Memorandum submitted by the Scottish Fishermen's
Federation (W20)
INTRODUCTION
The Federation was represented on the stakeholders
advisory group for the Prime Minister's Strategy Group Inquiry
and made several submissions during the research phase. Reactions
were made to Fisheries Departments when the report was published
and these reactions are summarised in the main body of this memorandum.
Continuing involvement with the project is carried on through
the Fish Industry Strategy Group; a special unit within Defra.
This group is carrying forward the SU conclusions and recommendations
with a view to producing a government response in March 2005.
The Fish Industry Strategy Group is assisted in this work by three,
specialist, working parties which include industry representatives
and other stakeholders. The SFF is fully represented on all three
groups. Since these working groups have only just started their
deliberations it is not possible to anticipate outcomes at this
stage.
Although government responses will alter the
practical effect of the recommendations of the Prime Minister's
Strategy Group the Federation's reaction to the recommendations,
as they stand, is set out in the succeeding paragraphs.
POLICY AND
ORGANISATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation 1
Fisheries departments should all develop
sets of fisheries management objectives with a clear hierarchy
in order to promote better and more transparent decision-making
(9.3).
It is important that industry representatives
should be involved in the compilation and ordering of management
objectives in order to ensure that Fisheries Departments appreciate
and acknowledge their sponsorship obligations to the industry.
Recommendation 2
The overarching aim of fisheries management
should be "to maximise the return to the UK of the sustainable
use of fisheries resources and protection of the marine environment"
(9.3).
The Federation subscribes to the aims implicit
in this recommendation on condition that the industry is fully
consulted on the definition of sustainability participates in
devising practical means of protecting the marine environment.
Recommendation 3
Sub-objectives should also be established
covering economic, social environmental issues, safety and good
governance (9.3).
Clear objectives should be set for the issues
listed. A dilemma arises, however, when trying to strike a balance
between commercial and social, targets. An absolute commitment
to the highest rates of commercial return can carry a heavy cost
to local employment in fishing and related activities. In fisheries
dependent areas and remote coastal communities this cost may prove
intolerable. It may also be unnecessary since international norms
may have little relevance the locally acceptable returns on investment.
Recommendation 4
Fisheries departments should ensure a basis
for both long-run profitability and stock recovery by considering
funding the removal of a minimum of 13% of the whitefish fleet
(beyond the 2003 decommissioning scheme) as part of an overall
package of management reforms. This could require between £40
million and £50 million in additional public spending. The
fishing industry would benefit from tying up a further 30% of
the whitefish fleet for up to four years to accelerate stock recovery,
but this should not be supported by public funds (10.2).
This recommendation is ill considered, impractical
and is based on flawed data. It is, therefore totally unacceptable
to the Federation. As the discussion on recommendation 3 (above)
makes clear the adoption of a formulaic approach to investment
or capacity restriction is so beset by uncertainties that the
outcomes are unpredictable and will result, too often, in unintended
consequences. These inherent difficulties are compounded, by regulatory
restrictions that will defeat any expected market driven benefits.
(Recent decommissioning schemes have not resulted in any re-distribution
of either quota or fishing time.)
The theoretical benefits of capacity reduction
are arguable even if the results are rarely as intended. The concept
of enhancing profitability by laying up half the fleet is completely
incredible. Indeed the whitefish fleet is in the second year of
a de facto 40% tie up (vessels limited to an average 15 days at
sea each month.) It is not obvious what benefit has been gained
from this measure but it is certainly not an improvement in profitability.
The Federation has corresponded with the PMSU
on these matters and has also pointed out that the definition
used for the white fish fleet includes a majority of prawn trawlers.
The recommendation is in any case irrelevant since Scottish Ministers
have set their face against any further fleet reductions for the
foreseeable future.
Recommendation 5
Fisheries departments should promote competition
by introducing individual tradable rights for resource access,
beginning in the pelagic and nephrops sectors (9.4.3).
The Federation is instinctively and logically
opposed to this recommendation. The current Fixed Quota Allocation
system has been in place for a little over five years. The system
has the potential to deliver all of the benefits claimed in the
report for ITQs whilst avoiding or at least mitigating the acknowledged
disadvantages of a formal ITQ system. The existing system is amenable
to a degree of transferability but stops short of facilitating
external or indeed international speculation in UK fish quotas.
