House of Lords - European Union - Minutes of Evidence

Select Committee on European Union Minutes of Evidence

Memorandum by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT

Q1. Chapter II of Regulation 2371/2002 and the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources under the Common Fisheries Policy introduced new methods of ensuring conservation and sustainability, including recovery plans, management plans and emergency measures. To what extent have these been effective?

Background

1. The introduction of mechanisms that are designed to ensure the viability of fish stocks in the long term is a principle that we continue to support and is consistent with Defra's Fisheries 2027 Vision and the fisheries target from the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

2. Since 2002 recovery plans have been adopted for cod in the North Sea, Eastern Channel, Irish Sea and West of Scotland, northern hake, and hake and Nephrops in the Bay of Biscay. Long term management plans have been adopted for Western Channel sole, Bay of Biscay sole, North Sea flatfish, and one is being developed for West of Scotland herring. There are also joint management arrangements with Norway for North Sea herring, saithe and haddock, and with Norway and other north eastern Atlantic states for the widely distributed stocks of mackerel and blue whiting.

3. The UK has used the emergency measures to protect the Darwin Mounds, but were unsuccessful in invoking them to protect dolphins vulnerable to the pair trawl fishery in the Western Channel. The Commission also introduced an emergency measure to ban deep water gill netting which has since been modified to allow monkfish and hake fisheries to continue (on the basis that they do not catch the deep water sharks and other species the measure is designed to protect).

Strengths

— The plans are agreed by all countries.

— The plans contain harvest control rules that limit fishing effort if the spawning stock biomass (number of individuals capable of reproducing) of the target stock falls below a precautionary level or if the fishing mortality (proportion of the stock removed by fishing) is above a precautionary level.

— The recovery plans have delivered some results: the northern hake spawning stock biomass has increased to the point where a recovery plan is no longer necessary and a management plan is being discussed. There have been large scale cuts in effort on cod in all areas of the cod recovery zone, and there is now the first indication of a recovery in the state of the North Sea cod stock.

— The concept of long term management of fish stocks is one that is supported by most stakeholders. A number of Regional Advisory Councils have been involved in developing management plans, and RAC advice has been accepted by the Commission in some cases.

Weaknesses

— Long term management plans exist for a relatively small number of species and most are still managed on an annual basis.

— There is no clear monitoring of success, which may make it unclear as to which policies are effective and which options are most likely to succeed in the future. For example, the effort management regime (days at sea) under the cod recovery plan has been amended significantly almost every year since it was introduced in 2003, in each case with no or minimal evaluation of the effects of the previous year's changes.

— In some cases unrealistic targets may have been set when plans were adopted. This seems to be the case with the target of a 30% annual increase in spawning stock biomass which is the basis of the cod recovery plan. This has not been achieved in any year since its adoption but the Council of Ministers has demonstrated that it is not prepared to make automatic annual 15% cuts in days at sea. It is notable that the more recently adopted plans such as that for Western Channel sole are based on a fishing mortality rather than a biomass target. There is broad support for adopting this approach in the cod recovery plan too when it is reviewed this year.

— Impact assessments have been absent or of poor quality.

— The management plans are based almost solely on the biological parameters and have taken little account of social and economic factors. The concern here is not to water down necessary conservation measures simply because they will have an impact on the fleets in question, but rather that those impacts need to be properly understood to be sure that policies are not giving rise to unintended consequences. Where measures are restrictive on fishing businesses in relation to one aspect of their activity they will try and make good losses by intensifying other activities or moving into different areas, and policy makers need to be aware of these types of impact.

— Measures are adopted to apply in a number of sea areas, where the local circumstances are not taken into consideration, making the plans less effective in some areas than others.

— There are some issues of transparency of the data on which plans are based. For example making accurate estimates of the level of fishing mortality on cod has been complicated by poor or absent discard monitoring data in some member states.

— The system of TACs and quotas and technical and control measures are running in parallel with management plans and recovery plans, sometimes with elements of overlap between them.

