Fisheries Policy

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Iain Wright

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall, and to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is always an assiduous attender of these debates and takes his parliamentary duties extremely seriously. I thank the Backbench Business Committee, and I particularly thank the hon. Members for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie) for securing an important debate that I think should be taking place on the Floor of the House.

I have tried to attend fisheries debates every year since I became a Member of the House and have tried to represent the interests of the fishermen in Hartlepool. The fishing industry in my constituency is perhaps not a staple part of the local economy as it is in other constituencies, but the key point is that generations of Hartlepool families, going back at least 800 years, have carved out a hard living in the dangerous and often unforgiving North sea. Bluntly, I find it very difficult to understand the conditions in which these brave men and, often, women serve: wet, cold, often dark, treacherous, freezing and far too often fatal.

[Mr David Crausby in the Chair]

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

Before I give way to the hon. Lady, I pay tribute to her. Her professionalism and her knowledge of the industry shine through in everything that she says in the House, and her personal experience moves everyone in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Murray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those comments. Will he acknowledge that a commercial fisherman often also has to be an accountant, an engineer, a mathematician, a fisheries scientist and a gear mender? There are masses of qualities and areas of expertise that these hard-working fishermen need before they go to sea.

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. With regard to the point about being an accountant, I should declare my interest: I am a chartered accountant. If any fishermen want my services, I will be more than happy to provide them for a reasonable fee. But there is an important point, which is that fishing is a dangerous profession. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) made an important point about a service that happens in North Shields. The same service happens annually in my own constituency, organised by the Mission to Seafarers for the Tees and Hartlepool, whose headquarters are on Seal Sands Road. There is a nice connection there, because it is a delight to be able to say that it is in the constituency of my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham). It is a delight to see him serving on the Front Bench in this debate.

As I said, in my time in the House I have tried to reflect the concerns and issues of Hartlepool fishermen. The fishing fleet in my constituency consists predominantly, if not exclusively, of under-10 metre boats. The fishermen have expressed the same issues to me year in, year out, and I have raised them in these fisheries debates year in, year out. They have struggled with persistent problems: the quotas for under-10 metre boats and how those quotas are being squeezed by the bigger boats; unlicensed fishing; discards; and how to ensure that there is sustainable stock that allows for the maximum yield. However, what is really frustrating is that the issues that I raised in these debates on behalf of Hartlepool fishermen a decade ago remain concerns that threaten the livelihoods of people in my constituency today, such as Phil and Marty Walsh. Those problems pose—I am not being melodramatic—an existential threat to the Hartlepool and UK fishing industry.

I want to put some figures on that—perhaps I am comfortable about doing that, being a chartered accountant. People might think that an awful lot of money is involved, but in 2014, according to figures from the Marine Management Organisation, under-10 metre boats in Hartlepool landed fish with a value of just over £69,000. That is spread over a number of boats—a number of small businesses—in my constituency, so it is clear that the fishermen are hardly getting fat on the proceeds of their trade. It is a harsh climate—often literally, but also financially. The fishermen have to pay fixed costs such as insurance, without any guarantee of whether conditions will allow them to go out to fish. That is coupled with the fact that the revenue arising from their endeavours is low and often precarious.

I have raised the matter repeatedly in the House, and other hon. Members have done so far more eloquently than I can. The quota system is unfair—it favours large producer organisations at the expense of smaller boats. The quota allocations for 2015 show that although the under-10 metre fleet makes up 77% or 78% of England’s fleet—a fact mentioned by the hon. Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay)—it was allocated only 3.2% of the quota. To add insult to injury, the producer organisations often do not use all the quota allocated to them. That suggests to me that the market is distorted and failing, and that smaller boats should be given a larger allocation.

I believe that the Minister is sympathetic to that point. I know that he is certainly very knowledgeable in this area, and I commend the work that he has done in the past two or three years. I am not telling him anything that he is not aware of or that I have not mentioned time and again in previous fisheries debates. He has recently committed to ring-fencing for small boats the first 100 tonnes of quota uplift, followed by an additional 10% or 15% of all available uplifts. That is a welcome step, but can he go further? Will he safeguard the interests of the under-10 metre fleet in Hartlepool and elsewhere?

