Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
MR ROSS
FINNIE SMP, MR
DAVID WILSON
AND MS
BARBARA STRATHERN
17 JANUARY 2005
Q280 Mr Lazarowicz: Just a couple of
points, if I may, Chairman. On the issue of process, which is
important to get an idea of how effective or not the co-operation
has been between the Scottish Executive and the Westminster Government,
can I ask you if the contact you have had has been primarily through
the informal type of mechanisms rather than through the use of
the formal mechanisms, such as a Joint Ministerial Committee?
Can you give us an idea of how much has been through the top level
mechanisms for exchange of views, as it were, and how much has
been done more informally?
Mr Finnie: I regard the memorandums
of understanding as extremely important. Also, I think that if
I have to use them I have failed. My whole procedure is to have
our own process of actively and constructively engaging at official
level and at Ministerial level. I cannot recall an occasion when
I have formally ever had to have recourse to them. Obviously they
have provided a very useful background, a very useful framework,
and if there were to be tension or difficulties then it is good
to know that they are there, but we proceed on a much more informal
basis trying genuinely to create serious relationships, not just
ones that are prescribed in a piece of paper. The whole process
that we have been developing and refining over the last five years,
both on fisheries and on agriculture, is one that has a much greater
degree of informality than formality.
Mr Wilson: Can I clarify one point,
just to be clear on it. We had a stakeholder engagement process
prior to the December Council, particularly the Minister and officials
met with Scottish stakeholders, and that was a full process to
help us understand what were the opportunities, what were the
risks, and everything else in that run-up. Also, there have been
UK-wide meetings on that basis: other departments have had other
meetings. There has been a completely separate process of stakeholder
engagement around developing a response to the Net Benefits
report, known as the Sustainable Fisheries Programme, and that
has been done almost entirely at a UK-wide level with the four
departments working jointly together. Obviously consultation happens
on a range of difficult issues at different times but, just to
be clear, there have been different processes in the run-up to
the December Council from the Strategy Unit process.
Chairman: I do not want to encourage
insubordination but I should have said at the start if the other
two members of your team want to come in, they should indicate
and we will happily call them.
Q281 Mr Lazarowicz: Can I ask specifically
about the Strategy Unit report published in March of last year.
Has the Executive's involvement in that been subsequent to its
publication or was there any level of involvement by fisheries
prior to that?
Mr Finnie: We were consulted.
There were quite interesting issues because clearly that group
was given the task of providing an independent and objective view
of the industry and it was quite clear that they took that remit
very seriously. There were a number of meetings with officials
and, indeed, with Ministers jointly at which they put forward
elements of their proposals, subsections of their report, and
sought views on how we felt about them. Quite understandably,
they reserved unto themselves the right to publish as they saw
fit and as they had understood the situation from their very extensive
inquiry.
Q282 Diana Organ: With the recent stance
taken by yourself and Ben Bradshaw at December's Fisheries Council
meeting, do you feel now that the Strategy Unit's proposal to
decommission 13% of the fleet and tie-up 30% of the whitefish
fleet has now been totally dismissed?
Mr Finnie: No, I do not think
so. We have to always take such reports seriously and also we
have to look at the evidence base. On the decommissioning, we
have never been entirely comfortable with that conclusion, largely
on the grounds that the evidence base which the Unit report was
based on did not take account fully of the decommissioning in
2003. We have commissioned additional work to examine that carefully
because the purposes were rather different, as you know. We were
decommissioning to try to reduce the level of effort in accordance
with the prescribed level of effort. The target that the Commission
was seeking as part of the Cod Recovery Plan was that, by a range
of measures we were to reduce effort by 65% and we recognised
we could not do that simply by having temporary closures. If we
were going to reach 65% we had to permanently take out some of
that effort. On the further reduction of the effort implicit in
the tie-up, again we do not dismiss that entirely but we have
to look stock by stock, species by species, and at the plan. The
scientific evidence seems to me to be still suggesting that a
reduction in effort of 65% is in and around the right figure.
Given that the measures that we are currently using in addition
to decommissioning, certainly as far as the UK is concerned, means
we are somewhere between 56% and 61% of that target, we are well
on the way to doing so in relation to the Cod Recovery Plan. There
is no question about us dismissing conservation measures but I
think we have got to put it in the context of how effective were
the measures that were in place at the time of writing that report.
