Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 103)
TUESDAY 17 NOVEMBER 1998
MR STEPHEN
WENTWORTH, MR
ANDREW KUYK,
MR IAN
GORDON AND
DR JOSEPH
HORWOOD
80. Do you encourage more direct contracting
between fishermen and, say, Tesco or Ross who do the processing?
(Mr Wentworth) We are not in the business of telling
the market how to operate, but these are areas in which there
is scope for useful developments.
81. But if the Commission is making proposals
it must have a picture of how it expects the market to work and
who are expected to form these partnerships.
(Mr Kuyk) In general terms it is looking for the kinds
of developments that you have described between catchers and either
first stage processors or, perhaps in the case of wet fish, directly
with retail companies. Part of that is aimed at addressing the
point made earlier about the disparity between the price to the
catcher and the price to the consumer. The Commission see it as
being in the interests of the industry and perhaps also the consumer
to have a greater degree of vertical integration and a more streamlined
flow from catchers to processors and retailers. The Commission
see that as having a general benefit. But the proposals are not
of a regulatory nature; they put in place structures that may
encourage that kind of development if the industry wishes to take
advantage of it.
82. Has any advice been offered to fishermen
on the implications for the structure of the UK fishing fleet
and the changing markets for fish products in the UK and abroad?
While you have given very detailed answers to questions about
research, there does not appear to be an awful lot of involvement
or ownership by fishermen. You do not appear to have the same
level of detailed answers in terms of marketing and what happens
to the fish. Is that because you have not prepared for it in this
session or because you are more concerned with that part of the
industry that extracts the fish from the sea than what happens
to it after it has been caught?
(Mr Wentworth) There is a very practical reason for
part of the question. The Government have responsibility for managing
fish stocks in terms of what is caught, methods of catching and
so on. They do not have the same kind of responsibility for organising
marketing.
83. But they have responsibility for the food
industry and food safety. Fish and shellfish in particular have
quite a substantial part to play in that.
(Mr Wentworth) As to the role in relation to fish
marketing, quite a lot is done by the Sea Fish Industry Authority
who, like some other organisations in the area of agriculture,
is industry funded partly in order to enable it to get engaged
in fish marketing. It carries out advertising campaigns, offers
advice and seeks to bring the industry together to discuss that
subject. As to food safety, you will need to pursue that matter
with my colleagues whose concern it is. It is not within my remit.
84. What about advice to fishermen on the implications
for the structure of the UK fishing fleet and the changing market
for fish products in the UK and abroad?
(Mr Wentworth) Are you quoting from something?
Ms Keeble: I am quoting from a question which
I understood you had been warned might be asked.
Chairman
85. Do you tell fishermen that they should adapt
their practices in this way?
(Mr Wentworth) I think that the Sea Fish Industry
Authority has a greater role in that than we do.
Mr Todd
86. If we turn to enforcement, the number of
infringements detected by the various enforcement vessels at sea
is shown as 1,601 in 1997. Of those, 184 led to a prosecution.
Can you explain how you decide whether or not to prosecute an
infringement since that figure represents a rate of about one
in 10?
(Mr Wentworth) A vessel will be boarded and it will
be found that a large number of things are going wrong. A prosecution
will follow. The prosecution will pursue a considerable number
of different infringements.
87. Unless the document is wrong, paragraph
4.10 quotes a specific figure. It states: "A total of 1,601
infringements of European Union fishing regulations were detected
in respect of 790 vessels. During 1997 the masters and/or owners
of some 123 vessels were prosecuted in respect of 184 infringements.
. ." It implies that despite your point that quite a number
of different infringements are involved the total number prosecuted
against those actually detected is relatively small?
(Mr Wentworth) The other factors that will be taken
into account will be the severity of the infringement. Sometimes
infringements are dealt with by warnings of some kind, written
or otherwise. There is also a question as to whether the evidence
will be sufficient to secure a prosecution and whether it will
serve a worthwhile purpose. That accounts for the difference between
the number of infringements detected and the number of prosecutions
that are pursued.
88. Does it imply that our enforcement fleet
is wasting its time out there detecting infringements which MAFF
chooses not to prosecute?
(Mr Wentworth) No, I do not think that it is wasting
its time.
89. Have you made any comparisons of the effectiveness
of the Navy who carry out a proportion of your enforcement task
as against that carried out in the Scottish area which has been
contracted out?
(Mr Gordon) It has not been contracted out. The agency
brings together the different elements of enforcement.
90. It is the agency that is used to carry out
the task?
