Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320-339)
Mr Sam Lambourn, Ms Ann Bell and Mr Hugo Anderson
23 APRIL 2008
Q320 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
We are obviously looking at the Common Fisheries Policy as a whole
and it is very interesting listening to the history and details
of your RACs. Do you have any insight into any particular problems?
Ms Bell: Maybe the Baltic RAC. The new accession
countries maybe do not have the budgets for meetings. The Baltic
is one that does not have any organisation behind it financially
so they cannot pay upfront unlike us who have finance behind us
to pay travel and subsistence.
Q321 Chairman: Does Sweden have an
interest in the Baltic RAC?
Mr Anderson: Yes.
Q322 Chairman: What is the difference
between the North Sea and the Baltic RAC?
Ms Bell: The Baltic is quite special as an area;
it is semi closed area with all the environmental problems showing
up in that sea. As Ann mentioned there are a number of new members
in the European Union. In the Baltic we had a big problem with
Poland until their election in November last year when there was
a new government. The previous government did not care about the
Fisheries Policy; they just fished and have been over-fishing
by 50% or 100%. No-one knows exactly but now there are different
signals from the government and they have decided to follow the
Common Fisheries Policy and the quotas and so on. They have been
punished for the last years and will pay back over the next years.
That is a problem for the Baltic, that there are different levels
on the experience in cooperation. The history for the Baltic is
that there was a structure, the International Baltic Sea Fisheries
Commission, which was managing the Baltic until three or four
years ago when interested Member States in the Baltic became members
of the European Union. It is only European Union members and Russia
who have an interest in the Baltic today, so there is bilateral
negotiation between the Commission and Russia. Russia has a small
interest in the Baltic. There is long experience of cooperation
but at that time when the Soviet Union existed Moscow took place
in the meetings, so the experience from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
and Poland to cooperate in that manner is not so long.
Q323 Viscount Brookeborough: You
say the Baltic is semi-closed; is there much migration of fish
between the North Sea and the Baltic?
Mr Anderson: Some herring stocks are migrating,
but not cod or salmon. There are only four species which are regulated
in the Baltic.
Q324 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
You have given us some indication that one of your main functions
is to reach consensus on particular issues and then you issue
opinions on those issues. Could you give us some idea of how those
opinions have been developed and adopted and how they have been
received by the European Commission? I think there have been a
number of different opinions that you have issued over the course
of the last couple of years, two that come to mind are on the
North West Waters RAC, the opinion on the hake fisheries position
where you rejected the recovery plan and went instead for a management
plan, and in relation to the discards on the North Sea where again
you rejected the discard ban and went instead for a fishery by
fishery long term management plan. Could you give us a little
bit of an idea as to what happened then?
Mr Lambourn: The hake recovery plan becoming
the hake management plan is really quite an interesting one because
that is happening right now. I think there has been quite a bit
of disappointment from members of the RAC in that we have been
two years in a recovery plan and if anything it seems to have
worked; the hake stock is now in considerably better shape than
it was and we satisfied the criteria to move towards a management
plan. You would have thought that for a stock in relatively good
state the management plan might offer some encouragement in terms
of being less restrictive, but the non-paper that the Commission
has issued is draconian. The members are now wishing they had
stayed with the recovery plan and not pressed to move to a management
plan, so this one is going to be very interesting to see how it
plays out. At the outset the Spanish, for example, are outraged
that the management plan should be so negative and so restrictive
and they are wondering how they are going to manage. They were
looking forward to a slightly more relaxed regime moving towards
some sort of stability, but it appears that the mortality of the
hake stock has got to be very much more reduced which means there
will have to be less fishing capacity one way or the other and
they are up in arms about it. We shall see how it pans out.
Q325 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Have your other opinions been better received?
