Examination of Witness (Questions 80-99)
Mr Aaron Hatcher
12 MARCH 2008
Q80 Viscount Ullswater: I can see
that producer organisations, which are dealing with relatively
large amounts of quota because they are dealing with the over
ten-metre boats, if I am right in thinking that.
Mr Hatcher: At the moment I think there are
some POs that have under ten-metre members but, because of their
involvement in the quota management system, they basically represent
over ten-metre boats. There is nothing to stop under ten-metre
boats becoming a member.
Q81 Viscount Ullswater: Because they
are dealing with relatively large amounts of quota, I can see
a simple exchange being set up in order to deal will that—that
is not beyond the wit of man, especially now with technology—but
with the smaller vessels, is that more complicated? I know they
do not catch the volume of fish, but is that more complicated
to trade in ITQs?
Mr Hatcher: I suppose the smaller your operation
is, the more burdensome quota trading is likely to be, but I think
quota brokers and POs and any organisation could help small inshore
fishermen to trade in quota. I cannot see a reason why that should
not happen.
Q82 Viscount Ullswater: The reason
I am asking this is because it seems so ridiculous to catch good,
saleable fish and tip them over the side because you happen to
be over the quota for that particular species at that particular
moment when you are landing your catch?
Mr Hatcher: Yes, but that is what happens with
fixed quotas as well.
Q83 Viscount Ullswater: I can see
that. It seems worse.
Mr Hatcher: The only way that is not going to
happen is if you have no control over catches; so you are slightly
between a rock and a hard place, I guess. If you have a quota
management system which requires fishermen to have quota for what
they catch and that is enforced, providing you can achieve some
stability in the system and keep up the enforcement, then over
time the catching capacity of your fleet should come more or less
into line with the quotas. Under any sort of quota management
system, if there are vessels that are only profitable because
they have to land fish without quota, that is a sure sign that
your management is not working, I would say.
Q84 Lord Cameron of Dillington: I
can see that the ITQ system within the TAC regime is probably
the most efficient way of managing it, not least because if you
have actually paid for a quota then you are going to have to self-police
it.
Mr Hatcher: That is also used as an argument
in favour of ITQs.
Q85 Lord Cameron of Dillington: That
is what I am saying, not least because it invokes a self-policing
regime. I just want to question the effectiveness of the whole
TAC regime itself. Bearing in mind that over 80% of the stocks
evaluated by ICs are over exploited, the EU fleet capacity is
40% too large—possibly more than 50% in some species of
the TAC is discarded or illegally marketed and the TAC itself
is often set at over 50% of what the scientists actually recommend—are
we not just fiddling with our roe and bones here? You mentioned
various alternatives, such as the limitation on effort, and I
can see that that is probably correct because people reorganise
their time at sea in order to make it more effective and you have
got technology creep as well in that respect. You mentioned more
selective gear—I think that definitely comes under the heading
of fiddling—but you did not mention, for instance, marine
conservation areas where, with modern technology, you know instantly
whether a boat is in or outside a conservation area and you can
rigidly enforce that much more effectively than probably any other
system. I was just wondering, as an alternative, whether there
is any mechanism of quota'ing the actual fishing capacity in a
fleet, because of this business of the fact that they are 40%
too big in capacity. I am wondering whether you would like to
comment on either of those two alternative methods to the whole
TAC regime, which to my mind is not working.
Mr Hatcher: First of all, I would not want to
defend any TAC setting approach that exceeds the levels that scientists
recommend. That is for politicians to resolve.
Q86 Lord Cameron of Dillington: Quite.
Mr Hatcher: I think the problems that we have
of over exploitation of stocks is partly due to that. I would
not want to expand too much on this, but I think it is partly
a problem of enforcement which is exacerbated by the international
nature of the regime that we are working with. I have often heard
the view expressed from fishermen: "Why should we comply
with regulations when fishermen from X country are fishing in
the same grounds for the same stocks and are not complying with
their regulations or, indeed, are not subject to the sort of the
regulations that we are?" I have heard the same arguments
from fishery managers. Again, I would not want to expand too much
on this, but fishery managers saying, "Why should we make
extra efforts to enforce regulations when X country is not doing
anything about their fishermen?" We have an international
dimension that is difficult. On capacity: I think over-capacity
is really a symptom of the problem rather than a cause. It is
ineffective management that allows capacity to get too big. We
had years and years of so-called Multi-Annual Guidance Programmes
under the Common Fisheries Policy up until 2002, and now we have
the same sort of thing by another name, but the sort of structural
policy objectives for reducing capacity are so small in relation
to the size of the fleets that technological progress would compensate
easily for any changes in capacity. At the moment the EU is very
concerned with new ways in which to measure capacity and to assess
whether capacity is in line with fishing opportunities or TACs,
if you like. It is very difficult to see how that is going to
produce anything very worthwhile because of this problem of measuring
capacity and measuring the relationship between nominal measures
of capacity and trying to achieve sustainable exploitation. What
really matters, as I said before, is the level of exploitation,
is the catches. If we can measure capacity according to output,
which is what we mean by capacity, if we can really measure and
control that, we can enforce a TAC, in which case there is no
need to measure and enforce the capacity. If the only way we can
measure capacity is by measuring inputs, like the size of vessels,
the engine power, how many days they spend at sea, then, as I
said before, we are trying to assess some proxy for the relationship
between inputs and output.
