Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Amber Rudd

Monday 13th May 2019 Commons Chamber

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

T10. As has been mentioned, the proportion of self-employed people in South East Cornwall is higher than the national average, showing that my constituents have an entrepreneurial spirit. What is my right hon. Friend’s Department doing to support self-employed people in Cornwall and across the country to make their businesses an increasing success?

[Amber Rudd]

It is indeed interesting to hear of this success: the rate of self-employed people in Cornwall is 5.5 percentage points greater than the UK average. In Cornwall, jobcentres are working in partnership with the local authority and with Big Lottery funding to provide self-employment workshops. In addition, across the UK work coaches are trained to provide additional support to self-employed people. This includes the new enterprise allowance, with which mentors can support claimants to develop their business further.

Common Fisheries Policy

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Amber Rudd

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray]

One problem is that when fixed quota allocations were introduced there was no quota restriction for under-10 metre vessels. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food secured an agreement with the European Commission to estimate the catches of the under-10 metre fleet, and, sadly, they were grossly underestimated. A few years later, the registration of buyers and sellers was introduced. Sales notes had to be submitted to the European Commission for every fish landed, so the flaw in the estimates of the under-10 metre vessel catch was there for everybody to see.

[Amber Rudd]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems extraordinary that when the register of buyers and sellers was assessed and it became evident to everybody that there had been a huge mismatch in the numbers, something was not done to address it? Instead, our fishing industries were left with the damaging consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I am not really familiar with the context of fishing off the Faroe Islands, but I am sure that the Minister is and that he will throw some light on the issue.

I return, however, to the main issue I have with discards, which is that that they are, I believe, down to the quota system being allocated for particular fish stocks, rather than for what we actually have, which is mixed fisheries. In part, that is an indication that we have a major problem with the fishing industry. I am entirely sympathetic—I know that many other Members here are too, as are those on our Committee—when it comes to the difficult pass that the Minister has been given. He has to find a difficult balance between the different interests in the fishing industry.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem with a mixed fishery is that different sized nets are needed for different species of fish? Some fish, such as cephalopods—squid or octopus—grow a lot more quickly than other species. That is why we have such a big problem, and there is no simple solution.

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is well known for being incredibly knowledgeable about these issues, and she refers to one tool of the trade—changing the mesh size—that could be used to limit the quota and the type of fish stocks landed. She is also absolutely right in her final point. This is indeed a complicated issue, and there is no simple solution. Indeed, looking back on it, it seems that every time a Government or a Minister has tried to make a change for the better, the law of unintended consequences applies—we move a little bit this way and something happens on the other side. At the moment, the Minister is caught between trying to manage the divergent interests of the larger fishermen, in the POs, and those of the smaller fishing communities, in the under-10-metre fleet.