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Neale, Sir Gerrard

Neubert, Sir Michael

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Norris, Steve

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Oppenheim, Phillip

Page, Richard

Paice, James

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Patnick, Irvine

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Pawsey, James

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Porter, David (Waveney)

Powell, William (Corby)

Rathbone, Tim

Rhodes James, Robert

Riddick, Graham

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

Rowe, Andrew

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Sackville, Hon Tom

Shaw, David (Dover)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Shelton, Sir William

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Sims, Roger

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Speed, Keith

Speller, Tony

Stanbrook, Ivor

Stevens, Lewis

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Summerson, Hugo

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Thurnham, Peter

Viggers, Peter

Waller, Gary

Warren, Kenneth

Wheeler, Sir John

Widdecombe, Ann

Wiggin, Jerry

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Winterton, Nicholas

Wood, Timothy

Tellers for the Noes :

Mr. Neil Hamilton and

Mr. Timothy Kirkhope.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 300 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes Her Majesty's Government's intention to negotiate in Brussels so as to secure changes to the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Community which make it more market-oriented, thereby giving an incentive to efficiency, reduce surpluses, thereby lessening tensions in international trade, keep spending within the agricultural guideline, avoid discrimination against United Kingdom interests, and integrate environmental considerations more firmly into the Policy ; and recognises that such a stance is necessary to take proper account of the interests of taxpayers and consumers while offering a realistic prospect of a successful future for British farming.

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Fishing Industry

7.12 pm

Mr. James Wallace (Orkney and Shetland) : I beg to move. That this House condemns Her Majesty's Government for presiding over a crisis in the fishing industry which threatens the economic and social fabric of fishing communities throughout the United Kingdom ; condemns in particular the compulsory tie up scheme and the Government's continuing refusal to promote structural support through the implementation of a well targeted decommissioning scheme ; and calls upon the Government to pursue, with greater vigour, measures to combat industrial fishing and technical conservation measures including the adoption of square mesh panels, and to enter into discussions with representatives of the fishing industry for the purpose of devising a decommissioning scheme which will lead to a managed reduction in fleet capacity.

Those who take an interest in the fishing industry will have little doubt about the serious crisis of confidence in the industry. The eight-day tie- up may have given fishermen and their representatives a focus for their wrath and frustration, but even if the Minister were to surprise us greatly and announce this evening that he intended to renounce the scheme, I am sure that he would agree that the fishing industry's problems would not go away. This debate provides us with an important opportunity to discuss the serious issues that face the industry.

No fishing industry debate has taken place since the vital Council of Ministers meeting in December. The industry is vital in economic terms to many coastal communities, particularly in those areas where other opportunities for employment are in short supply. Therefore, my right hon. and hon. Friends thought it appropriate to bring on to the Floor of the House our great concern about the future health of the fishing industry. We are conscious of the damage that could be done to the social and economic fabric of fishing communities if the malaise is not adequately dealt with. We do so, too, in the hope that Ministers, who have it in their power to improve matters, will listen to the debate and respond to it.

The Minister will no doubt draw attention to the fact that at the Council of Ministers meeting in December he managed to obtain continued recognition of the United Kingdom's claims under the Hague preference and improved flexibility with regard to taking our western mackerel quota east of the 4 deg W line. The Government ought to be congratulated. I have no quarrel with those aspects which are referred to in the Government amendment.

I suspect that we shall also hear from the Minister, as we did from Fisheries Ministers throughout 1990, that although catch opportunities and total allowable catches have been reduced, the price of fish landed has increased and fishermen's income has not necessarily declined. That ought to be put in its proper context. Even in 1990, in absolute terms fishermen's incomes were below those in 1987. In real terms, they were even further below those in 1987. The price that a fisherman gets for his landings is only one very small part of the tale. We should also consider the return that he is or is not getting on his capital and the high rates of interest he has to pay on his borrowings, due to the Government's failed economic policies. In recent months, he has also had to face the increased cost of fuel, after oil

