places such as the Faroe Islands, but I do not believe we should look to replicate that exact model because a time-at-sea model generally allows for a race to the fish. Vessels therefore target the most valuable species closer to shore. Under Fishing for Leave’s proposals, we could have a system whereby fishermen were allocated an amount of net soak time over the course of a year and would be allowed a flexible catch composition quota target, which would stipulate how many of a specific species they should aim to catch as a percentage of their overall catch.

The clever part of that model is that the skipper, if he exceeds his catch limit, will have time at sea reduced equivalent to the value of the wrong species being caught. It is almost a reverse compensation measure—the skipper will not want to lose much time at sea, so it will be an incentive for him to go out and catch the species he wants to target. If after a couple of days at sea the skipper has exhausted his weekly allocation of hours used as time to compensate for that particular species, he will be on shore and losing time, and less fishing effort will be exerted on the overall fishery. That means that he will be able to land a nice, profitable catch of fish, spend more time at home with his family and to incur lower diesel and fuel costs at sea, and that the scientists will have lots of reliable data on which to base their information.

Under the current quota system, a boat could be out to sea for a number of days, trying to target a specific species and throwing away many dead fish of the wrong species. Further to that, under the proposed EU discard ban, a vessel would have to tie up after it exhausted the smallest quota number. Seafish modelling has shown that 60% of the UK’s fishing fleet would go bankrupt if we continued to enforce quotas while also enforcing a discard ban.

The Fishing for Leave model avoids the need for a discard ban and the risks that that would pose to fishermen. It also proposes countermeasures to ensure that some species are protected. By landing everything that is caught and monitoring where the boat is, we can harvest live data and know what is being caught and where. That will allow fishing authorities to determine accurately which species they need to protect or which areas need to be closed. When a boat goes to sea, it will have not only allocations of time and flexible catch composition quotas with catch limit sizes, but live data streaming telling it where it can fish, which species can be targeted and which authorities are responsible for developing those targets.

Of course, to make a time-at-sea model work, there must be a level playing field so that fishermen are measured by how long their nets are in the water. Within the model, that is known as net soak time. I know my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) introduced a days-at-sea model when it was trialled previously. I believe that that model was flawed because it did not include the net soak time data, so we were not able to see that boats were targeting species close to the shore rather than those species they were supposed to be going for.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is not one of the big wins from this excellent scheme that we will not only land and eat more fish and have more output, but catch far fewer fish? That is great for the fish as well as for the fishermen and the fish-eaters.

[Scott Mann]

I will come on to that point as I get through the rest of my speech—my right hon. Friend has pre-empted one of my thought processes.

Not only will boats not overfish inshore, as has happened in the Faroe Islands, but it will also bring another significant point to fruition: the days-at-sea proposal tended to lead to the targeting of fish within estuaries. We have seen significant pressure on our estuarine species. There is a much wider point here about estuaries and the ecosystems that exist within them.

I congratulate the Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority on implementing a netting ban in a protected area in Cornwall to try to protect some of the species there. People target fish inshore because they face so much competition for the fish in the offshore reaches—they may not have negotiated as much of a quota as they think they are entitled to.

Under the time-at-sea model, all nets would have net soak time sensors, which would measure how long nets are in the water. As soon as the nets are deployed, the sensor would kick in and an on-board computer would start measuring how long the net is in the water for. That would allow fishermen to travel to their desired location without having their time deducted. I understand that the Secretary of State saw that technology on a recent visit to North Shields. When a haul is brought back on board, the crew can record every fish that is caught, and provide live accurate data for the authorities to calculate what the fishery looks like, creating a picture of stock sizes, species, maturity and sustainable yield.

Currently, under the common fisheries policy, thousands of tonnes of fish are thrown back into the water. That means wasted time, effort and cost for crews, millions of dead fish not being put to market, and less data for scientists and authorities. If we implement the model, I believe it can only be good for our fishery. Fishermen would hit the targets that they need to be viable, because they will be able to land everything they have caught. Meanwhile, the total number of fish being caught would be lower, because we would not be in a situation in which millions of fish are caught, killed and thrown back as fishermen pursue species for which they have not hit their quota.

I want us to conserve stocks and maintain a healthy and diverse fishery. This hybrid model can achieve that. I urge the Minister and his officials to meet Fishing for Leave to look at its model and the website it has built, which shows the process of how a fisherman can record catches and work within the current system. That said, it should not be the only fisheries management tool we should be look at—we should look at different models that could be appropriate to determine what is in Britain’s best interests as we fish our own waters again. Further to that, I urge the Minister to consider holding trials so he can pit all the models against each other. That would give a much better picture of the models, and we could see which was preferred and how it needed to be adapted to meet our needs.

That leads me on to how we can revitalise our fishing industry. This is a much wider point. As we travel around the UK, we see many former fishing communities, and we see at first hand the damage done by the common fisheries policy. I believe that the UK economy has been unbalanced for years. Globalisation has benefited urban areas, but that wealth rarely trickled down to rural coastal communities. That disparity was highlighted by the referendum result, but we now have an opportunity to rebalance UK plc. Through an effective fisheries policy, we can create jobs, increase productivity in coastal communities and bring life back to some of the coastal towns that have suffered.