Possible areas for further work

4. The North Sea and North Western Waters Regional Advisory Councils have set up groups to develop long term management plans for key species and areas. These include setting social and economic as well as biological objectives which many consider to be crucial to the success of the management plans. The extent to which this has already been done has been extremely limited and ways in which this can be achieved through existing or new procedures needs further development.

Q2. A wide range of management tools are available to fishing managers. What are your views on the following tools?

— Total Allowable Catches

— Effort Limitation, including days at sea, marine conservation areas and real time closures

— Right- based management tools

— Technical conservation measures

5. It is important that fisheries managers have a wide range of tools available to manage fisheries (reflecting their individual circumstances) and these are deployed in a manner that best fits the objective of the management measure. The Commission tend to propose measures that are relatively simple, can apply to many sea areas and are easy to enforce, but which are prescriptive and leave little scope for flexibility to adapt to local conditions or to offer incentives for good practice. Because of the diversity of fishing activity, the complexity of the ecosystems and the extensive human use of the marine environment, there is unlikely to be a perfect, one size fits all management solution.

6. Total allowable catches are used to set limits on stocks which are more vulnerable to fishing activities. Without TACs, an alternative system would be needed to limit targeting of the most valuable stocks at the expense of their long term viability. Originally, TACs were set on the basis of the estimated composition of the stock based on a single stock assessment. ICES subsequently introduced mixed fishery advice to ensure that the most vulnerable fish stocks were protected for fish stocks that swim together.

7. In recent years TAC changes have generally been limited to a 15% change to allow some stability for fishermen, although larger cuts and increases have been made where particular exceptional circumstances suggest the need for these. The general limitation on TAC changes means that if there is a rapid change in the composition of fish species it may not be reflected in the TACs and discarding can result. This is partly a consequence of the time lags built into the international scientific advice: strong new year classes can start to be caught in fishermen's nets before their size is confirmed in scientific advice (this was the situation experienced with North Sea cod in 2006-07, subsequently confirmed in the October 2007 ICES advice, and we seem to be seeing a similar phenomenon in the Channel cod stock at the moment). In addition, those TACs whose management areas are not closely aligned to the biological distribution of the stock may lead to discrepancies between the availability of the stock and the quota.

8. The principle of relative stability in which the TACs are allocated is a simple method to allow Member States who have a track record for fishing to continue to receive an "equitable" share of the stock, without the need for frequent decisions about allocations. There are issues at the margin where as a result of the changing nature of fisheries some national quotas are persistently over-subscribed or not taken up, but on the whole the principle of relative stability has worked well.

9. Effective setting of TACs is dependent on accurate assessments which are data intensive and costly. When the data is not representative of the true picture (for example when there are high levels of discarding or large volumes of illegally caught fish that are not recorded as part of the landings) the basis for assessing the stock and predicting changes is weakened. However, the same or very similar data would be needed to operate any alternative system not based on TACs, for example in an effort-only management system it would still be necessary to estimate fishing mortality rates and stock sizes in order to set a responsible level of fishing effort.

10. Limiting the time the vessel is allowed at sea is one of the most direct and easily enforceable measures available to fisheries managers to limit the capacity of vessels to fish. It can be highly effective when stocks are at high risk of collapse and removes the requirement to regulate activities at sea. However, it is generally unpopular with the fishing community because although it can achieve the protection of a vulnerable stock, it limits the scope to fish for more abundant or resilient stocks. For example fishermen subject to limits on days at sea under the cod recovery plan may have quota for haddock or prawns that they are unable to fully exploit because their days are limited. Many fishermen take non-quota species which are an essential part of their income. There is some evidence also that limits on fishing effort have been less effective than originally expected in reducing cod mortality as fishermen have responded to the days at sea restrictions by using their time at sea more efficiently, so that fishing mortality has not always reduced as much as the reductions in fishing effort.