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prices rose so sharply following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. In Fishing News of 1 February there was a report that already there are signs of landings prices beginning to fall. I hope that the Government will not take refuge behind the wafer-thin excuse that they parroted throughout 1990--that prices are being maintained, or are even higher, and that therefore incomes are not falling. We do not believe that the eight-day rule should be the be all and end all of the debate. Had it been called, I should have welcomed the amendment tabled by the Scottish National party. I hope that the debate will not be seen as a substitute for a very full debate of the statutory instrument and the prayer against it dealing with the eight-day tie-up, which will have to be amended in the light of yesterday's announcement.

Considerable wrath and ill feeling have been generated throughout the industry by the tie-up. According to recent. editions of Fishing News , in my constituency Mr. John Goodlad, the secretary of the Shetland Fishermen's Federation, has described the proposals as "unjust and unfair". On 8 February, skipper Tom Watson of Fleetwood said in Fishing News that it was the last nail in the coffin and that

"This Government doesn't want a fishing industry, that's for sure."

Skipper David Hunt of Lowestoft was reported in Fishing News of 25 January as saying :

"Many more will be forced out until there are only a few left, who will then be disregarded, and Mr. Gummer will receive an accolade from his colleagues for a job well done."

Skipper Jim Vanko of Eyemouth said :

"I wonder how MPs and officials would like their salaries to be reduced and the resultant financial savings squandered? This government has prided itself on encouraging initiative and private investment, yet every way the industry turns our feet are knocked from beneath us."

That is a selection of comments from different parts of the country which demonstrate the outrage that the proposal has caused.

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North) : I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is well aware of the fact that the proposal will be a tragedy for Northern Ireland. Last year, the whiting catch amounted to 7,395 tonnes. That catch is to be reduced to 2,300 tonnes. The cod catch, which was 6,330 tonnes, is to be reduced to 1,200 tonnes. Northern Ireland's fishing industry entirely agrees with the sentiments expressed in the hon. Gentleman's quotations, as, I am sure, do other members of the fishing industry in other parts of the country--that, if it comes into effect, the proposal will devastate and finish off the industry.

Mr. Wallace : The hon. Gentleman voices the concerns of his fishing constituents very well. The proposal is causing concern throughout the United Kingdom. I am pleased to see that so many hon. Members with constituencies throughout the United Kingdom are present for the debate.

During the debate on 14 December, it was clear that the Government supported the compulsory tie-up. Initially, it was for 10 days. After the Council of Ministers meeting, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) told the House that he had secured a major concession and that the 10 days were to be reduced to eight. If that is victory to the Minister, heaven help us in defeat. Many people found it a negligible concession which would not make any material difference to the fundamental problem.

There are several objections in principle to the

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provision. It will put pressure on skippers to put to sea against their better judgment, when weather conditions would make it far safer for them to stay in their home port. There is no guarantee that the eight days in the month during which they choose to tie up will coincide with the eight days of bad weather. The pressure to go out and to earn the livelihood that is being denied them for one third of the month will be far greater. Regrettably, too regularly in the House we mourn the loss of lives in fishing accidents. We do not want that to happen as a result of the regulations. The fishermen themselves are expressing the fear that they may have to put to sea in bad conditions.

There will be damage to the social life of the communities. I recall that, when he came back from the most recent meeting of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food told us that one of the important achievements of managing to reduce the 10 days to eight was that it would allow those who had strong religious beliefs to continue to practise their religion and not to have to go to sea on a Sunday. He will no doubt by now be in receipt of a letter from the Presbytery of Shetland which says :

"In an attempt to compensate for being tied up for eight consecutive days every month, fishermen will inevitably begin to fish at weekends. Traditional family weekend activities, including church attendance, and way of life will therefore be put at risk within many small fishing communities around the entire coast of Scotland." I know that the Minister is a man of profound religious conviction. I hope that he will ponder the effect of the rule on many communities in Scotland, in England and in Northern Ireland.

