Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340-356)
Mr Sam Lambourn, Ms Ann Bell and Mr Hugo Anderson
23 APRIL 2008
Q340 Viscount Ullswater: Could I
just investigate the point about the consumer? In some of the
papers we have read a few years ago there was no market for monkfish;
now it seems to be one of the most valuable fish you can catch
because, I suppose, of the reduction in the cod. Who drives that?
Is it the consumer that drives that? Now there is another species
I think called gurnard(?) which is now being actively fished for
because there is a market for it. Is that not consumer driven?
Could that not be consumer driven so that some of the fish that
you now say there is no market for could be developed into a market?
If there are no consumers or supermarkets saying "We can
sell this, that or the other" the change in the pattern from
the producers' side is perhaps not complete
Mr Lambourn: I agree. I would like to see the
consumers represented and the retailers, representatives from
supermarkets because that is where fish is sold in this country.
One of the drivers for these other species coming forward has
been these celebrity chefs, for want of a better word. When I
was young certainly people used to look at the fish we were catching
and ask, "Is it a cod?" Now they will tell you what
the species is, what the relative value is, how to cook it and
whether it is good or bad; they really are quite knowledgeable
and I suppose that has come about by many of these people such
as Rick Stein.
Q341 Chairman: You have been able
to bring the catchers and the scientists together; you have not
done it with the consumers. Have you been able to bring the catchers
and the processors together?
Mr Lambourn: That is much closer than might
appear. It is a necessity really.
Q342 Chairman: It used to be quite
a strange thing really, that the catchers had no idea what the
processors wanted.
Mr Lambourn: I think all of these barriers are
breaking down.
Ms Bell: It is getting much better.
Q343 Lord Plumb: You have proved
to us without doubt that you are as concerned about long term
issues as short term issues. If you refer particularly to global
warming, climate change, pollution and so on, fishermen have a
responsibility as well as the rest of the industry in dealing
with these problems. Are they discussed and at what level?
Mr Anderson: Our agenda is very much driven
by the Commission's agenda, with all the proposals they send out
that they want recommendations on. That is what we are dealing
with most. We have our own initiatives but also issues affecting
the medium term and long term we have not really had time for
so far. However, I agree. We are not organised to give advice
on the immediate issues; we are organised to work mid-term and
long-term. That is the structure of the RAC. Also I believe if
we should have a successful Fisheries Policies we need to work
more on mid-term and long-term issues because I think that is
where the solution is. We still have the focus on annual decisions,
especially at the December Council where all the taxes and quotas
for next year and the management decisions will be taken. That
is not relevant if you look at the environment where we are fishing
and working; fish do not care about the New Year. We need to be
looking at long-term management. That is where we could play a
key role also, we are well suited for that.
Ms Bell: Within the long-term management plans
we do have to be aware of climate change; it is something we have
had scientific presentations from environmental scientists on
trying to address the issue of climate change. We are aware of
it and we do discuss it. Although we are not dealing with it,
it is very much part of everything we do.
Q344 Lord Plumb: You are advised
by the Commission on the sorts of things you should be discussing,
but should you not go to the Commission and say, "We can't
hide this away; it is something we are part of and have to be
concerned with"? Is this not the sort of approach you ought
to be taking?
Ms Bell: We do that. We have many initiatives
where we actually go to the Commission, like the control, like
the cod, looking at MPAs and spatial planning and the social and
economic side. There is a social economic unit with DG and that
was because we were pushing for it. We certainly do push; we have
not pushed the climate change issue yet, but that is not to say
that we are not progressing. The scientists are looking at it
much more than they did before.
Q345 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Do you feel that the Commission are requiring you to be too reactive?
They are posing the agenda to you and you are not actually having
enough opportunity to create the agenda to be proactive on your
own part?
Ms Bell: We do. We are asked constantly for
advice and because we do cooperate we can come up with our own
initiatives and we do stretch our budgets. Member States also
help us. We have come up with quite a lot of our own initiatives
and ideas that we have driven forward and have made a difference.