Mr Lambourn: We have given advice on certain
specific issues—mainly technical—that have been accepted
by the Commission. That has been very satisfactory. More often
the advice we give is to move in a particular direction or to
emphasise something rather than something else, rather than being
the complete solution. That is how it generally works. As a RAC
we find we are being asked to advise the Commission on a number
of issues and those numbers are increasing. We are finding that
we are having to run harder to keep up. One of my hopes was for
our particular RAC to have a number of initiatives coming from
the grass roots, but we are so taken up with responding to demands
from the Commission that we are going to have to prioritise and
make strategic decisions as to whether we are going to cover a
lot of subjects in a shallow fashion or whether we are going to
say that we cannot give advice on this, this and this, but we
are really going to work hard on this. We have reached the point
now where we are going to have to do something because the members
are complaining that they have meeting overload and they are swamped
by e-mails.
Q326 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Being driven too much by the Commission.
Mr Lambourn: Yes. We have come to quite an interesting
stage in the development of the RACs and we have to decide where
we are going to go from here.
Q327 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Mr Anderson and Ms Bell, is it the same experience in the North
Sea?
Mr Anderson: Yes, it is the same experience.
I can add also that it is not only the formal advice we have given
to the Commission that has had an impact on the policy. I mentioned
before this cod seminar, that was not a formal decision making
meeting, it was a conference with a report written from the conference
and there were some conclusions made in the report but they were
mainly the rapporteurs' conclusions. That report has had a big
impact on the cod policy in the North Sea. I do not have a number
of the formal advice we give to the Commission but it is more
than ten annually, big or small, but there are also these other
activities which also have an impact on the development of the
Fisheries Policy.
Q328 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
On the whole you have had a fairly positive response from the
Commission.
Mr Anderson: Yes.
Q329 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
The danger with your hake decision could be if you are seen just
as a talking shop and the Commission do not pay any attention
to it.
Mr Lambourn: You are quite right. I think the
Pelagic RAC rather felt that last year. They gave some advice
on herring in the North Sea which the Commission did not take
and there were immediate questions as to what is the point of
the Pelagic RAC if nobody is listening to us? Generally speaking
I have to say that the Commission have been very supportive of
the RACs; they continue to be very supportive. In terms of giving
the grass roots access to the Commission and putting a human face
to the Commission I think that has worked well, it is working
well and it is very welcome.
Mr Anderson: I would agree with that and say
also that there is also a commitment in a special Commission report
that they should really consider the consensus advice given by
each RAC before they take a decision and if they do not then they
should come back and argue why they do not follow our advice.
It is positive; I agree with Sam about that. There is the question
of discard where we have had an opinion and given advice to the
Commission. There are many reasons for us to come to that conclusion,
but a discard ban sounds quite easy and efficient but it is not.
Discard depends on many reasons. We have one kind which I think
would be easy to get away from, that is the discard that is the
result of management decisions. You have a mixed fishery with
a number of stocks and suddenly one of the stocks runs out of
quota. You have still caught them but you have to discard them.
That is what I call a management based discard which you must
find ways round so you can catch, land and sell the catch you
have. The problem shows up in the relative stability when you
start to find the solutions to that problem. If you really want
to solve the discard problem you have to find ways around that.
You have a problem with a fixed fishery that the minimal landing
size is different for different fish and you can be forced to
discard fish because they are under-sized. The mesh is often set
for the smallest minimal landing size species. There is high grading
which is a discard where the fishermen want to keep the fish of
the highest value and discard the rest. I think we would have
to look quite deeply into the backgrounds for discard, look at
each reason and look at each stock; type of fishing and type of
gear also has some bearing on discard. It is quite complicated.
There will be a hearing in Brussels next month discussing discard
because that is a priority from the Commission's side.
Q330 Viscount Ullswater: Mr Lambourn,
can I ask you for a bit more detail about this movement from the
hake recovery plan to the management plan and the status of the
non paper which Brussels has issued. When we are looking at the
advisory councils we see that maybe as a way for the future for
the management of the fishing grounds round the UK. It would be
very disappointing, therefore, if the Commission did not pay great
attention to what you are saying about it. I was slightly perturbed
when you indicated that the terms of the management plan looked
very severe and it was not quite the way you wanted to move. Could
you give any indication as to whether you think that the Commission
will listen to the representations that you are making and that
other consultees might be making?
