NORTH SEA PLAICE AND SOLE (5403/06)
Letter from the Chairman to Ben Bradshaw
MP, Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Thank you for your Supplementary Explanatory
Memorandum of 15 May 2006 with Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA)
attached which Sub Committee D (Environment and Agriculture) considered
at its meeting yesterday.
In your initial Explanatory Memorandum, you
accepted the need to reduce fishing mortality for these stocks
and to reduce the number of discards. UK beam trawlers (the majority
of whom are in fact Dutch owned and based in the Netherlands)
would be affected by the proposal. However you pointed out that
these vessels are already subject to the days at sea scheme set
out in the recovery plan for cod, and it was unclear how the Commission
envisaged the schemes would operate together. Has this issue been
resolved?
We would be further interested to understand
the status of the North Sea Regional Advisory Council (RAC) in
this context, and to receive an explanation as to how the European
Commission takes account of the advice of the North Sea RAC on
this issue.
15 June 2006
|
