In the House... Common Fisheries Policy 06 Dec 2001

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): With regard to the proposals from the Commission, has my hon. Friend been able to determine what level of consultation will take place in our fishing communities around the coast--the key stakeholders that he mentioned earlier? Such consultation would enable our fishing communities to feel that proper account had been taken of their feelings in relation to the Commission's proposals.

Mr. Morley: I know that my hon. Friend has been very much involved in this process, and that he is anxious to ensure that the views of the industry are fed through. He will be pleased to know that a series of seminars and conferences has been held around the country, to allow fishermen to express their views on the common fisheries policy and the post-2002 reforms. The industry has been very active in that process, and has made a range of proposals. The joint document produced by the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations and the Scottish Fishermen's Federation was extremely well argued, and it is clear from the Green Paper that it strongly influenced the way in which the Commission was thinking. That is a good example of the way in which the industry can feed through its ideas.

On decommissioning, one of the key problems faced by the fishing industry is the imbalance between the size of the fleet and the stocks available to it, as was mentioned earlier. To help the industry to address the problem, we have introduced a £6 million decommissioning scheme in England, which, taken with the schemes run by the devolved Administrations, means that £36 million worth of public funds have been made available to the industry this year for decommissioning.

While decommissioning has an important role, it should be seen as only one tool. The downside to decommissioning is that it takes vessels out of the fleet, which has an impact on regional ports. So, although there is an important role for decommissioning, we should not regard it as the only fisheries conservation management tool. It is one of a range of measures that we need to introduce. There is, however, no doubt that taking some of the capacity out of the UK fleet helps the viability of those who remain in it.

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2.58 pm

Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton): I also welcome the debate, although I do not know how many fishing debates the Under-Secretary has introduced and wound up. He seems to have been fisheries spokesman man and boy, in opposition and in government. He probably feels that way too.

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): : Will the hon. Lady give way? Mrs. Winterton: I am delighted to give way so early in my speech.

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): : I thank the hon. Lady. Perhaps I may offer some information. During a search on a website, I asked that very question and the answer is 191.

Mrs. Winterton: I am grateful for the information.

5.39 pm

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): : I congratulate the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). As I come from the community of Scarborough and Whitby, I can appreciate that he has a complete grasp of the strong wishes of his community in respect of the fisheries debate. I welcome him to this debate, and hope that he will make speeches in many such debates in the future.

We experienced a sense of deja vu during the contribution of the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen). I am sorry that he is no longer in his place. In fact, it was not so much deja vu; his approach to this annual debate was more like "Groundhog Day". Obviously, I am sure that all hon. Members were pleased to hear that he had flown back specially from New York to make his contribution, but I had a feeling that I had heard his speech many times before.

Unlike many of the other hon. Members who have spoken, I feel that the agenda is moving forward. I commend to the Minister the contributions made by my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) and for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), and I commend them for the fact that the agenda is moving on.

Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman does a disservice to the one Tory Member who has been here for most of the debate. I have listened to many speeches made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), and the one that he made today was the most practical, most up to date and most open minded that I have ever heard him make. I think that he is changing his mind.

Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby): : I bow the hon. Gentleman's wisdom on the issue, but from my perspective, having replaced a similarly minded gentleman in the Scarborough and Whitby constituency in 1997, it certainly sounded like "Groundhog Day". For those who are not aware of that movie, the point is that when the principal character wakes up in the morning he has forgotten what he learned the day before. He finally gets there, but it takes a long time. Surely if the Conservative Benches are to be filled in future annual fisheries debates, they have a long way to go and many more groundhog days before them.

I regret that, once again, the editorial line taken in today's Yorkshire Post --the principal newspaper in Yorkshire and the Humber region--involves a sense of "Groundhog Day". I hope that the Minister will have an opportunity to read that article if he has not already done so. The headline is "Fishermen fear scrap heap in quota cuts". I recall seeing that headline as a preface to the debates that we had last year, the year before and the one before that. In any case, I suggest that the media need to play their part in the wider national debate on the economic, environmental and socio-economic issues that are important to the fishing communities. They need to get down to the quayside more often.

I commend my hon. Friend the Minister for visiting my constituency on numerous occasions in recent years. He has met my constituents, who rely on the industry for their incomes. He has listened to them and engaged with them, and he goes from strength to strength in their minds, especially given his record of representing the industry, which is very important to my constituency and many coastal communities around the country.

