argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Stephen Daniel Double (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State will be aware that fishermen in Cornwall have been very disappointed with the agreement reached on quota with the EU, and the fact that its vessels can still fish in our six to 12-mile limit. There is real concern that our inshore fleet, which makes up the vast majority of vessels in my constituency, will benefit little from this new deal, so what assurances can he give the fishermen of Mevagissey and Newquay, as well as fishermen across Cornwall, that the Government will be working with our inshore fleet to make sure it can benefit as much as possible from this new deal, and that those fishermen will be in a good position to increase their share of the quota when we come to the end of the adjustment period?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): We left the London fisheries convention and gave notice under that because it is our intention that the six to 12-mile zone should be reserved predominantly for our own fishermen, and at the end of the five and a half years, that is exactly what we will be seeking to achieve. There are some uplifts for fishermen in the Celtic sea, and in particular those in Cornwall—as I mentioned earlier, haddock has moved from 10% to 20%—and the Celtic sea is also an area that often had its fishing interests affected by the ability of Ireland to invoke Hague preference, which depleted our share of some stocks, notably cod. With the absence of Hague preference, there will be some other uplifts in those areas.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that in previous debates on fishing the hon. Gentleman has spoken of the importance of tariff-free access to the EU market, and the trade and co-operation agreement gives our fishing export businesses that access, which is particularly important for the shellfish sector It is not the case that shellfish cannot be exported at all until April. There have been certain issues regarding bivalve molluscs and getting the correct paperwork, and some issues around depuration and the ability to export stocks that have not been purified prior to export, but they do not amount to a ban on the export of shellfish The hon. Gentleman mentioned the distant water fleets. It is a convention that in the absence of agreements on quotas—this is pertinent to the agreement we have with Norway—access is suspended, but we will seek access to Arctic cod in the usual way for those parts of our fleet that benefit from that stock The hon. Gentleman asked when fishermen will see the uplift in quota. As I made clear, the EU is giving up 15% of its catch in our waters in year one, so fishermen will see some important advantages in this very first year.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): We have been working closely with authorities, particularly in France and the Netherlands, to understand the sorts of issues that they are finding. At one end of the spectrum, many of the issues are quite trivial, such as where the stamp is; we have even had questions about the colour of the ink used on the forms, pagination and the way pages are numbered. Those are all trivial problems that can be sorted out—indeed, some leeway is being given for such issues in France, given that there is sometimes a difference in interpretation. There are other, more significant issues, notably around import agents failing to pre-declare properly or at all. We are working closely with the industry on those, with regular meetings, to ensure that they are addressed.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said earlier, there have been some teething problems, particularly in Scotland, I know. DFDS established a hub system at Larkhall so it could group consignments together. It has had some difficulty getting the right information from some of the fishing businesses in Scotland. Food Standards Scotland is working hard to address the issue The hon. Lady says that the Government made a mess of the paperwork. She will be aware that the paperwork is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. I have spoken regularly to Fergus Ewing about this, and he maintains—I believe he is right—that there is no lack of export health certification capacity; the vets and the fish certifying officers are just trying to get used to complicated new paperwork. I will talk to DFDS later today to see whether there is anything we can do to help, but I pay tribute to the work that it and Food Standards Scotland are doing to work through some of the technical differences. The short answer to the current challenge is to work through each of the problems as they present themselves, so that they are not repeated and goods can flow smoothly.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Lia Nici-Townend (Conservative, Centre-right): The fishing community in Grimsby welcomes the deal agreed by the Prime Minister, particularly the springboard it gives us to take back more quota as the years go on, and our tariff-free arrangements. Can my right hon. Friend confirm when the details of the £100 million fund and the international quota swaps will be made available to us?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend’s constituency is home to the UK’s fish processing industry, and tariff-free access will be important for some of those sectors. She asked two specific questions. The first was on the new £100 million fund that the Prime Minister announced. We are working on the details of that and will in the next month or two consult on how the fund should be allocated and used. Secondly, she asked about the issue of swaps. Those negotiations with the European Union and the trilateral with Norway and the European Union are about to commence. We envisage that, probably in the next couple of weeks, there would be a final conclusion on how we manage the North sea, and that would include swapping arrangements.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): We are working closely with the industry and DFDS to identify what we can do to address some of the problems that have been encountered. I am aware that late last week, DFDS suspended the groupage service that it was offering to smaller consignments and has focused on single larger consignments, particularly of Scottish salmon. I understand that it believes it has sorted out some of those problems and intends next week to resume some of those groupage consignments. There is a challenge here: in a group of several consignments, maybe three people would have got the paperwork right, but if one person has not, that can cause issues for everybody. We need people to pay attention to the detail and to get that paperwork right. We are working closely with the industry so that it can acclimatise itself to this administrative process.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): The key thing is to get this process working more smoothly, and that requires traders to familiarise themselves with it. I have also spoken to fish operators in my constituency, which is in that part of the world. Those who have experience of exporting more widely around the world, including to the far east, are quite familiar with these processes and are coping with them, but for those businesses for which this is new, it will take time to get used to the paperwork.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Environment
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Joy Inboden Morrissey (Conservative, Centre-right): Pulse trawling, which uses electrical signals to drive flatfish such as sole from the seabed into nets, is highly controversial and damaging to our marine environment. Many in Marlow and Beaconsfield have written to me about how we can protect our marine environment moving forward. Therefore, can my right hon. Friend confirm that, with the end of the transition period at the beginning of this month, we have seen the last of this practice in UK waters?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Theresa Anne Villiers (Conservative, Centre-right): While some of the benefits of leaving the CFP are going to be postponed for five and a half years, can the Secretary of State set out what action he is taking right now, with the powers that we do have, to benefit both the marine environment and the under-10 metre fishing fleet?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Environment
