4 MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR PLAICE
AND SOLE IN THE NORTH SEA
(27216)
5403/06
COM(05) 714
| Draft Council Regulation establishing a management plan for fisheries exploiting plaice and sole in the North Sea
|
| Legal base | Article 37EC; consultation; QMV
|
| Document originated | 10 January 2006
|
| Deposited in Parliament |
20 January 2006 |
| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
|
| Basis of consideration |
EM of 30 January 2006 |
| Previous Committee Report |
None |
| To be discussed in Council
| June 2006 |
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information awaited
|
Background
4.1 For those stocks held to be at particular risk of over-exploitation
— including cod and hake, and sole in the Western Channel
— the Community has in recent years adopted, over and above
the usual range of catch and effort limits measures, a number
of specific conservation management plans, aimed at reducing the
level of fishing mortality. This proposal sets out the latest
such plan, covering the plaice and sole stocks in the North Sea.
The current proposal
4.2 The Commission points out that plaice and sole have been fished
together using beam-trawls for many decades in the southern North
Sea, and that, since the mid-1950s, the fishing mortality of the
plaice stocks has more than doubled and landings declined. It
adds that the sole fishery has shown a similar trend, and that,
since sole is the main economic driver in these two fisheries,
with mesh sizes set to avoid losing marketable catches this has
in turn lead to high levels of plaice discards.
4.3 It is therefore proposing that, in addition to the total allowable
catches (TACs) set in December each year, and the more specific
measures aimed at protecting juvenile stock, there should be a
long-term management plan for these two stocks. This would aim
to set TACs at levels which would reduce fishing mortality by
10% annually until an acceptable level of mortality had been achieved,
but, in order to reduce the consequent instability for the industry,
any change in the TAC between one year and another would be limited
to 15%. In addition, fishing effort would be limited through a
days at sea regime which would be adjusted annually to reflect
changes in the TAC for sole. However, since North Sea plaice is
one of the stocks which the Community manages jointly with Norway,
the measures applied by virtue of this proposal would need to
be consistent with the management plan which the Community and
Norway have agreed to develop during 2006.
The Government's view
4.4 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 30 January 2006, the Minister
for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare at the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Ben Bradshaw) says
that the UK accepts the need to reduce fishing mortality in the
beam trawl fisheries, and to tackle the problem of discards. He
says that UK beam trawlers fishing in the southern North Sea (the
majority of which are in fact Dutch owned, and based in the Netherlands)
would be affected by the proposal. However, because their by-catches
also include cod, they are already subject to the days at sea
scheme set out in the recovery plan for that stock in the North
Sea, and it is unclear at this stage how the Commission envisages
that scheme and the one now proposed for North Sea plaice would
operate in practice.
4.5 The Minister adds that this is therefore an issue which the
UK will be studying further with the Regional Advisory Council,
which has made its own proposals for the management of the North
Sea beam trawl fisheries, and that, following consultation with
them, the Government will be producing a Regulatory Impact Assessment
in the next three months.
Conclusion
4.6 Since this proposal reflects scientific advice on the state
of the stocks concerned, and contains measures similar to those
in comparable plans adopted for other stocks held to be at risk,
it does not appear to raise any new issues of principle. Also,
to the extent it has an economic impact, we infer from the Minister's
observation about the registration of the vessels affected, that
this may be felt primarily in the Netherlands. However, we assume
that this point will be dealt with in the Regulatory Impact Assessment
which the Minister has promised to provide, and we will therefore
reserve judgement until we have seen that. In the meantime, we
are holding the document under scrutiny.
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