Agriculture Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

I regret to introduce an element of discord, but I too find it hard to support the comments of my noble friend Lord Trenchard. I believe that there is cause to have training for this country’s local workers but I would extend that to migrant workers, to encourage them to stay and feel part of the wider agricultural family. I do not entirely agree with noble Lords who regret the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board. I will stand corrected if my noble friend says otherwise in his reply, but I understand that we are all now covered by the living wage, so there is no need for it. I would be interested to see how the themes of these amendments can be progressed.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who has done so much work on the Bill. She is an excellent contributor to the Select Committee that I chair, which deals with some of these areas. I declare a non-financial interest as an honorary associate of the British Veterinary Association.

The proposed new clause relates to a duty to sustain the UK’s agricultural industry workforce. Part of that workforce that has not yet been mentioned is the veterinary surgeons and operatives, who are so essential to the agricultural sector. We know what they do with domestic animals and in their normal work with farm animals, but they also certify and supervise the import and export of animals and animal products. As official veterinarians, they sign and countersign export health certificates and they control much of the sanitary and phytosanitary processes at our ports. They are essential to the United Kingdom’s biosecurity strategies. Approximately 25% of our veterinarians are EU or EEA citizens, and in the industrial and food supply chain sector, it is a much larger percentage: some 95% of our vets in abattoirs are from EU and EEA states. They perform essential roles in dealing with food fraud, animal welfare, public health and biosecurity.

At present, there is an estimated 10% shortage of people in the profession as a whole, so there is already a great challenge. However, at the end of this year, as we finish the transition stage of our exit from the European Union, there will be an even greater demand for this profession. They have to be at ports to check phytosanitary and sanitary procedures, not just at the borders between the UK and EU but, now, for imports into Northern Ireland as well. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, has done a lot of work on this, and on biosecurity. What are the Government doing to make sure that there is a suitable supply of veterinarians, given the risk that a number will go back to EU and EEA countries? It will be more difficult, thanks to bureaucracy and red tape, for veterinary practices and companies to bring vets into the country. Although I welcome the fact that vets are now on the shortage occupation list, when will the details of how that system will work be available to the sector?

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 218, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and other noble Lords. I declare my interests as a landowner and arable farmer.

At the time of the Second Reading of the Bill, there was a double-page government advert in the Mail on Sunday headlined: “Why there’s never been a better time to support our farmers and fishermen”.

It added:

“By buying local … you’ll be guaranteed to get the very best produce”.


However, the advert also said, revealingly:

“Another challenge for farmers has been getting enough people to harvest”


the vegetable and fruit crop. This can be fairly blamed, this year, on Covid-19, but the campaign to get local people to pick crops, to take the place of the EU pickers who normally do the job, does not seem to have gone very well. The Government have sensibly allowed foreign workers in this sector to be exempted from the quarantine rules. The fact remains that, as I understand it, from next year only 20,000 overseas workers will be allowed in the UK to do this work. The NFU says that 80,000 are needed.

My noble friend Lord Trenchard said that extra workers should be allowed in in the short term, but that automation will then solve the problem at the flick of a switch. I am far from being an expert on this subject, but I wonder whether automation could take place that quickly. It will certainly require time and a considerable amount of capital investment, which I hope will be aided by the ELM scheme. I therefore completely agree that Her Majesty’s Government should, as Amendment 218 states,

“lay before Parliament a strategy to ensure an appropriate supply of seasonal agricultural workers”.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

130: Clause 4, page 5, line 15, leave out “seven” and insert “five”

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I shall speak also to Amendment 142. Both these amendments relate to reducing the transition period for the introduction of ELMS from seven years to five years. I suspect that Members are probably not that keen on the idea at the moment, so for the next couple of minutes I intend to try to persuade them otherwise, because it is important that we reduce the transition period.

Members and indeed the country as a whole are aware of COP 26 this year which was supposed to take place in Glasgow concerning the climate change agreement and getting the Paris agreement carried forward in a positive way to meet our planetary carbon emissions targets, but many people are not so aware of a second major conference, COP 15, about the diversity convention. It was supposed to take place this year in Kunming, China but it has also been postponed until next year.

