European Standing Committee A |
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Mr. Bradshaw: I am sure that you, Mr. Cummings, will understand that it is not really my role to comment on the workings of the European Scrutiny Committee, but having been a member of that Committee, I have some sympathy with hon. Members present about the weight of documents that they are expected to plough through, often at very short notice. Although some hon. Members were slightly disparaging about their own achievements today, saying that the debate has been a farce—that was the language used by one or two hon. Members—important points have been raised. I am not aware of any major issues and controversies concerning the December Council that have not been aired today so, in a way, hon. Members have done their job, despite facing challenges. As I indicated earlier, my officials made every effort to get the documents out in good time; they were sent out on 27 February. Translation is a huge challenge for the European Union, as the hon. Member for Rayleigh
I should like to say something about the annual fisheries calendar. It poses enormous problems for us, and I know that the new Fisheries Commissioner is keen to reform it. Agreeing fisheries TACs and quotas is such a challenge—not just in the EU, but bilaterally—that unless some time constraints are put on it, and the people making the ultimate decisions are forced to work towards a final break-off point, it is difficult to reach an agreement at all. That is the nature of negotiations on complicated agreements. The hon. Member for Moray felt that there had been little reward for the Scottish white fish fleet in the December agreement. I do not accept that, and hon. Members have largely ignored two important issues. The original proposal from the Commission was for us to lose three days and to introduce a closed area in the North sea. We successfully fought off both those proposals by convincing the Commission that the UK, particularly Scotland, had done more than any other country to reduce pressure on cod. That was accepted—it is on the record—and the Commission reluctantly gave way to UK pressure to restore the lost three days and to withdraw the proposals for a closed area. That is a prize that I recommend the Scottish National party, and everyone else, banks, because it is an historic recognition by the Commission that makes our job a great deal easier. The hon. Member for St. Ives and others asked about the legal basis of any move to give the RACs executive powers. I shall ask my officials for their legal view on the subject and write to hon. Members, if I may, because the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are conflicting views about the necessity for a treaty change. On the specific issue of the extra days, I have already explained that where we ended up was a lot better than the Commission’s original proposal for a loss of three days. We fought back and maintained the status quo on days, and got rid of the haddock permit system on which the Scottish National party had lobbied us heavily. It is not then fair for us to insist on retaining an extra three days on top of the status quo, which we did not ask for and nobody was expecting, including the fishing industry, and which no one thought we got. It was only as a result of an drafting error that that happened. The hon. Gentleman should be grateful that the Commission is allowing us to make use of those extra three days until there has been clarification. However, as I said to him earlier, he is being inconsistent if he expects us to try to continue to benefit from mistakes when our industry may sometimes be the victim of a mistake that we want put right. We have to maintain consistency on that. Angus Robertson: I hope the Minister would concede that the majority of my comments about the consequences of any row-back on this decision were
Mr. Bradshaw: The agreement said that if people use 120 mm mesh they will maintain their existing number of days. That will remain the case. If they have invested in that mesh they will still retain more days than if they had not done so. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Rayleigh has left for good. [Interruption.] As he is coming back I will come to him in a moment or two. I agree completely with the points that the hon. Member for St. Ives made about satellite monitoring and the opportunity that it gives us to simplify rules. I am grateful for his suggestion, which I will look into. I also agree that closed areas can play a positive role in fisheries management. We have one in the south-west. The Government are working actively to establish a network of more closed areas. The point that I was getting at is that the jury is still out on the efficacy of closed areas in the North sea or further out from the UK coast in helping us to manage stocks sustainably in a mixed fishery with highly migratory stocks. For that very reason I have called a seminar inviting marine scientists from all over the country to try to settle that argument so that we can move forward sensibly. The UK will make cetacean by-catch a priority. I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern that it is not taken as seriously by some other countries. Industrial fishing is taken seriously, and he may have missed the fact—I am sure he did not—that we achieved a 40 per cent. cut in effort on the sand eel fishery as a result of this Council agreement. Yes, the Government are committed to a marine Bill should we be re-elected. Returning to the points raised by the hon. Member for Rayleigh, I have already said that the procedural matters are not for me. He said that he felt that the national Governments were bounced. He has missed the points that I have just made about the annual fisheries calendar and the challenges that it presents, but it is not fair to say that the national Governments were bounced. We did not have very much time to respond to some of the Commission’s proposals but we managed to bounce back and kill them. We ended up with an agreement that we were pleased with, despite the tight timetable. Mr. Francois: I was listening carefully to the Minister’s reply. I that he will forgive me for saying this, but does he concede that, if we managed to bounce these things back, someone must have bounced them to us in the first place? Mr. Bradshaw: I accept that. I do not want to repeat what I said when the hon. Gentleman was outside the Committee Room. I went into the matter at some length, and I am sorry, but he will have to read my remarks in Hansard. I do not want to detain the Committee by being unnecessarily repetitive. The hon. Member for North Shropshire raised a number of issues. He highlighted one of only two
The reason for the decrease in haddock was partly because of take-up of the quota last year; it was not just because of the state of the stocks. I have already addressed the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the time frame and the fishing year. I touched on what we achieved in terms of increased quotas, rejecting the idea of closed areas and the cuts of three days that the Commission originally proposed. The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the Trevose box issue. It was not just a UK industry initiative; it came from France, the UK and Ireland. The industry did not spot the fact that boats under 10 m were being excluded, and the matter has been rectified. I will ask my officials to look into the hon. Gentleman’s experience in the United States in respect of trial methods to exclude cetaceans from fisheries. I am sure that he is aware that those measures have been trialled here off the south-west coast for several years, in the bass pair fishery that is at the centre of the controversy. Two years ago, trials of separated grid technology seemed to be successful, but last year they were not, and as a result we introduced the inside-12-mile ban for UK vessels involved in that fishing. I am as keen as the hon. Gentleman to consider successful ways of using those methods, and if there is an answer across the Atlantic that we have not thought of, we would be very interested in it. The hon. Gentleman’s analysis of the gulf between the industry and the scientists seemed rather out of date. There is a new mood out there, partly as a result of the industry-science collaborative work that we funded, which has brought results in several cases in terms of increased TACs and quotas. Things have moved on. The advice from ICES is subject to independent international scientific review, and fishing representatives are allowed to attend ICES meetings and give their views. The nature of the debate on the science has changed, something that I hope the hon. Gentleman will applaud, because if our fishing industry is to be put on a sustainable basis in the long term, it is vital that it does not go back to rejecting the science. I completely endorse everything that the hon. Gentleman said about enforcement, and I am pleased that there is something on which we can agree wholeheartedly. I hope that he will support the forthcoming introduction of the registration of first-sale fish, which he said was vital for good fisheries management in other regimes. The hon. Gentleman has repeatedly advocated withdrawal from the CFP, but that is not the way forward for our industry, and it is not supported by the former Conservative fisheries Minister, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), who described the policy as unwise and undeliverable, nor by the former party chairman, Lord Patten, who asked whether the Conservatives were going to teach the fish to respect invisible borders in the sea. Most sensible
Question put:— The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 2. [Division No. 1] AYES Hamilton, DavidMarris, Rob Palmer, Dr. Nick Wright, Iain
NOES Column Number: 40 Francois, Mr. Mark Hoban, Mr Mark Question accordingly agreed to. Resolved,
Committee rose at twenty-one minutes to Five o’clock. Column Number: 41 |
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