Fishing and Seafood Sector Strategy

Torcuil Crichton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing this debate and bringing this action plan to our attention. I only regret that we are not having these exchanges in the main Chamber, which would give fishing and fishing communities their proper place in our national life.

I cannot begin my remarks today without expressing the continuing sorrow in my Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency over the loss of the Kilda fishing boat and all three souls aboard it off the coast of Lewis on 13 October. Only one body has been recovered, which is that of Douglas Craigie. The other men—Norman Murray, or Tam as he was known, and Murdo Morrison, the 23-year-old mate—remain unaccounted for. It is a testament to the power of the ocean that a life raft from the Kilda was found on Shetland’s shorelines last week, although coastal searches there have been in vain. We all know, of course, that the bounty and the sorrow of the sea are intertwined with my constituency and with all other coastal communities across Britain, and our condolences go to the families affected.

The fishing industry in the Western Isles has shrunken considerably since its 19th-century heyday as one of the biggest herring ports in Europe. However, it still makes a major contribution to the local economy, despite attempts by the previous SNP-Green Government in Scotland effectively to shut down the Western Isles fishing fleet with the imposition of the hated highly protected marine areas. Stark opposition from island fishing communities and other communities around the coast have won that battle for now.

As the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has pointed out, the crisis of conservation is very real and must be tackled. However, the experience of the HPMA debacle has left a scar on the fishing fleet and on the conservation agenda. The consequential danger of imposing this top-down approach is that no environmental measure is now acceptable to fishing communities, unless they are taken along, listened to and involved. That includes the draconian new restrictions that the Scottish Government are seeking to impose—HPMA2, as they are dubbed—which are currently being consulted on. I am glad that the action plan brought forward has involved fishing and fishing communities, as all movements on the fishing industry should.

There is powerful evidence from my constituency that self-imposed controls introduced by the Western Isles fishermen have proved effective, while increasing the value of the landings. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, those fishers are committed to sustainability, because where they fish is where they are from. They want to pass this on to the next generation and to maintain their communities in that industry.

That is happening in the Western Isles. Data for 2024 shows that the value of landings increased on the previous year by 4% to £16 million, because of restrictions fishermen took in themselves. The only species that decreased in price is brown crab, which has been in decline for the last 20 years, mainly because of the increased effort from nomadic fishing fleets that come and scour them out. Those statistics demonstrate that a top-down approach to conservation, when conservation efforts of the fishermen’s own making are paying dividends, simply will not work.

Island fishers still face massive challenges with crewing, fuel prices—as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, pointed out—and the escalating cost of going to sea and of going to market. That is why it is good news that the Prime Minister intends to secure a new deal with the EU to simplify our food exports. That would be welcomed in the Western Isles.

[Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his speech. Might he allow me to put on record my thanks for the important work of the Troon lifeboat crew, whom I met on Remembrance Sunday? Seafood is an important sector to the Ayrshire economy. It is exported at the port of Troon in my constituency and at Prestwick airport, which, in the first six months of this year, exported 1,780 tonnes—1.78 million kg—of salmon. Does my hon. Friend agree that any seafood sector strategy must look at growing sustainable exporting of that brilliant Scottish product?

[Torcuil Crichton]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend says. It is only by sustaining the industry and communities that we will keep fishing going. The £360 million fisheries and coastal growth fund announced by the UK Government should be distributed fairly by sector, by sustainability and by geography to constituencies such as his. When the Government announced the fund in 2025, it was to be allocated according to the Barnett formula. That means that Scotland receives 8%— £28 million—of the fund, despite having more than half of the UK’s entire catch of fish.

It is a matter of considerable regret that the Scottish Government demanded their share of the coastal and fishing fund without agreeing a mechanism outside the Barnett formula that would see a fair share coming to Scotland. I hope that there will be a rebalancing of the fund over its decade-long existence, and that the Minister listens to representations. It is essential that the fund is used to expand and revive coastal communities with a long association of sustainable fishing, which have, over decades, been fished out by nomad fleets and supertrawlers from other areas.

