Fishing Industry

Debate between Sheryll Murray and David Duguid

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid]

Yes—it was a manifesto commitment. [Interruption.] No, this gets raised time and again. When my MSP colleagues raise it in Holyrood, SNP Members shout about how the UK Government are doing it and it was in the Conservative manifesto, but there are some major differences. At the moment, the UK Government are proposing 0.53% of English waters to be covered by HPMAs, while the Scottish Government are looking for 10%, which is 20 times as much. Not only that, but the Scottish Government only have the power to implement those HPMAs within the 12-mile nautical zone, so fishing could in effect be banned in a huge area of our fishing waters. Again, I go back to the points, made not just by me but by those in the industry, about how the policy lacks a scientific rationale and is just being pushed through for ideological reasons. I appreciate that the Scottish Government are due to make a statement in the next hour or so on their response to the consultation, and I eagerly look forward to hearing it.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the way the Scottish Government are dealing with this will have a disproportionate adverse effect on small vessels, because they are unable to migrate to other areas?

[David Duguid]

My hon. Friend, as always, makes an absolutely valid point. There are all different sizes of operations, as I said earlier, and if one area is closed off to one particular group of fishermen in one community, it is much more difficult for smaller-scale fishermen in smaller boats to migrate to somewhere else to catch fish.

Another challenge faced by the sector is access to labour, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) mentioned. I know the Minister will be aware of this, but I reiterate that the catching sector is keen to work with the Government on it. For example, it welcomed the addition of offshore deck crew to the skilled worker immigration route in April 2021 and, more recently, the addition of fishing crew to the shortage occupation list.

One remaining stumbling block, however, is the standard of the written English test. The industry can find plenty of skilled workers who meet the requirements of the immigration system, but sadly not in the numbers required with the ability to meet the B1 English language test. I am already in discussions with the Home Office on this, as are other right hon. and hon. Members, with a request to reduce the English language standard—specifically for those fishermen who come in and out of the country on a rotational basis, with no desire to settle—from B1 to A2, which the industry believes is a far more appropriate level for the requirements of that job. I guess the question for the Minister is: can she help emphasise and reinforce this need with the Immigration Minister?

In the processing sector, the needs are different. Again, I have already engaged with the Home Office, asking that the facilitative support that the Home Secretary has offered to the catching sector is extended to the processing sector, and that the seasonal agricultural workers scheme is extended to include onshore seafood processing jobs of a seasonal nature. Unlike the tens of thousands of SAWS visas that have already been announced for agriculture, horticulture and some other food processing sectors, the seafood processing sector is only looking for a few hundred, or a couple of thousand at most. The ultimate aim is of course to use as many local workers as possible, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole has pointed out, this is a generational issue, and it will take time to build enthusiasm in our local communities for people to get into the fishing industry again.

I will bring my comments to an end. I was going to say something about the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s plans to introduce medical certificates, but when I look around, I see at least three hon. Members who will make more of that point than I can. If I can make one last request of the Minister, will she meet me and arrange to meet stakeholders from the Banff and Buchan fishery sector to work through some of these issues? She would, of course, be welcome in my constituency at any time.

UK Fishing Industry

Debate between Sheryll Murray and David Duguid

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree with and respect the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has specifically been used by various people in the main Chamber as a way of backing up their point, and has thus been misquoted. I felt it was right to put on record that what has been attributed to it in the past was not the full story.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. We both talk a lot to Bertie Armstrong—I spoke to him on Monday. In the quote she repeated, she is absolutely correct about what Bertie Armstrong and other members of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation have said: nobody is taking anything for granted, and we must continue to fight our case in future negotiations. Bertie Armstrong and others have come out in support of the withdrawal agreement, but only in as much as it gets us to that next phase. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mrs Murray]

I do not accept that. Having spoken to him myself, I know he has not said that he respects the withdrawal agreement completely. That is why I wanted to put on record that what we are hearing in the main Chamber is not the whole statement.

I do not want to focus on subjects that we can discuss in other debates, so I want to address the Council of Ministers, which is due to meet later next week—the Minister might correct me on that. We need to realise that this is a very significant Council of Ministers meeting, because it is the last time our Fisheries Minister will actually have a voice at the table. Even if there is an implementation period, although he will attend future meetings, he will not have a voice. It is extremely important that we all realise that.

Secondly, from 1 January next year, the landing obligation comes into force. There are conflicting regulations as far as that is concerned, because it opens up the whole question of choke species. In recent weeks, bass, which is not really subject to quota, but is subject to a bycatch limit, has affected the small boats in south-east Cornwall, many of which fish from the constituency of my friend, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). Because of EU regulations, these fishermen have to discard bass—a very high value fish—at sea, where it does not survive. That goes completely against the grain of sustainability and conservation. Once we take back control of our waters, the Minister will have the flexibility to make changes to UK legislation so that the rules fit what fishermen are actually catching.