(Mr Wentworth) I do not think there is any reason
to believe that it has a significantly different experience other
than that it is policing different waters and encountering different
vessels in different circumstances. The waters around Scotland
are perhaps slightly less crowded.
(Mr Gordon) At one time we had the Navy operating
under contract for us alongside our own fishery protection vessels.
I do not think that we would draw any distinction between the
performance of the two vessels. Essentially, the fisheries officers
on the two vessels go through the same kind of training. One difference
is that they tend not to spend as long at the task of fisheries
enforcement as our own dedicated staff over time, but we do not
see that as a major problem.
91. But you obviously did draw comparisons because
you chose to take it away from the Navy and give it to the agency.
There must be comparisons to be drawn between the two experiences,
and indeed between the current experience in Scotland and that
in England and Wales.
(Mr Gordon) When that decision was made in early 1997
we decided that we did not need the additional capacity that the
navy provided for us. In effect they gave us 300 days at sea.
A variety of factors must be taken into account. Clearly, one
factor is the financial consideration; another is flexibility.
When we contracted out that facility to the navy it gave us a
more flexible way of running down our capacity than our own internal
fleet.
92. Can you draw any comparisons between the
UK enforcement resource and the decision-making as to whether
or not to pursue infringements and the position in other Member
States? You highlight that sometimes cautions are given; sometimes
the evidence is not regarded as sufficient. Does one draw a comparison
between our experience and that in other Member States?
(Mr Wentworth) The Commission produces reports from
time to time that give information of a factual kind about the
number of infringements discovered and the response of the Member
State. Some Member States have rather different legal structures
in the sense that they have systems for operating administrative
penalties. Presumably, there are arrangements for appeals, but
effectively it is decided by administrative action. That means
that perhaps smaller penalties are imposed.
Mr Todd: It is bit like parking tickets.
Chairman: This was an area that Mr Mitchell
had hoped to explore earlier. Mr Curry wants to deal with the
Royal Navy.
Mr Curry
93. Now that the Royal Flight is to be put out
to tender clearly there is nothing sacrosanct about the navy.
Do not naval vessels have relatively short endurance so that their
ability to remain at sea is much less than that of, say, the Scottish
vessel? Are you entirely at liberty to use the Navy on a commercial
basis? Would there be any prohibition against bringing in an outside
agency, not the Navy, given the training that the navy is given
for this task, the number of vessels that it has and so on? Are
you a free agent in the way that you use the Navy for fisheries
protection?
(Mr Wentworth) As to endurance, that question arises
rather differently. Our contract with the Navy specifies a rate
of payment per day at sea. We do not mind how long they are at
sea if we are paying only for the days that they are on the task.
94. But when they are steaming to and from port
they cannot be doing fisheries protection.
(Mr Wentworth) Our contract takes account of that.
Effectively, it is based on an evaluation that has been made of
what we would be paying the private sector as compared with the
Navy. We are not paying the navy what it costs to run a ship but
an amount based on an evaluation of what a private sector fisheries
protection service would cost. In that way we are very content
with the way that the system operates. Obviously, in principle
there is the possibility of not using the navy. In that situation
one would lose various features that the Navy can provide which
would present a private sector enterprise with more difficulty.
The inspection aspects of the operation of the Navy are clearly
more readily transferable to a civilian operator, as the Scottish
experience demonstrates. To the extent that one may require fisheries
protection in the sense of dealing with incidents at sea or whatever,
a civilian operation is necessarily at some disadvantage. There
are advantages in having the Navy there which one would not get
so readily from a civilian operation.
Mr Mitchell
95. In your view are black fish landings—primarily,
this is a Scottish issue given the nature of that industry—up
or down on last year?
(Mr Gordon) It is in the nature of these things that
to quantify something that is landed without our knowledge is
very difficult to do. Anecdotal evidence from the industry suggests
that the problem has declined significantly in the past year.
That can be attributed to various factors. The industry has attributed
it to an extent to the improvement in whitefish prices that has
been experienced this year as a result of wider market developments.
96. What about discards?
(Mr Wentworth) I am not sure it is possible to say
what is happening in that area on a year-to-year basis.
(Dr Horwood) It is nice to make a distinction between
the discarding of marketable over-quota fish and the discarding
of little fish. The vast majority of discarding is of small fish
under marketable size. Typically, those levels are very high in
the whitefish fisheries.
97. The point is that if one is running a quota
system for specific species in a mixed fishery one will get discards
or black fish or both. The real question therefore is: can you
run specific quotas in mixed fisheries?
(Mr Wentworth) Many vessels will have a mix of quotas
available to them which will tend to accommodate the mix of species
that they normally catch.
