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Mr. Moss: I bow to your judgment, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde): I am an honorary president of the Clyde Fishermen's Association and the brother of the skipper of a big freezer trawler. I point out to the hon. Gentleman that no representations have been made to me about the Bill. That is because its focus is narrow.

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Mr. Moss: The point that needs emphasising is that the Bill offers the Minister the opportunity to say something about grants and safety grants, which he has pointedly refused to do.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is specifically not the case. I ask the hon. Gentleman to desist from pursuing that point.

Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is not Question Time. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) has not said anything on which the hon. Gentleman can intervene.

Mr. Moss: Let me move to a separate part of my speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Atkinson rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should abide by my previous ruling. Nothing of substance has yet been said on which he can intervene.

Mr. Moss: As the Minister pointed out, the Bill's purpose is to ensure the validity of certain charges levied by the SFIA and by the Herring Industry Board and the White Fish Authority, which had their powers transferred to the SFIA in 1981. I asked the Minister to clarify the position of the White Fish Authority and he pointedly failed to do so. However, along with the HIB, it was a precursor of the SFIA.

At the heart of the matter is the Fisheries Act 1981, which set up the SFIA and, in particular, its role in administering various schemes of financial assistance under part II of that Act. When one delves into that Act, it is not apparent that any glaring oversight was made when it was enacted. The intentions of the original lawmakers were clear and unambiguous.

Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend says that the Bill may be necessary to ensure that there is no doubt about the validity of the charges, but has there been any legal challenge to them? The Minister shakes his head, so I assume that there has not. That raises a serious question as to why the Bill is necessary. Fishermen, as they see their industry going down the tube, might wonder why the House is debating such a narrow Bill and why the Minister is like Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. The House is wasting its time when it should be discussing the real problems of the industry.

Mr. Moss: My hon. Friend makes a telling point, to which I was going to come later.

Mr. Peter Atkinson: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Moss: No, I shall not give way just at the moment.

Section 3(2) of the Fisheries Act 1981 states that the SFIA

may charge fees for any services which it provides and may accept voluntary contributions to its expenses or to its expenses in respect of any particular matter.

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The charges that the Bill seeks to validate, which are known as technical charges in the accounts of the SFIA, are those that are levied by the SFIA to cover the costs of various checks and inspections carried out by marine surveyors as part of the administration of the various grant schemes in the statutory instruments referred to in the Bill. Those grant schemes are essentially of two types: one relates to the purchase and/or improvement of fishing vessels, and the other specifically to safety improvements to fishing vessels.

In sections 15 and 16 in part II of the 1981 Act, Ministers were given powers to provide schemes of financial assistance and to delegate the administration of such schemes to the SFIA. For the avoidance of any doubt or confusion regarding those powers, section 15(1) says:

The Ministers may, in accordance with a scheme made by them with the approval of the Treasury, make grants or loans for the purpose of re-organising, developing or promoting the sea fish industry or of contributing to the expenses of those engaged in it.

It is clear that Ministers can set up schemes to give financial assistance of the type described in the Bill.

To embrace earlier schemes that were already in the pipeline, subsection (5) includes those schemes administered by the White Fish Authority under section 49 of the Sea Fish Industry Act 1970. The interesting point is that the White Fish Authority seems to have had powers both to issue grants and to make charges for administering the schemes, including technical charges--or so it was believed when the White Fish Authority became the SFIA.

Section 16 of the 1981 Act covers the delegation of powers to the SFIA. It states that

Ministers may require the Sea Fish Industry Authority to administer for them any scheme made by them under this Part of this Act and where the Authority has been so required it shall administer the scheme accordingly and may exercise any discretion vested under the scheme in the Ministers.

The purpose of that section is clear: if a Minister requires the SFIA to administer any scheme of financial assistance for the fishing industry, it is duty bound to do that for the Minister.

If I interpret the Act correctly, the SFIA is also empowered to exercise any discretion that Ministers had vested in themselves, either in the primary legislation or in the various statutory instruments relating to the individual schemes. As I said earlier, those statutory instruments are in two groups. The first includes the Fishing Vessels (Acquisition and Improvement) (Grants) Schemes 1976, 1981 and 1987, and the second includes the Fishing Vessels (Safety Improvements) (Grants) Schemes 1993 and 1995.

Let us examine those statutory instruments more closely: apart from the most obvious changes relating to rates of grant, each one provided an opportunity to tighten up the wording and widen the scope of the legislation. That was confirmed by the Minister in his speech. As the House is aware, neither of the schemes for grant aid is now available--the last to go was the safety improvement grant scheme, which the Minister chopped last May--and the SFIA was instructed not to make any further technical charges after 1995. However, there were and still are schemes being administered from that date and from May 1996, which was the date for the discontinuance of the safety grant scheme.

