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11.36 am
Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury): May I, first, welcome the new Fisheries Minister to his new post? He was an extremely conscientious Opposition spokesman, and I have no doubt he will be an extremely conscientious Fisheries Minister, although he may already have discovered not just the complexities of the issue in government but the constraints on any Minister as a consequence of collective responsibility and of actions by the Foreign Office and the Treasury. We have seen some of that since Amsterdam. It was a great privilege to be the Fisheries Minister, and I rise in the debate not out of any sense of self-justification but because it is important to place some comments on the record. The somewhat partial view of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) should to a certain extent be challenged.
The UK has always had an extremely liberal regime--for understandable policy reasons--for foreign merchant marine registering on our Register of Shipping. There were good reasons for that. We wanted to maintain a large merchant marine. It encouraged employment by our merchant navy and ensured better safety standards. However, it meant that, in the mid-1980s, when decommissioning was introduced as a policy throughout the European Union to restrict catches in Community waters, it was easier for foreign nationals to register their vessels over here, effectively as UK vessels. Then, as we know, they were successful in purchasing licences from UK fishermen. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, under international law, they were UK-registered boats with UK-held licences.
As soon as that was recognised, the House and the Government sought to take steps to deal with it in the merchant shipping legislation of the late 1980s. Clearly Parliament thought that that legislation was effective and sought to enforce it as effective legislation. What we could not have anticipated--I do not think that Westminster could ever have reasonably anticipated this--was the attitude and approach of the European Court of Justice. In the Factortame case, it struck down that legislation on the basis that it was contrary to Community law and that it failed appropriately to give sufficient weight--
Mr. Salmond:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baldry:
I will give way in a second. I see the hon. Gentleman. Let me finish just this part of my speech.
The court believed that the legislation failed to give appropriate weight to the concept of the single market and that it was thus contrary to Community law.
The court misdirected itself, because fishing is the only area in the EU where we have national quotas, and it must make sense, if there are national quotas, for those to be for the benefit of the fishermen of that nation. If there is going to be a UK fishing quota, it must be for the benefit of UK fishermen.
One of the things that the House cannot get away from is that it is crazy for a substantial part of the UK fishing quota to be in the hands of foreign fishermen. That was
clearly something on which action had to be taken. Before I tell the House what action we sought to take, I happily give way to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan.
Mr. Salmond:
The House probably wants to concentrate on where we are now, without going too much into the past--
Mr. Baldry:
The hon. Gentleman did it too.
Mr. Salmond:
The hon. Gentleman is right. I did lay out the history of the matter; but, if he considers the Committee proceedings on the Merchant Shipping Act 1988, he will find that whether the Government's attempt to deal with the issue would fall foul of the European Court was thoroughly debated. Indeed, amendments were moved by me and the Labour party to strengthen the crews and residential requirements. The previous Government argued that those amendments would fall foul of the court which, in the light of what happened, was ironic.
Mr. Baldry:
I share one piece of advice with the new Fisheries Minister. He can guarantee that the Scottish nationalists and the Liberal Democrats, who have never had--and who are never likely to have--the responsibility of government, are always blessed with the benefit of both hindsight and foresight. That is a characteristic of all fishing debates. I, too, want to deal with the present and the future, but it is important to work out how we got here.
Following the Factortame case, it was clear to everyone that the only way in which we would make substantial progress on quota hoppers was by treaty changes. The most convenient--and only--opportunity for treaty changes was at the intergovernmental conference. That is why we made it clear that we would not allow the IGC to conclude until the issue had been resolved.
The quota licences could not simply be confiscated, as they had been acquired legitimately, but it was our view that once our Community colleagues appreciated that we would not allow the IGC to conclude until the matter had been resolved--the then Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary made that clear--they would start to negotiate on ways in which those licences could be decommissioned, on compensation and on how we could move forward. We made that clear in the run-up to the general election and at the Council of Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.
The Labour party in opposition sought to give support to our approach and, at the time of the Fisheries Council, the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, said that the Labour party would consider not allowing the IGC to conclude. He gave the impression that he was taking a similar approach. That approach lasted until 1 May, when the Labour party changed its tune. Effectively, what was achieved in Amsterdam was no more than a restatement of the existing law. The exchange of letters is no more than what existed before 1 May. If Labour Members believe that something new was achieved at Amsterdam, they have been misled.
The fishing industry is now in the worst of all possible worlds. Unless the Minister tells the House today that the Treasury will give substantial new money to the MAFF public spending line for decommissioning, the Government will shortly have no alternative but to introduce a very tough effort control system and a tough days-at-sea policy. No one with any understanding of this
issue believes that the measures that will arise from decisions at Amsterdam will have any effect on quota hoppers. There will be no reduction in the number of existing quota hoppers, and there is nothing to prevent further quota hoppers from coming on to the United Kingdom register.
Given the decisions taken at Luxembourg about reducing the catching capacity in the European Community--they apply equally to the United Kingdom as elsewhere--the future for the United Kingdom fishing industry is extremely bleak. As I understand it, there will be very little extra money for decommissioning and, as I have said, we are about to see tough policies on effort control and days at sea. The frustration is that such policies would bear down on those parts of the industry which are effective, profitable and competitive.
My shoulders are broad, and I am prepared to be judged by the fishing industry for my stewardship as Minister. I think that the industry's judgment may be kinder than the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan sought to give on the industry's behalf. We can say beyond peradventure that the Government have failed the fishing industry lamentably. There was an opportunity at Amsterdam, probably the only one this decade, to really sort out the problem of quota hoppers. That opportunity was missed and the fishing industry will pay the price for decades to come.
Mr. James Wallace (Orkney and Shetland):
The hon. Gentleman talked about his stewardship and mentioned the Luxembourg Council of Ministers, which was probably his last major involvement as Minister. In the run-up to that meeting, it had been expected--indeed, Ministers had said it--that Ministers would try to put together a blocking minority to stop multi-annual guidance programme IV going through. That did not happen, despite the fact that we had the support of the French. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us why the expectation of a blocking minority was not fulfilled?
Mr. Baldry:
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will find any reference to my putting forward such a proposition in any debate or in notes of any meeting that I held with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation or the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations. It was always clear to me that it would be possible for the Commission to buy off sufficient other member states for it to be impractical to put together a blocking minority.
I made it clear to the NFFO and to the SFF that our policy was that over a quarter of the United Kingdom fleet was in the hands of quota hoppers and that, if we could sort out that problem at the IGC, we would then have some leverage and could meet our decommissioning targets. No one ever pretended that that would be cost-free, but we had to ensure that our colleagues in Europe recognised that we were serious. I believe that they did recognise that the Conservative Government were serious, but the election intervened before we had an opportunity to implement our policy.
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