Examination of Witness (Questions 200
- 212)
THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 2002
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY MP
200. That was true of the Dome also.
(Mr Morley) I have to say that I had no part in that
whatsoever.
201. That was just a joke. There is a problem
in fishing communities and John Ashworth told us that many of
the fishing communities are remote and alternative jobs are in
short supply and people will have to leave.
(Mr Morley) Sure.
Mr Mitchell: I do not only include remote Scottish
fishing communities in this, it is down the entire East Coast.
There are problems in Whitby and Scarborough. There are areas
of high unemployment in Grimsby.
Chairman: Cornwall.
Mr Mitchell
202. I am just talking about the East Coast.
Cornwall has problems as well. What support can we provide for
fishing communities? Are they going to be in need of targeted
support as a result of whatever reduction there is?
(Mr Morley) There is a case for targeted support always
for a range of industries and the fishing industry is entitled
to its share. As I was saying, Chairman, it does get support through
the FIFG. There is a range of other Government funds and measures
also, particularly for fishing communities and fishing ports through
the RDA and there was some additional money that was made available.
It is a complex situation. It should be borne in mind that the
vast majority of the English fishing fleet is under 10 metres
and the under 10 metres are generally sustainable and in relation
to the shellfish in particular which they catch, the returns are
good and the fishery is in reasonably decent shape. It is the
case also that in terms of our white fleet there is a problem
with crews. It is not as if there are a lot of unemployed fishermen,
it is a problem getting crew at the present time in Scotland and
in England and, indeed, other countries as well for all sorts
of reasons: competition in our case with the North Sea oil industry
and a range of other competing situations and low unemployment.
203. They support jobs onshore, engineering
and all the rest of it.
(Mr Morley) That is true, they all come into it, and
that is why I am very wary about decommissioning because it is
always in the back of my mind that when you start reducing vessels
you have a knock-on consequence in relation to shore jobs. I am
sensitive to that point, although sometimes you have to look at
the viability of fishing vessels in relation to making sure there
are enough fish to go around for them to make a decent living.
That is all part of the concept of decommissioning. There is support
for communities in a range of different ways, both directly in
relation to the FIFG, which is specifically for the fishing industry,
and also indirectly in a range of other structural and regional
measures.
204. The Commission has estimated about 28,000
fishermen will be affected by the reductions in fishing effort.
Would your estimate be of a similar scale?
(Mr Morley) It is difficult to say really because
it depends on the kind of reductions, it depends on whether we
can turn around some of these stocks in the short-term or the
long-term. It is very difficult to say that. That is twice the
total number of fishermen directly employed in our industry, which
is about 14,000 in the UK, the majority of whom are in the inshore
fleet.
205. Will whatever effort is made to help fishing
communities be through the Regional Development Agencies or have
DEFRA planned on a national scale?
(Mr Morley) A bit of both really because we, of course,
manage the FIFG programme and that is managed in consultation
with the fishing industry. The RDAs, of course, are managed through
their boards and through the Regional Government Offices. There
are also Objective 1 and 2 funds and Cornwall has Objective 1,
which is a big advantage.
206. The World Wildlife Fund—
(Mr Morley) Scotland has Objective 1 as well.
207.—co-operating with the NFFO and the
SSF has developed proposals for supporting the industry through
the period of reorganisation. In other words, this is its point
at the present moment and (a) you want to get it through various
measures like effort limitation or decommissioning or whatever
through the difficult period until (b) the stocks begin to build
up and when they do begin to build up to the point of sustainability
then that industry generates tax revenues and is financially viable,
but it has got to be helped from (a) to that point (b) and that
responsibility, they argue, falls on Government. They have told
us in evidence that they are doing a cost benefit analysis of
the programme to put proposals to Government. Without having those
proposals at the present moment, what is your initial reaction
to that argument that you are not subsidising the industry, you
are investing in it?
