| Lawrie Quinn | Fisheries [2 Dec 2004] |
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Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): I thank the hon. Gentleman for the courtesy of advising me that he was going to visit Scarborough and Whitby. I hope that he enjoyed his fish and chips in the restaurant of the vice-chairman of the Tory party in Scarborough. Has he embarked on any discussions with the land-locked or Mediterranean nations that he has just listed about applying the Conservative party's policy should it win the next general election?
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con): I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments about my visit to his constituency. It was a good visit and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We have a very fine candidate in Mr. Robert Goodwill, as he will find out when the election comes, and the fish and chips were indeed excellent.
The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is no; I have concentrated my efforts on going to fishing countries, as I am about to explain. I have been to places such as the Faroes, Iceland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England, where successful fisheries are run because there is national and local control.
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Lawrie Quinn: I want to bring the hon. Gentleman back to the issue of withdrawal from the common fisheries policy -
Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab): Boring.
Lawrie Quinn: It is not boring - it is very important to my constituents, and to those of my hon. Friend. I repeat the question that the hon. Gentleman was politely asked by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George): what will be the cost to the nation of withdrawal? If he cannot tell us now, when will the Conservatives be able to advise my constituents, and the nation, of that cost?
Mr. Paterson: I do not go along with the contention that it will be an immensely acrimonious negotiation.
Lawrie Quinn: What will be the cost?
Mr. Paterson: I have not worked out the cost. I think that there will be gains for those countries that participate in our waters. As I said, at present they are being offered a declining proportion of a declining resource. I know that we can grow our biomass, grow the resource and grow our catches again if we follow modern, intelligent techniques, as employed in the Faroes, Iceland, and Norway, where I was on Monday and Tuesday this week. They have successful fisheries because they have national and local control. We would welcome foreign participation on the basis of historic rights; there will therefore be a gain for those fisheries. I refer again to the Falklands, where the Spanish are major players - they are the largest investors and have the largest market in Vigo bay for Falklands squid. It has worked extremely well for them, but only since they established national control in 1986.
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Lawrie Quinn: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that, probably two years ago, we had a very useful and encouraging debate in a European Standing Committee? Members representing fishing communities were better able to scrutinise the outcome of European talks. Is not that format, which allows for debate and a vote on a motion, the best for allowing us to discuss the meat of the decisions that will probably be made?
Mr. Salmond: Like the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), I have been at every fisheries debate on every occasion, stretching back for many years, and I remember that debate - precisely because I noted that the Minister disparaged the common fisheries policy and said how much he disagreed with it. I think he will find that on the record; I do not see him demurring. It was a useful debate, and of course, he opposed the policy only in a pragmatic sense in that Committee. None the less, he was right to do so. I shall remind the House what is wrong with a policy that has served us so badly over the past 30 years or so.
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Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). Normally in these debates I resist the temptation to take up the full time allowed to me and I often give up one or two minutes to him, so I am pleased that he has been able to make a full contribution today. We are continuing in a good tradition, as the penultimate and ultimate speakers before the ministerial response.
The hon. Gentleman is a great champion of his fishing community. I respect him for that, as do many people in my part of the fishing community. I associate myself wholly with his closing remarks and his best wishes to the Minister.
I shall outline briefly three issues that I should like the Minister to consider in his work at the forthcoming ministerial Council, but first I want to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) about fishermen's missions. I am sure that everyone in the House would want to pay tribute, too, to the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which is a solid part of the fishing community, many of whom belong to the RNLI and go out to help members of not only their local community but the wider maritime community. They do tremendous work on a voluntary basis.
I want to single out my hon. Friend from down the coast, the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), for his chairmanship of the all-party fisheries group, which is persuaded to do many things. Recently, we heard the Canadian fisheries Minister and only this morning we received extremely good briefings from fishermen's organisations. Regrettably, however, we have never had the opportunity to listen to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), so I hope that when the Conservative party publishes its green paper - with costs, we hope - the group can have a friendly, comradely dialogue with him, to follow the good work done by my hon. Friend the Minister and, in the past, by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), now the Minister for the Environment and Agri-environment, to engage not only with us in a parliamentary sense but also with the key stakeholders who represent the community.
Over the past year, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby has had a marked effect on the all-party group and has persuaded us to do many things to promote fish and the fishing industry. I do not know whether to say that I am glad or sad that a few months ago we were invited to enter a competition to display our culinary skills as part of a wonderful week for the promotion of sea fish. Regrettably, we came last, although my hon. Friend produced a remarkable concoction as a celebration of our right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: Coley à la Prescott.