Q283 Diana Organ: It is interesting that
in his evidence to this Sub-Committee Ben Bradshaw made a not
too dissimilar response to that sort of question, so obviously
you talked quite closely when you were in the Fisheries Council
in December. What is your response to the fact that the proposals
in the Strategy Unit's report have been heavily criticised by
the Scottish catching industry and the fact that the Scottish
Fishermen's Federation claim that the data being used to calculate
the size of the whitefish fleet was "flawed"? How much
do you take that on board when you are having your stakeholder
consultations?
Mr Finnie: I think the report
got off to a rather bad start. I am speculating here, although
I do meet them so frequently I think I could hardly miss the message.
I think if you had just gone through a second decommissioning
process, which whilst its aggregate effect was only to reduce
the effort calculation by some 35%, but nevertheless had the effect
of reducing the total number of vessels in the whitefish fleet
by 50%: we are all human so I do not think we would be surprised
to find that a fishing industry that had just taken that level
of reduction was highly sceptical about the apparent need to reduce
further that fleet by a further 13%.
Q284 Chairman: That accounts for the
fact that the report got a better reception from the English industry
than from the Scottish industry, does it?
Mr Finnie: Trying to put me into
the mind of the respective industries is awkward. I think generally
that was the reason for the rather hostile response. We were concerned
too because we spend huge amounts of time trying to make sure
that we work with the industry, so to find the industry taking
a very hostile response to an independent report meant it was
very key for us and very important for us to try to ascertain
why that was the case. It seemed to us at the time that that ruling
was the big issue. Despite the fact that there were all sorts
of other things in that report that were extremely important,
they tended to focus on the thing that they had been bearing the
brunt of over the previous two years.
Q285 Mr Drew: If we can now go on to
the rather controversial area of Individual Transferable Quotas.
I would be interested to see if you are singing from the same
song sheet as Ben Bradshaw on this issue. I think it is fair to
say that Ben sees this as the potential salvation of the British
fishing industry. How much would you see his panglossian desire
to try to put this into some shape as the way forward?
Mr Finnie: Chairman, I am bound
to say that was almost pejorative of Ben. If I could step back
a little, I have some difficulties with any proposition—and
I stick not with what Ben said but what the report said—or
notion that you can have individual transferability and a notion
that somehow we are operating in some kind of free market, because
we are not. Insofar as we still have relative stability within
the Common Fisheries Policy then there are clear interferences
in how those quotas are allocated. Secondly, if we have, and it
is right that we have, conservation policies which are also determining
the amount of effort that a fleet can actually utilise, you have
yet another governing factor that interferes with the movement
and control of those fisheries. What I am absolutely certain about
is that the present way in which we manage our quotas with quota
management does radically need to be reviewed because it is not
operating effectively and I think it is leading to a number of
problems. In common with Ben, we too have looked at the Icelandic
model. I think my slight difficulty there is that you are only
dealing with a non-Member State and you do not have a problem
about trying to retain relative stability and you do not have
the conflict between different Member States trying to get into
that. Also, I have looked at the Dutch system which I thought
was quite constructive. It was very, very different in some ways,
very different from the Icelandic system, but it tries to do a
number of things. As you are probably aware, you can transfer
your quota but once you sign up to be a member of a producer organisation
then you really do need a very, very full commitment and you are
not only managing or being managed in terms of your quota that
you have brought into the pot, also you are forced to land through
certain ports and to deal through certain markets and, therefore,
the fishing industry itself, not the Government, has a huge input
into how it regulates and controls that quota effectively. That
arrangement also allows for tough penalties because if you exceed
your own quota allocation or are in breach then the Producer Organisation
can fine you and the way it recovers that fine is because it also
forces you to land your catch then the next time you sell fish
your fine is simply top-sliced from the income you would otherwise
see. I have no fixed view about which road I would want to go
down, but certainly I am clear that I would like to see, if it
is at all possible, regulation pushed more into the hands of individual
fishermen and the individual producer organisations, but also
I have to find a system that would allow us to preserve the question
of relative stability and also a system that would accommodate
measures being imposed through the Common Fisheries Policy.
