Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR BEN
BRADSHAW MP, MR
SIMON WATERFIELD
AND MR
LINDSAY D HARRIS
18 JANUARY 2006
Q1 Chairman: Minister, welcome. I am
sorry we are a bit late but the vote earlier in the afternoon
knocked us out a bit. If we can start with the process by which
the Community agrees Total Allowable Catches each year, this has
long been a source of concern to us, since the present timetable
effectively rules out proper parliamentary scrutiny. We therefore
read with interest the paper which the UK Presidency circulated
to the Council. Was this agreed in advance with the Commission,
and how did other Member States respond to it?
Mr Bradshaw: If you are talking
about the paper we presented on our ideas for change in the annual
timetable, no, it was not agreed in advance with the Commission.
We had discussions through our presidency, including an informal
ministerial discussion over lunch at the October Council when
we bounced around ideas. It was really off the back of that that
we produced that letter setting out some of our ideas. It would
only have been received by the Commission in December, or maybe
even early January, but knowing the Commissioner intends to come
up with a paper making his own proposals for the April Council
under the Austrian Presidency we just wanted to inform that debate,
and we will have to wait and see what he comes up with. On your
first point, Chairman, about your concerns about parliamentary
scrutiny, those are ones we share and we have discussed these
before. We did try to do a little better this year, we had a meeting
arranged with you which unfortunately I think the Committee had
to cancel. We managed to see the Lords Committee in that very
short period of time between the Commission's proposals coming
out at the end of November and the December Council. We got the
proposals a little bit earlier than we did last year but clearly
it is still a very tight timetable and we would like to see more
room in that timetable for scrutiny not just by Parliament but
by the industry and by the new regional advisory councils.
Q2 Jim Dobbin: Welcome back to the Committee,
Minister. Just sticking with the timetable itself, is there any
other way of shortening the present timetable? For example, is
it really necessary for the proposals to be considered by
the Scientific Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries?
If so, could it not do so before early November thus allowing
the Commission's proposals to be tabled earlier?
Mr Bradshaw: The difficulty about
the proposals being tabled earlier is the timing of the scientific
advice. We do not get the scientific advice for most of the relevant
stocks until mid to late October. The idea we put forward in our
paper is to make the proposals in July based on the scientific
advice on the stocks which comes out in May and inevitably on
the advice from the previous year on the rest of the stocks. But
the problem in achieving reform has always been that the scientific
advice comes out in October and the December Council is in December.
What we had hoped to have achieved this year was to get the Commission
to produce an informal document a little earlier which you could
have scrutinised, but there was a problem with that because of
some trouble they had with the REACH Directive with a similar
informal document and the College of Commissioners would not let
that happen. We had a little more time this year but, as I say,
it is still very tight.
Q3 Mr Borrow: Following on the scrutiny
point, Minister. In previous years it has been possible to have
a debate on the floor of the House on the fisheries policy which
may not have had all the information but at least it gave some
forum for members to put forward views. This did not happen in
December last year.
Mr Bradshaw: I am sorry, Chairman,
we did have an annual fisheries debate on the floor of the House
in December. It has not always been common practice, this Labour
Government has made it so and we have had an annual fisheries
debate certainly as long as I have been Fisheries Minister, and
we endeavour to have it in that period between the Commission's
official proposals in early December and the Council. I think
we did it about the middle of December—7 December, I am
told.
Nia Griffith: It was the week we were
away, Chairman.
Chairman: We were away.
Q4 Michael Connarty: Turning to recent
decisions on the Total Allowable Catches for 2006, can you briefly
describe the outcome and highlight for us the changes made
in the Council to the original Commission's proposals? Can you
put on the record would you think we achieved?