11. The TAC and quota Regulation for 2008 recently set a precedent that allowed increased flexibility for Member States to control the number of days allocated to vessels operating under effort management. This allows Member States to provide incentives to those who sign up to measures that help to reduce cod mortality, such as observing real time closures, taking part in trials for more selective fishing gear and fishing plans that reduce discards. Defra and other UK Fisheries Administrations are currently developing such schemes, which allow fishermen to be rewarded with extra days if they take additional steps to reduce discards of cod in consultation with the fishing industry.

12. Marine conservation areas are likely to be effective in protecting species of a sedentary nature. They may also in some circumstances help to protect highly aggregated fish such as spawning concentrations, although there have been examples where closures of this type have had unintended adverse impacts. Such closures will generally be less effective for fish species that have a wide distribution or migrate. Many closures have been put in place to protect fish stocks, but they have often had no procedure to monitor their effectiveness or provide a mechanism for their removal. This has meant that many restrictions have remained even when their effectiveness has been questionable.

13. Real time closures have recently been put in place in the North Sea by the UK industry and Fisheries Administrations to help avoid high concentrations of juvenile plaice and cod as part of the effort management scheme for 2008 referred to in paragraph 11 above. This follows a trial of real time closures on a voluntary basis in Scottish waters in the autumn of 2007, and previous voluntary trials by the Dutch beam trawl sector and the Dutch administration in the southern North Sea. Although it is difficult to quantify the contribution of such closures to reducing fishing mortality, there is evidence from their use in Norwegian waters that these are an effective fisheries management tool, and they are responsive and flexible systems supported by fishermen.

14. Rights-based management tools in the UK take the form of the quota management system. This is carried out collaboratively by DARD, the SE and Defra/MFA. Under the present quota management arrangements, the UK's quotas are allocated to (i) fish producer organisations (POs), who manage quota for the vessels in their membership; (ii) the "non-sector", a group comprising vessels over 10 metres not in POs; and (iii) the under 10 metre fleet not in POs. Quota allocations to these groups are based on the "Fixed Quota Allocation units" (FQAs) held by the individual vessels in membership of each group, or by a group collectively. These FQAs were originally based on vessels' historic landings (track record) during a fixed reference period (1994-96 for most stocks). Each group's share of the total UK quota for a particular stock is based primarily on that group's share of the total FQA units for that stock which are held by the UK fleet as a whole.

15. Quota allocations are issued by Fisheries Administrations to the groups listed above. FQA units are not therefore allocations of quota from Departments to the vessels in question, but are merely a mechanism for Fisheries Administrations to share quota annually to POs and the other groups. POs are allocated quota in line with the number of FQAs attached to licences on the boats in the membership. The quota allocations for the non-sector and the under 10 metre fleet are managed by Fisheries Administrations in consultation with industry. Monthly catch limits are set for all non-sector fisheries, and for most under 10 metre fisheries.

16. During the course of the year compliance with quotas is measured through recorded landings. Skippers of vessels over 10 metres long must record the quantity of any quota species landed in a "landing declaration". Fisheries Administrations aggregate information from landing declarations to show total quota uptake, and if necessary close a fishery when the total quantity landed approaches the quota ceiling.

17. Vessels under 10 metres are exempt from the requirement to submit landing declarations. Data on landings by these vessels is obtained on the basis of data collected under the arrangements for the registration of buyers and sellers of first-sale fish. Once the under 10 metre fleet's allocation for a particular stock has been taken in full, vessels are prohibited from further fishing for that stock.

18. To maximise their fishing opportunities and to try to avoid the need to close fisheries, fishermen in the UK arrange quota exchanges, and lease quota from each another. This happens within POs and between POs. In addition, Defra organises international quota swaps with other Member States, which result in exchanges of quota for different species to meet the in-year needs of the catching sector in different countries.