98. Many do not. All the examples that achieve
publicity arise where vessels do not have that capacity.
(Mr Wentworth) That is not surprising because the
ones that achieve publicity are those where those concerned seek
to make a point. There are a lot of other fishermen who are managing
with the quotas available to them. Within producer organisations
where they have a number of members and a mix of quotas they will
be able if they wish to adjust the uptake within the membership.
One should not assume that discards inevitably take place on a
large scale because of the quota system. More problematically,
discards arise when fishermen catch fish that are under size.
If they used larger mesh nets it would be less of a problem. As
has been explained earlier, if one uses markedly different mesh
nets one can run into other difficulties.
99. One wonders whether the quota system is
sufficiently flexible for the needs of fishermen. Perhaps I can
extend that to the fixed quota system that comes in at the beginning
of the year. Will that be flexible enough for fishermen?
(Mr Wentworth) You may be misinterpreting "fixed"
in the description of fixed quota allocations. It is a question
of what is being fixed. The present quota system has operated
on the basis of a rolling allocation of quotas. Three years were
taken as the base year and the next year's share of the quota
was based on what had been achieved in those past years. It was
a system that had some benefits in that it responded to changes
in behaviour as time went by but it had other disadvantages in
that it provided an incentive for fishermen to try to catch as
much as they could to maximise the quota allocated to them in
a future year. There was certainly the temptation that if they
could not catch the fish they would somehow or other ensure that
it appeared in their statistics for the same reason. Therefore,
one had ghost fish that did not exist. That problem will be removed
because the quota allocation will have a fixed quantity instead
of always looking back to the past three years. It is a fixed
share.
100. I want to ask about enforcement in other
states. Which other European states enforce as effectively and
as vigorously as we do and which do not?
(Mr Wentworth) Different Member States enforce different
parts of the Common Fisheries Policy in rather different ways.
To make a simple comparison like that is quite difficult. I do
not know that we have sufficiently detailed information of what
goes on in each Member State to make a fair judgment.
101. How can you trust them?
(Mr Wentworth) We can let you have the most recent
Commission report on its activities in checking on Member States.
The Commission has the responsibility for ensuring that Member
States collectively are complying with the rules. It carries out
inspection visits in the Member States across the Union. This
is one of the areas in which the powers of inspection of the Commission
are to be increased in the regulations referred to earlier. Under
those regulations the Commission will have the ability to carry
out spot checks within Member States.
102. You are being very diplomatic. All the
anecdotal evidence and evidence from the industry is that enforcement
is much less lax in, say, Spain and France than it is in this
country. The anecdotes are legion. Lots of people come to me to
complain about under size fish being on sale openly in Spain.
When they go to the markets in Spain they never see any inspectors
and the people say that there are no inspection visits. Skippers
come to me to complain that when they land fish at Boulogne they
cannot find anyone to check their logbooks, or that anyone shows
any interest in the matter. Surely, enforcement is unsatisfactory
in several European countries?
(Mr Wentworth) Certainly, it is not satisfactory across
the board. For that reason the Council is working on, and effectively
has agreed, a new regulation. At the specific request of the two
Member States you mention, France and Spain, that regulation includes
some new provisions to deal with under size fish. One of the effects
of the regulation will be to provide an information trail that
relates the fish at market back to where it has been caught. There
has been a problem in that the size of fish is not inevitably
going to meet the same criteria from all sources. There are different
minimum sizes for one fishery as compared with another. If one
finds a fish that is below a minimum size it may be under size
fish that has been wrongly taken or it may be apparently under
size fish that is quite correctly taken. That has been a problem
and the new regulation is intended to address it.
103. You and we hope that it will. The fact
is that the industry does not have faith in the adequacy of controls
at landing ports in Europe. Until it has that faith it will be
very difficult to convince it that there is a level fishing ground
and everyone will be treated in the same way. Do you concede that
the industry does not have faith?
(Mr Wentworth) I agree that if people are not satisfied
with enforcement it undermines the arrangements. That is clear
enough. One of our objectives in the science and all our dealings
with the industry is to talk to it about how things operate, consider
its views and seek to act upon them.
Chairman: Much as I would like to pursue this
matter, I think that we must draw stumps at this point. (I cannot
think of a suitable sea fishing metaphor for the end of this session.)
Thank you for what has been inevitably a very detailed session.
You have promised us lots of pieces of paper which our staff will
talk to you about in future. You have also left a number of questions
unanswered—that is our fault, not yours—and we will
probably write to you about those and other specific questions
following this session.
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