Under-10-Metre Fishing Fleet: South-West

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. This debate has come at a timely moment, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) mentioned, with last Sunday being the first national fisheries memorial day. I was honoured to lay a wreath in Looe with my daughter in memory of my late husband, Neil Murray. I pay tribute to all the rescue services and the seafarers charities that provide so much support for this important industry in so many ways.

I also want to thank the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Sir Mark Spencer), for returning my call so quickly last Friday to listen to the concerns about the difficulties faced by the local Looe fleet in transporting its catch, given the closure of Plymouth Trawler Agents, where the landings have traditionally been sold. I hope that a resolution can be found by everyone working together with Looe Harbour Commissioners.

Although the news about Plymouth Trawler Agents has come as a surprise, I want to put on record my personal thanks to David and Alison Pessell, long-standing friends whom I have known for the past 40 years, since David’s vessel, the Tardis of the Yealm, was pair-trawling with our vessel, the Golden Dawn. Some 40 years later, both boats lie on the seabed; sadly, Neil is no longer with us. I sincerely hope that David and Alison enjoy a restful retirement, which they deserve after serving the industry in the south-west selflessly, both locally and nationally, for such a long time.

Given the limited time, I will turn to one thing that I think will secure a future for the under-10-metre fleet. As the former owner of an under-10-metre trawler, the Cygnus 33 Our Boy Andrew, I can honestly say that I know how vessel owners struggle to make a living. I can also confirm that our boat was part of our family and gave us a comfortable living, although I admit it could be stressful at times.

I met the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations yesterday. It agreed with me that there was one thing that could help the small vessels continue to provide us with a healthy source of protein, so I ask the Minister to consider that today.

On 30 December 2020, during the debate on the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill, I said:

“We must prepare ourselves for 2026. With the UK an independent coastal state, the Minister can take decisions to free us from a fisheries management regime that has been hampered by the constraints of the CFP. We can honour our obligations under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, but be flexible to ensure all UK fishermen can benefit from this partial freedom and take the necessary steps to ready ourselves when we—as we must—really take back complete control of our waters in 2026.”—[Official Report, 30 December 2020; Vol. 686, c. 558.]

Access to our six to 12-mile limit was agreed and set out in the London convention of 1966, which predates our membership of the European Union. Article 3 sets out:

“Within the belt between six and twelve miles measured from the baseline of the territorial sea, the right to fish shall be exercised only by the coastal State and by such other Contracting Parties, the fishing vessels of which have habitually fished in that belt between 1st January, 1953 and 31st December 1962.”

That specifically named the vessels in question, and I put it to the Minister that it is unlikely that any of these vessels are at sea or fishing today. The 2002 common fisheries policy review made access to the six to 12 mile-limit permanent, which changed the London convention; instead of access for specific vessels, access was given to the number of vessels from other member states.

Now that we are no longer subject to CFP legislation, it is time to revert to the terms of the 1966 London convention. The time has come to ensure that access to our six to 12-mile limit is reserved solely for UK-registered fishing vessels. Specific conservation rules in each area can be set by inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. When I put that to the NFFO on Monday, it agreed that this was the single most important protection that the Minister could provide to ensure a future for our under-10-metre inshore fleet. These vessels are the way that new blood enters this vital industry, and we must do everything we can to support them. I finish with a message to all fisherfolk throughout our nation: fair winds and following seas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Rees. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this debate, because the inshore small-scale fleets are vital not just to the fishermen and their families, who rely on them for household income, but, as we have heard, to the shore jobs that they sustain and the wider benefit that those iconic fleets deliver across their coastal communities. There is rightly a proud heritage of fishing at the heart of our coastal towns and villages, not just in the south-west but across the country. It is not unusual to meet fishermen who can trace their fishing families back many generations. I recently met one in Beer who can trace his family’s fishing roots back to the 1600s.

