Common Fisheries Policy

William Bain Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point about regionalisation—and one that detained us a long time as we tried to find a solution. Under the Commission’s original text, which could have had a centralising effect, if the countries around a sea basin—the North sea, for example—failed to agree, the power to decide on the technical measures would have been taken by the Commission. We thought that that was wrong, so we developed—under the leadership of my Department, I have to say—an idea that found its way into the text. Under this provision, a measure becomes law where there is agreement among all the countries fishing a particular sea basin, and where they cannot agree, the matter is determined by co-decision. That is a much better way forward. Throughout these discussions, I have always said, “I would never start from here”. We are trying to improve something that is very, very wrong. We are going to make it halfway right, however, and there is still much more work to do.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Can the Minister explain how the small-scale fishing fleet in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom will benefit from the adoption of this deal by the EU and by national Parliaments?

[Richard Benyon]

Things will improve on the wider scale because the commitment to maximum sustainable yield, fishing sustainably and more sensible management will lead to increased biomass in the sea, so there will be more fish for the small-scale fishing fleet to catch. However, the one thing I find as I go round the coast—the hon. Gentleman will know about this from when he was the shadow spokesman—is how remote the decision-making process is. I have sat up in the small hours of the morning discussing mesh sizes for fishing nets that will be used off the north-west coast of Scotland, 1,000 miles from where I was sitting. I am not an expert and nor was the Commission official who was having the discussion with me, but the fishermen who fish there are. They will now be part of that decision-making process. They will be able to drive those technical details in an effective way, not one that is so remote from how they fish.