Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540-559)
Mr Mark Dougal
1 MAY 2008
Q540 Lord Plumb: You have just spoken
of the growth, since 2002 presumably, and you have 45 vessels
at the moment. Is that the right sort of capacity looking to the
future or do you think there will be growth on that? We heard
this morning that there are one or two coming in. Secondly, looking
to the future, stick or carrot, in or out? If someone wants to
get out what sort of facilities are there? A form of decommissioning,
grants or payments or whatever? Are they operating at the moment?
Are they available if people want to get out? Can they do that
and do they get a bit of help in so doing? I think you might add
to that what changes you see are necessary or what are acceptable
in reform of the fisheries policy as we see it at the moment?
Mr Dougal: With regard to fishing capacity,
the most important aspect is that it is available marine resource.
How do you define available marine resource? The only way that
I can do that is what the scientific evidence produces with regard
to the TACs that are set. With regard to the available marine
resource, I think at the moment within the Scottish industry we
have the optimum level of fishing vessels. We have regular landings
in Peterhead all through the week. The fishermen are becoming
more responsible. Instead of everybody coming in at the same time
we are trying to spread out the landings a wee bit. That, of course,
helps the process inside as well. There is not much point in getting
12,000 boxes in one day when you can get 3,000 boxes a day for
four days. With regard to the resource, I feel as though we have
the perfect amount of fishing vessels. It was desperately needed,
the decommissioning scheme, when we had it four or five years
ago, but as far as I am concerned in my organisation with 45 vessels
we can generally find enough fish for them to ensure a 12-month
fishery. Then you go into effort limitations, which you are probably
all aware of, the time that the vessels can spend at sea. Is there
enough effort, because we now have vessels who have so much quota
that they are not given enough time to catch it? In my opinion
that is wrong, but this all goes down to—and I am sorry
I am going off the beaten track a little bit—the fact that
historically when a vessel at the end of the year maybe made a
profit of, for example, £200,000, the skipper may have put
that in his back pocket. Some of them went out and accessed more
quota, they bought more quota. These guys that spent the money
to buy more quota in the past now have not got the opportunity
to catch it because of effort limitation, so they have surplus
quota. It is very strange but with regard to your point on decommissioning,
at the time, yes, it was needed. I do not think it is needed now
because, as I said in my opening remarks, I have been here for
20 years. I can honestly say that there are more fish coming in
to Peterhead per vessel per catching day at sea than I have seen
in those 20 years, so I do not think decommissioning is required,
certainly within the Scottish industry.
Q541 Lord Plumb: What about the scientific
evidence?
Mr Dougal: As I have already alluded to, I am
a great believer in nature taking its course, but, of course,
you have to work with the scientists and this is where the fishermen
come in through the North Sea RAC and the stakeholders. You have
to involve them. I have my doubts that the scientific evidence
is always correct because, especially this year, we have got an
increase in the cod quota which was needed. It is not big enough
but we have a management plan so we are restricted, but, if you
listen to the fishermen, the fishermen have been saying for two
years that there was more and more cod available. The result is
that we are now working on a TAC so that we are discarding already
this year good, marketable quality fish. Fish are going back into
the water dead. It is not doing anybody any good, but that is
through the size. The other one is whiting. I have already alluded
to some of the POs being already closed for whiting. You ask any
fisherman. I am sure if you asked any of them this morning they
would say, "Yes, there is lots of whiting in the sea",
but we have got a dramatic cut in the whiting, in the region of
30%, which is totally unjustified, and the result now is that
we are now going to have at least one PO discarding whiting for
eight months and other POs are just going to follow suit.
Q542 Lord Plumb: But you do talk
to the scientists?
Mr Dougal: Yes, of course. From a PO perspective
we do not have a lot of discussion with the scientists. We meet
maybe once or twice at the marine lab in Aberdeen. It is more
from the fishermen's associations, which are the Scottish Whitefish
Association or the Fishermen's Association Ltd where we meet regularly
with the scientists. We are a wee bit unique in Scotland and in
England through the UK in that every other PO within the Member
States represents the fishermen through government level, through
scientific level, but it is different in the UK because we have
separate branches. Scottish Whitefish is one and Faroe is another,
so they meet with the scientists. Really, the fishermen have joint
representation, whether it is through the PO or the associations
that they are associated with. Most of the vessels within Scotland
are a member of one or the other.
Q543 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
Are you satisfied that the stakeholders are sufficiently engaged
in the policy process, in particular I would say are consumers,
environmental concerns and so on, sufficiently involved in the
whole process, and, if not, have you any ideas about how they
could be involved more?
Mr Dougal: Historically they were not, but obviously
with the formation of all the RACs it has been an effort to try
and get everybody together, especially the NGOs. They are an important
aspect of all the consultations that we do now. It is very early
stages. I have only personally been involved with the RAC for
about a year now, the North Sea RAC, so it is very early. I would
not say I am really in the perfect position to give you a thorough
answer to the question; I am very sorry. As I alluded to just
now, you have to involve the stakeholders, but then if you have
the stakeholders on one side and the science on another, 99 times
out of 100 they have different assessments of the stocks.
