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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 122-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE FUTURE FOR UK FISHING)
Monday 17 January 2005 Committee Room 2, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
MR ROSS FINNIE, MSP, MR DAVID WILSON and MS BARBARA STRATHERN Evidence heard in Public Questions 275 - 304
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Sub-Committee on the Future for UK Fishing) on Monday 17 January 2005 Members present Mr Austin Mitchell, in the Chair David Burnside Mr David Drew Mr Mark Lazarowicz Diana Organ ________________ Witnesses: Mr Ross Finnie, Member of the Scottish Parliament, Minister for Environment and Rural Development, Scotland, Mr David Wilson, Director of Fisheries & Rural Development Group, SEERAD, and Ms Barbara Strathern, Head of Sea Fisheries Reform Team, SEERAD, examined. Q275 Chairman: Welcome, Minister. Perhaps we can start. My name is Austin Mitchell and I am the Chair of this Sub-Committee of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. We are very grateful to you for coming along to give evidence in what must be, I think, the first time a Westminster Select Committee has taken evidence in this building. I am not sure about precedent, but certainly it is the first time in this building. We are very grateful. It is an impressive setting, no less. Would you like to introduce the members of your delegation, please? Mr Finnie: Thank you very much. Good morning and welcome to our Parliament. At least, I like to think that it was worth waiting on and, as you say, does provide an impressive setting. I am joined by the Head of Fisheries, David Wilson, and Barbara Strathern, who has also got responsibilities for the policy end of that. These are our short, slim team. We are very pleased to be giving evidence. As you say, you have created a precedent by being the first to hold evidence in the Parliament, although Members of the Scottish Parliament have given evidence to Westminster Parliament committees. Q276 Chairman: Can I start with a crucial question about your powers as compared to those of Ben Bradshaw at Westminster. Do you have any extra powers over Scottish fishing that he does not have, or any extra finance? There were arguments about the Scottish Executive paying out more to Scottish fishermen for tie-ups or decommissioning, I am not sure which. Perhaps you would like to tell us where the differences lie. Mr Finnie: As you will be aware, in terms of the actual Devolution Settlement we have the exclusive powers over fisheries and fisheries management. I, and more particularly the officials who worked with me when I was first appointed to this position five and three-quarter years ago, recognised that was all very interesting and well but given the particular responsibilities, in particular in relation to agriculture, the Common Agricultural Policy, and fisheries, the Common Fisheries Policy, what were we going to do positively to ensure whilst we had these powers and, therefore, knew also down South there were going to be times of the year when actually the Minister in Westminster only had responsibility for English fisheries, how did we actually bring that together. I suppose in the sort of dull boring way that one does, one looked at process before one got to grips with policy. What we have is a procedure, both for ourselves and the Northern Irish Office, where officials meet on a very regular basis, but, in particular, if there is a European Council meeting in the offing, officials make it their business to look at continuing issues but also issues that are on those agendas. They might meet four, five or six weeks in advance of the Council meeting to prepare the ground for ministers to meet. We do not physically have to move, we can use confra-vision, so that we can then take our separate responsibilities and seek to reach a consensus on what the United Kingdom position is going to be as we articulate that at any European Council. The broad picture is that we have identical powers effectively, I suppose, in terms of the day-today management, and I do, as the minister, but clearly we act as part of the United Kingdom in prosecuting our case in Europe. We have this procedure in place that allows us to do that. In terms of allocating money, it is entirely up to the Scottish Executive to determine how much and what proportion of its budget it might wish to spend on fisheries. As to your recent example, we separately, and quite properly, funded the decommissioning schemes of 2001 and 2003 and, because of the huge importance which actual sea fisheries has for Scotland, our view was that we were required to provide some transitional support to our fisheries in 2003-04, so that came from the Scottish budget. Q277 Chairman: Has that continued this year? Mr Finnie: No. We did it as a single year. We recognised the very real difficulties of a combination of decommissioning and also the restrictions in days at sea and to allow the industry time to adjust and, indeed, also to allow certain fishermen to decide whether or not they would elect to volunteer for the decommissioning process or whether, in their judgment, there was sufficient potential future viability that they might remain at sea. The transitional aid had a huge part to play in allowing that time and allowing the fishermen to come to a rational decision. Chairman: What progress has been made in the Sustainable Fisheries Programme consultation process that is going on? Q278 David Burnside: David Burnside, Ulster Unionist. Before we go on to the specific question, since devolution has taken place and the Scottish Parliament has been operational, could you explain how you have done more for the Scottish fishing industry, for example in the Council quota meeting in December, the one we all wait for with anticipation, to try and represent the interests of the whole of the British fishing industry. Can you give any concrete examples of how devolution has helped to represent the Scottish fishing industry? Generally, are there any lessons that have been learned here and in your co-operation with your colleagues that you have referred to in the Northern Ireland Office in becoming part of the UK delegation at a European Union level? Mr Finnie: I am not sure that I can point to a specific example but what I can certainly point to is that the process to which I have referred, and which operates right across the agriculture and fisheries' side, particularly as far as I am concerned because I have both responsibilities, has been something that we have been very anxious to work with. Indeed, when the House of Lords Committee was looking provisionally at how devolution was working, I gave evidence to that Committee and the process that I described at the outset was gone into in some detail. What I do think devolution has done is quite specifically it has allowed ministers like myself and my colleagues, because we are located physically here in Edinburgh, to develop a much closer relationship with the various stakeholders, and I mean environmental groups not just direct fisheries' interests. Because of our physical presence, we are able to conduct a much, much more extensive range of consultation through the year, not just specifically, although I had a very, very concentrated period of consultation with the fisheries industry and environmental NGOs towards the end of the year. I think that allows both me and my officials to be better informed not just as to the problems but, much more particularly, about the potential solutions that you would wish them to advance. Because of the process I described, we are able to meet with colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office and discuss very fully what we think are the priorities and what we think about the policies and things that we should be pursuing through UKREP and through the Commission itself and, indeed, to have direct meetings with the Commission. I think the whole process has been elevated in terms of its content, in our ability to focus in on the detail of it, and in our ability to be part of a United Kingdom team where everyone is absolutely clear as to what our shared priorities are across the various administrations. Q279 David Burnside: Do you