Biodiversity is a global crisis equal to climate change. Biodiversity is not just a problem of equatorial rainforests; it is a problem in Europe and here in the United Kingdom as well. The 2019 State of Nature report states that

“15% of species in the UK are now threatened by extinction,”

41% are in decline and a third remain effectively static, with only a small proportion gaining in number. Biodiversity is not just about bird spotters or twitchers and a comfortable feeling about nature, important though it is for our mental health and the energy of our countryside. It is also about supporting natural systems and allowing them to operate—ecosystem services such as pollination, soil formation, clean water, atmospheric oxygen, disease control and many more. All these are essential not only to the natural world around us but to our economic performance and indeed to our continued existence on this planet.

One of the great things that I have always praised in the Agriculture Bill is the idea not just of public money for public goods but that it should be concentrated on building up and improving biodiversity and nature in our countryside. That is important because about 70% of the land in England and across the UK is used in agriculture. However, I regret to say that it is because of agricultural management that biodiversity in this country has declined so significantly. I do not blame the farming industry and individual farmers for that, but I do blame the financial incentive system within which they have had to operate.

Why am I asking for the transition period to be reduced from seven to five years? It is because the biodiversity issue is a global crisis as well as one here in the United Kingdom. If we take no action and carry on with business as usual, economic systems will fail. At the end of seven years, we will be almost half way through the period of the 25-year environment plan, which I also welcome, although it must be properly financed and delivered.

It may sound trite, but I remind noble Lords that the Second World War lasted for a mere six years and we managed to overcome all the problems and challenges that affected us globally within that time. At the moment we are in a transition period, moving from being a member of the EU to our global position in just 11 months, with all the challenges that that poses, so surely we can manage to implement ELMS over five years rather than seven. I also remind noble Lords that, on nature depletion, the United Kingdom is not in a good position. We ranked 29th from the bottom out of 218 countries. That is why this issue is so important. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who is the illustrious chairman of our EU sub-committee. For the record, however, I would like the transition period to remain as it is.

I want to speak to Amendment 143, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for lending their support. It is a simple amendment, which would delay the start of the seven-year transition period away from direct payments coming into effect from 2021 to 2022. I should like to pause here to explain why this is necessary.

In seeking to delay the start of the transition period to the new policy framework to 2022, I accept that there is wide support across the House for the government objectives in the Bill to move towards a new framework of support for agriculture that focuses on public payments for public goods and increasing productivity. Much of the detail will be set out in supporting regulations and in the Environment Bill, of which we in this House have not yet had sight. However, the changes being envisaged will be the biggest in a generation and look set to be in place for many years to come.

I accept that we are leaving the European Union but note with regret that, in the four years since the vote in June 2016 signalled the beginning of a process of change, particularly in leaving the CAP, we have made very little progress in developing the necessary mechanisms, policies and schemes that would be worthy of the major changes that we are expecting in this Bill. I accept that much of this is down to the political impasse leading up to the last general election and, more recently, to the pressing issues around controlling Covid-19, which I am sure have affected Defra as they have many other departments.

It is essential that we take the time to introduce new schemes and measures that will stand the test of time, rather than simply bringing them in quickly for the sake of it. I fear that there is an overarching desire through the Bill to show that things have changed as a result of our departure from the European Union, rather than to ensure that we put in place good, made-for-purpose, fit-for-purpose, resilient schemes. Let us face it: our track record in delivering new schemes and new IT to support them is not that great.

Following the environmental land management scheme tests and trials, which themselves have been impacted by the issues surrounding Covid-19 and are ultimately delayed, the Government intend to conduct a pilot in England of a new ELM scheme in 2021, with a view to it being fully operational by 2024. However, if it is true that the Rural Payments Agency will be in charge of running these pilots—I hope that my noble friend can put my mind at rest on that—we have to question its capacity to run such a pilot when it is already struggling to deliver business as usual. Once again this year, the RPA has had to ask the Treasury for funding to bridge payments to environmental stewardship and countryside stewardship applicants before being penalised for failing to meet the required payment targets by 30 June this year. What reassurance can the Government provide that there is adequate capacity within the RPA to deliver the pilot, or does my noble friend think that another body would be more appropriate?