Q544 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
Different scientists?
Mr Dougal: Yes, different scientists, and I
have always said that if you have ten fishermen in a room you
will get 11 different answers to your question because they cannot
agree on anything. Yes, it is imperative that we have stakeholder
input into this. Mike Park is an ex-fisherman. He is still a trawler
owner and he is the Scottish representative on the RAC, and he
is the Chairman of the Scottish Whitefish Producers' Organisation,
so he is the representative there. Round the table there are a
number of fishermen's representatives. The RACs are the only forum
at the moment that the stakeholders are well represented on.
Q545 Baroness Jones of Whitchurch:
What about me as a consumer? Where is my voice in all this? You
are all busy setting the quotas and determining what you are going
to fish and lobbying Europe. What about my voice?
Mr Dougal: That is through the NGOs. I know
in the North Sea RAC it is split up. There are 24 round the table,
16 from the catch. Inside there are eight from an NGO side, so
the consumer will be under the NGOs. At the moment I do not think
there is any representation at all. I see Ann[1]
has just come in and maybe she will correct me if I am wrong,
but I do not think there is anybody, for instance, representing
Marks and Spencer or Sainsburys or anything like that, and, of
course, that goes down to the consumer side, but if you give your
name to Ann you are very welcome to appear at the next one in
June.
Q546 Chairman: Should Seafood Scotland
be there?
Mr Dougal: They probably should but who do you
put them with? They work with the catching sector and they work
with the other side. They are split because they are doing a lot
of work in the market inside. The market inside is to benefit
the processors. The market inside is to benefit fishermen. I do
not think it would do any harm to be there even from a consumer
angle.
Q547 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
I apologise for merging some of these questions but we have a
plane to catch.
Mr Dougal: I am glad to hear it!
Q548 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
They are on management plans and recovery plans. You have commented
to some extent on them. What works, what does not work? Would
you like to see longer term TACs, for instance, maybe involving
catch/biomass ratios? Which of the existing management tools work
or have bad outcomes and what management tools or rules would
you like to see introduced?
Mr Dougal: Again, personally, I do not really
have much input into this but from a fishermen's perspective some
consistency with regard to the TACs that are set would be helpful.
Last year we had an increase in something and then come the December
council that increase would be taken away. All these fishermen
have to put in business plans to their banks, so we need some
kind of stability. Do management plans work? We have had a management
plan for cod. The cod has come back. Is it because of the management
plan or is it because of nature? As I have already said, we have
decommissioned a great amount of cod catchers, so who knows what
works? I am sorry; I am not answering your question very thoroughly.
Q549 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
What about having longer term quotas instead of having yearly
quotas? Maybe you would not like to see that because brokering
is probably quite a good income for you.
Mr Dougal: No; it is stability.
Q550 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
But if you had long term stability, like a three-year quota, would
that be possible?
Mr Dougal: Yes. The societies would disagree
with you but from a fisherman's angle that would be beneficial
because you know where you are, you can plan ahead. The fishermen
are not given credit with regard to their business sense. A lot
of them go out at certain times of the year and catch the stocks
that they have quota for. For example, at the moment they catch
quite a lot of cod and then after the cod moves away from the
grounds they catch a lot of haddock, but if they know next year
that they will be able to catch the same amount of cod they can
work out their plans for next year. As I said, it is all down
to business plans and it would certainly give more stability.
Whether it is a two- or a three-year quota it remains the same,
obviously, subject to huge changes within the scientific advice.
From my perspective it makes it a lot easier as well because we
know what kind of quota we have to play with and then we can make
arrangements for next year for adding or taking away quota with
anybody we want to.
Q551 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
You work with effort limitations or things of that nature?
Mr Dougal: The ironic thing is that each vessel
gets a similar amount of days to catch, so they could put two
vessels, yours and your neighbour's, fishing beside each other
and you both get allowed 150 days at sea, but one of the vessels
maybe will have three times the amount of quota than the vessel
fishing next to him. In my opinion it has to be linked, the effort
and the TAC. We have already spoken to the Government about this
when I started five years ago, but it is too complicated. There
are going to be a lot of winners and losers with doing this. You
think of the conservation side of it as well. Do you really want
vessels to go to sea for 300 days but they have quota for 300
days? Do you want them to go and fish for 300 days? As long as
the UK does not exceed the TAC that has been set then personally
I would not have a problem with it. The same example as we have
at the moment is that there is multi-rig. This is vessels fishing
with more than two nets. It is now about to be banned because
they say that it is too efficient, but if you can catch your quota
quicker and more economically then why hinder progress?
Q552 Lord Plumb: "They say"—who
is "they"? Is it the Government?