have an example? Other than the process of consultation, which is very fine and admirable, can you give me an example? Mr Finnie: Certainly it has been helpful from our perspective, given that Scotland alone has something like a 70 per cent interest in the North Sea white fisheries, for us to be able to articulate the precise reasons why, as opposed to the generality why closed area policies might have a role to play, why the specific closed area policy that was put forward by the Commission last December was actually likely to be counterproductive and would have very serious effects, both on an environmental and fisheries basis but very, very particularly in relation to Scottish fishing and Scottish environmental interests. That was something that we were able to articulate because of our knowledge and understanding of the circumstances that obtained to a box that would have been located almost adjacent to the Shetland Isles. We had much more understanding of that and that was accepted by colleagues across the UK and it made for a much more intelligent conversation as to how we brought that altogether. Q280 Chairman: Does that mean that the consultation process has been more intensive in Scotland for the Sustainable Fisheries Programme? Mr Finnie: Certainly, as a matter of personal preference, I am very much of the school that says that politicians are there to give leadership and direction, they are not there to tell industries how to run themselves. Being a member of that school, I take a very great amount of time, as do my officials therefore, to engage extensively with all of those stakeholders because if we cannot get them to buy into a policy there is not a chance of us actually delivering it. If we are going to have more sustainable fisheries management, and I wholly subscribe to that, we have to make sure that with those elements particularly within the fisheries community who are a bit sceptical and see it as a little bit threatening, we do engage very widely with them because if we do not persuade them we simply cannot deliver. Q281 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. Q282 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. Q283 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 per cent of the fleet and tie-up 30 per cent 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 per cent and we recognised we could not do that simply by having temporary closures. If we were going to reach 65 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent 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. Q284 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 per cent, but nevertheless had the effect of reducing the total number of vessels in the whitefish fleet by 50 per cent, 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 per cent. Q285 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. Q286 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 profitable, 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. Q287 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. Q288 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. Q289 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 Committee 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. Q290 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. Q291 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. Q292 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 first buyers 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. Q293 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. Q294 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. Q295 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. Q296 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 nephrop 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. Q297 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. Q298 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. Q299 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. Q300 Chairman: That applies presumably to Marine Protected Areas as well? Mr Finnie: Yes, indeed. Q301 Chairman: The criteria to be used would be essentially and basically scientific? Mr Finnie: Absolutely. Q302 Chairman: As a lead-in to David's wider question, if the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's recommendations to have great big boxes from which commercial fishing would be excluded was under serious consideration, the fact is we could not do it because it would have to be an agreed European measure, is that correct? Mr Finnie: Yes. We could not unilaterally decide simply to have those areas stopped, from a fishing point of view, at rather an artificial boundary of UK limits. As I understand it, fish have a degree of intelligence but it does not include knowing where international boundaries begin or end and that is leading into my answer to this. Given that all of our stocks spawn in different international waters and swim in different international waters, I very firmly believe that the correct approach to the conservation of a marine biological resource, if it was properly managed, ought to be at a European level because it is not at our hand to determine where all of these fish can swim in the sea and if we are serious about conservation then we need a better framework to ensure that all of the relevant parties are party to that agreement. Q303 Chairman: You could establish Marine Protected Areas within the 12. Mr Finnie: Yes, you could, but it would be interesting to know whether the scientific evidence suggested that they should simply stop at that rather artificial boundary. Q304 David Burnside: I do not know if the Minister agrees with me but devolution should represent the regional interests of the devolved parts of the United Kingdom where that devolved assembly or parliament is sitting and governing with its devolved responsibilities. Could the Minister give the Committee some view of his opinion of the strength of feeling and support in the Scottish Parliament, Scottish public, Scottish press, for a regaining of the sovereign rights of the United Kingdom which were transferred to the European Union? I have expressed my personal view. It seems to me that we are arguing on the fringes on the management of a system that is fundamentally flawed. What support is there in Scotland to retake fishing back into the hands of the United Kingdom Government and Parliament and whatever devolved assemblies and parliaments may exist around the United Kingdom? Mr Finnie: I do not know the answer to that question because it is not one that has ever been put in any proper form of referendum. What I do know is that two parties within the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Party and the Conservative Party in this Parliament, are very much in favour of that position. I am not. It depends on how you put the question. They put that question in their campaigning in the lead-up to December that all you had to do was to change the ownership and all would be well but I am bound to say it does not seem to me that that is going to make any difference to the scientific evidence on the fact that cod stocks are below their biological safe limit. If the Scottish fishing industry has suffered economically over the last four years, it has done so largely on account of the fact that a major stock has been found scientifically to be below its safe biological limit and I do not think that you can adduce an argument that suggests that it has purely been at the behest of the Common Fisheries Policy that has brought that about. I do not think we are going to agree on that. As to the public, I do not think there has ever been a fully informed and advised debate on it. There are political positions that are very well known and well understood and these are split within the present Scottish Parliament. Chairman: Thank you very much. It is as well to end the session there because otherwise we would have an extensive row over Europe and it is not let wretches hang that jurymen may dine, it is let Europe hang that jurymen may dine. Minister, we are very grateful to you and to your staff for attending and answering our questions, giving us such comprehensive coverage of the Scottish situation and how you see things here in Scotland. We are very grateful indeed, thank you very much. |