The degree of uncertainty about legal ownership deters such speculative
investment. The present system could and should be refined. Such
matters as a triennial reconciliation of FQAs with their actual
beneficiaries and the obligatory reallocation of dormant licences
to operating vessels within three years would repay further study.
Recommendation 6
Fisheries departments should focus on support
for the development of the inshore/shellfish industry to take
advantage of its large growth opportunities (6.1.2).
The Federation is not aware of any unexploited
or even underexploited opportunities in the Scottish Inshore fishery.
SEERAD's current review of this fishery will seek to improve overall
management with a view to enhancing the return from existing inshore
fisheries.
Recommendation 7
Fishing industry should maintain and enhance
its market opportunities by aiming to achieve Marine Stewardship
Council (or equivalent) certification for all stocks of major
interest to the UK by 2015 (6.1.2).
The concept sustainability accreditation and
associated eco-labelling has much to recommend it, especially
as regards consumer reassurance and eventual improved commercial
yields. There are, however, a number of unresolved difficulties
with this approach most notably its lack of applicability in a
mixed fishery. (It may be that a system of accrediting vessels
and their skippers according to a code of practice would be more
appropriate in areas like the North Sea.) It is desirable that
any accreditation scheme should be completely transparent and
should have official legitimacy. The Marine Stewardship Council
possesses neither attribute.
IMPROVING UK AND
EU INFORMATION AND
COMPLIANCE
Recommendation 8
Fisheries departments should introduce a
high-transparency system where all catches and landings are traced
through markets and processors; and enforcement focuses more on
forensic accounting, on-board observers and risk profiling (9.4.2).
The Federation looks forwarded to co-operating
with Fisheries Departments and others to devise a suitable system
of traceability for fish and fish products. The customer assurance
and business development possibilities of such a system are well
understood. It is somewhat odd, however to find that a principle
objective of this recommendation is regulatory enforcement. Understandable
suspicion will arise from this conjunction of objectives and a
dilution of the traceability initiative's more straightforward
objectives would seem inevitable. The Federation does not share
the recommendation's enthusiasm for forensic accounting and risk
profiling as methods of enforcement. It may be that this approach
would increase rates of detection and conviction but without any
proportionate improvement in the conservation of stocks.
Recommendation 9
Fisheries departments should introduce simple
administrative penalties and "points" systems where
the costs of infringements are transparent and predictable to
the industry and most offences are decriminalised (9.4.2).
The enforcement of EU regulations is an important
yet sensitive matter. It is essential, in the first place, to
ensure that measures are focused on priority objectives and that
the resources deployed are proportionate to the likely policy
gain. Even under a regime of administrative penalties it remains
possible that fishermen could lose their livelihoods for significant
periods. In these circumstances it is essential that basic civil
liberties should be jealously guarded in the enforcement process.
Such concepts the right to silence and the presumption of innocence
are vital. Unfortunately the administrative penalties system described
in the report is not at all reassuring in the matter of these
basic liberties. There may be a case for administrative sanctions
where accused persons voluntarily waive their rights to formal
proceedings. There is no case, whatever, for arbitrarily limiting
such rights because the executive branch of government is dissatisfied
with evidential standards, sentencing policy or a perceived lack
of urgency in the due legal process.
Recommendation 10
Fisheries departments should introduce progressive
cost-recovery of management and enforcement costs from industry
to give greater buy-in and incentives for compliance (9.4.2).
The concept of cost recovery through a charge
on fishermen's licence to fish has been rehearsed a number of
times in recent years. This concept has a number of shortcomings.
Bureaucracy is a significant part of the cost of administering
fisheries. A large part of that cost derives from regulatory complexity
and inappropriate management arrangements. These shortcomings
cannot, in logic or equity, be charged against fishermen and self-evidently
they confer no recoverable benefit to the industry. The greater
part of governments costs in this area are attributable to scientific
research and regulatory enforcement. These activities are necessary
and desirable but they are based on international obligations
and as such their cost should continue to be met from general
taxation. There is in any case a substantial mismatch between
the operating patterns of the scientific and enforcement services
and the industry's priorities. It is notable, for example, that
the virtual eviction of the Scottish Fleet from its adjacent deep-water
fishery has not resulted in any reduction of scientific and enforcement
activity in that fishery by the relevant Scottish Agencies. In
current circumstances there is no justification for a special
cost recovery tax being levied on the fishing industry. The notion
asserted in the recommendation that such a tax would enhance regulatory
compliance is not understood.