19. Technical conservation measures allow improvements in efficiency and selectivity which can make a real difference to improving the quality of catch or reducing unwanted parts of the catch. Changes to gear regulations that are not supported by the fishing industry can be difficult to enforce and it can be difficult to isolate and identify the effects of some technical changes (such as mesh size increases) from the effects of other management measures taken at the same time. Technical conservation legislation has become highly complex, particularly where rules on catch composition (intended to restrict targeting of species with a gear designed for another species) inter-act with rules in recovery and management plans, eg on days at sea limits for different categories of gear type. However, where gear modifications have been trialled in commercial conditions with industry involvement and are generally accepted, they can deliver useful improvements.

Q3. To what extent have the current management tools increased levels of discarding and by catch? What is your view on how these problems can best be tackled?

20. Fishermen discard fish for many reasons, and the extent to which discarding takes place is dependent on the market for different species, the local abundance of the fish stocks available, the legal framework which applies, the level of enforcement and business decisions made by individual fishermen. The following examples explain some of the reasons for discarding:

— For some species there are market outlets, but at low price levels, and particularly for smaller individuals the price available does not justify the handling costs involved in landing the fish. This is the case with species like dab, gurnard and whiting in some but not all parts of the country. (NB: 40 years ago monkfish was generally regarded as unmarketable and discarded but is now the UK's third most valuable marine fishery.)

— For most but not all commercial species there are regulatory minimum landing sizes (MLSs) set (designed to discourage targeting of immature fish) which automatically requires discarding of fish below this size. Larger bodies species such as plaice are particularly likely to be caught while still below the minimum landing size.

— In some cases there is poor selectivity of the mesh sizes used. CFP legislation sets minimum mesh sizes for most of the main fisheries in EU waters, which are designed to try and avoid catches of fish below MLSs. But the highly mixed nature of many European fisheries makes it impossible to get this right for all species simultaneously. For example, the minimum mesh size generally used in fisheries targeting sole is 80mm, which is effective for catching sole above the MLS of 23cm, but which also tends to catch immature plaice and cod below the MLSs of 27cm and 35cm respectively for these species.

— In some circumstances, catch composition rules (designed to discourage targeting of relatively depleted stocks such as cod and sole with gears designed for other purposes) set maximum percentages of certain species in the catch, which can on occasions lead to discarding. For example, in the North Sea otter trawlers using 80-99mm mesh nets have to have at least 30% of prawns in their catch or have at least 70% of their catch composed of a long list of species which excludes cod, haddock and saithe. In either case they may have no more than 20% cod.

— Fishermen will sometimes discard otherwise marketable fish because they have reached their quota limit for that species. This is a consequence of mixed fisheries where fish of the species for which quota is exhausted will probably continue to be caught while fishing for other species for which quota is still available or which are not subject to quotas. There have been cases where this has resulted in high levels of discarding when a successful recruitment results in big increases in "catchability" of the species without a corresponding increase in the quota (eg North Sea haddock in 2001 and monkfish in the south west in 2003-04).

— In any quota system where there is effective enforcement discarding will tend to be higher than where enforcement is ineffective. The significant tightening up of enforcement which has taken place in the UK over recent years, which of itself has been highly desirable, may have had the side effect of increasing levels of discarding.

— So-called "highgrading" occurs when fishermen discard marketable fish which is both above MLS and within quota, a practice which results from a combination of market reasons and quota limits. This arises with species such as cod for which quota limits are highly restrictive and for which there is a price premium for larger fish, creating an incentive for fishermen to discard marketable but lower price bracket fish in order to use their limited quota to land fish commanding the highest price.

21. Fishermen continually make business decisions based on the opportunities available to them. These decisions can lead to high levels of discarding depending on the circumstances. The Defra-funded research study cited in paragraph 20 above suggests that market reasons are responsible for the majority of discarding, rather than the TAC and quota system, but in individual instances where a strong recruitment of a particular species has not been reflected in the relevant TAC (eg North Sea haddock in 2001, North Sea cod in 2007), this can be reversed.

22. Although there is no solution that will address all the causes of discarding, there are improvements which could be considered to help fishermen reduce discard levels:

— Increase focus on helping fishermen maximise the value of their catch by increasing quality and developing new markets for currently low value species.