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What were the technical charges composed of? We can obtain some idea of that from the relevant paragraphs of the statutory instruments. Let us consider, for example, the safety improvements grants scheme of 1995. At the beginning there is a simple statement that Ministers--meaning Ministers at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland--can exercise powers conferred on them by subsections 15(1) and 15(2) of the 1981 Act and administer the scheme on the safety improvement grants. Applications for grant are made to Ministers under paragraph 3 of the statutory instrument and decided by them under paragraph 6.

Paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 set down eligibility terms for grant payment, pre-work approval and minimum standards. Paragraphs 8 and 9 give the House an indication of the amount of work involved. On pre-work approval, paragraph 8(1) says:

Where an applicant whose application has been approved under paragraph 6 intends to enter into a contract with another person for the carrying out of the whole or any part of a relevant improvement to which the approved application relates, the Ministers shall, before the contract is made, approve--


(a) the specification for the improvement to be undertaken;


(b) the tender for expenditure to be incurred; and


(c) the form of contract to be entered into between the applicant and the supplier or other contractor.

Paragraph 9, on minimum standards, says:

A relevant vessel to which an application approved under paragraph 6 relates shall conform to any standards laid down by or under the Merchant Shipping Acts 1894 to 1993 and shall be constructed or adapted so as to make such provision for the accommodation of officers and crew as, in the opinion of the Ministers, conforms to the best modern practice, after making due allowance for the age and kind of the vessel, for sleeping and messing accommodation, sanitary accommodation, medical or first-aid facilities, store rooms, catering facilities and other accommodation.

That is only part of the range of checks and inspections required to be carried out on each and every grant application, not only in 1995 but long before that, and probably as far back as the White Fish and Herring Industries Act 1953. That is work for experts such as marine engineers and surveyors, who would be drawn in the main from the private sector--certainly post-1981. Those people needed paying for the work done, and the question was, and apparently still is, who should pay them and through which Department or organisation.

Ministers made the schemes, invited applications, vetted and approved those applications and reduced or recovered grant in certain situations. That much is clear. Section 16 of the 1981 Act gave Ministers the power to require the SFIA to do all that necessary work for them. Furthermore, section 16 gives the SFIA the power to exercise any discretion vested in Ministers under the scheme. If Ministers could cover their costs of administering the scheme, why could not the SFIA, to which they had devolved responsibility, do so? Surely section 3(2) of the Act confirms the SFIA's authority to make charges, when it states clearly:

The Authority may charge fees for any services which it provides.

Charges were made on the applicants who had to match the criteria and conditions for the grant aid which were set by Ministers. Ministers could hardly countenance grant being given without corroboration from the SFIA that all the conditions had been satisfied. That meant checks and inspections, and payment for expert services.

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No one is suggesting or has suggested that the recipient of the grant aid should not be the person eligible for the costs of processing and administering the grant application. Since 1995, when the SFIA was told to stop levying charges, the organisation has had to find the money to pay for those services out of its own budget. I remind the House that the SFIA's income comes from the levy on all

persons engaged in the sea fish industry,

according to section 4(1) of the 1981 Act. It seems that the many are supporting the grant applications of the few who stand to benefit.

I return to my earlier statement that, on close scrutiny, there does not appear to be any glaring oversight by those who originally drafted the legislation with regard to the responsibilities of Ministers, the SFIA or its predecessors. Certainly, the SFIA interpreted the law as I have attempted to describe it to the House. It clearly believed that it was given full authority to administer the various grant schemes and to make charges for its services.

It should be emphasised that the conduct of the SFIA was impeccable and beyond reproach. I hoped that the Minister would make that point in his opening speech. Perhaps he will emphasise the fact when he winds up. The SFIA inherited the system from its predecessors, the Herring Industry Board and the White Fish Authority, and continued to make technical charges in good faith.

Even the explanatory notes that accompany the Bill, which were no doubt written by the lawyers who drafted the Bill, are less than convincing on the question of who had the real authority. On page 3, paragraph 11, the notes conclude, as justification for the primary legislation:

It is considered doubtful that the Authority--

that refers to the SFIA--

had statutory authority to make these charges.

What a monumental understatement--"It is considered doubtful". One is left wondering whether it is considered doubtful that the Bill deals conclusively with the problems that it purports to solve.

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