UK Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2017-12-07
Topic: Agriculture
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to carry on because I want to cover as many issues as possible My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) pointed out that the Celtic sea remains challenging. We are doing some mixed fishery analysis there, but the gadoid fishery, with whiting, cod and haddock, continues to create challenges and we are working with our scientists to address them There have been other changes this year. For the first time, the Commission is keen to progress a prohibition on the landing of eel. The UK has signalled that we support that, but we do not believe that marine catch should be the only area we look at; we have to look at the impacts on eels inshore as well As several hon. Members pointed out, we anticipate that bass will again be a controversial issue this year. Three years ago, as Fisheries Minister, I pushed for emergency measures for bass because the stock is in a precarious state. We secured that and I have tried since to ensure that the Commission gets the balance right between the actions it takes on recreational anglers and those they take on commercial fishing. We argued last year that there should be a lower catch limit for the hook-and-line commercial fishermen to create the headroom to give more leeway for recreational anglers. I will make a similar argument this year, but the scientific evidence has not been benchmarked to take account of the measures that have already been introduced, so the right thing to do might be to review the bass situation properly in March and we will point that out A number of hon. Members have talked about future policy. Everyone will be aware that it is our intention and plan to introduce a fisheries Bill in this Session. Early next year, we will publish more detailed proposals for that Bill, which we anticipate will be introduced during the course of the year, probably before the summer. The Bill will set out very clearly our approach, which is that when we leave the European Union we will become an independent coastal state under international law. We will take control of our exclusive economic zone, which is out to 200 miles or the median line. From that point, we will work with our neighbours to agree issues such as access and quota shares. The hon. Member for Halifax asked what the basis of those quota allocations would be. We are looking at the issue of zonal attachment, which most people recognise is the fairest way to do such things My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall asked whether we have historical catch data. We do. As she pointed out, the UK catches about 100,000 tonnes of fish a year in EU waters, and EU vessels catch some 750,000 tonnes in our waters, so there is an imbalance. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has visited the Faroe Islands to discuss its approach. Our view is that the six to 12-mile zone should be predominantly reserved for UK vessels, to keep that fishing pressure down. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, however, there are issues such as Ireland and voisinage agreement, to which we are committed and which we support The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) argued that we would lose influence by leaving the EU. I understand his argument, but I do not agree with it. The truth is that at the moment our influence in the EU is limited to the technocratic size of our qualified majority vote, and we are frequently unable to get the changes we support for the pro-science conservation measures we want. When we leave the EU, our influence will be defined by the scale of our fisheries resource and the need of all those other European countries to have access to it. In future there will be a bilateral UK-EU annual fisheries negotiation, and the UK will be in a stronger position I apologise to those Members whose points I have not been able to address. Many other points were raised, but I hope they appreciate that time is short and I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall an opportunity to reply.