Recommendation 11
Fisheries departments should commission detailed
technical analysis and plans on the practicalities of introducing
effort-management systems in mixed North Sea, Irish Sea and Channel
fisheries (9.5.3).
Recommendation 12
Fisheries departments should develop alternative
adaptive TAC systems through discussions with the Commission and
EU partners for mixed fisheries where effort control is either
not achievable or appropriate (9.5.3).
The report's enthusiasm for effort control as
an alternative to TACs and quotas is shared by the Federation,
however as recommendation 11 acknowledges this approach could
not be applied universally. Effort systems work best in mono-species
fisheries. In a mixed fishery there is a high probability of excessive
pressure on the most valuable stock with the consequent risk of
total closure of the mixed fishery if that or any other stock
declined below its limit reference point. Current experimentation
with spatial management in the North Sea might help to resolve
this dilemma.
There is also an economic dimension to this
idea. As discussed elsewhere the Fixed Quota Allocation is the
major capital component of most fishing enterprises. It is not
obvious how an equitable "rate of exchange" could be
devised to translate fish quotas into fishing time entitlements.
Notwithstanding these and other practical problems
the Federation agrees that innovation is necessary to achieve
more effective management of stocks. It is envisaged that much
new thinking on this matter will be generated within the RACs
and the kind of analysis proposed in recommendation 10 will provide
a suitable focus for such work.
Recommendation 13
The UK should continue supporting the European
Commission in taking a stronger enforcement role to ensure a level
playing field for all EU fleets fleets, and collaborate more actively
with European partners in major UK fisheries to improve compliance
and enforcement practices (9.4.2).
The Federation supports all realistic initiatives
designed to ensure equitable treatment of fishermen as between
the various national enforcement authorities. As ever there are
practical difficulties not least the different approach by individual
countries and their distinctive legal codes and traditions. The
Federation is monitoring closely the EU's recent commitment to
a community wide initiative on monitoring, enforcement and control
to be based in Vigo.
DECENTRALISING AND
MODERNISING UK FISHERIES
MANAGEMENT
Recommendation 14
Fisheries departments should collaborate
to create a system of UK Regional Fisheries Managers for the North
Sea, Channel, Irish Sea and Western Approaches, and Inshore/Shellfish
Managers in each nation, with the authority to draw up management
approaches, and task/fund science (9.6.1).
Recommendation 15
Fisheries departments should reform inshore
fisheries management and give a focus on developing the sector,
including explicit management of recreational sea angling interests
(9.6.2; 9.6.3).
Recommendation 16
Fisheries departments should give industry
and other stakeholders clearly defined advisory roles inside the
regional and inshore management structures in the form of a formal
Stakeholder Advisory Group (9.6.1).
Taken together recommendations 14, 15 and 16
amount to a very substantial reform of UK fisheries administration
and as such it is to be welcomed. It may be, however that the
radicalism has run ahead of practicality. At an operational level
the reports and its recommendations, in this respect does not
take full account of the different and diverging inshore management
systems of the devolved administrations. The regional management
system takes account of these distinctions on the West Coast but
not in the North Sea. The actual role of the Regional and Inshore
managers would require careful definition especially in relation
to the existing civil service structure.
The concept of regional "champions"
in fisheries management is nevertheless welcome not least for
the catalytic effect such individuals could have on the reform
agenda as a whole. It would be beneficial for these appointments
to be filled by individuals from out with the civil service.
Recommendation 17
Fisheries departments should give the fishing
industry a greater role in co-ordinating information priorities
through more extensive use of co-commissioning of research. This
should follow shortly after the appointment of regional managers
in 2005 (9.5.1).
Recommendation 18
Fisheries departments should promote greater
innovation and management-focus in fisheries science by regionalising
the process of science tasking and introducing contested budgets
for innovation in scientific and management approaches (9.5.1).
The concept of industry involvement in setting
research priorities is a long-standing policy objective of the
Federation. A scheme of this kind was introduced in a limited
way in 2002 as part of a restructuring package for the industry.
Although the industry was under-prepared for to operate this innovation
it was successful and the consensus was in favour of repeating
this involvement albeit with certain refinements. There is also
some support within the industry for establishing a supervisory
board for the Fisheries Research Service with under an independent
chairman and with a substantial representation from the industry.
The Federation welcomes both recommendations.
Recommendation 19
The UK should adopt a large-stock strategy
and use this to guide its position in EU negotiations for its
key economic species. This will entail reducing catch in the short
term. Fishery managers should explicitly seek to maximise the
value of commercial stocks and reduce the volatility of catch
(6.2).