Q286 Mr Drew: If I can be clear, what
you are saying is that you are not totally convinced that ITQs
are the way forward. Were you intimating that there is this alternative,
this idea of community quotas, which is what the Strategy Unit
that has already been referred to by Diana was looking at? On
the one hand, there does seem to be some confusion about whether
these are alternates or whether to some extent they can run alongside
each other. I am particularly interested in this information we
have been given about the ability of Orkney and Shetland to look
at this idea of community quotas.
Mr Finnie: If I could just deal
with the latter point and then move back. The issue arises as
to who, on the Community's behalf, acquires the quota. As you
will be well aware, having taken evidence, for example if the
local authority seeks to interpose itself as being the body that
would acquire that then you run straight up against state aid
rules. The only way in which Orkney and/or Shetland have managed
to get themselves out of that mischief is because they have had
access to funding that is not central government support. They
have made use of funds which they have acquired over the years
from the oil revenue in dealing with the oil companies. They have been
able to use independent funding, or independent from the definition
of how you would source that within state aid support, which is
how they have been able to get to where they are. There is no
doubt at all that what that does is, if you like, ring-fence that
quota and gets over my slight difficulty that in quota trading
you run the risk that you will end up transferring that quota
away from the fishing communities that you are trying to support.
How far throughout the United Kingdom we could effect the Orkney/Shetland
solution without running into state aid problems, I am a little
unclear to be honest. We have looked at it pretty closely and
understand how Orkney and Shetland can get themselves out of that
but we are not entirely clear how any other community might do
so.
Q287 Chairman: When the National Federation
of Fishermen's Organisations gave evidence on community quotas,
which they supported, they assumed that they would be administered
by the producer organisations. Would that be your assumption?
Mr Finnie: I am very anxious to
see systems whereby as far as possible they are actually managed
by Producer Organisations and by the fishing industry. It seems
to me that the NFFO have to deliver and trying to take powers
back to any centre is slightly inimical to that process. What
I was positing there was who was it that might come together within
a grouping and the example that was cited in the case of both
Orkney and Shetland was the local authority who said "We
will sit above the producer organisations to organise the funding
of this, bring it together and then allow the Producer Organisations
to manage it", but that is where you get into the potential
difficulty of using public resource funding for the acquisition
which strays into the state aid rule.
Q288 Mr Lazarowicz: Can I move on to
the issue of regionalisation of CFP and the issue of Regional
Advisory Councils, which to some extent have become almost the
Holy Grail of fisheries policy. Most people are in favour but
exactly what they mean is the issue. I know that you were very
heavily involved in the development of the first meeting of the
North Sea Regional Advisory Council and I think you chaired the
first meeting in Edinburgh. First of all, from your experience
of that Council, how far do you see this as a process that is
going to move fairly quickly leading into results for industry,
for Scotland, the UK and Europe as a whole? Secondly, what do
you think the UK Government should be doing to promote the role
of a Regional Advisory Council? Is it doing that satisfactorily
so far or should it be doing more in this area?
Mr Finnie: I regard the Regional
Advisory Councils as an extremely important step forward. I think
by any stretch of the imagination, it is difficult to believe
that a one-size-fits-all management policy which seeks to control
how you catch cod off Shetland and tuna fish off the Iberian Peninsula
is not necessarily a recipe for success in my view. It seems to
me that you are more likely to succeed on a conservation agenda,
a sustainable fisheries agenda, if the people who are responsible
for delivering that are the people who have much more influence
and control of how that is actually developed. I think the whole
principle of regional management is very sound indeed. The current
proposal only gives very limited consultation powers to the Advisory
Council but, frankly, I think we have got to work very hard now
to make sure that they are operating sensibly, that they are coming
forward and are able to participate with the Commission and with
the other Member States properly. There has got to be a real interface
here with the scientists and with environmental lobbyists so that
they are producing very informed discussion and debate. In terms
of support, as part of the UK, given our huge interest in the
fishing activity in the North Sea, we have been very anxious,
both at our own level and through the relevant local authorities
that have a big fishing industry, to be as supportive as we can
in the administrative set-up of the Regional Advisory Councils.