We should tackle ownership of the seas and of the quotas. I am disappointed with the way that the action plan approached—or rather, did not approach—quota. The APPG report noted that

“debate continues over the extent to which the benefits derived from UK quota are distributed across coastal communities and the inshore fleet.”

Well, that is an understatement, certainly when it comes to Scotland. In Scotland, ownership of fishing quota is concentrated in the hands of just five families who feature in The Sunday Times rich list, who control more than a third of the Scottish quota and whose shares and companies wholly or partly own half of all the Scottish quota.

England fares no better. Almost half of the fishing quota in England is owned by Dutch, Icelandic and Spanish companies, and more than half of England’s fishing quota is in the hands of just three companies. Those statistics themselves make the argument that the fishing quota needs to be urgently reviewed.

We need a system that is fair, and that considers the economic linkage between quotas and the coastal communities that are adjacent to quotas. I am glad that the action plan referred to the community quota being tried in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. Ownership and support concentrated in the hands of a few will not give new opportunities to our coastal communities. The system has to be rethought with guaranteed access for inshore fleets, and, as I said, it should be linked and distributed to local authorities on the model we have seen in my area and other areas.

These are bold and ambitious demands, but from small beginnings come a new and revived pelagic fleet, new processing, as has been mentioned, and a new and promising future. A fishing strategy worthy of its name has to tackle the elephant in the room—there are perhaps two elephants: one of conservation and one of control of quota. It also must recognise that, if fishing has a sustainable future, it has to be in the hands of fishers themselves, who have a practical and sustainable view of what is to come.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Seamus Logan]

I thank the hon. Member for intervening on that point because I am very happy to put on record that, despite what he says, neither I nor my party wish to go back into the common fisheries policy. I remind the hon. Member that it was his Prime Minister and the previous Government who negotiated the Brexit deal that led us to this position.

[Torcuil Crichton]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Seamus Logan]

No, I have taken enough interventions; I am running out of time.

As we head towards the UK-EU summit on 20 November, I understand that the Scottish White Fish Producers Association is concerned that the worst elements of the common fisheries policy could reappear when the SPS is agreed. I hope that the SPS agreement will instead deliver faster, more streamlined export processes, because without that, the benefits will not be felt by fishermen, processors or coastal communities that rely on trade with the European Union.

Scotland needs a seat at the negotiating and decision-making table to ensure that the voice of our fishing and coastal communities is represented, heard and taken on board. Otherwise, a strategy made in Westminster, far from the reality of my constituency in the north-east, will be in danger of failing in its core mission, as the Minister knows.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for calling this debate and the Minister for his prioritisation of a visit to Newlyn in Cornwall so early in his tenure, where I am sure he gained a strong sense of our priorities. Fishing remains central to communities like mine in mid-Cornwall. As we have heard from colleagues on all sides of the Chamber, it is vital that we continue to put our fishermen and women at the heart of shaping and delivering the future of the sector.

More topically, I welcome the continued freeze on red diesel duties announced in the Budget, but we must recognise that EU vessels continue to benefit from access to the crisis mechanisms of the European maritime, fisheries and aquaculture fund and the middle east crisis temporary state aid framework. That is putting our fleets at a significant competitive disadvantage and all too often rendering it uneconomical to leave port. Will the Minister consider how the Government can address that competitive disadvantage?

Turning to the bigger picture, the fleets in our sector, sector 7, remain under significant pressure, including from foreign vessels, which account for approximately two thirds of landings. Although quota distribution has increased marginally in favour of UK vessels in recent years, not all fisheries are quota-bound and, broadly speaking, catch ratios in the sector continue to reflect historically established entitlements, with the highest concentration of effort per job in the sector remaining among the industrial-scale foreign vessels we have heard quite a bit about today.

[Torcuil Crichton]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that one of the only opportunities of Brexit was the opportunity to look at the UK quota again and redistribute it to communities and inshore fleets such as his?

[Noah Law]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the need for a democratisation of many of the quotas. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about that.