— Encourage uptake of gear modifications proven to reduce levels of unwanted by-catch, eg the "benthic release panel" developed by Cefas in collaboration with beam trawlers in south west England (see pages 13-14 of the attached booklet).

— Consider options for simplifying technical legislation (the European Commission will be proposing a revision of the Technical Conservation Regulation (Council Regulation 850/98) this year which offers an opportunity to take a fundamental look at rules in areas such as minimum landing sizes and mesh sizes and catch composition rules.

— Consider moving to a more outcome-based approach to regulation which sets targets for levels of discarding but leaves it to individual member states and fishing vessels how to meet those targets, rather than specifying technical gear configuration in detail in European legislation.

— Establish incentives to promote more sustainable fishing practices.

— Increase participation by fishermen, for example in trialling new gear solutions to increase understanding of the options available and willingness to buy into them.

More general ideas for consideration

— The way in which the legislation is structured means that regulations for a certain fishery are complicated and multi-layered, making the practical operation of the fishery complicated for fishermen, enforcement officers and administrators. The result is that there are unintended consequences such as high levels of discarding. There may be a case to restructure the regulations to allow high level objectives to be set by the Council of Ministers and a system of more detailed regulations to be set at more regional or local levels.

— Improvements in participation from stakeholders have taken place, particularly through the introduction of Regional Advisory Councils. However there may be a case to further develop the role of stakeholders in developing and implementing fisheries policy.

— Improvements in the system to set TACs and quotas could be considered, such as developing a more transparent use of information, a system which takes into consideration new information quickly and is flexible to new market and stock information.

Q4. Do you consider that fisheries management policies may need to adapt to climate change? If so, how might this be achieved?

23. Climate change already seems to be having quite marked impacts on fish stocks. For example, we are seeing increased abundance of stocks such as red mullet and squid in the North Sea and increased abundance of stocks such as sardine and anchovy in the waters around the south west of England. Bass also seems to be being found in greater numbers further north than previously. At the same time, scientific research on temperature and changes in plankton suggests that conditions for species like cod are becoming less favourable in the North Sea. This does not mean that cod cannot recover, but rather that conditions are less favourable so recovery may be more difficult.

24. However, there is much that we do not know about the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems and hence on fish stocks. The inherent natural variability in the marine environment and in fish stocks makes it difficult to isolate unambiguously climate effects from the range of other impacts and a naturally fluctuating baseline. Similar comments can be made about the effects of increased acidification, which is sometimes termed a "climate change" effect, and impacts may be direct, for example on the formation of shells in shellfish, or indirect through ecosystem changes.

25. In the short term current management systems can probably cope with these changes up to a point. For example, all of the stocks quoted above as increasing in abundance in our waters are "non-pressure" stocks, ie not subject to catch limitations under the CFP. In recent years these stocks have in some cases provided useful alternative fisheries for fishermen whose traditional target stocks have been declining. Equally for stocks where conditions have become less favourable, this does not mean that current management measures cannot cope, for example if a big recruitment of cod has become less likely that may only mean the need for a cautious approach to levels of fishing and/or accepting that recovery may require a longer timescale.

26. However, if these effects become more marked we can expect current management measures to come under increasing strain. For example key "reference points" used by the scientists in assessing the North Sea cod stock are the precautionary and limit levels for the spawning stock biomass (set at 150,000 tonnes and 70,000 tonnes respectively). These levels were set based on long time series of stock data which include the years of the so-called "gadoid outburst" in the 1970s when all North Sea whitefish stocks were at high levels. If conditions have changed it may be that these reference points are now set at unrealistically high levels. However, it will probably take a number of years before the scientists can be confident of this and recommend new reference points, and in the meantime fisheries managers may be working towards targets which are no longer appropriate.

