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Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hughes: Just hear me out. The Prime Minister came to a deal, because he needed the votes of Ulster Unionist Members to avoid defeat. I do not know whether there is a shred of truth in that story, and if there is, I do not blame the Ulster Unionist Members, who are using their position to get the best they can for their industry. But that is not the right way to run fishing policy. Bargaining with a little bit here and a little bit there is not the answer. The Government might see a Conservative Member who may vote against them tonight and offer to take care of the problem in his constituency. Sadly, that is not the way to go about it.

The trouble is that all this talk about the intergovernmental conference is simply hot air, because the Prime Minister knows only too well that he will not be at the next IGC. After the election, the right hon. Gentleman might not even be the Leader of the Opposition. He might well be sitting where the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) currently sits, and the hon. Gentleman might well be the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Nicholls: This is a serious debate.

Mr. Hughes: Yes, it is a serious debate. The Prime Minister cares about only one thing--survival. He is treating the House of Commons as if it were a hospice for the terminally ill--he is trying to dull the pain and alleviate distress until the inevitable end comes.

Mr. William Ross: The hon. Gentleman suggested some time ago that he believed the fairy tales put about by the media. He should understand by now that as every other Opposition Member is known always to vote against the Government almost regardless of the issue, the Ulster Unionists are the only Members about whom the media can speculate. Therefore, speculation is rife, and very often wrong. I can tell him that, on this occasion, the view expressed by the media about a cosy deal is totally without foundation.

Mr. Hughes: I am glad that I allowed the hon. Gentleman to put that on the record. I said that I was not concerned one way or the other whether there was a shred of truth in the story. We are all honourable Members in this place, and I take his word that no cosy deal has been done. It may be that a cosy deal was offered, but we shall leave that aside.

The one fortunate thing is that the end of this Government is not far away--it is four to five months away. It will then be for my right hon. and hon. Friends to take up the cudgels to obtain changes to the CFP, to give it stability and justice. I hope that whoever follows the hon. Member for St. Ives and me into this House will be as strong in their defence of the fishing industry as he has been. For that reason, I shall be voting against the Government. I want to bring them down as soon as possible, and I hope that we can do so.

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7.25 pm

Sir Richard Body (Holland with Boston): The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) berated the Government in somewhat quieter tones than the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang). I have great respect for the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East, especially for his views on agricultural policy, which we seem almost to share. I take it that he was as responsible as anyone for drafting the Labour amendment. I can think of only one word to describe the amendment, and I fear that it may be out of order. I can think of no more elegant phraseology than that word, which is "humbug".

The hon Member for Edinburgh, East berated with fury what has gone on for the past 17 years, but has he forgotten what he was doing in 1976? In that year, Community law was laid down in a regulation governing the future direction of the CFP. At the heart of that policy was the principle of equal access, so that we in this country and our fishermen had no more right to the waters that had previously been ours than any of the other member states. From that has stemmed all the troubles that we have with the CFP.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East will know that in 1976 the then Labour Government had a veto, which they did not exercise. If only they had exercised that veto and prevented the 1976 regulation from coming about, we would not have had any of the consequences for the past 17 years, about which he has complained. But that is not what he did, nor what that Government did. I think that I am right in saying that he was in an office that had some influence over those matters.

I commiserate with my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has a miserable job--it is an impossible job. He knows, as do all of us with an interest in any part of the fishing industry, that we could once again have a fishing industry as large and as prosperous as it was many years ago. But we cannot have that prosperity again--it is not possible--as long as we do not have the same rights to waters as those enjoyed by any self-governing nation state of the world. That is the truth of the matter.

As the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) has said many times before, we have lost that right of control and until we regain it, we shall never have an effective conservation policy and we shall never restore our fishing stocks. Furthermore, we shall never be able to deal with industrial fishing, which has now become an evil because it sweeps up millions of undersized fish which, in times past, would have been left in the sea to mature so as to be caught at a later stage when they were worth eating.

In the North sea, the numbers of five important species are now so dangerously low that they are nearing the point of irreversible decline. Those are herring, mackerel, cod, plaice and sole--five species that have been on the plates of all hon. Members many times. They are popular species and we should sustain those resources permanently, in large quantities, as they were sustained in the past. In the North sea, stocks have now fallen so low that we might soon reach an irreversible position. I hope that the Minister is aware of that problem and knows that it is deeply serious.

All of us who have any part of the fishing industry in our constituencies know that my hon. Friend the Minister of State has travelled up and down the country explaining the Government's difficulties and their policies. He has

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been listening and learning and many fishermen appreciate what he has been trying to do. However, I wish that he would not use the term "non-negotiable" in respect of our six to 12-mile limit. That term is causing some anger among many fishermen because, if one says that those fishing rights are non-negotiable, it suggests that their ownership is ours, that we have a right to them and that we will not concede that right. The fact is that we conceded those rights long ago, when we entered the European Community. Those waters are as much Community waters as those beyond the 12-mile limit.

Let me underline that point. If my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who is a lawyer, were my landlord who had given me a 10-year lease, and I were to go round telling my neighbours that I would continue to have possession and that my rights were non-negotiable, as a lawyer and a landlord, my hon. Friend would tell me that I was deceiving myself and my neighbours. I therefore urge him to abandon the term "non-negotiable". I know what he means, but his use of a phrase that fishermen resent is not doing him any good.

Fishermen feel that over the years they have been deceived, I regret to say, by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The Liberal Democrats have probably been the worst offenders and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists have been no better. I have to admit that the Ulster Unionists on both sides of the House have probably behaved in the most frank and honest manner in respect of the fishing industry.

The time has now come for us to be frank with the fishing industry and to say that our hands are tied and that there is a limit to what we can do. I appreciate what my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) has said about the common fisheries policy. He has denounced it with great charm and great firmness, but the only real answer is to reassert ourselves. To concede that we should have a common fisheries policy of any kind is unwise and unnecessary. If we are to have a successful Community that is to enlarge to include 25, 30 or more countries, we have to forget about having a common fisheries policy. It would be impossible and absurd to allow countries such as Estonia and Latvia, which have their own fishing fleets, to have equal access with ours.

As part of any enlargement, we have to say that every member state should have its own fishing policy. Let us act as if we were a self-governing nation state, with control of our own waters, so that we can have a prosperous fishing industry in future.

7.34 pm

Mr. James Wallace (Orkney and Shetland): I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body). He attacked my party and other Opposition parties, but it is fair to say that, after fisheries debates in recent years, we have found ourselves in the Lobby in support of the fishing industry more often than have Conservative Members. When he raises the red herring of access to waters, he must know that the derogation has been challenged in the courts by the Spaniards and that that case failed.

New members of the Community are generally excluded from waters that they have not traditionally fished and there is no reason to suspect that Estonia will be treated any more favourably, unless it gives us a major concession that blinds the Minister of the day. That is

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unlikely. To put up such Aunt Sallies does not help, because it increases uncertainty within the industry. Mrs. Bonino has indicated that there is no likelihood of the derogation on the six to 12-mile limit being challenged in the 2002 review.

I welcome the widespread attention being given to our annual fisheries debate and I am grateful to the Government's business managers for allowing it additional time. The Minister of State's tour of fishing ports around the country, trying to woo hon. Members, was interesting. My hon. Friends and I were speculating about how he would try to woo the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill), but he was not prepared to compromise on a unilateral renunciation of the common fisheries policy. We look forward with interest to seeing whether enough has been said this evening to persuade the hon. Member for Ludlow.

Despite all the political attention focused on the vote at the end of the debate, we should not lose sight of the fact that we are considering the details of a regulation that will have a considerable impact in the forthcoming year on the lives and the livelihoods of fishermen and on the communities to which they belong, from Shetland to Cornwall. Against that background, I hope that the Minister will respond to several pertinent questions, many of which have already been raised and to some of which the Minister has already referred. When he winds up, I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson), will be able to take them on.

Traditionally, much of the December debate focuses on the total allowable catches--or TACs--for the next year. The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) and I have taken part in many of these debates over the years. We both first spoke in December 1983 and at that time, as in subsequent years, the Minister's remit at the Fisheries Council was that he should unequivocally negotiate the best deal for our fishermen. Of course, when TACs were negotiated at Fisheries Councils in the past, most of them were taken up by British fishermen. The position is different in respect of the TACs to be negotiated at this week's Fisheries Council: 44 per cent. of the plaice quota, 46 per cent. of the hake quota, 20 per cent. of the sole quota, and 29 per cent. of the anglers quota--all high-value species--will be fished by non-British fishermen. That is a result of the quota hopping that has been the subject of much of the discussion so far and to which I shall return.

Representations from fishing organisations have highlighted many of their concerns and, although I would agree with the hon. Member for St. Ives that the list is not quite as long as in some years, the points they raise are important. It is generally felt that the pelagic settlement is reasonably satisfactory, but disappointment is expressed at the fact that, despite the industry having taken a 50 per cent. cut in the TAC for herring earlier this year, the cut in sprats is only half that amount. Given that sprat fishing takes up a number of juvenile herring, that issue should be re-examined.

The Minister may wish to say something about the deal that was struck at the weekend on Atlanto-Scandian herring, which is welcomed by the industry. The EU amount is less in the forthcoming year, but it is thought that, given that fishermen will be allowed to fish some of it in Norwegian and Faroese waters and land in Norway, it has considerable value. It would be helpful if the Minister

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would say that there will be no impediment to British vessels starting fishing that on 1 January 1997, so that they can start establishing a track record for what may be a very important fishery for the future.

From a Scots perspective, with regard to the white fish species, there is major concern about the significant cut in the TAC for west of Scotland haddock, as the Minister of State acknowledged in response to a question by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). It is believed that the scientific evidence might justify a status quo for haddock; I hope, especially as it is a precautionary TAC, that Ministers will focus their minds on that in the forthcoming Council meeting.

Similar consideration applies to North sea haddock, where the TAC cut comes in the wake of a significant cut in the cod quota. Many people accept the need for tougher measures with regard to cod, to conserve a seriously depleted stock, but it does not follow that there should be the same cut for haddock, especially as it is possible to fish haddock clean of cod. I hope that North sea haddock will be given special attention.

There is scepticism about the precautionary TAC for west of Scotland saithe, a problem which might be better resolved by uplifting the TAC than by invoking the Hague preference, which has been a subject of some discussion.

On the subject of cod, there are obvious difficulties in fishing in the North sea and west of Scotland. The Minister will confirm that there is an increase in the cod available in north Norway for Community vessels. I shall not go into individual constituency cases now, but I hope that the Minister will accept that there is an opportunity for vessels from the Scottish fleet to go to north Norway, and that any representations that he receives on that will receive sympathetic consideration.

From the perspective south of the border, I know that the Minister is aware that on North Sea plaice, it is feared that the European Union agreement with Norway produced a situation where a swift recovery of stocks might lead to a dislocation in the industry, whereas a slower recovery, by retaining the status quo at 81,000 tonnes, would be helpful in maintaining the well-being of those who have been fishing plaice in the North sea.

A similar view is taken on the disproportionate cut in North Sea sole quota. I understand that, at last year's Council, there was direct negotiation with Norway on plaice. I hope that the Minister can confirm that, if it comes to it, he will be prepared to do that again.

The industry believes that, unlike other areas, the Irish sea boasts stable stocks of cod, and that a higher TAC there, thus avoiding Hague preference, would be better for English and Ulster fishermen.

We were told by the Minister of State that the industry had generally signed up to a review of the Hague preference. I understand that the Scottish Fishermen's Federation was told about the proposal at a meeting that the Minister of State came into today and that some things were said about it, but it certainly could not be thought that the federation had signed up to it.

I say as constructively as I can that, obviously, the issue is sensitive. In fisheries debates we have often appealed to Ministers to invoke the Hague preference, which has brought benefits over the years. It does not help if people

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feel that they have been bounced into a position that they have not. I hope that a greater sensitivity on that issue will be shown, perhaps even by the Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office when he replies to the debate.

I know that the Under-Secretary of State is especially concerned about salmon farming, which is a matter for the Council. He knows, as we all do, that the Government eventually agreed to apply to the Commission for a minimum import price. That has not been forthcoming. Apparently, Mrs. Bonino gave the Minister short shrift when he went on a special errand to try to get it. Is it possible for the Council to take the matter into its hands? It is intolerable that some of the most efficient salmon farmers in Scotland--in Shetland, my constituency--are obliged to sell their product at below production cost. As the Minister knows, that is unsustainable. An emergency response is needed, and we very much hope that he can make progress on that.

I said that in the past, and in relation to the current round, fishermen have expressed scepticism about some of the TACs that have been set. People might argue that the fishermen would say that because they want to fish more, but self-evidently it is not in the interests of the fishing industry to kill off the stocks on which it and future generations will depend. We should not dismiss the experience and expertise that skippers can contribute to the inexact science of stock assessments.

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