I also place a question mark on the extent to which the Government would be able to spend any money saved through the reductions in direct payments starting in 2021. I understand that Defra has identified this as a potential problem and is therefore looking to make an announcement in September about enhanced options for countryside stewardship and productivity schemes. However, we have none of the detail available to us today. In my view, the sensible thing is to delay the start of the transition period until 2022. That is not kicking the can down the road but giving the Government and Defra the time and space to deliver the good schemes that we know they are capable of, rather than producing half-baked schemes.

The reasons for this delay are these: we are being asked to take a lot on trust; we have not had sight of the Dimbleby food strategy, which I understand will not reach us before Report; we have not had the results of the trials of the ELM schemes; the OEP has yet to be set up; and we do not know what its relationship to the Environment Agency, Natural England and the RPA will be. We owe it to Defra to give it time, because of the Covid pandemic, to reach a proper conclusion to these schemes. I therefore ask the House to commit to supporting Amendment 143.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the Government have sought that flexibility in how we reduce the payments, as I say. Although we will make announcements on funding for the early years of agricultural transition, we have also provided that flexibility for unforeseen circumstances in which, for instance, we would need to extend the agricultural transition period.

We want to start in 2021 because this is a journey—to pick up some of the points at the beginning—about how we work with health and harmony. How do we ensure, working with farmers, that we produce very good food and enhance the environment? Of course, I take the point that we must get the system working well, but the prize in all this—public money going to support farmers in enhancing the environment—is a very desirable thing.

[Lord Teverson [V]]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for his support. We are not often on the same side of things and I very much appreciate his remarks and the considered remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and even the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who understand the biodiversity dimensions of this, even if they do not—[Inaudible.]

There is a real issue here. Funnily enough, I do not disagree with the view of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about pushing back the start one year, just to make sure we get this incredibly important issue for the nation right before we start. But I cannot believe it can take seven years for a nation such as ours to implement a new system; five years is far more acceptable for what we have to do. In fact, it seems the seven years that many advocate is going back to the mentality of the common agricultural policy and the European Union—that slo-mo mindset that we are trying to escape with this new scheme. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 130 withdrawn.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

I thank the Minister very much for her positive reaction to agroecology and agroforestry. However, one of the main themes of both those practices is whole-farm management. I am concerned that, under tier 1 of ELMS, there is the possibility of a number of environmentally friendly actions taking place but that this not being reflected in a whole-farm environment. Will Defra and the Government, particularly when they award tier 1 ELM schemes, look for a whole-farm approach rather than a bits-and-pieces application of environmentally friendly measures? That is my key concern. Whole-farm management has been a major theme all around the House. Would the ELM scheme mean that it would be applied across all the measures taken?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I thank the noble Lord for his question about whole-farm management. The ELM schemes are very much in trial stage; nothing has been ruled out or in. That will become clearer over the coming months.

I shall also take this opportunity to give the definition of agroecology that I was looking for earlier and floundering. Agroecology means different things to different people, but in this Bill it is based on applying ecological concepts and principles to optimise interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment, while taking into consideration the social aspects that need to be addressed for a sustainable and fair food system.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 29, I shall also speak to Amendment 217. Amendment 29 is relatively simple; I am looking for reassurance from the Minister that when we are setting out to enable ourselves to protect and improve the quality of the soil, we are including the animals, plants and fungi that live within it and, together, make it useful as a substrate for growing plants and as a foundation for the ecology of the land.

Soil is often considered to be just a collection of minerals. In school, you look at how much sand and mud there is in a sample. The things that live in it are generally too small to notice, except for the odd worm. I want to be clear that we are talking here about the health of the soil as an organism—a living thing, not just a collection of bits of rock.