27. In the longer term if the species mix changes dramatically this would imply the need for a more fundamental adaptation of current CFP mechanisms. Specifically, this could lead to a situation where the current division of catching opportunities for particular stocks between member states (based on track record in the years prior to 1983 when it was established) would become manifestly inappropriate. Arguably there are already cases where the current "relative stability" shares are out of line with reality, but it was so difficult to agree in the first place that there is little appetite for re-opening it as long as the current division does not cause acute problems.

28. There is also a need to be increasingly sensitive to indirect effects on the fishing industries. For example, fishing exerts a pressure on the habitats and biodiversity of our seas. Climate change may alter the status of non commercial species, bringing them into vulnerable or threatened categories, which in turn may need protection from the additional pressures of fishing.

29. It is clear that we are moving ahead under significant uncertainties of even the direction of change in abundance of species. We need to maintain our fisheries and marine monitoring systems to detect these changes and so respond appropriately. We are also investing in a range of underpinning research (see pages 14-18 of the attached booklet).

CONTROL AND ENFORCEMENT

Q5. Chapter V of Regulation 2371/2002 lays down the responsibilities of the Member States and the Commission as regards the control and enforcement of the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy. The recent Court of Auditors Report on the control, inspection and sanctions systems relating to the rules on conservation of Community fisheries resources was very sceptical of the systems currently in place. What is your view of the efficacy of the systems in place? To what extent has the Community Fisheries Control Agency already assisted in improving matters?

30. The current EU control regime has been in place since 1993 (Regulation 2847/1993, as amended). Since then it has been amended on a number of occasions but has not been subject to a comprehensive review. In that time the regime has become cumbersome and difficult to implement effectively and implementation varies across the Community. A review of the Control Regulation has for some time been planned for 2008 as part of the Commission's simplification initiative. That review has clearly been given added impetus and focus by the findings of the European Court of Auditors report.

31. The Community Fisheries Control Agency is still in its infancy. It has a very strictly defined remit, which in terms of operational coordination is to establish joint deployment plans for the coordinated use of Member States' control resources to fulfil the Community's international control obligations (eg in NEAFC and NAFO) and to implement specific monitoring programmes for recovery stocks. To date, only one joint deployment plan has been agreed and implemented, that for North Sea cod. Results of the first exercises in the latter half of 2007 have been encouraging, but it is too early to assess the impact of those exercises on control systems generally.

32. More generally it is clearly important that there is consistency in the effectiveness of control and enforcement across the Community. This is primarily a responsibility of individual member states and for the Commission in pursuing vigorously instances of member states failing to exercise proper controls. There are indications that the Commission have been performing this role increasingly effectively in recent years. The importance of consistency in control standard is one UK Ministers have raised formally with the Fisheries Commissioner on a number of occasions over recent years.

Q6. The European Commission has regularly highlighted how serious infringements of the CFP are penalised differently across the Community. This was a matter that was also raised by the Court of Auditors[2] and sanctions were included in the recent Commission Proposal in IUU fishing. What is your view on the issue?

33. It is certainly true that the level of financial penalties applied across the Community can vary widely and indeed within individual countries, including the UK. This is a reflection of the fact that decisions about the level of criminal penalties are a matter for the Courts and not one of Commission competence. For this reason Commission attempts to include severe financial penalties in the proposed IUU regulation have run into difficulties. There is however a place for the use of dissuasive administrative sanctions, including financial sanctions, within the control system. That is one of the areas that will be looked at as part of the review of the Control Regulation.

34. In October 2007, the European Commission has proposed a European Council Regulation to establish a Community system to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. This draft regulation is still in consideration at Council working groups.

35. The proposed regulation and associated Communication represent a major initiative by the European Commission to address the incentives and governance gaps which drive IUU fishing. The regulation effectively states that instances of IUU fishing may be found in all fisheries, whether inside or outside Community waters.

36. The regulation acknowledges the existing mechanisms within the Community to address illegal and unreported activity and therefore concentrates on 3rd country imports of fish to the Community. The proposals under the regulation include:

— only allowing imports of fish and fish products if certified as legal by Flag States;

— blacklisting of non-compliant vessels and Flag States;

— the designation of ports within Member States for landing and restrictions on transhipments; and

— measures on compliance and sanctions, including in relation to third countries and nationals of EU Member States involved in IUU fisheries anywhere in the food chain.