If I had a blank sheet of paper I would hope that over some time
frame I would go along with what was in the Net Benefits
report, that eventually it would be very desirable if you had
some powers, but you have got to prove that you can work together
and produce the evidence first. If I was moving down the track,
that is where I would go.
Q289 Mr Lazarowicz: Just two points on
that, if I can. How supportive have you found the European Commission
in this respect? What is the response that you have been getting
from other Member States when you have been involved in the European
Council meetings in dealing with these areas?
Mr Finnie: We all have to remember
that in 2001 when there was a vote in the Council that there would
be no change to the treaty which cut off the option of the Council
having any greater powers at that time, the UK resisted that saying,
"We have still got a problem, we have got a model here to
demonstrate how we can have a regional basis". I am absolutely
convinced that the participant Member States in the North Sea
are very enthusiastic indeed. The Commission, I do not know, I
have not really had a thoroughgoing discussion with the Commission
since the new Commissioner took up post. I think that he is anxious
to develop this model. Clearly there are one or two of those at
official level who have been there for some time who see it slightly
threatening their central control of the issue. As I say, I think
that concern could be much more offset by their receiving informed
reports on a regular basis and, indeed, participating in the meetings
of the Regional Advisory Councils. The report which the North
Sea Regional Advisory Council produced in very short order for
the last December talks was a very well put together piece of
work.
Q290 Diana Organ: I am a Member of Parliament
for the South West and I am not anything to do with fishing other
than the fact that I consume fish. How do you respond to the South
West Fish Producers' Organisation's claim that full traceability
is an "absolutely impossible task" and that consumers
are more interested in the quality of fish rather than its origin,
yet we know that we do have to do something about improving compliance
and transparency?
Mr Finnie: There are issues. I
think traceability across all food coming from live species is
an important issue, just as I think the whole issue of quality
is paramount. I am always struck by the fact when you stock talk
with the Norwegians, they talk about getting the maximum value
out of every single fish that they land, and that is a very good
dictum to be approaching this problem from. There are issues about
how we deal with traceability because also there are processing
issues. I can give you a good example about some concerns we have
about traceability. We have difficulties in parts of Scotland,
and perhaps it is true in the South West, getting people to indulge
in the actual processing industry. There was a real problem in
employment terms and for a while we had some haddock loaded into
a container, I think it was about 100 American dollars per container,
to have it shipped out to China, to have the fish filleted and
returned. The question was which fish did you send out and which
fish were returned? I had more than just a little sympathy with
the supermarket contractors who were totally reluctant to deal
on that basis because they could not get traceability. I do not
think it is impossible but there are real practical problems at
the moment in terms of employment within the fish processing industry
that make that more difficult. We have got to work hard on that
and also we have got to be careful what we are doing in terms
of point of port, point of vessels. Traceability is very important.
Q291 Chairman: Would you see it as having
more to do with dealing with blackfish than helping the consumer?
Mr Finnie: I think both. We are
imminently about to introduce registration of buyers and sellers
of first sale fish to try to help us identify blackfish landings
so we can identify both what is being purchased and what is allegedly
being sold and landed. If we can square these two, at times, rather
disparate amounts we will be well on the way to keeping a much
better tab on blackfish landings.
Q292 Chairman: Can I just ask you briefly
about points and penalties. Defra seems to like the idea saying
it would make justice more like justice and would be a quicker
way of dealing with things and a more certain way of dealing with
things. The Scottish Fishermen's Federation said it was an infringement
of civil liberties, and so did the South West Fish Producers Organisation.
What is your view on points and penalties?
Mr Finnie: It is a bit like we
have an administrator for penalties in other forms of our system
for justice. It really depends at what point and on what degree
of severity of offence and, indeed, what that penalty might be.
It seems to me that if you have a severity of penalty which has
got much more to do with prospectively threatening the livelihood
of individual fishermen then I think they are entitled not just
to an administrative process but to the whole due process of the
law. I do have some difficulty as to what the cut-off point might
be although I do accept the Commission's point that certainly
(a) it might hasten the process and (b) serve to remind those
who offend that they can be dealt with summarily. As I say, I
am not content with processes that suggest your ability to hold
a licence or, indeed, to have a licence or the revocation of licences
or other penalties would be very severe and would be dealt with
in that way. I think we have got to find a way, as we do other
legislation, such as motoring in the United Kingdom, where there
is a threshold. I do not think there has been a very clear steer
from the thinking of the Commission as to what that threshold
might be.