Mr Lambourn: It is a non paper so this is at
the discussion stage. I would certainly agree that we should manage
our stocks on the basis of management plans and whether they are
mixes of stock, but we certainly want to get away from this annual
negotiation which is so wasteful in all sorts of respects and
move to long term plans where we know where we are going and how
we are going to get there. In that sense I think that as hake
is the first management plan it is of crucial importance that
we get this right. There is no question that it did come as a
shock to those who have a majority interest in this stock; I am
talking about the French and the Spanish here. They made some
comments to the Executive that whoever had drawn this up must
have been having a mental breakdown. They were taken completely
by surprise. It may be that the final proposal for the management
plan is going to be very much different from what we have seen
thus far. I think the fundamental difference between the industry
that has an interest in this fishery and the Commission is that
we all want to reach the same point but it is how quickly do we
want to get to it because that has all sorts of socio-economic
consequences in terms of jobs and so on. The Spanish and the French
very much look at these issues from a socio-economic angle and
in that respect, as an aside, it is interesting to sit on the
RAC and see how different Member States view the same problem.
That is one of the differences that is very striking to me. It
is very much jobs and socio-economic considerations from certainly
Spain and France whereas perhaps the UK would be looking at the
biological and environmental consequences first and foremost.
As far as the hake management plan is concerned, I do not know
how it is going to end because, as I say, the thing is happening
as we speak. I said that we have geographic working groups; there
are also a number of focus groups, as we call them, and there
is a hake focus group which is going to meet in Madrid and thrash
out a response to this problem. I hope it is not negative because
this is the direction we are going and there will be management
plans for a number of other stocks, ultimately cod as well, and
it is very important that we get the ground rules right. For my
money—I am aware of the Johannesburg Declaration that says
we must have these stocks at MSY by 2015—my advice would
be that it is much more important to get to them at MSY, but whether
that is 2015 or 2020, let us see what we can do without there
being too many adverse consequences. Basically it is just that
the mortality rates in this hake management plan that the Commission
is looking for have taken the fisheries by surprise, when this
is stock which is supposed to be at a relatively good level, moving
in the right direction, it is a good news story, and all of a
sudden there has been a bit of a reality shock. I cannot say how
it will turn out. Perhaps it will be different and there is a
bit of posturing going on as well. It will be interesting to see.
Q331 Viscount Brookeborough: You
said it was a two to three years recovery plan. Presumably hake
mature at six to seven years old, so how has this happened? I
do not disbelieve you but this would appear to be the fisherman's
angle as opposed to the scientific one. How can they have recovered
in such a short length of time? What you are talking about is
getting a large quantity of mature fish which take a far longer
time frame.
Mr Lambourn: I do not know and nor does anybody
else, because of things such as global warming, whether everything
is down to fishing. I suspect fishing is an element in a number
of factors and maybe they have all come together in a fortuitous
way with respect to hake. There is no doubt between the fishermen
and the scientists that the size of the mature stock is increasing
and has increased year on year for a number of years, and has
moved above what was regarded as a critical level.
Q332 Viscount Brookeborough: The
scientists and the fishermen are agreeing, are they?
Mr Lambourn: Yes, absolutely; there is no doubt
about that.
Ms Bell: In the recovery plans or anything else
that we do, if we do not have the science supporting us then it
is very difficult to make a case. When you get science and industry
agreeing then it is very difficult to swallow when the Commission
then come in and say the opposite.
Q333 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
Both of your websites emphasise that your organisations are there
to represent the stakeholders, but how can that be? How can you
claim that you cover that broad range of stakeholders when your
bodies are so dominated by the fishing interests? Is there not
something wrong with your constitutions, the way that your bodies
are established?
Ms Bell: We are constituted by the Council.
It was a Council decision that we should have 24 members, two
thirds would be from the industry side and one third from others,
and the two thirds would have to have fishing representatives
from each country represented, at least one. In the one third
we have the NGOs, the Women's Network and other outside bodies.
The one third is merely represented by a European body rather
than the Scottish Fisherman's Federation or the NNFO or the Swedish
Fishermen's Federation. The NGO level you have at European level
and that makes them more than able to deal with their side of
it.
Q334 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
They are in the minority, the poor old NGOs.