Even the regionalisation of the Commission very much came out
of the conference where we were looking at regional management.
We were very pleased to see that the Commission has now been divided
into regional directorates. There are things that we are dealing
with, but we are very new, young organisations. We are driving
as hard as we can.
Mr Anderson: It also comes back to the resources
available to us. We are restricted by both the rules we have but
also by resources, the funding. If we had more resources we could
work with more things; we could have our initiatives and projects
and work much deeper, engage scientists to help us and so on.
They help us today but that is a contribution from Member States
actually because ICES scientists are Member States scientists
and they make a contribution. It would be increased if we could
have the resources to engage scientists to do specific projects
in order to take forward our own initiatives.
Ms Bell: By that we do not mean that we trying
to supersede ICES. Whenever you mention having your own scientists
immediately people think you want to take over from ICES but that
is not what we mean at all. We are working with ICES scientists
and we meet with them regularly as all RACs do, and we do actually
look at different projects that we can do with ICES, but there
is more that can be done.
Mr Lambourn: I am a little more independent
minded. I keep referring back to the fishermen's industries being
grass roots. We should remember that that is the way it is and
it is for the RAC to inform the Commission to some extent as to
what they are going to do. We should not necessarily jump when
the Commission says we should or asks us to. I have issues about
that. I always encourage the independent line. I would like, for
example, to be able as a RAC to commission independent scientific
work directly with ICES but we have to work through the Commission
according to the Memorandum of Understanding which means that
it has to have the rubber stamp from the Commission. I am not
suggesting I am going to go out and do something extraordinary
or wasteful, but I think there is just the principle there that
I am a bit jealous in protecting. This is not a Commission driven
organisation; this is driven by the grass roots, which is the
industry in this case, plus the other stakeholders and I would
like to see an even balance on it. We have to be quite mindful
of our independence and be strong enough to say on some occasions
that we cannot give advice in eight weeks, it is too short a time
and they will have to proceed without us.
Ms Bell: We do do that; that is why we are not
very popular.
Q346 Chairman: You have indicated,
quite rightly, that you are relatively young organisations. I
would like to ask you to look to the future and how you see the
role of RACs developing? Where do you see yourselves in, say,
five year's time or so? Will the role have developed? If so, in
which directions?
Mr Lambourn: I think it is going to be very
much a matter of resources. Essentially the RACs are run now on
people's free time. Everybody who is a member of a RAC has other
jobs; this is fitted in by taking days from whatever your day
time job is and I do not think ultimately that you can run a fisheries
advisory or management on that basis. This will have to be decided
at some stage. The Commission will have to decide what it wants
from these RACs. Does the Commission want good quality advice
on an increasing number of subjects? If it does then it cannot
be run on a free time, spare time basis by willing volunteers.
I do not think that is satisfactory. These are not easy questions.
They require a lot of effort, a lot of work and a lot of research.
You cannot do it in five minutes. Where will we be in five years?
I do not know. Some people are very concerned that we should have
more management power rather than just advisory. I think that
is something perhaps we ought to earn. If it is good quality advice
it is awfully close to decision. That is my feeling. Good quality,
consensual advice requires a discipline and we need to be better
at it. I am not sounding as if I am very satisfied or very content;
I think we are doing well but we have a long way to go.
Mr Anderson: If one should come to the conclusion
in the revision of the Common Fisheries Policy that there should
also be regional management for the Fisheries Policy, I think
there is a willingness at least from part of Europe from Member
States to take on that responsibility. I agree with Sam that the
RACs today do not have the structure to be a management unit but
there could be changes so that we could be a management unit.
Sam and I went to the States together with some other people a
couple of years ago and looked at their regional management boards.