Q293 Chairman: Similarly, the Strategy
Unit did float this idea of cost recovery of management costs,
rather hopefully I thought. It was immediately pooh-poohed by
the fishing organisation. What is your reaction to this?
Mr Finnie: If you start from that
point of view, there are bigger issues that I would rather solve
before I start talking about who is going to share. I would be
much happier to talk about reforming how we manage the fisheries.
As I indicated in my evidence, I am very anxious, particularly
on the ITQ question, whatever we do about quota management, if
we can actually get some of that management responsibility pushed
down so that the producer organisations are more responsible,
and I would rather go down that road than having a rather fruitless
discussion about who might pay for the existing system. My priority
is more to look at what the system is and how we develop that
rather than losing the confidence of the fishermen by saying,
"It does not matter what we do, this is going to cost you".
I do not think that is a terribly clever approach to getting constructive
engagement with them.
Q294 Chairman: That might be a bit hopeful,
might it not? Is there money in the fleet to actually pay for
the cost of management or even improve management?
Mr Finnie: Again, there is the
difficulty about this issue that there is probably liquidity in
the pelagic sector but I do not think there is any liquidity at
all in the whitefish sector after the last four years, so that
makes for an additional difficulty, there is no spare cash floating
about in the whitefish sector.
Q295 Mr Drew: If we are looking at ways
in which we can evolve these different and better systems, for
example this work that has been done on effort-based concept work,
is this really appropriate? Are there enough resources going in
to try to fine tune how this might be delivered? What is going
to be the type of limit we would expect to allow a mixed fishery
to exist?
Mr Finnie: I think the one piece
of work that has already been done, is there is a slight tendency
to talk about the mixed fishery, and I am glad you made the point.
What I find the difficult part of this equation is the almost
certainty, particularly from a Scottish perspective, of the three
or four, five, key species that are in the whitefish fleet., I
think the one thing that is pretty certain is that they will all
be at a different state of healthy stock over time. That is one
of the issues which complicates this matter. The Net Benefits
report talked about effort management and prosecuting healthy
stocks, but if you do a model and show the point at which any
one of them is in a more healthy state, if I take four or five
stocks, you get back to the very problem that you put your finger
on and that is how on earth do you have a fishing management regime
that is going to recognise the need to take action in respect
of a single stock but also at the same might time allow you to
prosecute those other four or five stocks that are in a relatively
healthy condition? That is very much the position we find ourselves
in with the Cod Recovery Plan, because although the haddock stock
is now beyond its peak from the class of 1999, the whiting stock
is in some scientific difficulties at the moment, the monkfish
stock, the nephrops stocks, these are not stocks that you would
necessarily put great restrictions on on environmental grounds,
but you would in respect of cod. I think the work on effort control
and effort management has to go on. We have got a huge interest
in the scientific basis of this, the scientific evidence. The
FRS College in Aberdeen is a huge resource and a very, very important
contributor to the ICES advice and we lay great store on the contribution
which it makes to that and we are very anxious for both FRS and
the industry and ourselves to be working in harness because there
is clearly a greater opportunity for the scientists to act as
observers on fishing vessels to both measure the impact of effort
control measures but also to test the state of specific stocks.
Q296 Mr Drew: Do you detect, therefore,
that there is greater acceptance of the scientific case, or cases,
with regard to the different stocks which means that at least
there is a recognition that we are beginning to start from a common
basis, whether that is national industries, whether that is scientific
understanding or whether it is just the view of the individual
boat owners that they have got to see the pattern of the level
of fish stocks in the sea as being something that they can agree
upon otherwise there will be no rationality of policy evolution
at all?
