Common Fisheries Policy (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-26
Topic: Agriculture
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her introduction to these three SIs, and for the courtesy of meeting us, with her officials, beforehand. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. As has been said, these SIs are of vital importance to the future of the UK fishing industry. We need something of this kind because we need to understand the arrangements that will be in place on day one. If we do have a no-deal exit—I echo the view of noble Lords who have said that it is very much to be avoided and regretted—then we cannot afford to be in a situation where people on the high seas are allowed to do their own things and are not regulated at all, which may otherwise be the point. Therefore, we do need some rules about all of this The EU withdrawal Act set out that, in SIs of this kind, there should be only the technical details that are necessary to ensure continuity with the previous EU rules and requirements. At this point, we should just be trying to mirror, as far as we can, the existing EU rules, accepting that more fundamental changes should be matters for another day, when we are able to give the proposals deeper scrutiny and talk about the wider issues that noble Lords have, quite rightly, raised today. We have a major concern that these proposed SIs go way beyond the withdrawal Act remit—an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and others. In a number of areas, the SIs anticipate further changes that the Government expect to make to fisheries legislation, based on the fisheries White Paper and the Fisheries Bill currently being considered in the Commons. They also anticipate that the oversight and enforcement functions will be absorbed by the new environmental watchdog, proposals for which are set out in the draft environment Bill, which is not even expected to be published in its final form until the next parliamentary Session. These assumptions were confirmed in the letter sent by Defra to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which had raised issues about these points This really is not good enough. While I understand that the drafters of these SIs do not always have UK institutions comparable to those of the EU, they have an obligation in these EU exit SIs to match the existing powers, functions and responsibilities in the relevant EU legislation, and to match, as far as they can, the powers that exist in EU institutions. These SIs fail to do that. It cannot simply be assumed that the Fisheries Bill, which we have never considered in your Lordships’ House, and the outcome of which we do not know, will provide the answers. It may also be that, when we get to the Fisheries Bill, we will have the opportunity to debate discards, the trawling of the seas and so on. Those are, quite rightly, issues for another day. What we have before us now should not be a precursor to the Fisheries Bill but, as far as possible, what we have under the current EU arrangements. That is not what we have in this SI. I hope the Minister can address these concerns in her response On the specifics contained in these SIs, the SIs remove the functions in the common fisheries policy that are currently overseen by the European Commission—for example, obligations to provide assessments and reports to the European Commission, including the provision of data on stock quantities and the reporting of certain catches against gear type. They also fail to replicate the Commission’s enforcement functions, which will limit the powers of the future office for environmental protection, since the functions would already have been removed from these SIs and would no longer exist in UK law. This would make it very difficult for a future office for environmental protection to take those powers on, as those would be powers that it was not already expected to enforce. As currently drafted, there is a real problem in these SIs concerning the lack of oversight and enforcement. Does the Minister accept that they fail to replicate the European Commission's functions in full? Can she explain how the department intends to rectify that omission The regulations in the first SI also remove the obligation on member states to carry out certain inspections and take action on certain infringements—including the establishment of effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties. The regulations in the second SI remove the requirement to update the list of illegal fishing vessels every three months. I just give those as examples. Is the Minister concerned that these omissions send the wrong signal to fishers who—occasionally—seek to flout the rules, and that more steps need to be taken to emphasise to those fishers that they will be dealt with under an enforcement regime on a par with that of the EU from day one? It is important that the noble Baroness clarifies the position on that matter I now turn to the issue of the replacements for the European Fisheries Control Agency and the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries. There is no apparent substitute for the important role that the EFCA plays in the co-ordination of inspection facilities at European and international levels. This whole issue of co-ordination was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who quite rightly made the point that, whatever we do, there will be a need for a continuing common policy. He is absolutely right on that. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was also right in saying that if we do not get that right from day one, if there is any room for misinterpretation or obfuscation on that whole issue, then there will be a real danger of conflicts on the high seas. We need to have a continuing liaison with our European counterparts to ensure that we know where we are from day one, and to ensure that everybody understands the rules. What arrangements have been made to retain third-party status and to continue to share information about the implementation of rules and standards at UK level? We need to ensure that we have some security and clarity for the fishers as well as continued conservation, which a number of noble Lords quite rightly raised as an important priority The regulations in the first SI also remove the ability of member states to share vessel monitoring system data with other member states when a vessel is fishing in that other member state’s waters. This could lead to overfishing, so sharing access to that data is crucial. What arrangements are being made to maintain the maximum co-operation on data sharing with other countries, and indeed with the EU?