(Mr Morley) One person's subsidy is another person's
investment depending on who is giving it basically. I do not close
my mind to any approach and I never have and that is why I am
sometimes urged to rule out things. I would prefer to look at
individual ideas on their particular merits. I have never closed
my mind to the idea of tie-up grants, which is what you are talking
about. I do have to say, Chairman, that I am not currently persuaded
that that would be the best use of what in the end are limited
public funds. We have to accept that we do not have an infinite
budget in relation to any public sector, therefore you have to
make decisions on where the money is best spent. We do have budgets
for the fishing industry and we do have priorities in relation
to where we are spending that money. I do not myself think that
it is a good priority to use that money in tying up a fleet which
actually could be for a very long time. If you have a problem
of an unsustainable fleet then even if you recover stocks you
are still unleashing a potentially unsustainable fleet which will
just obliterate those stocks after all the money and pain of rebuilding
them. I think that you have got to look for long-term solutions
which, again, means a range of issues, including fleet size, including
management methods, including conservation plans, in terms of
ensuring that you have a sustainable fishing industry. I am not
persuaded that tie-up grants is the best way of doing that.
208. The WWF proposals are not proposals for
sustaining an unsustainable fleet, are they, they are proposals
for financing the reorganisation of that fleet to the point of
sustainable stocks when that fleet becomes profitable, that is
the argument.
(Mr Morley) I understand the argument. I have met
with the WWF to discuss this with them and, indeed, I have discussed
it with our own fishing industry as well. Of course, it is very
easy when you are promising somebody else's money in relation
to any kind of strategy of that type. From my point of view, in
terms of a limited budget, and the budgets will always be limited,
you are back to what is the best use of it, where is the best
use and how do you apply it. I am not persuaded at the present
time that using it for tie-up grants, which potentially could
be enormous, I know they are doing this analysis of what they
think it will cost but the cost potentially could be huge, is
the best use of public funds.
Mr Mitchell: Presumably they will come up with
a carefully tested proposal and costed proposal. The counterpoint
to that, of course, is unless there is some measure of Government
support for the industry to reach a viable level, and it has got
to for stocks to become sustainable, other countries are more
likely to be more generous to their industries and the British
fleet will wind down by a process of bankruptcy with the Government
failing to support it. They will inherit the earth.
Chairman
209. The sea.
(Mr Morley) But they will not, will they, because
the quota is national. I believe that there are one or two Member
States who are building up big problems for themselves in that
they have subsidised an expansion of fleet efficiency with vessels
which frankly have limited opportunities and it will come back
to haunt them. The fact that they have these vessels does not
give them any more fish because our quota is our national quota
and we manage it in relation to our national priorities so it
is not available for other fishing fleets. What they do is a matter
for national decisions. What we do is in relation to getting the
maximum benefits for our national quota for our fishing fleet.
210. Minister, just to finalise, looking back
at some of our predecessor committees, at which you have been
a frequent attender now, there was reference some little while
ago to the production in MAFF days to what might be called a UK
strategy for fish.
(Mr Morley) Yes.
211. I could not find whether that had been
produced ever.
(Mr Morley) It is in process. The Fisheries Forum
have agreed to develop a fisheries strategy and we have had a
number of meetings with the Fisheries Forum which involves all
sections of the fishing industry. They are still in the process
of finalising particularly the costings of what is quite a sophisticated
and far reaching strategy. We have had a presentation from them
in terms of their thinking as part of the strategy which links
in everything from the catching side to the processing and the
marketing side. They deserve credit for what they have done. I
think they have done a great deal of work. What they have not
done as yet is the costings about what it would mean and they
are involved in that currently.
212. It has been rather long in the gestation,
it might have been quite helpful in relation to what we are doing
now and, indeed, bearing in mind the very important decisions
which are going to be made very shortly. Is the strategy going
to be just blown out of the water by the time they get it out?
(Mr Morley) No, I do not think so. The strategy is
about overall management of the industry, although of course it
is a long term view, it is not designed to cope with the kind
of problems that we are facing at the present time with North
Sea cod, for example. These are issues which are absorbing our
attention and energies, to be honest. We have a lot of demands
on the Department, on the fisheries section within DEFRA at the
present time, in that of course we are coming to a conclusion
on the CAP, we are trying to negotiate that; we have the annual
quota round which is coming up; we have the cod and hake recovery
plans which need to be resolved and negotiated and also we have
some internal measures such as the introduction of shellfish licensing.
I appreciate it is a slow process but the demands upon my own
Department and officials are quite considerable at the moment.
Chairman: Minister, thank you very much indeed.
That has been extremely helpful and I am glad we managed to find
a mutually convenient date and time at the end of this process.
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