Fishing Industry

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

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

I apologise for the fact that I shall not be present for the wind-ups owing to commitments relating to other Government business. It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), and I should like to thank fellow members of the all-party parliamentary fisheries group for joining me and helping to secure today’s debate through the Backbench Business Committee. I should like to welcome my Cornish neighbour, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), to his first annual fisheries debate as the Minister responsible for this industry, which is very close to my heart, as the House knows. I pay special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and thank him on behalf of the industry for representing it so well over recent years as a shadow Minister and a Minister.

As is traditional, I should like to thank members of all the seafarers charities who provide so much support for our fishermen. In particular, I should like to mention the Fishermen’s Mission and to single out one very special person who has volunteered for the charity over the past few years. He is Ian Murray, the brother of my late husband. I should also like to offer my condolences to all the bereaved families of fishermen and to make a special mention of the Fishwives Choir, which consists of fishermen’s widows who came together to record the song “When the boat comes in/Eternal father”. Hon. Members can download the song from the Fishermen’s Mission website; it would make an excellent Christmas present.

After years of being virtually ignored by the last Government, the fishing industry now has a Government who represent its interests. I want to look at a couple of the things that were achieved during the common fisheries policy negotiations. The discard ban has been a long time coming. I remember protesting in Plymouth city centre many years ago, along with fishermen who were discarding their over-quota plaice in the middle of the road to demonstrate that wasteful practice to the public. The Minister must ensure that this move is accompanied not only by the available quota, which many Members have called for, but by all the available technical measures to allow the small fish to escape before capture. Neil and other Looe fishermen inserted square mesh panels in their trawls many years ago to try to ensure that only marketable-sized fish reached their decks. Looe was a leading port in that initiative.

The Minister must also ensure that in mixed fisheries, particularly in Cornwall, the correct quota balance is available to allow fishermen to earn a consistent living. Many fishermen only have small boats, and do not have the luxury of large modern vessels like the Lunar Bow. I joined the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan and many others on a visit to that ship a couple of years ago. It can earn a living by going to sea for just six to eight weeks a year. Most British fishermen do not have that luxury.

I want to turn now to decentralised decision making, and allowing member states to agree locally the measures appropriate to their fisheries. That is a first-class proposal. As Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation mentioned in his briefing, this has not been put in place before because of a systemic defect—namely, the fact that “exclusive competence” for preservation of marine biological resource rests with the EU. Without a treaty change, it is not possible to devolve that responsibility, which we all believe involves control.

Finally, I would like to move on to the six to 12-mile limit derogation. My fellow Cornish coalition partner, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), has mentioned the fact that the derogation was due to end on 1 January 2013. I raised this matter last year, and I am raising it again today. This matter is still up for negotiation as a result of the extension put in place by the European Commission. Had there been no extension, there could have been a repetition of the Kent Kirk incident.

Let me explain to hon. Members what that incident involved. Kent Kirk is a Danish Member of the European Parliament. Before that, when he was the Danish fisheries Minister, he shot his nets within the British 12-mile limit during the 13 days when that limit was not in place, between 1 January 1983 and the date later in January when the agreement came into force. He went to the European Court of Justice because the British authorities excluded him from those waters, and the Court ruled that the waters within our 12-mile limit were in fact EU waters.

I call on our Minister—as I did last year—to negotiate the six to 12-mile limits in the spirit of the original London convention agreement of 1969. According to the spirit of the agreement, access to the 12-mile limit for other nationals with historical rights was always intended to be temporary. Forty years on, we need to see an end to other nations’ access, because those vessels are probably no longer fishing. That six to 12-mile limit should now be exclusively for British fishermen.

Finally, I would like to put it on record that when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister enters into the next renegotiation of powers to be returned to the sovereignty of this House, the restoration of national control over our 200-mile/median line limit, as described in the Fishery Limits Act 1976, should be at the top of his list. I am pleased that, over the years, this proposal has also had the support of Labour Members. Although he is not present today, I would like to applaud the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who has been campaigning for that change for longer than I have—and I have been doing so for almost 30 years.

I would like to remind my hon. Friend the Minister that fishermen all over the country, especially in Cornwall and Devon, have been listening to the words of our coalition colleagues who have tried to dress up regionalisation as national control for far too long. That argument simply does not wash any longer. Nothing short of the Conservative manifesto commitment of 2005 is acceptable to me or to the industry that I love so much. It is time for action. In the short term, we need exclusivity for British fishermen over our territorial waters out to 12 miles. In the long term, we need national control over our 200-mile/median line limit.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—