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend raises an important point, which is that while we have reached a quota sharing and access agreement for five and a half years, we do have the freedom to set our own regulations. We have already banned pulse trawling, and we are consulting on and will soon be bringing forward measures to further protect the Dogger Bank. We will continue to look for opportunities to use technical measures to enhance conservation in our waters.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): Catching fish is one thing; landing and processing fish is quite another. If we are to be even more ambitious in five and a half years’ time and catch even more fish, what are the Government going to do in the next five and a half years to develop our fish processing industry?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and that is why the Prime Minister has announced this new £100 million fund, which will support the infrastructure at ports to cope with a growing share of the catch. We will also look at supporting processing as well, so that we can add value to the fish we catch.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not agree with that. As I said earlier, we do recognise that fishermen would have liked a larger uplift, and we absolutely recognise that throughout the negotiation we were arguing for a move to a share that was closer to zonal attachment, but this does represent a significant step in the right direction, with a 25% loss of what the EU currently catches in our waters, and that will bring additional fishing opportunities to our own sector.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): The bureaucracy that we are having to fill in is obviously designed by the European Union, and in some cases, on many export health certificates, the form is a generic World Trade Organisation form that has not had a great deal of thought given to it. We think the paperwork could be improved, but we would need the EU to agree to engage with that. For now we have to work with the paperwork that it designates. It is EU bureaucracy, but we are working closely with European countries to get a better understanding of what is required.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): We have made clear that the existing entitlements that people would have had under relative stability will continue to be issued under the legacy FQA units approach, but when we get additional fishing opportunities, we want to be able to allocate those in a different way. We are working closely with all UK Administrations on a fairer sharing arrangement, and we recognise the particular issues in the Irish sea. We are conscious of that, and we are working closely with the Northern Ireland Executive on getting a fair arrangement.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Douglas Gordon Ross (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been contacted by many fishermen from Moray and across Scotland who are raising their serious concerns and frustrations about the current situation, both here with the Scottish Government element at Larkhall, and because of the losses they are currently experiencing. One local skipper, Liam Gray from Buckie, agreed that I could share his returns from this week. He is averaging £30 a box for the fish he is landing, and £47 a box for the prawns. That is half of what he needs to cover his costs. Will the Secretary of State outline the discussions that he is having with the Scottish Government about the problems at Larkhall, and about the compensation scheme that is clearly needed by fishermen right across the country?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Virginia Ann Crosbie (Conservative, Centre-right): Prior to our departure from the EU, 90% of Welsh shellfish exports were sent to the EU. Since the new customs system has been in place, The Lobster Pot, a family business on Ynys Môn, has had its imports arrive dead so that they cannot be used, and another, Menai Oysters, has decided to stop exporting until this problem is resolved. Can the Secretary of State please confirm to my Ynys Môn businesses what he is doing to speed up customs procedures and when they can expect to be able to securely export live shellfish?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Transportation
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): I can assure my hon. Friend that we are working daily with industry to identify specific granular problems that are presenting themselves and then working with authorities in France to ensure that there is a common understanding of what is required so that we can speed up the passage of these goods.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): We are having roundtable discussions with the industry formally twice a week and are in conversation with it daily. We have helplines set up at the Animal and Plant Health Agency in Carlisle to tackle any of the technical issues that vets might have. We also have meetings with colleagues in this House to take on board any of the individual issues that they are receiving. I make this offer to any Member of this House who has a constituent bringing up a specific issue: do feed that back to us so that we can address the problems.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): It is certainly not a no-deal Brexit. There is a free trade and co-operation agreement that means that we have tariff-free trade in goods, including in shellfish. One of the key asks of the shellfish sector was that we sought to get a free trade agreement without tariffs. I regularly meet Lesley Griffiths, who attends the sub-committee we have that looks at some of the teething issues at the border, and we are in regular contact with her about the particular challenges in Wales.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): Clearly the fishing fleet in the United Kingdom has been suppressed for the past 48 years, and as we come out and set our own policies, it will take time to develop the fishing fleets and, indeed, the fish processing centres. Will my right hon. Friend set out what the Government plan to do to ensure that our fishing fleet and fish processing centres are built up so that we can take full advantage of the fish in our waters?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): There will be new opportunities with the uplift in quota that we are getting, but also the new requirements that we are bringing in to require vessels to land a greater proportion of their catch into the UK. The new £100 million fund announced by the Prime Minister will indeed go towards supporting that increased capacity at ports and in processing.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): We are working with the industry daily to identify the specific challenges that they are encountering, such as individual examples of why the French may have raised a query on an export health certificate. We are trying to deal with that and iron out that problem.
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: Agriculture
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Scott Lloyd Benton (Conservative, Centre-right): UK fishermen are understandably frustrated by the current situation at the borders. Can my right hon. Friend therefore update the House on what discussions he has had with our European neighbours, since the end of the transition period, to tackle the issue?
EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2021-01-14
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the consequences of the EU trade and co-operation agreement as it applies to the fishing industry.
Charles George Eustice (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raises an important point, because many of the problems we have are often down to different interpretations of the official control regime in different countries, with Ireland, the Netherlands and France in some cases having different views on what is required. We are working very closely with them. We met Irish counterparts on Friday. We met French officials on Tuesday and have further meetings planned with them, and we met Dutch officials yesterday.