Huw
Irranca-Davies: I welcome the spirit in which this debate
has taken place, both in the questions and in subsequent contributions.
As the UK fisheries Minister, I agree with many of the points made. On
the point made by the hon. Member for Newbury and others about the
early production of documents, we always strive to do what we can to
produce them early. It is a hefty tome. We will do what we can to take
those points on
board. I
thank the team of officials—they are not often thanked in
Committees—who have worked on immensely technical and detailed
matters for the past three or four months and more. On behalf of the UK
fisheries fleet and in our aspiration towards conservation, I think
that I have achieved a good outcome from a set of tough negotiations,
avoiding potential closures of fisheries and communities. We pushed our
arguments strongly, based on what we have done well in parts of our
fleet and on clever ways of working going forward. I commend the
officials and their colleagues north of the border for their
input. The
hon. Member for Newbury talked about discards, and I welcome the
clarity with which he outlined the policy on landing everything that is
caught. I think he would be interested in visiting some of our pilots,
involving our under-10 m fleet, and I am more than happy to facilitate
such a visit. In the pilots, which are
dotted around the coast in six areas of England, everything that is
caught is landed, albeit in inshore waters and under close regulation
and electronic and other monitoring. It is early days, but we are
thinking about what we can do going
forward. Mr.
Benyon: I am delighted to hear that, and I just want to
clarify our policy. It would start very much as a pilot project in two,
or perhaps three, key areas. I should add that the income from the
proportion of the catch that was purchased by the Government would be
ring-fenced and put back into the fishing industry. I hope that the
Minister plans to do the
same.
Huw
Irranca-Davies: Some European countries, such as Sweden,
do that, but there is a difficulty with that approach. This is why, as
we go into fundamental CFP reform, I welcome clarity, but urge that we
should tease out the difficulties with reform. For example, how do we
avoid the situation in which fishermen who are told, “Land all
you catch,” fish not only up to the quota but a little beyond
it, and so on? We need to tease out those aspects. There might be
potential for that approach, but we need to wrestle with any
difficulties with the science and the way in which quotas are set.
Currently, quotas are set in relation to what is landed on the dock, as
opposed to including what has been thrown back into the sea. That does
not help us with our aims on the sustainability of the seas, or with
our science, because we do not get an accurate reflection from what is
being brought
in.
Mr.
Carmichael: The Minister has hit the nail on the head. The
advantage of a land-everything policy would be that we would see
exactly what was coming out of the sea, rather than just a reflection
of the quotas. Does he agree that another advantage would be that if
people saw just how much fish was being discarded, there might be
sufficient public outcry to create the political will to resolve this
issue after all these
years?
Huw
Irranca-Davies: I think that that public awareness and
outcry has begun. Certainly, some of the television coverage of this
matter has, understandably, worried not only people who purchase fish,
but fishermen, who have seen what has been going on for years. We have
started to move down the right path with the negotiations, but the
issue is how to move, on a uniform basis, from the current situation to
the policy that we have been discussing. We fish in common seas and
there are many people out there. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s
comments, but we need to tease some of those issues out as we go into
the CFP reform that is right in front of us, and we should not leap at
any policy decision, because there are complications with the approach
that has been
suggested. The
hon. Member for Newbury mentioned the Celtic sea. One success of the
negotiations has been to have the Celtic sea excluded from these
matters. I know that the fishermen in that area particularly welcome
that. The interrelationship between fish stocks and the Marine and
Coastal Access Bill has also been mentioned. Although the Bill is not
being introduced to manage fisheries, some of the mechanisms within it
will undoubtedly add
to the sustainability of the seas. Several hon. Members, including the
hon. Gentleman, have asked what happens beyond the six-mile limit.
Whatever happens as a result of the Bill and CFP reform does not mean
that we, or other European member nations, can walk away from our other
commitments, such as working towards marine protected areas or working
together on having greater habitat and species protection in the
sea. As I said in
my introductory remarks, I think that we might be pushing at an open
door when we put the Bill through Parliament—with the
House’s support, I hope—in order then to say to the
European Parliament and the European Commission, “Look, we are
doing this, and we need you to step up to the mark with all the
European fleet.” I suspect that we will do that, and that we
will have friends in other nations when we
do. I
thank the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland for his remarks on the
recent negotiations. He has great experience of the subject, but he
could be here for a further 20 or 30 years and still struggle with the
mass of conflicting evidence and information, which has made the debate
so fascinating. He played his part in trying to influence some of the
Commission’s thinking in those important autumn and winter
stages, so I thank him and other colleagues involved from all
parties.
The hon.
Gentleman rightly complimented the openness of Commissioner Joe Borg,
who is a great chap—no one who spends some of their early years
studying at Aberystwyth university can be entirely bad. I hope that
that approach will continue, because there will always be different
approaches to managing sea fisheries, particularly between 27 nations.
Throughout the difficult autumn period, Joe Borg certainly showed the
willingness of the Commission and the Parliament to explore innovative
and successfully proven ways for conserving stocks and protecting
communities.
On the issue
of the political priority accorded to fishing and whether it has always
had the attention it deserves, that is increasing all the time. It is
almost inevitable that that attention will increase, because of the
growing focus on the marine environment, both in UK waters and
internationally, and because of the range of international agreements.
There is also the frustration from those who think that we are not
going far enough and those who think that we are going too far, too
fast. That is in part because of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and
because reform of the common fisheries policy is hurtling towards
us.
The hon.
Member for Newbury mentioned his background in farming. My
family’s background is in farming, and farmers are increasingly
moving towards an understanding of themselves not only as producers of
food and providers of food production security, but as stewards of the
country. They always have been, and will be to an increasing extent. We
are moving towards a situation in which our fleets, too, are starting
to accept that they will be custodians of the sea and the marine
environment.
I welcome the
comments of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland on the
regionalisation agenda. We will have to push that very strongly and
find allies to come with us on that, and we should push that in any
unified way we can find. The regionalisation agenda will then have to
be balanced and underpinned by what we can achieve within the European
Union, with regard not only to conservation, but to what we can do with
a
light touch and in an appropriate way that recognises member
states’ flexibility. We must work towards harmonising the way in
which we fish in our seas, whether in the North sea, the Celtic sea,
the Irish sea or even in the Mediterranean sea and elsewhere. We must
regulate what we do in a light but effective way to ensure that all the
fishermen fish in the same
way. In
conclusion, we are struggling, in both this debate and in a wider
context, towards sustainability in our fisheries and marine
environments and, most importantly, in our communities. We cannot
escape the fact that every port is reliant on that, whether it is in
the north-east of England, the west coast of Scotland or Milford
Haven—having mentioned those three places, I am
conscious that I have missed all the others. We have potentially very
productive marine environments and are scrabbling towards how we make
them productive not only for the next 12 months, but for the next 12 or
120 years and beyond. We are increasing our understanding of how we do
that, but there is more to be done. I welcome the intelligent way in
which the debate has taken place and I am always keen to engage with
Members on their suggestions on the way
forward. Question
put and agreed
to. 5.39
pm Committee
rose.
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