Fisheries Bill [HL]

Viscount Hanworth Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, the Fisheries Bill has huge potential to cause trouble among the nations of the United Kingdom and with our European neighbours. What is written on the face of the Bill is, in the main, unexceptional. Indeed, the environmental precepts are laudable. In the words of a letter from the Minister, the Bill will be a major step forward in the Government’s vision

“to build a sustainable fishing industry with healthy seas”.

We will be moving away from a common European fishing policy that has been vitiated by the competitive bidding among the European fishing nations for quotas that determine their allowable catches. The quotas have invariably exceeded the levels recommended by scientists; the common understanding is that they have been consistently breached and widely ignored. Even when the quotas have been observed, the practice of discarding fish that are undersized or in excess of species-specific limits has subverted policies aimed at conserving stocks.

The competitive animosity of the nations bidding for quotas has been fuelled by the grievances that the British brought to the negotiations. The British fishermen were still smarting from their exclusion from Icelandic waters when, on joining the EEC in 1973, free access to our surrounding waters was granted to the other European nations. The situation was worsened by the severe contemporaneous decline in fish stocks on account of the overfishing. Now, in the words of our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, Britain will “take back control” and have full jurisdiction over its “spectacular marine wealth”. He has asserted that:

“We will make sure we don’t trade away Britain’s fishing rights as they were traded away… in the early 1970s.”


The Prime Minister has given voice to a common sentiment that has been expressed enthusiastically by fishermen and their representatives. When it becomes independent of the European Union at the end of the transition period, Britain will be surrounded by an exclusive economic zone—an EEZ—over which it intends to assert its fishing rights. The zone will extend as far as 200 miles from our coastline, when it is not constrained by the proximity of an adjacent coastal nation. In that case, a median line will separate the British zone from that of the neighbouring nation.

The concept of an exclusive economic zone, which was established to protect the fishing rights of Iceland, now redounds to Britain’s advantage. It is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Geography has endowed Britain with an exorbitantly large zone in comparison to the zones of other European fishing nations such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, whose EEZs are limited by the median lines.

The outrage at Britain’s pre-emption of fishing areas to which other nations have traditionally had access is now palpable. It threatens to have a detrimental effect on the forthcoming trade negotiations. Already, the granting of a European passport to our financial services sector has become conditional upon our granting fishing rights to other European nations. However, any concessions to those nations are liable to enrage British fishermen, who are looking forward to greatly increased fishing quotas.

There is also a potential for conflict among the nations of Britain over the control of fishing rights. The Fisheries Bill declares that the management of fisheries is a matter that is devolved to the regions of the United Kingdom. Hitherto, a consistent UK-wide approach to fisheries has been maintained because all the fisheries administrations have been required to comply with European law, which has imposed the common fisheries policy. In consequence of our leaving the European Union, that constraint will no longer apply.

Clause 18 of the Fisheries Bill of Session 2017-19, which has become Clause 23 of the current Bill, gives the Secretary of State the power to determine the quantity of fish that may be caught by British boats. Although the Secretary of State must consult with the devolved Administrations in determining this quantity, the UK Government views the determination of fishing opportunities as a reserved function. However, both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government have disagreed strongly with this. Given the spirit of disagreement and grievance against Westminster that prevails among Members of the Scottish Parliament, one can imagine that this will become a major point of contention. Scottish parliamentarians will be backed by a powerful fishermen’s lobby, which will point to the fact that over 60% of the UK catch is landed by the Scottish fishing fleet.

More must now be said about the attitudes of fishermen and their organisations. It is clear that the fishermen expect there to be large increases in the allowable catch. In a briefing from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, we are told that it expects to see an immediate and significant uplift in the quantity of fish available to its fleets. It expects, moreover, that this will be followed by further year-on-year gains. Although the fishermen and their representatives tend nowadays to pay lip-service to the nostrums of conservation, their words and deeds show that in practice they are likely to resist any resulting restrictions on their activities. In particular, they bridle at the injunction that fishing opportunities should be limited by the maximum sustainable yield, the MSY, of fish stocks. The MSY is the maximum rate at which the fish can replace themselves under conditions of human predation or harvesting. If the harvest exceeds the MSY for any length of time then the fish will be destined for extinction.

The objective of fishing at the MSY was incorporated into the rules of the European common fisheries policy. However, certain exceptions have been allowed. One of the principal documents states that, if fishing at the MSY would imply very large annual reductions of fishing opportunities that seriously jeopardise the social and economic sustainability of the fleets involved, then a delay in reaching that objective would be acceptable. This is profoundly illogical. Any such allowance can have arisen only as a consequence of fraught negotiations. Fishing above the MSY will jeopardise the survival of the fish and of the industry. Attempting to fish at the MSY is also dangerous because of the likelihood of exceeding that level inadvertently.

Nevertheless, a recent briefing from the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has militated against the imposition of any constraint based on the MSY. It seeks the allowances that are recorded by the European common fisheries policy. It is clear that, if they are to achieve some of the more reasonable objectives of the Fisheries Bill, the Government will have to stand firm against the onslaughts of numerous parties.