It is also important that we consider the effects of post-Brexit trade deals on our fishing industry. At the moment, up to 60% of the fish caught in UK waters are exported to EU countries and further afield. I should imagine that the Department for Exiting the European Union and the Department for International Trade, which will oversee the future terms of our trade in fish, will look at this important policy and take into account how the industry exports.

It is right that we have a period of time and a policy in place that accommodates foreign boats in British waters and, likewise, British boats in European waters. In the spirit of co-operation with Europe, we should not want to shut the door on them immediately, but we should reach some sort of agreement where all our catches are landed through the UK.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the Department starts to plan now for the fisheries protection part of the regaining of our waters, and creates that level of support and robustness in future, so that fishermen can have confidence that the UK will be able to support the final position?

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

I absolutely agree on enforcement. I am sure the Minister listened to that and will respond in his own way. I understand that we have not been particularly good at enforcing our own fishery. Our fishermen need that confidence to move forward.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

On that point, some very large trawlers make their way into the Irish sea. They start at the very southern tip of the Irish sea and work their way right up. They are not necessarily from Great Britain—I am talking about the Spanish trawlers that come in and lift everything out of the sea in that area, leaving absolutely nothing after they have left. They can trawl right up to the beaches. We need protection zones within this policy.

[Scott Mann]

I absolutely agree with that, too. The hon. Gentleman very well sums up the conversations that I have with my fishermen, who also feel the pressure from foreign boats off the 12-mile zone.

It is important to me that, when Britain takes control of its waters, it sets its own terms of access. We want our fishermen to be confident that, in post-Brexit Britain, we will have control of our territorial waters and that we will be able to export our fish to European countries and further afield without tariffs. If we leave the EU without a trade deal and are under World Trade Organisation rules, the tariffs for exporting seafood to the EU generally range from 0% to 24%. Both fresh cod and prawns currently attract a 12% tariff. For European economic area countries such as Norway, cod has a zero tariff, while prawns have a 12% tariff.

If we get a free trade deal, tariff barriers will not be a problem. I would certainly welcome that. On the other hand, we may face a situation in which the EU will settle for zero tariffs only if we give it some access to British waters. That question will need to be considered very carefully by the Minister and the fishing industry in general.

There is a disparity between the amount of fish we import and the amount we export. We currently export a staggering amount of fish and shellfish that could perfectly well be eaten within the UK. Approximately 52% of the seafood that enters the UK supply chain is imported from abroad or is landed by foreign boats. For example, nearly all spider crabs caught off the Cornish coastline are currently exported to Europe, with fishermen exporting 98% of all the crabs we catch. I want to know what is wrong with those crabs. Brown crabs are a fantastic species to eat, and we should celebrate the spider crab, which is a fantastic-tasting species—many restaurants in France regularly serve spider crabs. Likewise, we catch a fantastic collection of cuttlefish that is also exported. We must continue to import and export to serve demand from Europe, but there is certainly a case to be made for more British-caught produce.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Has the hon. Gentleman considered the problem of non-tariff barriers? I sit on the Exiting the European Union Committee. We were in Brussels last week, and the Norwegian ambassador was very keen to impress upon us that one main reason why Norway is in the single market is to avoid non-tariff barriers on its fish exports.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

I take that point. Tariffs need to be looked at within the context of our Brexit policies right across the board, rather than just for fishing or agriculture.

If it is ultimately the case that the EU imposes tariffs on our seafood, there is an argument for Britain to become much more self-sustaining. We need to broaden our range and knowledge of seafood and encourage its consumption. I therefore urge the Minister to consider drawing up a strategy, either within a future fisheries policy or a separate policy, on how to encourage more British people to embrace seafood and try the different ranges of fish and shellfish that are caught on their doorstep.

The Minister is aware of the practice of electric pulse fishing, which is undertaken by Dutch trawlers. Given the likely negative impact that it is having on our fishery and our ecosystem, will he assure me that, under a future British fisheries policy, electric pulse fishing will be completely banned?

Taking back control of our fisheries was a huge issue during the referendum, but it has since taken a back seat. I hope we can put it back in the spotlight. The 29 March 2019 deadline is fast approaching, and we need a system that is ready to go. We need to be out of the common fisheries policy and out from under the auspices of the EU.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent speech. One issue that the fishing community are very concerned about is the continued use of European boats in our waters if it is not made absolutely clear when we leave that we have our fishing waters back. I believe there is a continued-use element whereby they could claim that they were still allowed to fish here. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister could inform us, or perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) knows, how far that part of the negotiations has got and how clear it is that when we leave, we get our fishing waters back.

[Scott Mann]

My understanding is that, once we leave, we fall back on the UN convention on the law of the sea, which means that we control our 200-mile territorial zone, but I would refer that question to the Minister to be answered in full. As we leave the common fisheries policy and the auspices of the EU, we should have 100% control of our waters, with our own fishing system in place that better serves our fishermen and is fairer to our fishery.

[Several hon. Members rose—]