Fisheries Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Agriculture
Bryony Worthington (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 110 in my name. I have, perhaps overconfidently, attempted to redraft Clause 27 to set out the mechanism through which the rights to fish held on public trust are reallocated in the context of the English fishery, which is unequivocally the responsibility of the Secretary of State, since we are not talking here about anything that affects the devolved Administrations We set out this redrafted clause to try to mesh together the various elements that the Bill is founded on. I strongly believe that this should all be on the basis that this is a right held on trust and conferred to the private sector via the Secretary of State, and that these powers are held by the Secretary of State and then conferred. We see that there needs to be some allocation process by which those rights are transferred. I would like to hear—yet again, rather depressingly—whether this power being taken under Clause 27 applies to all quota or simply quota that may or may not be released as a result of some kind of negotiation with Europe. It feels like a real missed opportunity if it is the latter. Nothing in the Bill should prevent our applying these principles to all quota It seems incredible that we are here, at the start of a new decade, thinking about an unlimited right being carried on in perpetuity by the holders of the FQA system. There really needs to be a clarification. In a sense, Amendment 110 and the reworked Clause 27 speak back to Amendment 105 and the reworked Clause 25. They are a pair: the second implements those principles exclusively in relation to the English fishery. In response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the auction and competitive tender, this is a valuable tool to have in the kit. It would need to be carefully managed, and we would need to think about how an auction is carried out. There are other auctions for government contracts or rights carried out in different sectors of the economy. The one that I know best is the allocation of contracts for zero-emissions energy, in which case certain pots are made available and certain rules written around the allocation of those rights. If the fear is that these competitive tender processes would always lead to the more dominant players gaining more access, there are policy mechanisms that one can use to mitigate that risk This is a crucial clause because it also establishes this concept of payment for something held for the public trust. I am always a bit worried when I hear the Ministers saying, "We’re going to use grants to encourage better behaviour." They should not have to use grants, because they are granting a right worth tens of millions of pounds every year. In a sense, they do not need to invent additional financial incentives when they have this existing financial instrument in their hands. It should be seen as such, because it certainly is by the fishing operators. It is not a pastime carried out without focusing on the bottom line and the profitability of the activities. The Government must take that approach To bring holding a property right in trust to life for noble Lords, if you own a piece of land or a house and simply give it away and say, "It’s fine. You can have that, no questions asked", it is not likely that that property will be well looked after. You would also feel very vulnerable if you did not have a solid legal basis against which that transaction was carried out I am afraid that the current drafting of the Bill is not clear. There is still a lot of uncertainty, which is why the courts get involved and we lose legal cases around this question of quota allocation. There is not a really clearly laid out basis on which we do this transaction, confer these very valuable rights and hand them to the private sector As I say, this is a partner to Amendment 105. Listing in proposed new Clause 25(5) the links back to the various plans and statements—fisheries management plans and the marine plan—is an attempt to make the Bill holistic, mesh it together and make it read back against itself in a way that has some meaning in the real world. I will leave it at that.