37. In addition, the Commission's communication on the IUU regulation highlights the need for tough and effective enforcement and sanctions regimes within Member States, establishing a level playing field. Within the regulation certain articles propose to establish sanctions regimes with an aim to ensure the regulation is WTO compliant, in that measures against 3rd countries and EU Member States are equivalent.

38. The regulation would introduce measures that allow individual EU vessels to be added to an IUU blacklist. The blacklist in effect limits the ability of an EU vessel to continue fishing. The Commission indicates that this sanction could be used in individual cases should infringements have occurred, but the relevant Member State had not taken any action against its vessel. This would be distinct from the normal infraction proceedings the Commission takes for systematic failures in Member States' enforcement systems.

39. The regulation also aims to introduce maximum penalties for fisheries offences set at a minimum of 300,000 Euro for natural persons and 500,000 Euro for Legal Persons. However, such maximum levels of fines in the UK Government view, would fall within the definition of criminal rather than administrative sanctions and are outwith Community competence. EU Council Legal Services and other Member States share our views on competency.

STRUCTURAL POLICY

Q7. Chapter III of Regulation 2371/2002 obliged Member States to put in place measures to adjust the capacity of their fleets in order to achieve a stable and enduring balance between such fishing capacity and their fishing opportunities. To what extent has this been successful?

40. The latest annual report from the Commission under Article 14 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 2371/2002, assessing the degree to which Member States have succeeded in bringing fleet capacity and fishing opportunities into more effective balance, concludes that Member States have not achieved the necessary balance.

41. The Commission's overall view is that the general quality of the reports from Member States is insufficient to allow it to draw any reasonable conclusion on the level of overcapacity of the EU fishing fleets compared to its fishing responsibilities. For example, under the rules in place to control fleet capacity, all but two Member States operated within the overall fleet capacity limits set for them. The Commission accepts this and the fact that there has been a decline in fleet capacity in recent years, but suggests that this is at a rate much smaller than that required for the sustainable management of key commercial fish stocks.

42. In addition, much of the reduction seen is more than compensated by technological improvements, which make it possible to catch more fish per unit of effort. As such the Commission's overall view is that there is an excess of fishing capacity, but they are unable to state the extent of the reduction in capacity that might be needed, and that more work is needed to ensure that the correct incentives to control and limit fishing effort are in place at national level.

43. This conclusion is somewhat simplistic, because it looks at the position in the round and does not reflect the variety of results. The UK has for example, delivered a more than 60% reduction in effort in its whitefish trawling fleet, and has reduced overall capacity by 11% in tonnage terms and 8% in engine power from 1 January 2003 to 1 January 2007.

44. One problem is that the Commission have yet to state how exactly Member States are to judge the balance between fishing opportunity and fishing capacity. The latest report is the fourth such report and this comment over the quality of the information included in reports from Member States has been made each time.

45. The lack of guidance was a contributing factor to the UK report being submitted late in 2007, as a format for reporting the appropriate information had to be developed without sufficient guidance from the Commission on what the report should include. The Commission are looking to provide more guidance to Member States in future to ensure that a coherent and consistent assessment can be made across the EU.

GOVERNANCE

Q10. As a result of Regulation 2371/2002, Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) were established to advise the Commission on matters of fisheries management in respect of certain sea areas or fishing zones. What is your assessment of the success thus far of the RACs? What is your view on their future evolution?

46. The UK Government strongly supports the RACs and believes they have a vital role in producing a better quality of decision-making under the CFP. Defra and the other UK Fisheries Administrations have provided significant practical and logistical help to the four RACs in which the UK has an interest (the North Sea, North West Waters, Pelagic and Long Distance RACs) in order to help them fulfil their role as effectively as possible, for example by funding scientific support to help them develop long term management plans for stocks in their areas (see pages 31-32 of the attached booklet).