Fisheries Bill

Debate between Sheryll Murray and David Duguid

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

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

First, I want to thank the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for her tribute to the bereaved families of fishermen, and I also want to put on record my grateful thanks to the Secretary of State. My family would also like me to say thank you. I would also like to pay tribute to the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and to the rescue services who go out in all weathers to ensure that our fishermen are safe.

The Bill provides the legal framework for the UK to operate under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea after we have left the European Union on 29 March 2019, something that my late husband and I worked towards since the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, it is important to look at the wider matter of the terms of our exit from the European Union and at the political declaration that the Prime Minister is in Brussels talking about now. I know that the terms will be a cause of concern for many of my constituents and for the fishing industry throughout the UK.

It is no secret that many people feel that the UK’s rich fishing resources were sacrificed when we joined the European Economic Community. Agreeing to the principle of equal access to a common resource—the total EU pond—at the time was in my opinion a dereliction of duty by the then Conservative Government, and I would like personally to apologise, even though I was not a Member of this House in 1972. Indeed, I was not even old enough to vote. It was a dereliction of duty, and the disastrous permanent share-out of the catch for each species in UK waters from January 1983 has left the UK fishing industry a shadow of its former self. An example is that of channel cod, of which the UK is permitted to catch 9% a year while France takes about 80%. We now face a situation in which other EU vessels take five times more in monetary value from the UK exclusive economic zone than UK vessels take from all the other EU EEZs. I have to say to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that the massive value of that fish could benefit the economy of the United Kingdom, but at the moment it is just being given away, with other member states coming in, catching and taking away. There is no benefit to us in that arrangement.

On the morning of 14 November, it was reported that Sabine Weyand—Michel Barnier’s deputy who leads the EU’s negotiations at a technical level—said that the UK would be forced to concede on fisheries as part of the withdrawal agreement, meaning that Britain would have to

“swallow a link between access to products and fisheries in future agreements”.

The French are leading a group of other member states in demanding a link between access to waters and a trade deal. Lots of reports have shown this, but we must not accept such a link. That would be a complete repeat of what happened in 1971 when the UK Government caved in at the last minute and allowed equal access to a common resource.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I should like to associate myself with my hon. Friend’s comments in paying tribute to the various associations and organisations that support our fishermen. Does she agree that there is no precedent anywhere for access to a third country’s natural resources forming part of a trade agreement?

[Mrs Murray]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. In relation to Norway and the EU, access to resources is negotiated on an annual basis and Norway has tariffs attached to its fish. There is no link there, and it is completely wrong for people to say otherwise.

I see that my Cornish colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), is in his place. I was going to ask the Secretary of State this question, but I shall ask my hon. Friend instead. Will he please ask the Secretary of State to categorically reaffirm that British fish will not be used to buy a trade deal with the EU? Will he also ensure that only the fish that United Kingdom vessels—I do mean United Kingdom vessels, because Scottish vessels will benefit from this as well, as will those from Wales and Northern Ireland—cannot catch will be made available to other nations? Can he also assure me that, because the catch levels of the UK fleet have been artificially deflated since 1983, allowance will be made for UK fishermen to realise their total catching capacity?

The NFFO would like the Government to establish a formal advisory council to guide policy, promote collaboration between central Government, the devolved Administrations and the industry, and allow an ongoing dialogue in what is a naturally variable industry. An advisory council could play a leading role in the use of secondary legislation to ensure an agile and responsive approach to fisheries management.

It is understandable that the Bill refers to maximum sustainable yield as an approach to sustainable fisheries management. However, if maximum sustainable yield is set as a rigid, time-bound objective, it will prove unworkable. We have seen that happen time and again, and the CFP is the prime example. Setting quotas for sustainable fisheries management in mixed fisheries must take into account a number of different, and sometimes competing, factors. In an earlier intervention, I mentioned zonal attachment, which is an important new way of looking at fisheries management and the assessment of stocks.

Where agreement between fisheries administrations cannot be reached, some sort of approach is needed that allows appeal. It would be useful if the Minister considered putting in place a dispute resolution system that would not impact on fisheries.

I have a few asks for the Minister. Will he look at clause 42, particularly subsections (3) and (5). We need a date for when the provisions come into force, because the fishing industry needs to be able to plan. It has accepted that the implementation period will not end until 31 December 2020, but it would be reassured if we inserted the words “no later than 31 December 2020” into those two subsections.

To sum up, setting aside the complex and controversial questions surrounding parliamentary approval for the withdrawal agreement, much still hinges on the negotiations ahead. The UK’s legal status has altered and its leverage in fisheries negotiations has changed dramatically, but unless that new status is used to address the distortions in quota shares, fishermen will question what it has all been for. English fishermen in the channel have struggled with a 9% share of the cod quota, compared with France’s 84% share—it has been exactly the same for haddock, which my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) mentioned.

To deliver the fair share of fishing opportunities that they rightly see as theirs, British fishermen, in this second round, will expect our negotiators to be as tough, astute and hard-nosed as they need to be to realise the benefits of our new status as an independent coastal state. I really hope that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have got that message from fishermen today.