Q87 Lord Cameron of Dillington: What
about marine conservation areas, no-go areas?
Mr Hatcher: To some extent this is probably
a question better directed at biologists. All the analyses that
I have looked at suggest that if you relied on marine protected
areas as your major management measure, you would have to close
off something like three-quarters of the North Sea, or more, in
order to achieve the sort of objectives that you would be looking
at. I think my appreciation is that closed areas, or marine protected
areas, have a role to play, perhaps, in avoiding sensitive habitats,
nursery grounds, spawning grounds at various times of year but
will never be a major plank in the management of fisheries, unless
you just do not want to have fisheries, in which case, you just
make the whole of the North Sea a protected area.
Q88 Chairman: Can I raise one issue?
It seems to me that there is an underlying problem of the structure
of the industry, and that is that it is structurally over capitalised:
there is too much capital in fishing boats.
Mr Hatcher: I think that is generally the case
for fisheries that are in trouble, yes.
Q89 Chairman: The question then has
to be: what is the explanation as to why there is that level of
over-capitalisation: because it leads, obviously, to inefficiencies
on return? Why is the persistent level of over-capitalisation
in fishing there? What could be done to get rid of it?
Mr Hatcher: Essentially, it is there because
management is relatively ineffective. It is effective management
that will bring capacity into line. We should not really need
to worry about capacity. That is a problem for the industry to
determine. If you can control the level of outputs, then market
forces will decide on the right level of capacity.
Q90 Chairman: That must mean, then,
that there is something going on with the outputs that we are
not aware of to justify the continued level of investment?
Mr Hatcher: It implies that the level of output
is greater than we would like it to be.
Q91 Chairman: Or that it formerly
was.
Mr Hatcher: Or that it formerly was.
Q92 Viscount Ullswater: Do you think
there is a big problem with illegally landed fish, illegally traded
fish? Ben Bradshaw thinks there is a big problem.
Mr Hatcher: In general, yes.
Q93 Viscount Ullswater: With the
Common Fisheries Policy.
Mr Hatcher: Yes.
Q94 Viscount Ullswater: You obviously
cannot quantify what you do not know, but can you make a stab
at the amount of fish that is traded in percentage terms? Is it
2%, is it 15%?
Mr Hatcher: It would vary a lot from one fishery
to another, from one country to another, but if you looked at
the reports of the ICES Working Groups, I think they make estimates
of the level of illegal catch and I think for some fisheries it
is very large. I could not give you a figure but I think you could
easily find figures through ICES.
Q95 Viscount Brookeborough: I was
definitely quite impressed by the New Zealand submission, and
you have mentioned them as having perhaps a better system than
our own for running their fishery. However, you placed very little
emphasis on ways of avoiding discards, and the New Zealanders
state quite clearly that the only way that they are able to operate
the remainder of their system is by having discards illegal. I
think earlier you said you would not like to see them being made
illegal?
Mr Hatcher: No, I do not think I said that.
Q96 Viscount Brookeborough: I thought
you said you would much prefer to persuade people to come in with
their catch than actually making discards illegal?
Mr Hatcher: No, I was simply observing that
discards were illegal in some countries and legal in others.
Q97 Viscount Brookeborough: Do you
think making them illegal and monitoring it and, therefore, having
more control over the trading would be the right answer?
Mr Hatcher: Yes, if it is possible to enforce,
then make discards illegal.
Q98 Viscount Brookeborough: Thank
you.
Mr Hatcher: The enforcement problem still remains,
but to explicitly say that you must discard over quota fish is
perhaps inviting fishermen to discard where perhaps it might be
better not to invite them to discard, so, yes, I would agree.
Q99 Chairman: Turning to discard,
they are uneconomic fish, are they not: fish in which there is
no market value?
Mr Hatcher: Yes, to take it to the extreme,
they are going to discard stones and rocks and seaweed, they are
going to discard starfish and sea urchins, so they just work their
way up until they are looking at small cod and haddock and whatever
else. If there is no-one to stop them, then there is an incentive
to throw those fish overboard if there is no market for them.
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