UK Fishing Industry — House of Commons, 2016-12-01
Topic: Agriculture
Melanie Onn (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House has considered the future of the UK fishing industry I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate. The hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie) spoke alongside me before the Committee last month, and the hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) also put their names to the motion The debate has been an annual occurrence for some time, giving the Government an opportunity to hear MPs’ concerns and update them in advance of the December Council of Ministers. I thank the Committee for returning it to the main Chamber, as opposed to holding it in Westminster Hall, which unusually hosted it last year Giving the fishing industry such prominence in the European referendum reflects its importance. I can conclude only that our debate last year catapulted it to the front of people’s minds and made it central to the necessity to leave the EU. The only shame is that it was not given such high priority previously Many Members will know of my town’s history and of how big a role fishing played in it because I have spoken about it often. Although fishing has largely left Great Grimsby, the seafood industry continues to thrive. I take every opportunity to speak on the subject because fishing remains a big part of Great Grimsby’s identity The legacy of the post-cod wars industry demise still has victims, and the search for a solution to the Government’s failure properly to compensate fishermen who lost out on pensions because of maladministration remains on my radar for the widow of one such fisherman. The Great Grimsby Association of Fishermen and Trawlermen has been fighting for 40 years for justice for the fishermen of Great Grimsby. They are still fighting for James Greene, who sadly passed away this year having not received what I believe to be his full entitlement. The association continues to pursue the case on behalf of his widow. Will the Minister meet me and offer his assistance in the case? I appreciate that this is not the place for details, but for the ombudsman to insist that the compensation scheme will pay the maximum of £20,000 only to those who were at sea continuously for 52 weeks a year for 20 years is plainly nonsense. Given the experience of those fishermen of the original compensation scheme, and of the subsequent scheme to rectify the errors and oversights of the previous one, he will understand the association’s caution in accepting official agencies’ assessments The debate on the future of the UK fisheries industry is more pressing than usual owing to the decision that the country made in June to leave the European Union, which will surely have far-reaching consequences for the industry. As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said in our session in the Backbench Business Committee, fisheries may have more at stake than any other industry over the next few years of negotiations with Europe. Those in the fishing industry have been given reason to be hopeful about the future. During the referendum campaign, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) came to my constituency for a Vote Leave flotilla along the Humber, when he said: "If we leave the EU, we can help our industry recover, perhaps taking our cue from Iceland." The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said that Brexit would allow Britain to "re-establish national control for 200 nautical miles" Those promises were not made by campaigners who had no prospect of being in a position to follow them through. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden is now the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union; the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth remains as the Minister with responsibility for fisheries; and the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), another leading light in the Vote Leave campaign, is his boss as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They could not be better placed to implement what they pledged just a few short months ago It is therefore disappointing that we have heard nothing in five months from the Government on their plans for the industry. Neither the Brexit Secretary nor the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary made any mention of fisheries in their party conference speeches. For the Government to achieve what the leave campaign promised British fishermen, they need to put the industry at the top of their agenda. I wrote to both Secretaries of State before the summer recess asking them how they planned to deliver on their promises. The Minister who replied had no answers to the questions I asked, and gave me no assurance that the Government have thought about how they can secure what communities such as mine expect The fact is that, although it is very easy for leave campaigners to blame the EU for the decline of the fishing industry, their version of history is partial at best. The sharpest fall in the employment of fishermen came between 1948 and 1960, which was before Britain joined the European Economic Community. Iceland has lost more fishing jobs than Britain since the end of the cod wars; the number of those employed in the Icelandic fishing industry has halved since the 1980s.