Of course they basically have a structure which is more or less
the same as we have, different groups together, but they also
have the task to manage fisheries in their area. That could be
a way forward if the Ministry of Fisheries in the Council were
to see that change in the Common Fisheries Policy.
Q347 Chairman: It seems to be that
the Common Fisheries Policy is a very top down approach to managing
an industry and it is layer upon layer of regulation. As soon
as a regulation is imposed there are ways round any regulation
so what you do is put another layer of regulation on top. The
nature of the industry must be that the only way to overcome it
is to get a buy-in from the grass roots upwards. RACs are the
only organisations that exist that give you that opportunity to
do it. I really am asking whether you see RACs changing their
role from being one of advising the Commission to actually managing
the fisheries?
Mr Lambourn: Not for me. Not in the near future
but perhaps a little further away. You just made a comment there
about the industry having to buy into this. It has to have grass
roots buy-in. The Commission issued a proposal for control and
compliance. This is very much an issue at the moment. I notice
they have nine objectives within this and to get the industry
to agree and to have buy-in was only objective number six out
of the nine. From where I am coming from that is by far and away
the most important one because unless everybody really agrees
that we have to abide by the rules then it does not matter how
big a stick you have, it will never in the end be satisfactory.
It is certainly very much the philosophy of the Commission and
it continues to be, that what you need is a bigger stick, you
need more power and cultivating a culture of compliance is something
that will come naturally and does not need to be encouraged by
explicit initiatives. I absolutely disagree with that because
I think they have it completely round the wrong way.
Ms Bell: As I said to you, there was a conference
at Peterhead on control. The name of the conference was Developing
a Culture of Compliance. We had Commissioner Borg there and
we had the Assistant Director General of FEO, but we only had
a very junior member of the Commission staff. The reason they
gave was because they were very busy developing the control and
compliance regulations. This is what we were having the conference
about. The industry was there; we had stakeholders; many NGOs
attended (more than come to the meetings). I said that is why
we were having the conference for everyone to discuss the matter.
It was a very good conference, a lot of good debate. The Commission
representative was a technician and could not feed back. That
is why, on our own initiative, we pushed them because we were
going to do it. They did not think we should have that conference.
They thought we should have it much later after they had made
their decision, but we moved very quickly. I would like to see
the RACs move forward. We are moving towards looking at long-term
management plans and I think that is the way the RACs will be
able to have a major influence on the future of fisheries management,
by developing these plans. These plans are coming from the grass
roots, but from all levels including the NGOs. Unless they agree
with what we are doing we have no consensus so we have no strength.
I think if we keep on that route then we will eventually become
quasi management. I totally agree with Sam that if we can provide
good, scientifically based, evidence based advice to the Commission
that has been agreed by consensus, it is very difficult for the
Commission of any Member State to actually disagree with us. It
is not just the Commission, we have to speak to the politicians.
It is the Council of Ministers that makes the decisions and the
politicians need to look at the work the RACs are doing and become
involved in our work, and then they make the decisions and tell
the Commission, not the other way round.
Q348 Chairman: If you do go down
this route, are you confident that you can keep your stakeholders
on board with this long-term thinking?
Ms Bell: I think we have to make sure that all
the people who are in the RACs believe that the advice they are
giving—and giving up a lot of time and effort to create
that advice—is being listened to. It is up to us within
the RACs as well to feed back the good bits that come back from
the Commission down to the grass roots. I am not sure that all
the organisations are very good at doing that. We have to keep
the people at the very lowest level aware of what is happening.
Mr Lambourn: If it was to move to management
E-NGOs would insist on a 50/50 split in the composition of the
RACs. It could not be dominated by one group of stakeholders or
another three or four groups of stakeholders.
Mr Anderson: One initiative taken by the members
of Scotland, a real time closure system, has to be managed and
that could be one part of management of a policy which, I guess,
is best suited to be handled on a regional level. The crucial
question is that there has to be a willingness from the Member
States to see a development towards a regional management system
in the Common Fisheries Policy. If so, I think we are prepared
to find the forms for handling it. Some sort of regional management
body must be established and take its part from the RACs.
