EU Fisheries Negotiations

Tom Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.

I sympathise with the Minister for being forced to sit through the night at the Fisheries Council at the end of last year in what I am confident he would describe as a Kafkaesque experience. Does he agree that our fishing industry deserves better than this undignified and often chaotic annual round of negotiations each December? More to the point, does he agree that public and industry confidence in the negotiation framework would be enhanced by a substantial degree of transparency? By holding meetings behind closed doors, the Council prevents us from evaluating the logic behind its decisions. What measures does the Minister plan in future to open up these negotiations to a healthy dose of public scrutiny?

We are at a critical point for fisheries management, and common fisheries policy reform is at the top of the agenda. May I wish the Minister every success during the EU-Norway negotiations on the North sea cod quota next week? Labour Members welcome the news that automatic cuts to the North sea cod quota and a reduction in the number of fishing days at sea have been avoided. Given public outrage at the shameful waste of discards, any change in policy that increased discards would have been unacceptable. Is the Minister aware of concerns within the fishing industry that the vote by the Council of Ministers to amend the more problematic parts of the cod management plan could be subject to legal challenge from the European Parliament? Can he guarantee that the Council’s vote will not be overruled by the outcome of such a legal challenge?

The Minister told the House that proposed cuts to quotas were “often not supported by the available evidence”. Will he give us examples? Can he confirm that despite the Council’s, and his own, public support for evidence-based policy-making, about half of all quotas have been set above levels advised by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea? He reported that the Council was able to increase quotas for those stocks that are improving. Can he confirm to the House that all these quota increases were unambiguously supported and recommended by the scientific evidence?

What discussions, if any, took place at Council regarding the ongoing dispute between UK and Icelandic fishermen on disputed north-east Atlantic mackerel stock? Was the Minister personally involved in any discussions on the possible enforcement of EU sanctions against Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and will he update the House on this crucial issue?

Is the Minister fully aware of the increasing importance to Scottish processing plants of the blue whiting quota, and will he bear this in mind as he approaches the EU negotiations with Norway next week? Total allowable catch for blue whiting increased significantly in 2012 but is still constrained by our commitment to swap quotas for North sea cod with Norway—a move that largely benefits Spain and Portugal.

Lastly, given the importance to these annual negotiations of quota distribution within the EU, will the Minister update the House on when he expects to be able to publish the full, comprehensive and up-to-date list of who owns the UK fishing quota, long promised by this Government?

I welcome the Minister’s statement and wish him every success in future negotiations. So long as he continues to represent the fight for the sustainability of the UK’s fishing industry and of our vital natural resource, he will continue to enjoy our conditional support.

[Richard Benyon]

I would expect nothing less from the hon. Gentleman.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his sympathy about the absurd and ridiculous processes that one has to go through. With the reform of the common fisheries policy, we have a golden opportunity to end some of the absurdity, if not all of it. We can cease the ridiculous charade of a Minister like me discussing fishing net sizes with a Commission official perhaps 1,000 miles from where the net will be used. That is a technical matter that should be decided locally with fishermen. That is why our regionalisation agenda as part of the CFP reform is so important.

The system can also be improved through better long-term management plans. The cod recovery plan is a bad plan, but that should not dissuade us from pushing for more long-term management plans that are scientifically based and worked through with the industry, taking away from politicians the late-night horse trading and making the system much more evidence based. We want to see more of that.

The hon. Gentleman raised an issue about cod. Where cod effort continues to be reduced, the incentive is then for fishermen to fish as soon as possible after leaving port, and that might not be the most sustainable place for them to catch fish—it might be where cod are spawning or where there are more juvenile fish. We want to encourage them to go to the places where there are the larger fish that they can target sustainably.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether this will be subject to a legal challenge. It may well be—these things happen. I was very clear that I did not want the livelihoods of our fishermen or the sustainability of our seas to be the totemic issue on which inter-institutional rivalries would be sorted out. Therefore, the decision we took to support the presidency in sorting out this element of the cod recovery plan was the right one. It may well end up in court and I cannot guarantee the result, but we have secured a sensible solution for this year.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the advice of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. ICES looks at individual fish stocks rather than, as is the case in this country, mixed fisheries, so we do apply other scientific advice. On cod, we got ICES to agree that our rationale was right that if we had progressed down the route proposed by the Commission, it would have resulted in more discards.

Mackerel remains our absolute priority. It is this country’s biggest by-value catch and I am determined to do all we can to get Iceland and the Faroes back to the negotiating table and find a solution. If not, sanctions remain on the table.

I will write to the hon. Gentleman about blue whiting, because that is a more technical issue.

We inherited an extraordinary situation whereby we do not know who owns quota in this country, which is daft. We have set about our determination to resolve that issue this year, so I hope that at some point in 2013 we will be able to explain to the House whether or not quota is actually owned by football clubs and celebrities, as is constantly made clear to me. We have yet to find out and are working hard to achieve that.