Fisheries (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-06
Topic: Agriculture
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the instrument before your Lordships makes minor, technical amendments to primary and secondary domestic legislation in order to make domestic fisheries legislation operable, as part of having a working statute book after exiting the EU. There are no changes to policy made by this instrument; it makes the necessary corrections to ensure that our domestic fisheries law remains fully functional after we leave the EU Section 2.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum sets out the three pieces of primary legislation and 10 pieces of secondary legislation amended by this instrument. The amendments are laid out in detail in Annexe B of the Explanatory Memorandum and they fall into four main categories. There are, for instance, references to "an enforceable EU obligation" and "enforceable EU restrictions". These are amended to "a retained EU obligation" or "retained EU restrictions" to ensure that these remain operable as part of retained EU law. For example, Section 30 of the Fisheries Act 1981 concerns the enforcement of EU rules relating to sea fishing. Amendments to Section 30 change references to, "enforceable Community or EU obligations and restrictions", to, "retained EU obligations and restrictions", to ensure continued operability of these provisions on exit There is then a further category: provisions that will be redundant or inoperable in UK law after EU exit. For example, Schedule 4(5) of the Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Regulations 1993 refers to an "EC Number" in the list of details to be recorded in the register of British fishing vessels—this has been removed. Likewise, a reference to euros has been converted to pounds sterling in the Fish Labelling Regulations 2013 The third category has references to "member state or third country" which are replaced with just "third country" because, in this context, member states will be categorised as third countries when we exit. For example, Article 3 of The Sea Fishing (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing) Order 2009 defines "third country fishing vessel" as, "a fishing vessel which is not a Community fishing vessel" This has been amended to a fishing vessel which is not, "a United Kingdom fishing vessel" Fourthly, cross-references to EU regulations are amended to bring them into line with technical amendments made to directly applicable EU regulations by other SIs. For example, in the Fish Labelling Regulations 2013, the designation of the Secretary of State to draw up and publish the list of commercial designations of fish species has been deleted because this is now provided for in Council regulation (EC) 1379/2013, as amended by a forthcoming common fisheries policy SI. This is a consequential amendment arising from the amendments made by that SI to avoid duplication of the same provision in two different pieces of legislation. Without this instrument, these 13 key pieces of domestic legislation would no longer operate effectively as part of the statute book after exit, so we would be unable to regulate these areas of UK fisheries This SI has been developed and drafted in close co-operation with the devolved Administrations, reflecting the devolution settlements. The amendments made by this instrument mainly extend and apply to the United Kingdom, with some exceptions, so each of the devolved Administrations was heavily involved in developing the approach. In that regard, I refer your Lordships to paragraph 4 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which sets out the extent and application of each piece of legislation. As I said, this is about technicality and operability. I beg to move.