As we all know, not all fishing effort has an equivalent ecological impact. Larger, industrialised and—in my sector, at least—foreign vessels are likely to have a disproportionate impact on stocks, while the smaller vessels of our domestic, largely inshore fleets tend to employ more selective, low-impact fishing methods. Ultimately, the smaller vessels that make up our fleet in Cornwall and across the wider sector act as the bedrock of both employment and environmental stewardship. Those twin priorities should be core Labour priorities. Fishermen tell us about the pressures, which really are mounting in the six to 12 nautical mile zone. Will the Minister consider the efficacy in our sector of potential measures in the six to 12 nautical mile zone, and whether a 221 kW engine-size restriction could meet the employment and environmental challenges? Similar measures have been employed effectively and selectively on a sectoral basis, as in the case of fly seining and beam trawling recently in area 7 and coastal waters, respectively, as well as longer-dated precedent in continental waters, with measures for the North sea plaice box.

Finally, in the light of forthcoming responses to our fisheries management plan consultations, I would welcome the introduction not just of some of the proposed technical measures on engine size, but of an integrated approach to biodiversity targets, a climate-sensitive approach to stock rebuilding—that has been alluded to but not spelled out explicitly—that recognises the reality of mixed fisheries, and recognition of the spatial challenges that we have heard about and the need for integrated marine spatial planning, as so masterfully highlighted in the action plan of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this debate and on his report.

In my region, our identity is shaped by our coastline. From the old fishing villages of Staithes and Skinningrove through to the port at the Tees, the sea has shaped our economy, our identity and the character of our communities, so I welcome this debate and the call for a national fishing and seafood strategy. I will illustrate some of the points made in the debate by adding two experiences from my constituency.

The first concerns a fishermen from Easington, who came to see me at my surgery earlier this year. He operates commercially out of Whitby, and for three years he had been trying unsuccessfully to obtain a licence to catch bluefin tuna. I have to confess that before coming to this place, I did not think a great deal about the geographical distribution of licences for bluefin tuna fishing, but I soon discovered that it was a source of considerable frustration for fishermen in the north-east, who felt that opportunities were disproportionately concentrated on the south coast. Here was a hard-working local businessman who wanted to diversify his trade and invest in his future, but who had spent three years trying to secure the necessary permission.

I wrote to DEFRA and to the Northumberland Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, to express this man’s concerns. In July, I was pleased to hear from him that he had finally secured his licence, which he understood to be the only one awarded locally that year. That was a good outcome, but it left me wondering why it took three years, the intervention of an MP and correspondence with different public authorities just for a fisherman to get the opportunity to do what he does best. I hope that any national strategy will look seriously at such barriers, so that we can encourage small fishing businesses to diversify and grow, and not make their lives unnecessarily difficult.

[Torcuil Crichton]

I sympathise with the plight of my hon. Friend’s constituent, because one of my constituents faced the same problem with planning for a tuna fishery, having a licence granted one year, but not getting it granted another.

[Luke Myer]

I will discuss my second issue briefly. It was a national story. For those unfamiliar with what happened, in 2021 an enormous number of dead crustaceans were washed up on our beaches, followed by a collapse in catches of as much as 80%, by some fishermen’s estimates.. That was devastating for the local industry; boats were sold and businesses closed. The most troubling thing is that, five years later, we still do not have a definitive explanation of what happened. That battle for truth has been documented in a new film, “All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea”, and we will hold a screening of it in Parliament for parliamentarians shortly. I encourage all Members to attend.

I pay tribute to the local authorities who came together to establish a working group to look into the issue. I pay particular tribute to Councillor Philip Thomson and former Councillor Rachel Creevy for working across parties to drive forward that agenda. Will the Minister look into the findings published by that working group to see whether lessons can be learned by Government? I echo the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge for science funding to be a pillar of the strategy. Ultimately, if we want to restore confidence among those in the industry, we must demonstrate that our fishermen’s knowledge is valued, and that when issues arise, they will be thoroughly investigated and those directly affected can shape and direct what happens next.

Our fishing communities do not lack ambition; what they need is a Government who are prepared to work alongside them to remove unnecessary obstacles and safeguard their environment, and to give them a greater say in the decisions that shape their future. I hope that that is the ambition that guides this strategy, which we hope to see in the near future.