Mr Bradshaw: I can give you the
broad brush—I know it is only a month ago but it seems an
awfully long time ago now. In terms of the UK, one of the UK's
main interests, which is actually not our main interest any more,
is cod and the state of cod in the North Sea, which has been poor
for quite some time. The original Commission proposals recommended,
from recollection, a cut in the TAC on cod and associated stocks
of 15%, and that was the final agreement based on the scientific
advice from ICES there should be no cod caught at all. The Commission
also proposed there should be a cut in the number of days of 15%
for the white fish fleet, which is largely the Scottish sector
that catches cod and haddock, and for beam trawlers and the nephrops
fleet which use smaller nets but which catch a substantial proportion
of cod as a by-catch. At the end of the day, the UK, along with
Denmark, managed to persuade the Commission to reduce the cut
in the number of days for the white fish fleet from 15 to 5%,
but on top of that to allow us to buy back another three of those
days if we used scientific observers on board the boat. This was
in recognition of the already very significant cut that the UK,
and particularly the Scottish white fish fleet, has made on its
effort of about 60% since the cod recovery plan began. There was
a smaller reduction in the reduction for the beam trawler and
for the nephrops fleet, so the beam trawler I think had an 8%
cut in days and the nephrops fleet a 10% cut in days. That is
on cod. The most significant result for the UK out of this Council
was an enormous increase in the nephrops TAC, that is the prawns
TAC, which was already, before this Council, the most important
catch in terms of money value for the UK fleet. There was an increase
for the West of Scotland of more than 30%-39%—for the West
of Scotland, 32% in the North Sea and 10% in the Irish Sea.
Q5 Michael Connarty: Of prawns?
Mr Bradshaw: Of prawns. I like
to describe these things in terms of overall value, because it
is a very complicated picture, but based on the Commission's original
proposals, or the proposals when they were first made at the Council,
the first compromise, the UK's value of landings would have increased
by 1% this year, as a result of our negotiations by the end of
the Council the UK's landings this year should increase by 2.5%
in terms of value. That is almost wholly explained by the increase
in the prawns quota.
Q6 Michael Connarty: Obviously you feel
quite buoyed up by that and very proud of it, but can I ask you
to compare two quotes which I have here? One is from the Fisheries
Minister of Ireland, who stated that they expected a 15% cut in
their white fish quotas but in fact they will have an ".
. . increased income of approximately 15% to Irish fishermen"
because they had increases in several key species. The Scottish
skipper, John Duncan, said, "I'm disgusted with the outcome
of the talks. It's a travesty of justice . . . The haddock stocks
are at a 30-year high but the quotas are at a 30-year low."
So in the reaches of the UK and Scotland and in our competitor
industry in Ireland, there seem to be total contradictions as
to how people think we have gone about our business and what we
have achieved. Do you not think there is a contradiction in that
the Irish have increased their quotas instead of losing them and
we seem to be not getting adequate quotas given the stocks in
haddock in the North Sea at the moment?
Mr Bradshaw: I have to admit I
have not studied the outcome for Ireland in any great detail.
I certainly think Ireland ended up with a pretty good deal, no
better than the UK's but partly based on UK negotiation because
some of the stocks from which the Irish benefited are the same
stocks as ours, for instance nephrops in the Irish Sea, nephrops
off the West of Scotland—these are stocks that the Irish
catch as well. So Ireland managed to piggy-back, if you like,
off not only our negotiations but also the French and the Spanish
negotiations on some stocks. What the fisherman from Scotland
says, according to your quote, is simply incorrect. If you look
at the broad range of responses from the fishing industry, most
of them had a tone along the lines of, "Actually it was much
better than we feared" or "It was not too bad in the
circumstances." I know that has become a rather expected
routine now, that everybody says beforehand that it is all going
to be a terrible disaster and then we emerge from these 36 hours
of negotiation and people say, "It wasn't that bad."
The strongest and most trenchant comments were from the press
and from the NGOs, that it was not nearly conservationist enough.
Q7 Angus Robertson: Welcome to the Committee,
Minister, and for the record I do represent a fishing constituency.
Applause for the decision did not even go as far as your Liberal
coalition partners in Scotland, the MSP and Minister, Tavish Scott,
for Shetland who described the outcome of the Fisheries Council
as "disappointing", so it is not just some of the voices
which are critical year in, year out. Can I turn to the specifics
about prawns? There was a report yesterday on fishupdate.com with
regard to the lack of news about it. It says here, "Lack
of information on North Sea and West Coast prawn allocation is
fuelling speculation and concern among fishermen." Mike Park,
who is the chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association,
said, "it was time for the UK Fisheries Department to put
their cards on the table as far as the allocation of the prawn
quota for this year was concerned." What do you think he
means? Do you have some cards to put on the table and perhaps
give us some information which would be useful for him and for
others?
Mr Bradshaw: Are you talking about
the allocation between the under-10 and over-10 metre boats?
Q8 Angus Robertson: Yes.
Mr Bradshaw: This is apparently
still a matter under discussion with the industry, but I do not
think I can say any more than that.
Q9 Angus Robertson: So there is no news
and they cannot be reassured about this issue at this stage? They
are going to have to wait longer?