Q349 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
Thank you very much for those last few remarks; we will certainly
be taking them to the Commission in a couple of weeks' time. I
would like to have a conversation with Mr Lambourn about his producer
organisation, the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation. I wonder
if you could perhaps explain how you see its role, how you manage
the quotas and perhaps elaborate a bit about how the quota transfer
could or might take place either within or even outside the organisation?
Mr Lambourn: There are quite a number of questions
there. The role of the PO in one sentence is to look after the
interests of its members. Traditionally we have done all sorts
and everything in that respect. We have largely stayed away from
marketing. I think maybe we are being asked to do one or two things
in that direction, for example with hand line caught tuna: can
we develop a market for that? We have taken the initiative and
talked to processors and retailers and so on to try to get a premium
for that product because you cannot compete with the nets unless
there is. I think we are getting rather more into marketing issues.
Up until this stage it has been very much representative with
both the national government and the Commission on any issues
that affect them in any way at all. There is a very broad spectrum.
We are there as the first point of call for any fisherman who
has some sort of grievance. The quota is of course one of the
very important aspects that the PO manages. Each PO handles this
slightly differently. Traditionally our PO managed all our quota
on a pool basis; we all pooled the quota and then it was up to
the chief executive of the PO to manage our monthly uptakes so
that globally we did not exceed what all the members had pooled.
That had the advantage of keeping as much flexibility within our
membership in terms of the methods they employ, provided we did
not all go and do one thing. It meant that you could go and catch
prawns one day and maybe go and do something else the next day
without having to make sure that you had the necessary quota to
do it. That worked very well for a number of years until fish
quota allocations were introduced whereby you were given a track
record associated with what your vessel had caught; that was your
share although the ownership of that legally is still wide open.
The next step was that there was a trade introduced in these quota
shares so that one fisherman can buy another fisherman's quota
shares in order that he can fish harder. Now we run a mix of a
pool which is not as big as the pool used to be and also members
have what they call a ring fenced quota which is this quota shares
business. We run a sort of mixture. The PO still issues monthly
bulletins to all our members, which is what they may catch if
they do not already or have not acquired quota shares for some
reason. Those that have can then catch the pool and they have
also got so many tons of whatever it is—cod or hake or whatever—that
they can catch as well and they can decide how they uptake those
bits. We are at a halfway stage.
Q350 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
On the personal bit, as it were, can they sell that to another
member of the organisation?
Mr Lambourn: Yes, but it has to be done through
the PO. Yes with strings, that is the answer to your question.
I think your written question was: Am I content with it moving
to rights based management? No, I am not content but I am rather
resigned because I think that is ultimately where it will end
up. I hope that perhaps there is a division and the national government
retains a certain amount of quota for the under-tens and that
remains there in order that there should be some inshore fishery
around the country just for the reasons of tradition, heritage
and tourism. I come from Cornwall and people go to these little
harbours, they want to see fishing boats and they want to see
fish. I think we would lose something very important if there
were no fish left. If you go to rights-based management you could
end up with no fish landed in Cornwall at all, it could all be
owned elsewhere.
Q351 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
Is that not up to the Cornish fishermen rather than the Government?
Mr Lambourn: Yes, and we are doing various things
about it. There is what is called the "Dutch Fish Quota Company"
which is owned by the fishermen and we buy up as much quota as
we can and lease it back to ourselves. There are these sorts of
initiatives but there are very strict rules on how far you can
go down this road. Of course there is never enough money to buy
the quota as it becomes available, and then you are competing
with other interests that are very much more wealthy. We are trying
but it is not enough. If I lived in Utopia I guess I would like
no individual to own any quota at all and all to be owned by the
community to which it was originally allocated and then somehow
leased back. The fact is that we have gone down this road, there
has never been a policy but we have tip-toed down this road to
ITQs (individual transferable quotas) little bit by little bit.