Lawrie Quinn: Exactly. Unfortunately, the dish failed to attract anybody's attention.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister on the work that he has done for the Yorkshire and Humber region through the establishment of regional development agencies. I know that they do not find favour with the hon. Member for North Shropshire, but the RDA has undertaken some excellent work in my area to engage with the future of our Yorkshire coastal communities. If time allows, I might be able to inform the House and the Minister about that important work.
If the Minister does not know about such work, perhaps he will undertake a review of the work that RDAs are doing on the coast of England to promote partnership and opportunities for fishing communities in terms of investment and improvements in training and marketing. That relates to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster), who told us of the £4.5 million investment in a new fish quay in his constituency. Such work is taking place slowly but surely around England to bring investment for important parts of the fishing community. For example, in respect of shellfish, in Whitby in my constituency, we were able to go ahead with marketing the velvet crab. Mortality rates for the species are better and it is now a viable product, with a new market in that important part of the fishing community.
My hon. Friend the Minister will be well aware that, in July, the EU was able to propose a new European fisheries fund, the EFF, which from 2007 will replace the current financial instrument for fisheries guidance, which runs until the end of 2006. I understand that the proposal will go before the Council of Ministers, which must adopt it for it to come into effect, following consultation with the European Parliament. I assume that that measure must be considered by the House, given the national parliamentary obligations. I hope that that will be the springboard by which the Minister, along with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, might consider formulating a debate that would allow all hon. Members a better attempt at scrutinising the decisions made at that European Council.
It is my belief that the parliamentary scrutiny format represents a far better way for the representatives of fisheries communities from around the coast to achieve closer scrutiny. I am glad that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) also remembered an occasion that may have been the first outing - if that is not the wrong term to use - for the Fisheries Minister in the context of our debate. I hope that the Minister will consider bringing the outcomes for the EFF to the relevant Committee so that we can all engage in the debate and consider in detail the wider consequences of the work that he will do in Brussels in the very near future.
I should like to return to a subject that is almost a tradition in such debates, and I am somewhat surprised that it does not seem to have had the type of airing that we would normally hear in the annual fisheries debate. I refer, of course, to industrial fisheries. As all hon. Members will know, the simple fact is that the Danish fleet dominates the sand eel fishery. I understand that, because of the poor state of the stock in 2003-04, the Danish fleet massively undershot its quota for this year and last year. In 2004, Denmark's quota for the North sea was 727,472 tonnes out of a TAC for EU member states, Norway and the Faroes of just over 800,000 tonnes - a massive slice of the allowed quota. I understand that Denmark was able to catch only about 300,000 tonnes of that 700,000-plus tonne quota. Surely, given the debate that my hon. Friend will endeavour to have with his colleagues at the ministerial Council meeting, now is the time for us to deal with that issue and to ensure that the Danish quota is managed to an appropriate amount.
Mr. Carmichael: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the subject of industrial fishing - something that is having an impact on more than fish stocks. The seabird stocks around Shetland have been absolutely decimated this year, and there is no doubt in my mind at all that the blame lies at the door of the industrial fishery.
Lawrie Quinn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. Once again, he illustrates his knowledge of these issues. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan referred to the fact that the marine environment is complex. I was coming to that issue, which links with the points made by the Minister in his opening remarks and, indeed, by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye about the importance of tourism and other aspects of seaside life to the wider economy.
Just down the coast from Scarborough and Whitby, there is an excellent puffin colony at Bempton cliffs. If we have a third season at Bempton that is as bad as the last two, the breeding productivity of kittiwakes will prompt strong demands, not only from naturalists and environmentalists, but from the fishing communities, for a closure, probably from somewhere off the east coast of Scotland down to Northumberland. It is a serious problem, which has an impact on the complicated marine environment and ecology.
Mr. Paterson: An interesting Royal Society for the Protection of Birds study was recently published on the impact of such activity on sea bird populations. In addition, we need to recall that sand eels are a key food source for cod. Without getting too excited about our upcoming Green Paper, we will advocate drastic reductions in the practice of industrial fishing, even if not its elimination.
Lawrie Quinn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming that the Conservatives are seeing good sense on some issues.
In the short term, however, I want to take the opportunity to wish my hon. Friend the Minister well from all fishing communities in Yorkshire and Humber. He has an important job to do. I am sure that he goes to the Council with the support of Labour Members and the bulk of the support of hon. Members in the Chamber.
6.6 p.m.
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