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Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Strang: The Government are now talking tough on quota hopping. We welcome that. When the matter was raised at Agriculture Question Time, the Minister indicated that he was on the verge of resolving the matter.
Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Strang: I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Strang: I repeat: I am not giving way.
Dr. Strang: Again, I am not giving way.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) says that he is not giving way, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) should listen and resume his seat. [Interruption.] Order. I do not need a comment.
Dr. Strang: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister--I am sorry, I mean Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether that was a promotion, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I am not sure which hon. Members were in the House for the most recent Agriculture Question Time, but those who were present will recall the assertive way in which the Minister said that the Government were on the verge of resolving quota hopping. Those of us who follow such matters closely saw the great build-up to his visit to Plymouth, where he was to announce his plan to tackle quota hopping. Many of us wondered what the Government's secret weapon was.
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Hon. Members now know what the secret weapon was: English lessons for Spanish fishermen. That is what the Minister said. We would tackle the problem of quota hopping not just by the Spanish, but presumably also by the Dutch, by requiring those fishermen to speak English before they were given a licence to fish against our national quota. I give way to the Minister if he wants to add to that.
Mr. Baldry:
The hon. Gentleman knows full well how we are going to resolve the issue of quota hoppers. We have made clear to the House the change in the protocols, and I made that clear in my speech. The hon. Gentleman misunderstood some tongue-in-cheek comments by me. On the day the Spanish Prime Minister visited the UK, he was subjected to far more questions on quota hopping than on any other issue. He went away in no doubt that that the matter had to be resolved. That is what those comments in Plymouth achieved: we have ensured that everyone in Europe realises that the problem will not go away and must be solved.
Dr. Strang:
It is certainly a problem that must be solved. That is the second time the Minister has referred to all the questions put by journalists to the Spanish Minister of Agriculture. I very much doubt whether all the questions from all the journalists, whether in Plymouth, London or anywhere else, have the Spanish Government shaking in their shoes and saying, "We are certainly going to agree to change that in the IGC."
The Labour party is determined to address the issue of quota hopping.
Dr. Strang:
I have explained that we could have tackled the issue during the 1992 review. That was not done. If the Labour party comes to power, it will be before the completion of the intergovernmental conference, and Ministers know that. Clearly, an incoming Labour Government could--I put it no stronger than that--pick up the hand. I was simply saying to the House and the country that we shall attach a high priority to the quota hopping issue. As the Foreign Secretary stated yesterday and the Prime Minister mentioned again today, there is no question that we can go on with quota hopping on such a scale.
Conservative Members have made great play of the fact that the Opposition will vote against the Government tonight. They must be living in some dream world. The Minister knows perfectly well from the reception that he and his predecessors have received when they have visited fishing ports that no amount of media management will alter the fact that the Government's record on fisheries policy is one of failure. Seventeen years of successive Conservative Governments have meant 17 years of failure in fisheries policy. The Opposition amendment is designed to advance the case of the fishing industry and fishing communities throughout the United Kingdom. I appeal to right hon. and hon. Members to support it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Before I call the next hon. Member, I should tell the House that 13 hon. Members wish to speak in the remaining two and a half hours or so. May we have modest-length speeches?
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Mr. David Harris (St. Ives):
As always, I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. I must confess that I was a little baffled at the beginning of his speech but even more so by the end. I cannot understand why, since they agree precisely with what the Government are doing--at the moment at any rate--the Opposition are forcing a Division. I know that doing so is politics, to which I shall return. Not once during his speech did the hon. Gentleman give a reason for dividing the House on the motion before it. Trying to defeat the Government in such a way is purely opportunistic politics, and I hope that any Conservative Member--or, indeed, any Member on any other Bench--who is thinking of voting with the Opposition will bear that in mind.
Much mention was made in the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East of the Hague preference. Its origins of course lie in a previous Labour Government, which most people may have forgotten because it was a rather long time ago. A former Labour Minister--now Lord Owen--who then represented the west country constituency of Plymouth, Devonport, signed the Hague preference and made the arrangements. It was a political deal. That is the answer to the complaint by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) about the rather mysterious cut-off point at Flamborough head. Northern Britain basically meant Scotland, and Northern Ireland and the south-west were excluded.
Even the part of the world represented by the then Member for Devonport was excluded from the Hague preference because, had it been included, there would have been awful problems with France over Brittany. The Hague preference was a political stitch-up and we are still bearing its consequences, just as the fishing industry, especially in the south-west, has had to bear the consequences of so many other political stitch-ups over the years. I therefore very much welcome my hon. Friend the Minister's comments on that subject. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland--perhaps this is more pertinent--will also very much welcome what was said.
The House will be relieved to know that this is almost certainly my last speech on fisheries matters. I have not missed a fisheries debate in the 13 years that I have had the honour to represent St. Ives. For reasons that are known to most hon. Members, I will not be standing at the next election. I shall miss these debates, which have altered considerably over the years. The times when a small group of us used to debate the issues and actually discuss which matters concerned our fishermen, rather than getting involved, as I am afraid that, inevitably, we have in this debate, in wider political considerations, seem like halcyon days. Before we lose sight of what is before the House, I hope that I may be permitted to comment briefly on some of the proposals that could affect fishermen in my constituency and the south-west constituencies of those represented ably by colleagues on both sides of the House. The fishing industry is very dear to hon. Members who represent the south-west. I am often accused by some of my hon. Friends of banging on about fishing, but the issue runs deep for anyone who has the great honour of representing a fisheries constituency.
Three areas of the Commission proposals that will be considered later this week give concern to the south-west. It must be said that the proposals before us tonight--
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A number of issues naturally cause concern, the first of which relates to megrim. Western megrim stocks are basically a by-catch, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will bear that in mind. There is also the question of monkfish. Although, as I said, this year's proposals do not appear to be draconian, it must be remembered that they are on the back of massive cuts in the monkfish quota four years ago. I hope that my hon. Friend will heed the representations that I know have already been made to him on that point.
The third area of concern relates to a species which is often mentioned--certainly by south-west Members--in the House: channel cod. The complaint is that area VII b-k is huge. Yet the matter really concerns two distinct fish stocks. To lump them together in such a way distorts the fact that, in my part of the world--if I may call it that--there is often what appears to be an abundance of cod. Cod stocks should therefore be separated into more meaningful areas.
I return to what is undoubtedly the background to the debate: the common fisheries policy and the vexed question of quota hoppers. What I believe is common ground between every hon. Member who represents a fishing constituency, wherever they sit in the House, is the view that the CFP is a disaster. It must be torn up and rewritten; we must start again.
6.50 pm
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