On most of the visits that my hon. Friend has made to my constituency he will have met Mr. Arnold Locker--a well-known fisherman in Whitby, the principal fishing port in my constituency. I am glad to say that he is now the NFFO's chairman-elect. I very much look forward to receiving the national briefings that he may send to those of us in the all-party fisheries group next year. I hope that Arnold will take the time to come to London to help to brief us for next year's annual fisheries debate, and I hope to see him then.

Like many fishermen, Arnold Locker is very good at communicating verbally. Having previously heard from Arnold an awful lot, I was very pleased that he has now put pen to paper. He has written a very interesting article in the current edition of NFFO news, which is an important newspaper for the industry. In many respects, Arnold's "View from the wheelhouse", as it is called, reflects the current opinion, which may be dangerous to my hon. Friend, that the great esteem in which he is held in Scarborough and Whitby and other fishing communities may be affected and that the choppy seas that he may face in the negotiations may be even rougher than any of us had previously thought.

Arnold Locker's article is entitled "Why the cod plan must be scrapped" and it conveys the message that I have heard on the quayside. Fishermen in Whitby are suspicious of the Commission because, as the Minister said, its recovery plan for the North sea chooses to ignore key parts of the science.

Arnold writes:

"It is ludicrous that this cod recovery plan is still going ahead at a rate of knots despite the fact that we don't know why there is no cod in our part of the North Sea. It seems unlikely that overfishing is the reason, given the fact that the fleet in Yorkshire and Humberside has been reduced by about 80 per cent. in recent years. The real reason is probably due to global warming, which is well illustrated by the good catches of red mullet our boats are now getting. This is further backed-up by catch statistics . . . which reveal that cod catches are much higher in the northern North Sea compared with areas off the English coast."

"Nobody seems to care. It also seems crazy that our Yorkshire boats, ranging from 200 to 480hp and with a small bollard pull, have to work to the same mesh size regulations as much bigger 2,000hp stern trawlers. Conservation policy, or the lack of it, means that the whole industry is on a roller-coaster at the moment. We need to get some sense into everything and the first step should be a far-reaching investigation into conservation policy. And until that is done, the pointless cod recovery plan should be shelved".

If the science is ignored, short-term damage will be done to the delicate relationship between the quayside, the scientists and this place. Furthermore, longer-term damage might be done to a conservation programme that fishermen and key stakeholders can buy into. The problem is not just the short-term one of quotas, but the long-term credibility of the Minister and this place when we talk about the national interest.

People on the quayside have asked me to raise several other specific questions in the debate. If the Minister does not have time to respond in his closing remarks, I hope that he will be able to write to me.

Does my hon. Friend accept that effort control in the form proposed by the Commission for the recovery plan will be both brutal in effect and uncertain in its benefits? Does he accept that the short-term losses associated with the North sea mesh size increase to 120 mm will be crippling for the industry? Does he accept that there is manifest agreement for public investment in recovery measures that will allow the fishing industry to rebuild its stocks to optimum levels? I stress to my hon. Friend that many Whitby fishermen have benefited more from the recovery package in Scotland than from the English scheme. Those fishermen are sceptical about what the public purse is managing to achieve.

Access to the North sea--my hon. Friend has heard us get on this old hobby horse many times before--is pertinent to the debate in which he will engage in Brussels in the next week or so. What steps will the Government take to ensure that Spanish access to the North sea from 2003 will not result in a by-catch of quota species and an overall increase in the fishing effort?

Other hon. Members mentioned industrial fishing. Every fisherman finds it abhorrent that Denmark and other north European countries can still use industrial fishing for non-human consumption purposes. Will he ensure that he is seen to press for that to change?

On a local issue, a few salmon netsmen still fish out of the River Esk. My hon. Friend is aware that there is great concern about how long it is taking to conclude the negotiations on a compensation package to buy out the netsmen's licences. Obviously a tendering process is going on and I would appreciate it if he referred to the conclusion of that delicate negotiation.

I wish my hon. Friend well on behalf of the fishing communities of Scarborough and Whitby. I hope that he comes back with a headline settlement that is far better than the bleak prospect that we currently face, and that the next time he visits my constituency he is held in the same regard.

Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO