House of Commons Hansard Debates for 16 Dec 1996 (pt 27)

Mr. Salmond rose--

Mr. Townend: If I give way, I will not be able to keep to the requested 10 minutes.

Mr. Salmond: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on what he is saying. However, is he unaware that the figures that he has just given are the result of the Government's policy of not enabling the fishing industry to have access to the very funds that he mentioned?

Mr. Townend: That does not get away from the fact that the Spaniards have been subsidised by the European Union to build boats and they have also been given the finances to buy our licences and become quota hoppers. The whole thing is absolute nonsense.

I support the Government's efforts to end quota hopping, but I only wish that the Opposition today had come out in full support of that policy and said that if they were elected at the next general election they would veto the intergovernmental conference if it did not deal with the problem of quota hopping. However, they did not say that. They never make a commitment, they just imply that they will do something. I challenge the Labour Front-Bench spokesman to give a commitment to the industry that if the Labour party is elected it will veto the IGC unless it deals with the matter.

If we are opening up the whole issue, the Government should take the opportunity at the IGC to transfer British waters back to British control under the doctrine of subsidiarity. Once the fish in our waters are British again, we can have a sensible administration for the benefit of conservation and the British fishing industry, under a coastal management scheme.

We can but compare our situation with that of Norway, which is outside the common fisheries policy. My fishermen tell me that in the Norwegian section of the North sea the cod are much bigger and there are not the same problems with discards. The Norwegian industry is prosperous; there is no shortage of money for investment.

Despite all the commitments, if we do not take the opportunity now open to us my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston will be proved to be right. In the early years of the next century--2002, I believe--foreign boats will be fishing right up to our waters and there will be equal access for everyone. That will be disastrous.

I want to raise a few points that my fishermen feel are important and which I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with when he replies to the debate. The fishermen believe it absolutely vital to maintain the fisheries industry safety group. They believe that there should be minimum landing sizes. They want an improvement in the stock assessment that forms the basis of quotas. For years, they have been based on the recommendations of scientists. If they had been right, we should have been able to look forward each year to

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increasing stocks. The scientists have not been right and the fishermen's perspective of stock should not be ignored, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) said.

The fishermen want us to do everything possible to ensure that there is no cut this year in the North sea cod quota. Some 80 to 90 per cent. of my fishermen depend on cod, so a cut would be devastating for the Bridlington industry. There is also no justification for keeping down the quota for North sea haddock, which is not under the same pressure as cod, merely because it is caught in the same fisheries.

Finally, we must deal with the problem of seals--despite the view of environmentalists. The seals are reproducing at an enormous rate and it is wrong to say that they do not affect the fishing industry. I have seen salmon, caught by my fishermen, with big bites taken out of them. Seals are like foxes--they do not eat salmon, they just take big bites out of them and ruin them for the fisherman.

Having dealt with the problems of Bridlington, I want to say a word on behalf of those British fishermen who are not represented in the House. I speak, of course, of the fishermen of Guernsey, whose waters are now being pillaged by the French. The French have been breaking agreements and have had their naval fishery protection vessels supporting their fishermen in the waters off Guernsey.

Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham): Our Navy has been present.

Mr. Townend: I am pleased to hear that. Will my hon. Friend the Minister confirm that, as it is not the information that I have been given? If the Navy is there, I hope that it will take a higher profile. We should let the fishermen of Guernsey know that we are prepared to fight for their rights, just as we were prepared to fight for the rights of the Falkland islanders.

8.25 pm

Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down): I want to place on record my appreciation to the Minister and to Baroness Denton, the Northern Ireland Office Minister responsible for fisheries, who visited my constituency a couple of weeks ago and discussed many problems with fishing organisations and fishermen.

I want at the outset to quote from a 1992 European Commission report, "Regional Socio-Economic Studies in the Fisheries sector". It said that in Northern Ireland

"there are currently very few alternate employment opportunities. Perhaps this is the one area where the maintenance of fish and related industry employment should be a priority."

In other words, the Commission said that the Northern Ireland fishing industry is special and worthy of being given priority in its dealings under the general guidance and rules.

I raise that matter because we are talking about conservation matters. I must embellish what the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) said by citing three statistics relevant to the fishing industry in Northern Ireland. First, to date there has been a reduction of about 35 per cent. in our fishing fleet. Secondly, there has been a 25 per cent. reduction in our catches or landings. Thirdly, 200 to 300 jobs have been lost from a work force of about 2,500.

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I can conclude only that Northern Ireland has made a substantial, more proportional, contribution to fishing conservation in the Irish sea than anyone else. That was confirmed when, as the hon. Member for North Antrim said, we visited Brussels in the past couple of weeks, but we could still be penalised because Brussels alleges--I want the Minister to comment on this--that the United Kingdom as a whole has not fulfilled its obligations on conservation. Because Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, it will be further penalised in the forthcoming multi-annual guidance programme IV. We will suffer disproportionately yet again, despite the fact that we have fulfilled our conservation commitment. That point needs to be made very clearly.

We were also alarmed by the proposals under Lassen for a further 40 per cent. reduction in fishing effort--a 40 per cent. reduction of a 70 per cent. remnant of the fleet of Northern Ireland. That would be devastating. There comes a point when fishing effort at sea--which, of course, supports the onshore process involving factories and jobs--simply collapses. If there are not sufficient catches coming ashore, the whole industry, both at sea and ashore, will collapse like a pack of cards.

The Lassen report has been scorned and opposed by all participating Governments, but it is the only report on the table. There is no other proposal. All the others are in the air, and we must be very careful, because Commissioner Bonino is very enamoured of it.

The quota restrictions that we think will be imposed are frightening for the Northern Ireland fishing industry. Whiting, plaice, herring and haddock have been placed in the same category. I shall deal with one of the species to illustrate our problem with all the quotas. In 1997, the Irish sea whiting total allowable catch will suffer its greatest reduction, from 9,000 tonnes in 1996. The scientific community recommended a TAC of 7,500 tonnes, but the Commission has now proposed one of 6,400--a cut of 29 per cent. We simply cannot withstand such a cut. We also do not understand it. All the signs indicate that, in 1997, the potential is good for whiting fishing.

On Irish sea whiting, the ICES scientists report stated:

"Whiting is taken mainly as a by-catch in mixed species otter trawl fisheries . . . The stock is considered to be within safe biological limits."

An interesting comparison can be made on the basis of two quotations in the same report, one on whiting in the Irish sea, the other on whiting off the west of Scotland. On the latter area, the report states: