Recreational Sea Bass Fishing — House of Commons, 2016-02-11
Topic: Agriculture
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): Cheshire is not known for its coastal communities, largely because it has none. However, it does have some very keen recreational fishermen. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) who said that the policy is crazy and that it is absolutely insane to criminalise recreational anglers for removing one or two fish from the sea while allowing commercial fisheries to behave in the way that has been described. It simply does not make sense. Speaking as someone who comes from the other side of the European debate to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, I can say that this is exactly the kind of insane EU policy making that discredits the whole European Union I was slightly surprised by the sentiments expressed by the hon. Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), as of course there is a large degree of subsidiarity involved here whereby both the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament have an ability to regulate their inshore fleet, to designate their own conservation zones and to apply their own conservation criteria. If those communities do not agree with the policy, the decision making over the inshore fleet is devolved, and, effectively, changes can be made The answer to this is not simply to leave the EU, because the reality is that there are many treaties between EU and non-EU countries that regulate the fisheries but that are not in the common fisheries policy. Those pre-existing treaties are one reason why the CFP has historically failed over so many years. They have caused many, many problems and undermined attempts at an EU level to try to resolve things. I have, however, considerable sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) who talked about French boats landing three times the amount of haddock as her local fleet. It is a real problem and it is inherently unfair. It just seems to me that this whole area needs to be looked at again The real point is that if we do not protect sea bass, we will not have any fish to fish. ICES said that, on a scientific basis, no more than 541 tonnes of sea bass should be fished in the central and south North sea, Irish sea, English channel, Bristol channel and the Celtic sea. In the past year alone, the UK has landed 1,000 tonnes. That seems wrong We need to consider the time that it takes for sea bass to mature. It takes from four to seven years for them to reach a size to spawn. If the UK is landing virtually double the tonnage that has been recommended on a scientific basis for the whole region, is it any wonder that we are in crisis? If there is that opportunity for recreational angling to reinvigorate coastal communities in a different way and to boost tourism and provide that extra pound that circulates in the local economy with all the benefit that that brings, surely we need to look first at line-caught sea bass, rather than allowing netting or drift fisheries. The common fisheries policy causes a great credibility gap for the EU. My recreational anglers in Eddisbury see that hypocrisy and do not like being criminalised.