Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Lansley

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 9. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once, and that short questions for elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or any other amendment in the group to a Division should make that clear in debate.

[Lord Lansley]

My Lords, I want first to say a warm thank-you to my noble friend the Minister and officials in his department for the very constructive discussions we have had on this issue following the debate in Committee. However, I want to recall that debate, because it makes the point forcefully as to why we now have these amendments before us. We reached Clause 25 of the Bill in Committee and realised that we were debating what appeared to be a very straightforward architecture of the Bill, with a structure that perhaps I oversimplify but would characterise as: there are fisheries objectives and it is the job of the policy authorities to get together and to publish statements showing how they propose to implement those objectives, which then gives rise to fisheries management plans. The legislation makes it clear that, where they are using their powers, the fisheries policy authorities should do so by reference to the joint fisheries statements.

That all seemed very clear, and then suddenly we were presented with this central activity, the distribution of fishing opportunities, along with the distribution of catch quota and effort quota, which are central activities. It became obvious that we were not doing this by reference to the structure of the new UK legal framework, but by reference to Article 17 of the common fisheries policy. Quite understandably noble Lords, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, asked, “Why are we doing that? I thought that the point was not to be within the confines of Article 17 of the common fisheries policy.”

Indeed, when one looks at it, in future, now that we have left the European Union, we would expect to have two—arguably we will have three, but let us leave it at two—sources of UK law, one of which is retained EU law. So we are not escaping entirely from that, but in the context of the Bill before us, with a new legal framework and an architecture for the UK fisheries regime, it seemed perfectly possible, in the light of that discussion, to have a structure for the Bill that no longer proceeded in this central aspect by reference to Article 17 of the common fisheries policy.

When noble Lords look to Amendment 28, they will see that it effectively rewrites and relocates the distribution of fishing opportunities into UK law. It does not do so using new criteria. There are still transparent and objective criteria that use exactly the same language that is present in the current Article 17 including, of course—which is important—reference to historic catch levels. That is because, among other things, the Government’s commitment has been to ensure that those who are presently in receipt of fixed quota allocation units should continue to benefit from them in the same way in the future. Where new quota is accessible, that of course offers new opportunities.

That being the case, after discussion with Ministers and in the format I have arrived at, we now have a simple way of restating and relocating the distribution of fishing opportunities into UK law in UK terms. That removes all the risks that we would otherwise be talking about, such as the interpretation of retained EU law. It removes the risk that Article 17 could change at some point in the future without any reference to us, so that people would become confused about the relationship between the new Article 17 and our old Article 17, along with any other confusion that would arise in any case when one does not set out one’s intention on the face of the Bill.

That brings me to Amendment 9, which of course leads the group. Now that we have relocated the distribution of fishing opportunities into UK law, it should be fitted into the architecture of the Bill. The logical place for that is in the joint fisheries statement, and that is what this amendment would do. So not only is Amendment 9 about the achievement of the fisheries objectives but in addition to that, not in conflict with it, it would incorporate the way in which the fisheries policy authorities will be distributing fishing opportunities and it would create—as we will come on to discuss a little more in a later group—the ability for the co-ordination and consistency of the quota allocation to be set out in the joint fisheries statements.

I am encouraged that Ministers are forward-thinking enough to have seen fit to incorporate, although they are in a subsequent group, the group of government amendments, Amendments 39, 40, 42 and 43 and part of Amendment 55, which give effect to the relocation into UK statute of what is going to be the new Clause 25 if Amendment 28 is passed. That of course includes—I end with this thought—the immortal sentence in the new proposed Schedule 10 in Amendment 55: “Article 17 ... is revoked.” I beg to move.