It is also fair to point out that there must be a question mark over whether the proposal will have the desired effect. The remaining days will be used to fish ever more intensively. We may find that fishermen are going through all the agonies, dangers and disruptions to their social life for no net benefit in terms of conservation. Next year, the Government and the Commission may have to think up another new rule to try to limit fishing activity.

We also have objections of detail. Skippers may have difficulty in crewing vessels when they are unable to offer continuous employment throughout the month, especially in Grampian in the north-east of Scotland, where other industries, such as the oil industry, offer attractive terms and a greater continuity of work.

Share fishermen will also be affected. The rules of the Department of Social Security will still mean that, if the eight days overlap two weeks, share fishermen will not be entitled to claim unemployment benefit, although they have paid a special stamp. In recent correspondence, the Department has shown no intention of relaxing the rules for those circumstances.

A skipper in Westray in my constituency pointed out to me today that, if he is to land his catch at Mallaig, he cannot bring his boat back to Orkney without it counting towards his eight days, even though he may do no fishing en route. It was described to me by another representative of the industry as tantamount to a curfew rather than a tie-up. With the level of fines that are imposed, it is highly unlikely that anyone will try to fish if they want to take a boat back from Aberdeen to Shetland. Fishermen will not fish if they cannot land their catch, and the minute they have landed their catch, it will be perfectly obvious to everyone that they have broken the rules and they will land

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up with a hefty fine. I appeal to the Minister. If the regulations are to stay in place, I hope that some practical adjustment can be made to take account of such cases.

It has been pointed out to me that boats will tend to congregate in the bigger ports because they cannot get back to their home port. That may damage the economy of the smaller ports because there will not be work on run-of-the-mill repairs or maintenance. Log jams could occur at the bigger ports because too many boats may seek maintenance there.

Yesterday's derogation, and the concession, if that is what it is, that if vessels carry only long lines or have a net mesh size equal to or greater than 110 mm, with or without a 100 mm square mesh panel, has been welcomed by some sections of the industry. However, the Minister is over-egging it if he says that the concession has the full support of the industry. The English fishermen from the Humber and from the south and east coasts will find it a useful concession. Many of my constituents in Shetland will find it a useful concession because it will bring them a fair measure of relief. However, it does little or nothing for most of the Scottish fleet. It does little or nothing for, for example, the fishermen in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). We are entitled to ask the Minister whether he has any proposals for dealing with their continuing dilemma. Is he trying to divide the industry? The industry may already be divided within ports between the boats that are tied up under the rules and those that are not. That may not be secured by design, but it is quite convenient to have the industry divided on geographical lines. The Minister cannot do something for one part of the industry while ignoring the other. We shall be interested to hear what ideas he has for bringing similar relief to a large part of the Scottish fleet.

It is also fair to say that, although parts of the English industry welcome the concession, they do not do so gladly. It is a bit like a person who has been given a death sentence being told that it has been commuted to life imprisonment. Fishermen are worried that we are setting a precedent which could be extended to other parts of the country and to other species. The adoption of the 110 mm mesh size together with the 100 mm square panel might be seen by Mr. Marin and Commission officials as a signal of an acceptable regime to introduce at a future date. All sections of the industry would be opposed to that.

I have said that the eight-day tie-up rule is not the whole story. We have been landed with it because the United Kingdom Government have done little to take other measures to reduce the size of the fleet or to reduce catches. The Commission has been obliged to come in with measures such as this.

Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) : I want to make a point before the hon. Gentleman leaves the specifics of the eight-day tie-up. Does he agree that, although the Government appear anxious to describe the scheme as a European initiative, the Secretary of State for Scotland, in the fisheries debate in the House in December, described these incredible measures as sensible?

Mr. Wallace : I always think twice before acceding to an invitation from the hon. Gentleman to agree with him, but on this occasion I must say that I do agree.