A large stock strategy is an interesting theoretical
proposition and indeed this general approach is to some extent
evident in the pelagic and nephrops fisheries. In these cases
the comparatively large stock size may have been the by-product
of market driven fleet restructuring (pelagic) and excessively
cautious scientific advice (nephrops). Unfortunately the presumed
correlation between stock size and fishing effort is not sufficiently
certain to guarantee the outcome presumed by the recommendation.
In the white fish sector the supposed reduction from 60% mortality
to 16% would require massive income dislocation during the transitional
period required to achieve the expanded stock size. A less ambitious
but more thoroughly researched proposition, along similar lines
to the "large stock" theorem, is set out in a recent
report by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). Stock strategies
will be important issues for RACs and the proposition outlined
in recommendation 19 should be developed further along with the
parallel RSE ideas as a catalyst to RAC deliberations on this
important matter.
Recommendation 20
Fisheries departments should develop risk-management
approaches to fisheries management, including by introducing tighter
controls on capital investment to prevent future "boom and
bust" cycles (5.3; 9.5.2).
The report is right to draw attention to the
importance of risk management in fishing, however a close examination
of risk management at the level of the individual vessel would
have been a more secure basis for the subsequent analysis. It
is interesting to note that a skipper or vessel owner would, broadly
speaking, assess risk rather in a different order of priority
from the reports conclusion. The notion of limiting risk through
state intervention in investment decisions is unconvincing. The
EU Multi-Annual Guidance Programme (MAGP) followed this approach
for twenty years and it may be fairly claimed that the MAGP is
to a great extent responsible for current imbalances between installed
capacity and fishing opportunities. The Federation's lack of faith
in a formulaic approach to the capacity conundrum is discussed
elsewhere. It should be borne in mind that targets set in these
circumstances have a habit of becoming entitlements and bankable
assurances.
PROGRESSIVE REGIONALISATION
OF EU MANAGEMENT
UNDER THE
CFP
Recommendation 21
The UK should adopt an aim of progressively
regionalising the management functions of the CFP, while strengthening
Commission oversight on audit, sustainability goals, compliance
and enforcement and environmental issues (9.5.4).
Recommendation 22
Fisheries departments should begin to build
the basis for regional management by increasing informal management
co-operation with key EU partners, especially on scientific, technical
and enforcement issues (9.5.4).
Recommendation 23
Fisheries departments and stakeholders should
work together to strongly facilitate and support the development
of Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) (9.5.4).
In the Federation's view recommendations 21,
22 and 23 provide the most realistic avenue to achieve real and
lasting improvements in the development of European Fisheries
policy and the achievement of efficient and effective management
of Europe's Fisheries. Indeed the objectives outlined in these
recommendations are a fair reflection of the Federation's campaign
for zonal management as pursued over the past six years.
The economic areas of the United Kingdom and
particularly Scotland provide the majority of Europe's fishing
opportunities. It is appropriate therefore that the UK should
take the lead in developing and promoting a scheme of regional
management for Europe. The Regional Advisory Councils provide
a useful launch pad for this initiative but these agencies will
require considerable development if they are to replace existing
EU and national institutions. The first task should be to replace
existing EU advisory bodies and to develop a full range of management
functions over the next five years. This programme of devolution
should be attractive to European Institutions beset by administration
overload following EU enlargement.
At all events UK fisheries departments should
now agree a timetable for giving this visionary plan effect within
the next five years.
Recommendation 24
Fisheries departments should improve problem
solving and innovation capacity by proposing shared solution forums
at EU level; for example, on ecosystem-based management, marine
science, and the impacts of climate change on fisheries (9.5.4).
The kind of activity proposed in this recommendation
might be an appropriate use for one of the EU advisory bodies
made redundant by the RACs.
SETTING CLEAR
SOCIAL OBJECTIVES
IN FISHERIES
POLICY
Recommendation 25
Fisheries departments should press for the
implementation of Sustainability Impact Assessments of fisheries
policy and practice at the EU level, following the Gothenburg
Council Conclusions (8.3.5).
See recommendation 29 below.
Recommendation 26
Fishery departments should consider the use
of community quota in vulnerable and dependent fishing communities,
looking to develop a system compatible with EU law. They should
launch a feasibility study on designing a community quota system
by the end of 2004 (7.2).
