Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-33)
3 NOVEMBER 2003
MR PETER
WINTERBOTTOM AND
MR DAVID
MUIRHEAD
Q20 Mr Breed: Presumably, that has
got to be agreed by the European Commission and the Parliament?
Mr Muirhead: Yes, that is right.
Q21 Mr Breed: You do not know where
they are, in that process, at the moment?
Mr Muirhead: I do not, I am afraid.
Mr Winterbottom: I think negotiations
started only at the beginning of September, at official level.
Q22 Mr Breed: What role do you think
the Sea Fisheries Committees themselves could play in enforcing
Defra's proposals?
Mr Winterbottom: The resulting
UK regulations, to implement what I assume will end up as an EC
Regulation, habitually give Sea Fisheries Committee officers powers
to enforce, so, as is usual, Sea Fisheries Committees would play
their part in enforcing this legislation. Of course, also, the
Committees have patrol boats, and one of the suggestions in the
Commission's proposal is that, in the cases where fishing boats
are too small to take an observer, and, if I may say, that is
very often the case on inshore boats, which are still surprisingly
small, it is a possibility that those Sea Fisheries Committees'
patrol boats could be used as a platform for an observer.
Q23 Mr Breed: There is no practical
difficulty in having somebody on board, in that sense?
Mr Winterbottom: A three-man boat
may not get a fourth on. Some of the boats working are surprisingly
small.
Q24 Mr Breed: At the present time,
if an enforcement officer goes on a boat, does he wait until the
nets are hauled in before he checks what is going on, or does
he insist that they are hauled straightaway, or what?
Mr Winterbottom: He requires the
skipper to haul. That is the practice for trawl fisheries. For
a net fishery, the boat will be here, the nets may be there, and
there and there, so he would have to wait whilst the vessel steamed
round the fleet of nets and hauled them.
Q25 Mr Breed: On a pair trawling
one, do they put observers on both of the boats?
Mr Winterbottom: I am not sure.
I would have thought, just on one of the pair.
Mr Muirhead: Usually, it is one
of the boats will take the net, the net will go on one boat, and,
I suppose, in an ideal world, they would be on the boat which
took in the net.
Q26 Mr Breed: What about the sheer
numbers of personnel? Would this require a significant increase
in the number of enforcement officers and observers, and everything
else, and, if that were the case, where would these people come
from?
Mr Muirhead: I understand, when
they were examining the tuna drift-net fishery, in the South West
Approaches, they were using their own personnel at the time. I
do know that the EU has employed fishermen, not current members
of Defra or other Member States' Ministries, to take part in observation
trips on other vessels, particularly vessels working further afield,
on the other side of the Atlantic, from time to time. I think
they would employ either their own officials or fishermen, or
redundant fishermen or retired fishermen, to do it.
Q27 Mr Breed: It would not be a particular
problem, in the training, and everything else?
Mr Muirhead: It should not be,
no.
Q28 Mr Breed: Can you expand on the
suggestion that Defra's proposals would result in enforcement
authorities being open to claims from fishermen for loss or damage
resulting from enforcement officers carrying out vessel inspections?
Would that be a problem, in what they are being required to do,
and what then happens to the nets, perhaps the loss of income
because they are being made to haul straightaway, and all that
sort of thing?
Mr Muirhead: I think, an observer
on a gill net boat would be on the boat for the whole length of
the trip, and I would not have thought that the fishermen would
have to do anything out of the ordinary. However, if it got to
the stage, and I think this would be virtually impossible, where
the Sea Fisheries' patrol boats were hauling gear to check whether
it had pingers on it, I think, firstly, that would be impossible
because the boats are not equipped to do it, and, secondly, it
could be open to challenge because it could damage the nets. I
think it is unlikely. People observing, in the ordinary course
of the fishing boats' operation, should not be a problem.
Q29 Mr Breed: You were saying that
you felt there might be a difficulty with some of the French boats
accepting observers, and so on. By implication, therefore, are
you saying there would not be a particular objection to observers,
either voluntarily, enforced, or whatever, on British boats?