In last year’s debate, I mentioned how the discards policy, although incredibly welcome and entirely sensible, is consolidating further market power in the hands of producer organisations at the expense of smaller players. I asked the Minister what the Government were doing to ensure that they met the requirements of article 17 of the reformed CFP, which requires member states to use transparent and objective criteria, including of an environmental, social and economic nature, when allocating fishing opportunities. Article 17 should move the quota system away from a methodology based on what was caught before and a system that disproportionately favours those who caught the most in the past. Those points are identical to the ones that I raised last year, but the question remains.

Several hon. Members have mentioned Greenpeace. Let me quote what Greenpeace has argued, which I think is striking:

“The government is currently starving our local, low impact fleet of fishing quota, sending some of them to bankruptcy or food banks. Meanwhile just one Dutch controlled vessel continues to get a mammoth amount of fishing quota because the system of allocating quota hasn’t changed since the 1990s. This is despite the fundamental change in the CFP that says that fishing quota should be used to incentivise sustainable fishing and benefit coastal economies. So it’s not just blatantly unfair, it’s also unlawful.”

We need to change that.

[Mrs Murray]

rose—

[Mr Wright]

I am sure that the hon. Lady agrees.

[Mrs Murray]

Actually, if the hon. Gentleman had attended the last-but-one meeting of the all-party group on fisheries, he would have heard the other side of the argument. He might like to look at the very short film on the all-party group’s website that counters some of the mis-messaging from Greenpeace, because it puts the point of view of that large Dutch vessel. I think that the hon. Gentleman would be better advised to hear the other side of the argument before using Greenpeace’s complete propaganda.

[Mr Wright]

Well, I do feel disciplined, Mr Crausby; I feel chastised, and I will certainly look at the film that the hon. Lady mentions. The point about Greenpeace is important, because the Minister is obviously aware of the judicial review that it has brought about on the grounds that the Government have not fully and properly implemented article 17. I understand that a verdict is imminent. It could even come this side of Christmas, and I know that the Minister, in responding to the debate, will be hindered in what he can say.

Fishing Industry

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Iain Wright

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess). He has been a Member of this House since 1983, which is a remarkable achievement of longevity, and longevity has been a theme of today’s debate—both the importance of longevity in the fishing industry and the longevity of some of my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), in standing up for the fishing industry. I have not been a Member of this House as long as they have, but I hope I can follow in their footsteps—although I do not have their wisdom and experience—by trying to do my best for the fishing industry in Hartlepool.

The fishing industry in Hartlepool is not a staple industry, as it is in some other constituencies, but, returning to the theme of longevity, it spans over 800 years. Generations of Hartlepool families have eked out a living—and they have often just eked out a living—by farming the seas and wanting to pass on their business to the next generation, but during my time in the House, and well before, that has been made increasingly difficult. It is not getting any easier for my constituents to be part of the fishing industry.

We have had an excellent debate, and I want to single out the contribution of the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Our constituencies share similar characteristics. Hartlepool’s fishing fleet, like his, is now composed almost exclusively of the inshore under-10 metre fleet.

I have asked my fishermen what their main concerns are and what they would like to be highlighted to the House and to the Minister this afternoon, and—as we have heard many times in this debate—they said that the quota levels have been a perennial problem for the under-10 metre fleet for many years. Whiting quota has been cut by about 18% this year, and my fishermen tell me that adverse weather conditions in the North sea have pulled some of the larger boats inshore, putting even further pressure on the small fleet. What will the Minister do to address the points about quotas when he goes to Europe on Monday and Tuesday? Will he call for additional support to be given in respect of The Hague preference?

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that under-10 metre vessels are unique because they cannot migrate from port to port and area to area to gain a living, and because when they can operate is governed by the weather conditions?