Amendment 217 follows on from that in a much more substantial way and asks that we set up a national soil monitoring programme. It is agreed that our soil is not in as good health as we would like. Over recent decades, it has probably been deteriorating. If we are to change that, and look after it, and get ourselves back into the sort of situation we would like to be in, we need data and information. We need to know where we are now and watch, as the decades roll by, what progress we are making towards where we ought to be. To do that, you need a soil survey. It is not vastly difficult or expensive. You just lay out a grid of locations across the UK and take soil samples, measure them, preserve them and go back again a few years later. It is something that most developed countries do automatically; it is something that we used to do but gave up doing. But with all the ambitions in this Bill, and the fundamental importance of soil to most of those ambitions, it is something that we should do again. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I will speak to Amendments 40, 42, 84 and 97. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for their support for all or some of these amendments.

The amendments are about agroecology and agroforestry, two areas of agriculture that have become more and more prominent in understanding and importance, and that in many ways reflect some of the best agricultural practices over many years. I welcome the Government mentioning agroecology in the Bill, at the top of page three, but recognise that it is done in a way that defines “understanding the environment” and is in the Bill in relation to access to and enjoyment of the countryside, rather than necessarily as a technique for farm management. However, it is becoming more and more mainstream, and it would be very useful if the Bill were to recognise it specifically as an area of support under the financial regime we are talking about here.

Agroecology is primarily about whole-farm management in an environmental sense, particularly the conserving of natural resources, and not least soil fertility, which is much more prominent in our discussions these days. I welcomed Michael Gove, when he was Secretary of State at Defra, ensuring that this was prominent in the 25-year environmental plan, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about the importance of tracking the health of our soil. Agroecology is also about biodiversity. We have all sorts of challenges in biodiversity, not only worldwide but equally in this country, where it is very depleted. Crop diversity within agroecology is one way that we can boost biodiversity, particularly at a farm level.

Agroecology is also about balancing inputs and having lower inputs than we need at the moment. A low carbon footprint provides low pollution, thereby, we hope, helping human health. Low input does not necessarily mean low output; it means that we work in a much more intelligent way. I was very interested in the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, about how we could improve our output without increasing input.

Agroforestry is equally important. It is about not only forestry but combining agriculture and trees. Obviously, agroforestry has big pluses in terms of climate change, providing shade for livestock and some other crops. We sometimes forget that trees provide crops—not only the apple orchards that I have here in Cornwall, but also other fruits and nuts. It is also about soil improvement and, not least, natural water management, which is a key part of our adaptation plan in the climate change actions that we hope to undertake as a country as we move towards net zero in 2050.

Agroecology and agroforestry resonate very strongly with the nature recovery networks that we will consider when the Environment Bill finally comes to this House. Agroecology and agroforestry are not about replacing every other system in terms of these amendments and this Bill. We are looking for recognition that this is an important part of improving the environment and our countryside’s biodiversity, while having a type of farming that remains commercial. The financial changes would be a very important way of farmers moving from one form of agriculture to a better and less input-led form. The ELMS and financial changes taking place as a result of this Bill can really help the countryside, help farming and help biodiversity.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick [V]]

My Lords, this group of amendments deals specifically with the management and custodianship of the environment. I have added my name to some of them.

I believe in the principle of public money for public goods to achieve good soil health and biodiversity. To get to that stage we need to employ nature-friendly farming methods, agroecology and agroforestry. In that respect, I support Amendments 39 and 96 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, which clearly seek to put nature-friendly farming in the Bill and ensure that financial assistance is targeted at and supports nature-friendly farmers and land users who carry out nature-friendly farming practices on their land.

A considerable number of farmers throughout the UK now employ nature-friendly farming; there are many of that type in Northern Ireland. They have restored biodiversity and some of them use organic methods, but above all they have produced good, healthy food that contributes to our health and well-being. That is something we should support.