Mr Bradshaw: There is news in
that they got a 39% increase in the West of Scotland and a 32%
increase in the North Sea.
Q10 Angus Robertson: That is not the
question I am asking though.
Mr Bradshaw: You asked what the
news was. That is the very good and very big news story coming
from the Fisheries Council. It is something which not least your
party leader has been pressing on me for sometime to achieve,
and I do not think he expected even in his wildest dreams that
I would achieve such a big increase in the nephrops quota. In
terms of how the quota is allocated, that is a matter for discussion
between the industry and the Scottish Executive. This, as you
know, is a devolved issue and I would be very reluctant to interfere
in those discussions.
Q11 Angus Robertson: But on the specific
question relating to the UK Fisheries Department, there is no
news today to report? It is still a matter being discussed?
Mr Bradshaw: A decision has not
been taken yet, it is still being discussed with the industry.
Angus Robertson: Thank you.
Q12 Mr Steen: Minister, as you know,
I represent the largest fishing port now in England and Wales
in the shape of Brixham, and I would be interested to hear what
you have to say about the Western Approaches and how you feel
the TACs are benefiting the West Country. In particular, I wonder
if I could ask you about the approach? For as long as I can remember,
and I have been visiting the Fishing Minister since the early
1980s, scientists are wheeled in every time telling me doom and
gloom and that we have to cut the numbers of TACs and that is
what has been happening. As we know, 10 years ago cod was 55,000,
now it is down to about 9,000 and we have had the same problem
with haddock—68,000 in 1996, now down to 35,000. It is as
if this is the policy of the Commission, it is going to drive
down as far as it can the TACs and at the same time they are disregarding
the fact they are throwing overboard probably more fish than are
being caught, and I wonder what progress has been made on the
problem of discards. While recognising you have done very well
on prawns, have you done as well on discards?
Mr Bradshaw: Indirectly, yes,
because one of the major problems in the South West with discards
is monkfish, and we have secured a 5% increase in the TAC on monkfish
and a 9% increase in the TAC on sole. I do not think it is quite
fair to say of the Commission that they are constantly ratcheting
down the TACs. In fact, disregarding the big increase on prawns
this year, last year there was an increase in the South West for
sole, one of the stocks, of 180%. So where the scientific evidence
can justify an increase in a TAC, the Commission is perfectly
open to arguments from Member States like the UK to agree to one.
One of the reasons that we have been spending £1 million
a year in the last three years on these Fisheries Science Partnerships
is to gather better scientific evidence involving the fishermen,
putting the scientists on the boats, to give me the arguments
that the fishermen themselves have always used, "There is
plenty of fish out there and the science is wrong", to help
us make a case. On the other hand, I think it is absolutely right
that where stocks are in dire straits, in collapse or seriously
depleted, a precautionary approach is taken, and that is what
we have seen with cod, not just this year but for the last few
years. I think it is worth pointing out that for the last three
years, certainly since I have been Fisheries Minister, every single
year has seen a significant increase in the value of fish landed
in the United Kingdom, including in the South West.
Q13 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Minister, it
is generally agreed the Common Fisheries Policy is a disaster,
both for those who work in the industry and also for the marine
environment. Has your Department done any comparisons between
the European system and other countries outside who look after
their own fishing grounds and therefore have a clear self-interest
in looking after them for the long-term? Would that not be a better
model than this annual grab by everybody, which is then subjected
to this complex parcelling-out system with incomplete enforcement
and so on? Rather than trying to tinker with a system which is
not working, why do you not do some radical thinking about an
alternative and table those proposals at these talks?
Mr Bradshaw: I am not quite sure
it is fair to say that everybody agrees that the Common Fisheries
Policy is a disaster. That is certainly the view of some people.