Mr Dougal: The Government, yes.
Q553 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
We were hearing this morning from the fishermen that it is kind
of dog eat dog out there and they compete. Is there any sense
that they have a vision of sustainable fishing?
Mr Dougal: Oh, definitely. That is definitely
the case because when that last decommissioning scheme took effect
and 160-odd vessels left the industry the vessels that were left
within the industry were the ones that were very sustainably minded,
responsible, and that goes down with, for instance, the black
fish figures. I was just speaking to the SFPA that was in here
earlier on. Five years ago there was lots of black fish but now
there is nothing at all because the fishermen themselves did not
really want to land black fish but they had no alternative through
the quotas. At the moment I think we are at a perfect level with
the amount of vessels we have for supplying the market on a daily,
monthly, yearly basis and that keeps the processors happy in tandem
with the supplies that they are getting.
Q554 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
To some extent you have already covered the question that I was
going to ask you. We have heard conflicting views about whether
the goals should be conservation goals implemented through controls
on output, namely, the catch limits, or through controls over
inputs and the time limits, and I take it the answer you are going
to give us is that it should be a bit of both.
Mr Dougal: Definitely, but if you are doing
it on catch limits then a fisherman is going to maximise the time
he can get for the quota that he has. An example at the moment
is that what is happening with the cod in the North Sea is that
if anybody catches cod they discard three sizes of cod because
the quotas are so tight that they keep the biggest cod, so, of
course, the biggest cod in the fish market obviously realises
the best prices. Is that doing anything for conservation? No.
Effort limitation is a better way to conserve the stocks because,
obviously, if you are allowed to land what you catch in the space
of time that you have then that is a lot better than discarding
great quality fish. In the world that we are in with people starving
it does not make sense to throw food back into the water.
Q555 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
We were hearing this morning from the conservation officer about
the time-limited quota where you have an area where the fish are
spawning and so forth and where you keep them away completely
for a certain amount of time. As you say, it requires voluntary
co-operation but people are co-operating with that quite well.
Mr Dougal: Yes, that is right. This started
last year but with regard to the spawning it is something that
we did have in the past two or three years ago to encourage vessels
to keep away from spawning areas. It was closed areas, but you
are right: this year it is voluntary and most of the fishermen
know themselves that they do not want to kill all the cod that
is spawning because it is the future that they are thinking about.
It is just what I say. The vast majority of them are sustainable
and they want a future. Another thing with regard to this spawning
area for the cod is that, just as it happens, the cod are at their
poorest quality after they have spawned. They are very thin and
therefore they get a very poor price on the fish market for them,
so it is to the fishermen's benefit not to catch them. The problem
is that it displaces effort into something else and this is what
has probably happened this year with regard to the whiting. Everybody
has listened to what is happening with the closed areas of cod.
They went to catch something else, they have got too much whiting
and now the whiting is closed. That is one of the problems, that
it displaces effort. Then you tie the vessels up. That is probably
the best way. If you tie the vessels up you do not have processors.
They do not have any fish.
Q556 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Another suggestion that we have heard is that the quota should
run from April to April rather than in the calendar year from
January to January so that the end of quota period would be the
spring spawning period.
Mr Dougal: I am certainly in favour of that
because the majority of the POs, because we work a calendar year
at the moment, including myself, would run out of fish at the
latter part of the year. If that is going to happen it makes sense
to keep the vessels in when the fish are spawning. Why it has
never been introduced I do not know. When Mr Borg as Fisheries
Commissioner first got in that was one of the things he was going
to look at but years on we are still in the same state in that
we are still working a calendar year. Yes, I am all in favour
of that.
Q557 Viscount Ullswater: If you are
in favour of real-time closures on a voluntary basis, and that
probably makes sense, especially if you are looking after spawning
fish, is there an alternative that can be done which would be
real-time increments when the fishermen report that there is a
much bigger supply of cod in the sea this year, which I think
is what we are talking about, so that you can increase the quota?
Mr Dougal: What do you mean by "increments"?
Viscount Ullswater: To increase the size of
the quota.
Chairman: In-year increases.
Q558 Viscount Ullswater: If you can
agree to stop fishing, I am just wondering whether there could
be agreement which would be accepted in the RAC, in particular
that if everybody could agree there are reasonable cod could we
have an in-year review.
Mr Dougal: For a fisherman that would be the
best way. As I said to you, I am a great believer in nature taking
its course, but if you find now that there is more cod in the
sea than the scientists thought and what was agreed at the December
council, then of course it makes sense to have an in-year review.
Q559 Viscount Ullswater: Rather than
discarded?
Mr Dougal: Yes, of course. Nobody wants to discard
fish. Contrary to what some people may think, fishermen do not
want to discard cod or any kind of fish. It is against their nature.
They are in it to catch fish, not discard it.
1 Ann Bell, North Sea RAC Back
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