The Federation supports the proposition that
coastal communities should have a legitimate expectation to enjoy
the economic benefits of their adjacent fisheries. This expectation
should not amount to an exclusive right and must afford reasonable
access to vessels from other areas. It follows logically, therefore,
that government should use its best efforts to secure fishing
opportunities for coastal communities especially those in remote
areas. The concept of the community quota is already well established
in Shetland and Orkney and despite an investigation by EU state
aid authorities these arrangements continue. It has to be borne
in mind however that Scotland's Northern Isles have substantial
capital funds as a result of levies on the oil industry and are
much better placed financially to establish community quotas than
other areas. At all events it would not be straightforward to
establish community quotas whilst simultaneously promoting ITQs
for nephrops. The Federation would, nevertheless, co-operate with
the feasibility study as proposed.
Recommendation 27
The UK Government and devolved administrations
should ensure future reviews of EU State Aids/structural funds
maintain opportunities to provide appropriate support to vulnerable
fishing communities (7.4).
Recommendation 28
Fisheries departments should actively facilitate
and co-ordinate access to UK and EU support funds for transition
support, diversification and industry development (7.4).
The Federation strongly supports the maximum
availability of EU and national funds to support fishing communities
during this extended and continuing period of transition within
the industry. It is important to ensure however that available
funds are dedicated to development and revitalisation of local
economies rather than the management of decline.
The fishing industry has suffered disproportionately
from the effects of the Fontainbleu Convention whereby severe
restrictions are placed on the EU's contribution to qualifying
projects as a quid pro quo for the UK's budgetary rebate from
the EU. Since there is little prospect of this anomaly being corrected
UK departments must arrange for any disadvantage, compared to
other EU fishing communities, to be compensated from national
funds.
INTEGRATING THE
NEEDS OF
THE FISHING
INDUSTRY WITH
OTHER USERS
OF THE
MARINE ENVIRONMENT
Recommendation 29
Fisheries departments should introduce Strategic
Environmental Assessments of both inshore and offshore fisheries
by the end of 2006, as the first stage of establishing comprehensive
Environmental Management Systems (8.3.5).
Recommendation 30
Fisheries departments should ensure Environmental
Impact Assessments are carried out prior to the introduction of
a new gear to a fishery or the start of a new fishery (8.3.5).
Recommendation 31
The UK Government and devolved administrations
should develop an experimental programme of Marine Protected Areas
focusing initially on areas, which provide benefits to multiple
users (commercial fishing, tourism, environment, recreational
fishermen, etc) (8.3.5).
Recommendation 32
Fisheries departments should provide incentives
to improve environmental performance and encourage development
of less damaging gear types (8.3.5).
The programme of environmental actions put forward
in this suite of recommendations (25, 29, 30, 31, and 32) do not
appear to make much direct contribution to the report's central
objective; "a sustainable and profitable future for UK fishing".
Indeed the impact of most of these recommendations would have
an adverse effect on the industry's profitability.
It is understood, of course, that the industry
must co-exist with the growing pressure of environmental activism
and its political consequences. Indeed there is an emerging appreciation
of the commercial possibilities of eco-tourism amongst fishing
communities. Even so these well-meaning initiatives must be kept
in proportion to their own objectives and must not be used as
a proxy to limit, unreasonably or indeed to terminate fishing
operations.
The Marine Protected Areas proposal (Marine
National Parks in Scotland) would only be acceptable if the economic
interests of fishing communities were protected or enhanced. It
will be recalled that the terrestrial National Parks in England
specifically incorporated safeguards to protect the economic interests
of local communities.
Recommendation 33
In the medium to long term, the UK Government
and devolved administrations should consider integrating fisheries
management tasks inside a marine environment agency responsible
for broader management tasks, if such bodies are established under
other legislation (eg possible Marine Acts being considered in
different parts of the UK) (8.3.5).
It is inevitable that fishermen would view,
with some suspicion, the integration of fisheries management and
environmental protection. Fishermen might be willing to play their
part in securing the care and protection of the marine ecosystem
if the commitment was clearly defined. Indeed fishermen have a
great deal of knowledge and experience to offer since they spend
their entire working life in the marine environment. It is already
apparent however that the proliferation of environmental committees
and other bodies makes it progressively more difficult for fishermen
to participate fully on a voluntary basis. Fishermen should be
remunerated for taking care of the environment on the same basis
that farmers are rewarded for looking after the terrestrial ecosystem.
Such an arrangement would be necessary to secure the involvement
of fishermen in the arrangement proposed.
2 November 2004
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