We have not taken the last few steps yet but it is hard to see
how we could avoid it. I would imagine that that is where it will
eventually end up. It does have advantages, I quite agree, from
the management perspective. You get this ownership asset built
up and it is much easier for the ministry to manage this sort
of thing. There are pluses but there are also, I think, disadvantages
in that that quota, as anybody knows, can migrate out of the area
to which it was originally allocated and I am not sure how to
get around that. I do not think you can.
Q352 Lord Palmer: I have been mulling
over the answer you gave to my question over an hour ago about
your community budget of 250,000. That is presumably euros.
Ms Bell: Yes.
Q353 Lord Palmer: Can I ask, you
have both come from Scotland, did you get a little help with your
expenses coming down today from the Scottish Executive, let alone
your overnight accommodation?
Ms Bell: No. I have come from Scotland, Hugo
has come from Sweden and Sam has come from Cornwall and that is
part of our budget. All our travel is paid for by the RAC; it
comes from the 250,000 euros. Most of the budgets of all the RACs
go to pay for travel, accommodation and meetings. Anything we
do otherwise as secretariats we have to be very creative and find
it from somewhere.
Q354 Lord Palmer: Your salary as
Chief Executive, where does that come from?
Ms Bell: Part of it is paid for by Aberdeenshire.
I am only part time. I do about a 100% RAC work but officially
100 days of my time is paid for the RAC, but Aberdeenshire Council
is very generous. My assistant, Joyce, is paid for; she does 20
hours a week. There is only myself and her and another colleague
of mine that Aberdeenshire provide. Sixty thousand euros of our
budget is on salaries and the rest of it is on meetings, travel
and subsistence, which is why we need to be flexible and be able
to move it around. This inflexibility is what is crippling us.
We go to the Commission with our funding and they say that we
have moved this from there to there; we are only allowed to move
10,000 so we have lost 20,000 euros. Twenty thousand euros to
us is a fortune; to the Commission it is a pittance, as I continually
remind them.
Q355 Lord Palmer: So flexibility
is your great message to take away.
Ms Bell: Yes, flexibility within the budget.
Do not let us do anything that is illegal or non-eligible and
we do not want more money, just let us do what we want to do with
it and do not cripple us.
Mr Lambourn: I would also underline that we
would not function as a RAC were it not for the Member States
making various facilities available for us to hold our meetings
free of charge and translations; translation is a very big issue
in our RAC and, for example, the Spanish administration have given
us a secretarial assistant for three years at their expense which
has proved enormously invaluable. Different Member States all
help. In the Spanish administration case, for example, he is trilingual
so it helps with the translation as well. Translation is a real
big issue with our RAC because in many instances the Spanish and
the French are at a disadvantage in debates because they have
not had the papers in the right language soon enough.
Ms Bell: In the North Sea RAC we always have
to have French and we have agreed that whichever Member State
we are in, if we are in Sweden we have Swedish interpretation.
We are very fortunate; most of the Scandinavian countries speak
English so we do not spend nearly as much in translation as others
do.
Q356 Lord Plumb: I was interested
in the flexibility on the sale of quotas. I was on a quay in Mevagissey
not very long ago and I talked to a lot of fishermen who were
well satisfied, I understood from them, with the Fisheries Policy
and then complained bitterly about the Spanish fishermen pinching
their fish. I did ask how they got hold of the quotas and I did
not really get an answer. Is this a major problem in certain areas?
Mr Lambourn: I am not sure I can describe it
as a problem, but it is a fact that it is the Cornish fishermen
who have sold their quotas to Spanish fishermen.
Lord Plumb: They were complaining to
the passers-by that the Spanish were pinching their fish but they
did not tell them that they could sit on the quay and watch them
do it.
Chairman: I think that is it. Thank you very
much indeed; that was a very worthwhile session.
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