47. It is still relatively early in the life of the RACs. The North Sea, Pelagic and North West Waters RACs were in the first wave of RACs to be established in 2004-05 and so have only been operating for about three years. However they have already demonstrated significant successes. The cod symposium organized jointly by the NSRAC and NWWRAC at North Queensferry in March 2007 was a key event which has influenced thinking on cod recovery at European level and all three RACs have demonstrated that they can produce thorough and well-researched opinions on major current issues.

48. However there are a number of problems in relation to RACs' role which have not been resolved:

— the RACs do not have funding to commission their own research or new analysis/evidence gathering (the budget they have from the European Commission and member states covers administration such as meeting costs, interpretation and translation, and the cost of a small secretariat, but not externally commissioned work). The UK has sought to help fill this gap in the short term, either by providing Government scientists to assist at RAC working group meetings or by funding new research in support of the RACs' work through Defra's Fisheries Challenge Fund, but this is not a long term solution. This is an issue the UK has raised formally with the Fisheries Commissioner.

— For the North West Waters RAC in particular, the fact that it covers such a huge and diverse area has made managing the issues it addresses and arriving at consensus views particularly challenging. It has sought to deal with this by doing most of its work through four regional working groups covering respectively the West of Scotland, the Irish Sea, the Celtic Sea and the Channel. This seems to be working, but it is much more difficult for the RAC as a whole to develop a shared view of the fisheries in its area than it has been for the North Sea and Pelagic RACs.

— The RACs have generally been able to offer high quality advice on longer term management issues such as cod recovery, other long term plans and CFP simplification. They have found it more difficult to develop coherent and reasoned responses to the Commission's annual TAC & quota proposals because of the timescales involved. The timetable up to now, which has generally allowed only about three weeks from publication of the Commission's proposals to the December Fisheries Council, has simply been too rapid for the RAC meeting and coordination mechanisms to operate as effectively as would be desirable. The change in the timetable planned for this year should help address this.

49. Overall it is probably therefore too early to say confidently that the RACs have been an unqualified success, but it would be fair to say that those in which the UK has the closest interest have made a good start and are growing in influence, so the signs are positive for potential development of their role in the future.

50. For these reasons it is probably too early to give a clear view of the RAC's potential future role. It flows from the analysis above that there is much that could be done to enable them to be more effective within their current remit. For example, addressing the funding issue referred to in paragraph 46 above to allow them to commission their own analysis to help inform their advice would contribute significantly to improving the quality of their work and hence their influence. Changing the timetable for the annual proposals for fishing opportunities for the following year to allow the RACs and others more time for analysis and comment would also help them contribute more fully to this key part of current CFP processes.

51. In general terms we see scope for RACs to take on a greater role in the future (eg in drawing up long term management plans and in relation to some of those issues involving technical measures and discarding where we identify above a need for less prescriptive legislation at EU level and more scope for regional variation).

Q11. How do you consider EU fisheries should ideally be governed? How appropriate and feasible do you consider a regional management model to be?

52. On this question too, it is too early to give a clear view. There is early thinking going on at the moment in preparation for arriving at an agreed UK view on this sort of question in preparation for the 2012 review of the CFP, but this is still at a relatively early stage. However, it is possible to set out in very broad terms the sort of principles we would want to see govern future management of EU fisheries:

— A more stable regulatory framework with more regulation by long term management plans and fewer annual changes.

— A more regional approach to decision making with less micro-management from Brussels and more discretion to manage at regional level within an overall EU framework.

— Better stakeholder involvement.

A more regional management model could and should be appropriate and feasible, but it is essential that this remains within an overall EU framework to ensure things like consistency of control and enforcement standards and consistency of monitoring and data gathering.

February 2008

1 R. Enever et al., Fisheries Research 86 (2007) 143-152 Back

2 European Court of Auditors, Special Report 7/2007 on the control inspection and sanctions systems relating to the rules on conservation of Community fisheries resources. Back