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Lady has great wisdom and experience in this matter and makes a very good point, and she is absolutely right. The fishermen in the under-10 metre fleet in my patch will not be able to go further afield. They are tied—quite rightly—to the Hartlepool area and will not go much beyond it.

Discards have been mentioned a number of times. I think the whole House will agree that they are a scandal on economic and ecological grounds. We have all seen the pictures of good, mature, dead cod being thrown back into the sea. That is an absolute disgrace and a reflection of the fact that the rules the fishing industry has to operate under are dysfunctional.

Phil Walsh, a fisherman in my constituency, sent me an article from the ex-editor of Fishing News, Tim Oliver, which quoted an EU fisheries official stating:

“High levels of discarding are a persistent problem in this area, both in the whitefish and the flatfish fisheries. Accordingly, scientific advice calls for significant TAC cuts e.g. for cod and haddock.”

I had to reread that several times. That does not make sense to me or my fishermen constituents. How can it be right that higher discards result in lower quotas? Do increased discards not indicate that stocks, certainly in the North sea, are increasing?

Are discards not a vivid and tragic illustration that the policy on quotas simply is not working? Nobody wants the seas farmed extensively in the short term at the expense of long-term sustainability. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) made that incredibly important point. Generations of Hartlepool fishermen certainly do not want to do that, but I do not see how the current situation is helping the industry. The discard ban is also pushing further consolidation of quotas into the hands of ever fewer and ever larger operators, making it ever more difficult for the under-10 metre fleet to sustain a viable business model.

What are the Government going to do to ensure that they meet the requirements of article 17 of the reformed common fisheries policy, which the hon. Member for Waveney mentioned, and which requires member states to use transparent and objective criteria, including those of an environmental, social and economic nature, when allocating fishing opportunities? Article 17 should move the quota system away from a method based on what was caught before and away from a system that disproportionately favours those who caught the most in the past. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on the Front Bench says from a sedentary position, it should be based on science. My constituents want me to press the Minister on this fundamental matter that greatly affects their livelihoods, so how will his Government implement article 17?

Fishermen in Hartlepool also make a practical point in that the Marine Management Organisation needs to improve its reporting systems to ensure that there is minimal delay in quota managers getting landings data from the ports. My fishermen report that there have sometimes been significant delays caused by poor reporting lines, which have led to the failures to allocate the available quota for the under-10 metre fleet. That, in turn, has meant that fishermen in Hartlepool have not been able to keep their boats at sea fishing throughout the year. The lack of a prompt reporting line has endangered the economic viability and livelihoods of fishermen in Hartlepool, and that cannot be acceptable. This is something that could be changed for the better, and I hope the Minister will act on those concerns.

While the Minister is considering that matter, I hope he will also address a further concern. My constituents would like a great deal more clarity from DEFRA on what quota, including any uplifts, is going to be available under the demersal discard ban. Fishermen are telling me that this lack of information is preventing any sort of longer-term business planning. We need to look at the way in which the common fisheries policy and the annual quota have worked. I have made the point in the House before that the annual quota is detrimental to the long-term sustainability of the industry, causing fishermen to work in a knee-jerk, short-termist way. For many of the fishermen in Hartlepool whose fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and even great-great-grandfathers farmed the North sea, that seems a ridiculous way to ensure that the industry is sustainable over the long term. What will the Minister do to address this matter and move us away from the short-term approach towards a much more long-term, sustainable and ultimately viable industry?

I am very proud to represent in Parliament a town that has had fishing in its blood for more than 800 years. However, thanks to the treacherous nature of the North sea, it is a tough and dangerous living, and because of regulations and the short-term and often contrary approach of European policy, it is being made tougher. I want to see the Hartlepool fishing industry sustained for generations yet to come, but it has been stated loud and clear today that that will be achieved only if the Government recognise the concerns and act to ensure that there will be stock, a viable business model and a livelihood for Hartlepool fishermen for decades to come.