Summary
The fishing industry is an important part of the
UK economy, with one of the largest fleets and processing industries
in Europe. However, it has faced tremendous upheaval in recent
years. Quota cuts and decommissioning have resulted in a severe
decline in the fishing activity in several traditional UK fishing
communities. These difficulties have coincided with an increased
awareness—and criticism—of the impact of commercial
fishing on the marine environment. The Strategy Unit's March 2004
report, Net Benefits, set out a series of recommendations
intended to create a stable future for the industry and fishing
communities. Our report assesses many of these recommendations.
We support the SU report's general aim of improving
compliance levels amongst fishermen and consider that several
of its recommendations should achieve this. In particular, we
recommend that the Government commission detailed technical analysis
of the practicalities of introducing effort-management systems
and technical measures in certain mixed fisheries, because quota-based
management systems in mixed fisheries do not work well. We strongly
support regionalisation of the management functions of the Common
Fisheries Policy (CFP), through the continued development of the
Regional Advisory Councils. We believe the CFP is over-centralised
and under-resourced, and that a more regional and representative
management system which involves stakeholders is required. We
also support the further development of the inshore sector, and
particularly the recreational angling sector. Both have considerable
economic potential but have traditionally been under-represented
at management level. We believe that the needs of the fishing
industry must be integrated with other uses of the marine environment,
and we recommend that the Government should develop strategic
environmental assessments and environmental impact assessments
and work towards implementing an experimental system of marine
protected areas as soon as possible. In each case, it should be
done so in close consultation with the industry.
Other Strategy Unit recommendations are more questionable.
The introduction of progressive cost-recovery from the industry
for management costs is unlikely to be acceptable. We do not believe
that most of the industry is profitable enough at present
to pay such costs and we are concerned such a measure would put
the UK at a competitive disadvantage with its EU neighbours. On
the basis of current evidence, we are also sceptical about the
need to reduce the whitefish fleet by a further 13%. There are
concerns from industry representatives, and the Scottish Minister
for Environment and Rural Development, that the modelling used
by the Strategy Unit to reach this recommendation was inaccurate.
There may turn out to be some advantages in the introduction of
an Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system but we believe more
clarity is required about what kind of ITQ system might be applied
and how it would affect the UK industry before we would support
such a move.
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