I do not think anyone would argue it was perfect but I think most
reasonably-minded people would accept it has improved considerably
since the reforms we helped achieve back in 2002—the introduction
of the regional advisory councils which devolved discussion and
decision-making to a certain extent to the regions, three of them
are now established, two were established under our presidency,
which give the industry a real voice. I think most fair-minded
people accept they are working well and that the Commission is
listening to what they have to say. We do study fisheries models
from other parts of the world; I myself have visited New Zealand,
Iceland, the Faroes, and most governments face an enormous challenge
of managing their fisheries in a sustainable way. I accept some
do it better than others, for some it is easier than others. For
Iceland, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a 200-mile exclusive
limit, it is considerably easier; for New Zealand, similarly,
because of its geographical position. The United Kingdom is a
few miles away from the European mainland, we have for hundreds
of years shared our waters with fishermen from other countries,
as we have fished in their waters, so whether there was a Common
Fisheries Policy or not there would have to be something very
similar. The Daily Telegraph's environment editor, Charles
Clover, wrote a very good book on the fishing industry the year
before last called The End of the Line, and he reached
the conclusion that if the Common Fisheries Policy did not exist
you would have to invent something rather like it. It certainly
has room for further improvement, we think the decision-making
is getting better, I think the new Fisheries Commissioner understands
that real power needs to be devolved down to the regional advisory
councils. I think the long-term test of the CFP will be whether
it can achieve sustainable management of the fish stocks we share.
The only other thing I would add to that is that we have in the
United Kingdom, and more widely on the north western edge of Europe,
probably the most complex mixed fishery of anywhere in the world
in terms of the number of stocks and the number of different nations
with interests fishing those stocks. It would always be a much
bigger challenge for us than it is for Iceland, New Zealand or
the Faroes, but, as I am sure the hon Member knows, off the back
of our Prime Minister's Strategy Unit Report we are looking for
ways of how we can change our quota management system to make
it more effective, more transparent, more flexible and more like
some of those other fishery systems that operate in other parts
of the world.
Q14 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You mentioned
Charles Clover and I have a quote from him in evidence to the
European Reform Forum two months ago. He said: "Looking back
over my trip around the world fisheries, I was struck that the
only happy fishermen were those who owned or effectively owned
their resource. They were also the fishermen who seemed to be
looking after that resource wisely." The concept of ownership,
of not plundering a common resource, seems to be much wider than
this Common Fisheries Policy which we struggle forward with every
year and we have the same debates every year. It is never properly
working. Why do we not step outside this box and take a lead in
Europe, as the Prime Minister often says he wants to do, and let
us get a different model for the benefit of both the fish and
ourselves?
Mr Bradshaw: I have a lot of sympathy
for the idea of individual transferable quotas and certainly that
is one of the ideas that we are in discussion with the industry
at the moment as to how we change our quota management. I would
simply add that there has been traditionally, and remains, some
quite strong resistance from parts of the industry to that, but
I agree with Charles Clover on giving individual fishermen ownership
of a stock, which, in a way, they have indirectly under our current
quota management system, but it is not as transparent or easily
transferable as it is under the New Zealand or the Icelandic system.
It is not incidentally the hon Member's party policy either, but
that is maybe something under the new leadership you could possibly
discuss.
Mr Heathcoat-Amory: We are working on
that!
Q15 Angus Robertson: Could I follow a
little bit with a question on the future because we are talking
about a common fisheries policy, but that is something which is
not common to all EU Member States which have fishing fleets,
or all of those operating in the Mediterranean do not have a common
fisheries policy. With European enlargement, we are talking about
countries like Croatia and Turkey coming in and the majority of
countries around the Mediterranean potentially being in the European
Union within a short period of time. On the basis that you say
the system is not so bad, it maybe needs a couple of improvements
here or there, do you think we should have a common fisheries
policy for the Mediterranean?
Mr Bradshaw: That was one of the
things that we had hoped to achieve under our Presidency which
I am afraid we did not. There have been for many years now discussions
about the need for a Mediterranean conservation policy and we
worked very hard on it, but in the end the Mediterranean countries
themselves could not agree on it.
Q16 Angus Robertson: They did not want
it?
Mr Bradshaw: I think there was
recognition that one is needed, but I cannot remember now what
the sticking point was. Was it the Italians in the end?
Q17 Mr Cash: Probably the Hungarians.
Mr Bradshaw: It floundered—excuse
the pun—on a disagreement—
Q18 Mr Cash: Montenegro.
Mr Bradshaw: —between France
and Spain on a definition of drift nets and it was partly because
of the forthcoming Italian elections. I think if there had not
been elections in Italy this spring, it might have been easier
to reach agreement. We tried very hard and I was very disappointed
we did not get one. We did get one for the Baltic and we got some
good agreements for the Bay of Biscay.
Q19 Angus Robertson: But they are not
the same as the CFP in their scope or operation?
Mr Harris: There are not total
allowable catches for most species in the Mediterranean; there
are for a few. There are not total allowable catches for all species
in our waters either, it depends on the science.
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