Mr Finnie: Yes, I think we are
making progress. Certainly, I have discerned quite a change in
the five years that I have held this Ministry. We are not there
yet, there has got to be a continuing improvement in the engagement
between scientists and government, scientists and the industry
and the other stakeholders. There has to be greater openness about
that. There is no doubt at all that science which is very well
founded and has a long track record but, nevertheless, one in
which the scientists themselves concede that even the latest data
they have might take a year or two for that data to be firmed
up, is a very difficult proposition to be putting to the individual
fishermen. If you are about to affect somebody's livelihood and
you are saying, "This is the best series of data I have,
and by the way the most recent is the most unreliable", in
scientific terms, and you are taking evidence from our scientists,
you gain a much better understanding of precisely what they mean,
but it is open to misconstruction by the fishing industry. I think
the improved engagement between the industry and the scientists
has gone a long way but we have got quite a bit to go. I do think
that there has to be a serious engagement with scientists actually
being on vessels, as they do, they do a tremendous number of observation
trips, but the whole process has to be opened up even a little
more to get that confidence between the fishing industry and the
scientists, between the scientists and the fishing industry, government
and the other stakeholders and NGOs. It is a process which has
improved but I still think there is a lot of work to be done to
improve it even further.
Q297 Mr Lazarowicz: I understand your
Department is currently carrying out a Strategic Review of Inshore
Fisheries and obviously that is very much a matter within devolved
competence. It would be helpful for us to know a little bit about
the reforms being proposed in that review. Rather than going into
detail at this time it may be you will be able to ask your officials
to provide us with a note, if that is more helpful. It would be
helpful if you could give us an indication of whether the reforms
you are looking at could be relevant to other areas in the UK
as well. I would be interested to have your comments on that at
this stage.
Mr Finnie: Certainly I hope that
they would. I would be delighted to supply you with a note setting
out in greater detail what we have done there. Again, as in all
of these matters, it is hugely important that if you are going
to get delivery then you have the relevant players on side, so
we have established an Inshore Fisheries Advisory Group, which
was representative of all of the various interests, and then set
out examining the various parts of that inshore. There is a major
difference between us and colleagues south of the border in the
sense that, for example, sea angling does not feature in any representative
body at all, so the nature of our inshore fisheries is very different.
I would be very happy to supply the Committee with a short note
setting out what we think we have achieved so far and where we
think those would be applicable throughout the United Kingdom.
David Burnside: Minister, can I ask a
specific question first and then a general one that you might
like to think about. We have had some success in the Irish Sea,
as you will know, in stocks in recent years. In whitefish there
has been quite a good recovery and prawn stocks are very good
at the moment and in a much better state than the North Sea, I
believe, but there have been recommendations that in the North
Sea we might have to go to complete no-take zones. Just how far
might that have to go in the North Sea? My second general question
is I am a Member of the Committee who believes that we will not
have a recovery unless we have a withdrawal from the Common Fisheries
Policy and we take that sovereign control back.
Chairman: Let us take the second question
second. Can you deal with the no-take zones first?
Q298 David Burnside: If I can finish
my leading second question after.
Mr Finnie: I think no-take zones,
Marine Protected Areas, are something we have got to keep an open
mind on. Whilst we have done a very constructive job both here
in Scotland, I like to think, but also in collaboration with the
Northern Ireland Office and with colleagues in England and Wales
about the present position, there is no doubt at all that we have
to put fisheries management into the much wider context of the
marine environment. I am in absolutely no doubt about that. That
brings other issues into play which should have been in play but
are not always there and, therefore, I think we have to look at
the different management techniques that will be required, whether
those are, as suggested in the Net Benefits report, a question
of Marine Protected areas which have ramifications and implications
for fisheries management or whether it is a question of no-take
zones but, whatever it is, having established a much better understanding
that we do this on the basis of certain science, as has been mentioned.
If that is the argument that I and others, and you, have been
wrestling with, to try to persuade people to do it on an evidential
base, then if it is closed areas, if it is no-take areas, if it
is spawn enclosures, whatever it is, it has to be on the basis
of sound science and disappointedly the Commission's proposal,
which was very hastily put together and tabled in December for
closed areas, failed to test what both the Commission and other
Member States have been trying to advance for the last few years,
namely that it should be based on science. It was not, and that
was the only reason why we rejected it unanimously from the United
Kingdom's point of view. As to how far these have to go, you will
have read and seen the Royal Commission report and they make clear
that in some instances to be effective they have to be very substantial
and go for a very long period of time. It has to be based on good
scientific evidence in relation to the specific species that you
are trying to protect.
Q299 Chairman: That applies presumably
to marine protected areas as well?
Mr Finnie: Yes, indeed.
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