Mr Anderson: In the way they work I do not see
this is a problem. Normally the green NGOs are at European level
and I sometimes get the feeling that they have a problem in taking
the time needed to cover all activities and so on. I think it
is important that we have some activity or are invited to something
that the green organisations should be represented. It is quite
difficult to find someone who has the time to take part. In the
decision making process we seek consensus and then there is no
real problem with that because you have to find the consensus.
Q335 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
How do you represent the consumer interest in your stakeholder
plan?
Ms Bell: With great difficulty because we cannot
find a consumer organisation.
Mr Anderson: We have had one that has asked
for membership. The consumers are not so well organised in Europe
so it is quite difficult. I know there is one in the Baltic RAC
which represents a Swedish consumer organisation and there are
some at a European level. I think that is the only RAC to have
it so far.
Q336 Chairman: There are the cynics
who maintain the whole European structure is a conspiracy against
the consumer. I would not dream of saying that, of course!
Ms Bell: In both our RACs we have a chair and
we have vice chairs. One of the vice chairs represents the two
thirds and one vice chair represents the one third. We have always
been very strong on that, that there is a balance. In the North
Sea RAC we have a board of directors because we are company; we
have one from the NGO side and one from the other. In all things
we try to keep a balance.
Q337 Chairman: Are there any changes
in your composition that you would improve the information and
the perspectives coming into the process and secondly improve
your credibility?
Ms Bell: We have been asked by industry and
NGO for this, we would like to have more of a working group so
we could have the scientists and the fishermen once again having
the opportunity to sit down together. That is something that both
our RACs feel is lacking. We have scientists always there and
they do as much as they can, but to get industry and the scientists
together, especially to discuss issues in an open forum, is very
difficult. That is where the partnership works. We work at Chatham
House so that both the scientists and the fishermen could discuss
anything knowing that it would never go outside the door, and
it never did. We need something like that where science and industry
can really get down to the nitty-gritty. I personally think that
would help all the RACs if that were possible.
Q338 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
A suggestion was made earlier about some sort of free standing
environmental scientist, do you think there is scope for that?
Are you satisfied that the current scientists are sufficiently
concerned about the environmental aspects of fishing?
Mr Lambourn: I think I am, yes. They are of
a good calibre and they are not particularly sympathetic to the
fishing at all; they are scientists and should be ruled by science.
To go back to your previous question, I think that if I were a
fisherman and had a one third seat on a group that was two thirds
E-NGO I might feel a little bit marginalised as well. Perhaps
some years down the road it might be better to be more balanced,
but I would like to refer back to the point I made earlier. I
want the E-NGOs to be able to negotiate and compromise on stated
policy positions, otherwise it is very difficult to have a constructive
dialogue. We both agree where we want to be, but it is the getting
there that is the problem. They want to do it in one leap; I want
to do it in ten steps, maybe two of which are backwards from their
point of view, but I will get there in the end. I do hear comments
from NGOs that they feel marginalised and what is the point anyway.
I think there is a huge point. I think it has been a real education
for some Member States' representatives to sit down and talk to
E-NGOs who, I am sure, would not even know what they look like,
and to hear in many cases good sense and some well argued positions
coming out from them has been really very good for those representatives.
I would encourage the E-NGOs to persist. I just wish there was
a bigger take up of the seats available on our RAC. I think also
the NGOs have said they simply do not have the resources to attend
all the meetings in all the venues; they have run out of carbon
miles and things like that. They are simply not big enough to
do it, but I think the industry needs to be aware of the influence
that, for example, DG Environment has within the whole management
of fisheries. That was very evident at last year's Council and
perhaps the previous one. We need to work much more closely with
the environmentalists than we have in the past and really treat
them as equal partners. I think you have a point, but we are not
there yet.
Q339 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
We had evidence a couple of weeks ago from the Royal Society for
the Protection of Birds and they seemed to talk immensely good
sense. They are not all being outrageous or making ridiculous
demands; they do have quite a lot of scientific knowledge themselves.
Ms Bell: Euan Dunn from BirdLife International
chairs our spatial planning working group; we have a number of
NGOs who chair the different focus groups. We make sure it is
not just industry chairing groups.
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