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All parties agree that the future of the industry depends on a conservation policy. Although it recognised the difficulties, especially after the large cut in the haddock total allowable catch for 1989, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation put forward in the late spring of 1989 a package of technical conservation measures. It included having a clean and effective minimum mesh size of 90 mm with no attachments or devices, whether legitimate or illegitimate, and a one-net rule, so that someone could not fish for white fish using a prawn net. The fishermen also suggested a ban on industrial fishing, an increase in the minimum landing size of whiting and more enforcement powers for fisheries officers on shore.

The debate tends to have become bogged down in mesh sizes. I am not saying that that is not important. The debate has also focused on the square mesh panel. However, we are entitled to ask what happened to some of the other measures. Have they been argued through at European Council meetings? Why not? What has happened to the one-net rule? Perhaps the Minister could report on how he has got on while trying to push that argument.

The objective behind all the measures, especially the square mesh panel, is to conserve stocks and to reduce the discards which many of us agree are one of the most appalling examples of waste. Fish are caught, yet cannot be landed and are dumped back dead into the sea. The square mesh panel and the different mesh size would lead to fishing for better quality and for a better size of fish, which is important for marketing.

The big hole in the Government's approach is their refusal to adopt--or even start to consider and discuss with the industry--a decommissioning policy. We are familiar with the arguments against it. We have heard--and no doubt we shall hear again tonight--that, in the mid-1980s, the Public Accounts Committee rapped the Government's knuckles. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who hopes to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker--is a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I am sure that he will confirm that there was no opposition to decommissioning in principle and that the opposition was to a particular scheme.

We have also been told that a decommissioning scheme will not make any difference--that we will not be able to get the right boats out of the fleet. If the Government say that, they are giving up before they have even started trying. The industry is willing to discuss decommissioning. I am sure that it would not be impossible for Ministers to discuss the matter with the industry and to try to devise a well targeted scheme so that the fleet size can be reduced in a well managed way.

We are then told about the Fontainebleau agreement. I shall not go into the details of that, because it is rather complicated. As I understand it, although on the face of it a decommissioning scheme would involve a 70 per cent. contribution from the Community and a 30 per cent. contribution from the Exchequer, it is argued that, as a result of the Fontainebleau agreement, the contribution would amount to 30 per cent. from the Community and roughly 70 per cent. from the Exchequer. That conveniently ignores the tax implications for the fishermen. It seems that the Government are prepared to play with the figures one way but not to think the implications through.

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Hon. Members will recall that the Fontainebleau agreement was a great diplomatic triumph for the former Prime Minister. Surely it is not the fishing industry's fault if, once the details have been worked out, the agreement is not quite as triumphal as it was made out to be at the time. Why should the fishing industry be singled out for discrimination? Why should the Fontainebleau agreement be invoked to deprive them of the opportunity to receive benefits that the European Community wishes them to have?

It is important to note that the common fisheries policy has two strands-- the conservative side and the structures side. It is clear that the Commission intends to boost the structures side through decommissioning and by giving assistance to areas that depend on the fishing industry to help them to cope with the reduction in stocks. What we have from the Government is the worst of all worlds. Our fishing communities are penalised by the reduction in stocks, but they are receiving very few of the benefits on the structures sides of the policy. We have never yet had a convincing answer from the Government as to why that should be.

Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro) : My hon. Friend will agree that there is an important third strand to Europe's policy on fishing, which is that it recognises national interests through the quotas allocated to the member nations in the various sectors. In that respect, the action of the Spanish fishermen in coming in to our waters and using our quota is devastating to fishermen who are struggling in all the ways that my hon. Friend has described. Certainly in my part of the world, the position that the Government adopt on that will be as important as any other element to fishermen's future.

Mr. Wallace : I am well aware of my hon. Friend's concern for his area. I know that the problem is particularly acute in the waters around the south-west, where there is already evidence of Spanish vessels coming in. If the Government had built up more credit with the Commission over the years, rather than being seen to rubbish proposals such as that for health warnings on cigarette packets, they would have been able to bat on better ground when it came to a clear issue of national interest such as this.

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