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12.9 am
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Mr. Johnson) on securing tonight's debate, and on the way in which he and my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) and for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) have argued the case on behalf of the fishermen whom they represent in their constituencies.
The importance of the debate is reflected by the fact that my hon. Friends the Members for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman), for Brigg and Goole(Mr. Cawsey), for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Quinn), for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden), and the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. George) are present. I am surprised that no Member of the official Opposition is present to listen to this important debate.
I and my colleagues in other Departments responsible for the fishing industry naturally have a great deal of sympathy with the situation of the fishermen who lost their jobs as a result of the loss of fishing opportunities when the United Kingdom was excluded from Icelandic fishing grounds 20 years ago. Indeed, I moved to Hull as a student in 1971, when the fishing fleet was at its peak.
We fully appreciate the extremely arduous conditions that the people concerned had to face in what was then, and still remains, one of the most difficult and demanding ways of earning a living. We are also conscious of the role of the industry in providing a much valued element of the nation's diet and the wider contribution that many seafarers have made to the defence of the nation's interests, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle rightly pointed out.
The role of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the events following the loss of the Icelandic fishing grounds was in making payments to vessel owners as direct compensation for the loss of fishing opportunities. There is no surviving evidence that any enforceable conditions were attached to those payments. As has been said, owners were free to use that compensation as they chose.
A decommissioning scheme was operated between 1983 and 1986 under which a number of the vessel owners who were affected received payment for decommissioning or for converting their vessels to oil support vessels, but there were certainly no requirements at all on participating owners to make any part of their grant available to the former crews of those vessels. That could certainly be criticised, but it was part of the regulations at the time.
I should also correct my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle: there has been no payment of £30 million to Spanish trawlermen in respect of the loss of fishing opportunities. That matter is still being pursued through the courts and the Government have not conceded any liability at this time.
Considerable time has elapsed since those payments were made and there is no evidence that the legitimate initial recipients acted improperly in any way. However, it is clearly possible to continue to debate the question whether the policy was correct, particularly in the light of the knowledge that we now have about the subsequent evolution of the fishing industry, and the National Audit Office was critical of the later decommissioning scheme and the way that that money was used at that time.
In respect of compensating the crews of the vessels, it was always intended that those payments would be a matter for employment rather than fisheries policy. In his statement to the House on 28 June 1976, Fred Peart, the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made it
quite clear that the question of redundancy payments to the people affected was not a matter for his Department. He said:
Those responsibilities, which formerly lay with the Department of Employment, rest with the Department of Trade and Industry. Thus it is clear that any question of redundancy payments to trawlermen has always been considered as a question of employment policy rather than one for Fisheries Ministers.
Consequently, although I and my ministerial colleagues in MAFF stand ready to play our part in responding to the case that has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle and my hon. Friends, the final decision on whether to meet the trawlermen's claims is ultimately one for my ministerial colleagues at the DTI. However, I will convey to them the depth of feeling within the House and that which I know exists in the communities affected. I will also convey the strength of feeling that has been so clearly articulated by those hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. I might add that I fully share and support those feelings.
Question put and agreed to.
"On redundancy, I cannot be more specific: that will be a matter for the Department of Employment. It will have to identify the people affected, but it has been agreed in principle that a special scheme will be needed."--[Official Report, 28 June 1976; Vol. 914, c. 30.]
My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle has already pointed that out.
Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Twelve midnight.
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