I should say at the outset that we are discussing under-10-metres, but I am mindful that that can seem an arbitrary definition that came into force long ago and perhaps does not properly recognise the differences between a 7-metre open-top boat that launches off a cobble beach and an under-10-metre twin-rig trawler or a 15-metre clinker-built wooden boat, with less power and catching efficiency than some under-10-metres. It is perhaps time to consider whether one size fits all.

These brave fishers who set sail in the smallest of our boats, risking their lives to bring us fish suppers, are in many cases having a really challenging time. The stress and anxiety around the coast are palpable, as we heard in many of today’s contributions. I, too, pay tribute to organisations such as the Seafarers’ Charity, the Fishermen’s Mission and the other charities that help to fund and support our small-scale fleets with mental health and financial support for households when families find themselves without a safety net and nowhere to turn. As we have heard, this debate is timely with the National Fishing Remembrance Day events held a few days ago.

It is indisputable that this sector has struggled in recent years, lurching from one crisis to the next, leaving these micro-businesses, often single-handed owner-operators, to try to piece together a living against a backdrop of, too often, knee-jerk fisheries management. Most recently, the pollock debacle has left so many of these vessels without fishing opportunities for part of the year and with a compensation scheme that, frankly, seems to many to have been rushed through without consultation, with many not receiving much-needed help. Although I understand that the 30% bar set for the scheme may sound reasonable, it does not take sufficient account of those small-scale fleets that earn modest incomes of £20,000 to £30,000 a year, and the hardship caused by losing 20% of their income, with no opportunities to replace it.

I hope the Minister will tell us who fed into that policy and why it was decided that these artisan fishermen would receive nothing. I and many others would be grateful if he could take another look at the scheme, to see what could be done to support those who so far have been forgotten. I will not say too much about the ministerial direction that was required to introduce this scheme, but it is, at best, unusual. I wonder whether the Minister could tell us, in his recollection, how often it has been needed.

I am also interested to hear the plan for managing the angling sector’s catch and retaining of pollock, as we have heard. Almost 12 months after the International Council for Exploration of the Seas published its advice on zero total allowable catch, why has there not been a consultation to consider whether legislation should be brought forward to track and limit recreational catches?

We know from the fascinating correspondence between the permanent secretary at DEFRA and the Secretary of State, to which I have already referred, that pollock has been in decline for many years. I ask the Minister: how many other stocks have been poorly managed and are at risk of big reductions and zero TACs? He may wish to say none but, if he does not, I suspect we can fear the worst. Pollock is just the latest problem demonstrating that the sector has been let down. The Brexit promise of protection to 12 miles was a pie-crust promise, easily made and broken, like so many others. We have had capping exercises that have had to be reversed, entitlement requirements that now seem challengeable, fisheries management plans being rolled out at eye-watering speed, with little understanding of why some stocks were chosen, and several failed starts of the inshore vessel monitoring system, with type approvals certifying items of kit—then suspending them, before subsequently being reinstated and removed—all after some fishers had followed Government guidance and rushed to install them. They have had to endure the CatchAPP, which they were told was fit for purpose when it was not. All of that comes against the backdrop of new codes issued by the Department for Transport, via the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I will not, I am afraid, given that I am very pressed for time.

It seems there was little consideration across Government as to the timing. On the issues raised about the Plymouth fish market, I welcome the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). Is it any wonder that fishers feel persecuted and left behind? Good fisheries management and enforcement is vital to healthy seas, stocks and food security. Frankly, there can be no doubt that, while this Government have heaped new burdens of epic proportions on this sector in the past few years, they have not delivered their side of the bargain: coherent and considered fisheries management of opportunities, so that families can earn a living and businesses can plan their future.

Finally, I urge the Minister to consider the way in which fisheries management plans and other workstreams have been developed. If he really wants to see more engagement from the sector—if he genuinely wants those people’s views and input—he needs to direct those conducting meetings not to hold them in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, thereby forcing fishermen to choose between losing sea time and earnings, and to consider the cumulative impact of having separate organisations running multiple consultations simultaneously. These are in the Minister’s gift to fix, so I would be grateful if he could commit to that. The under-10 fleet is critical to coastal communities. They are struggling, and more needs to be done to secure their future.