Mr Muirhead: I am very sure that
there would not be a problem with observers on the gill net boats.
I do not think there would be a problem on the pair trawl boats.
I have to say that one of the reasons, I think, that we have not
got any proper management of this problem to date is because certain
of the French politicians and fishermen refuse to accept that
there is a problem.
Q30 Mr Mitchell: Even though they
are being washed up on their shores. What are the enforcement
resources of the Sea Fisheries Committees? If you have a problem,
like French vessels wandering into the six-mile limit, what do
you do, can you call up a gun-boat and bring in the Fisheries
Protection vessels? I get the impression, on the East Coast, they
send out a man in a rowing-boat. What are your enforcement powers
and role?
Mr Muirhead: I have to say that
the 12 Sea Fisheries Committees around the coasts have all got
very good vessels now. We have got an extremely good vessel in
Cornwall, which is about 25 metres long. It is well capable of
going out to the 12-mile limit, although at the current time we
have jurisdiction out to only six. It patrols the edge of the
six-mile limit frequently, often at night, to check that there
are no offences being committed. It would not be a problem to
patrol beyond that if it became necessary.
Q31 Mr Lazarowicz: You have told
us that the vessels responsible are mainly from France, with this
year, I think, four from Scotland. What kind of monitoring do
you carry out to enable you to reach this conclusion?
Mr Muirhead: There have been observers
on these vessels. There is evidence of the problem. It will take
me time to go through the paperwork I have got, but I think you
will find, in the cetacean by-catch response, there are
figures saying how many cetaceans were caught by pair trawl vessels.
Our fishermen, in fact, in Mr Breed's area, off Looe, the mackerel
fleet, when they have been out fishing, they have gone out in
the morning and steamed into areas where the bass pair trawlers
have been working the night before and found dead fish floating
on the surface of the sea. The bottom trawlers have caught bodies
of dead cetaceans in the areas in which they have been working,
and in the winter months large numbers of bodies, I think it was
267, were washed ashore around the South West, up till the end
of April. I know, in Cornwall, in May, after the fishery had ended,
there were only seven, so it is pretty conclusive that this is
the problem. As I said, if you study the UK response, produced
by Defra, that gives figures as to the amount of cetaceans that
have been caught over various trial periods.
Q32 Mr Lazarowicz: The boats involved
in this fishery, is the pattern of the last year, which you were
telling us about in terms mostly of French and four from Scotland,
a pattern which has existed over a few years, or how much variation
has there been from year to year?
Mr Muirhead: I am afraid, I cannot
tell you that exactly, but I am aware that it is a problem which
has been developing over the last 10 years, and as fishing boats
become more efficient at catching their fish they become more
efficient at catching other things as well.
Q33 Mr Mitchell: Gentlemen, thank
you very much indeed. We are very grateful. That is interesting
evidence, and it was good to hear it from the people on the spot
and most intimately involved. Did I detect a preference, when
you said your vessel could operate between the six and 12, would
it be logical to extend the writ of the Sea Fisheries Committees
from six to 12?
Mr Muirhead: This is something
for which we have been pressing for some time, and we feel that
the Sea Fisheries Committees could well police that area, which
is our territory, and, in fact, Mr Winterbottom might enlarge
on that perhaps.
Mr Winterbottom: As I am sure
you know, Chairman, Defra are conducting a review of enforcement
at present. We have said previously, as an Association, that we
could deliver an enforcement service out to 12 miles, and I am
sure my Association will repeat that bid this time round.
Mr Mitchell: Thank you very much. I am
absolutely impartial, as the Chairman, but, of course, you are
dead right, in that. If there is anything else that occurs to
you afterwards that you would like us to consider, or add to your
evidence, please do not hesitate to drop us a line, but we are
grateful for the reinforcement of the evidence that you gave us.
Now God speed you back to the West Country. Thank you.
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