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has just said, because there should be direct references in the Bill to “whole farm agroecological systems”. That is in Amendments 42 and 97. Amendments 40 and 84, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and Amendment 41 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, seek to add agroforestry to the Bill. This is an important practice for the diversification of farming, meeting our national tree-planting targets and bringing overall benefit to our natural environment.

These methods help address climate change and produce food, so I think we need to move to this type of farming, which complements livestock and other types of farming. The most important thing about nature-friendly farming, agroecology and agroforestry is that they are good not only for land and biodiversity but for landscape development and renewal of our soil. I was very much taken by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that there is probably a need to regenerate the soil because it has been leeched of various nutrients over many years due to intensive agricultural production methods.

I support Amendment 120, which

“allows the Secretary of State to make regulations to develop a target for the uptake of integrated pest management and to monitor progress towards this target.”

Those are the amendments I support. It is all about producing better environmental standards for our landscape and the local environment and thereby producing food that will lead to better food security, health and well-being for our nation.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 1 and shall speak also to a number of other amendments in the group. I thank the noble Earl for tabling Amendment 1: it was something I was thinking about. Indeed, I spoke to the Table Office, because much of the discussion around the Bill has focused on the fact that it provides powers but not duties. I suggested to the Table Office that we could go through the whole Bill and change every “may” to “must”, and those in the Table Office persuaded me that that might not be the best way forward. I thank them for their patience and all their expert assistance. I think the noble Earl has managed to focus on the key part of the Bill, where “may” should be changed to “must”. I know he tabled it as a probing amendment, but we should think about this as a serious way forward: a duty to look after the key principles of carbon storage, ecosystems, the state of our natural world and healthy food. These should be a duty of the Minister.

Amendments 8, 22, 25, 31 and 50, in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, are all about air pollution, which is a huge gaping hole in the Bill. It looks at water, at soil and at our ecosystems on the ground, but does not talk about the air; yet it is all part of an interrelated system and we know that air pollution and farming issues are closely interrelated.

I have also attached my name to Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, which says:

“Financial assistance may only be given for Environmental Land Management Schemes Tier 2 and Tier 3 if those individual schemes are in line with the local Nature Recovery Strategy”.


This addresses a crucial point: we need joined-up, systematic thinking about the nature of our countryside. At the moment, we have a number of silos. We have the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the now delayed food strategy, and we need to make sure that these are all joined up and working together, not at cross-purposes to each other. We need a whole-landscape approach, something the Wildlife Trust has been doing a lot of excellent work on, although we have to notice that what we see in the Environment Bill will lay new duties on councils, which, as we discussed in Oral Questions, already have enormous burdens on them.

Finally, Amendment 234 in my name, would add a clause headed “Agricultural extension”. It has notable similarities with an amendment in another group—Amendment 122, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. Both of us are getting at the point that farmers need reliable, independent, secure, certain expert advice. In preparing for today I looked at the debates in your Lordships’ House back in 1996 and 1997 when the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service was privatised. There were some very telling words from the late Lord Mackie of Benshie, who talked about how, since the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service had started charging for its services, less use was being made of them. Some people —perhaps those who needed them most—could not afford them.

The state of our countryside and our agricultural land is a matter of national interest. It is something that we cannot leave to market forces. We have seen, in terms of agricultural extension and advice, a huge reduction, huge privatisation and a move towards many farmers being forced to take advice from the suppliers of agricultural chemicals and agricultural seeds, and even from their buyers, the supermarkets. Farmers need independent, expert advice. We need people to be able to develop careers in providing that advice. If we have an expert on growing potatoes in the south-west who spends decades focusing just on that, that is very hard to do in the private sector. If potatoes have a few bad years, no one can afford to pay that person and they do not have the chance to develop their skills in the way that they would in an advisory service.

We have to look at the whole system here. Part of a proper agricultural system has to be a government-run advice service. That is something that has existed historically for a very long time. It can a be traced back three millennia: in ancient China we know that there was a government Minister advising farmers on how to improve agricultural systems. This is a matter of national interest; it needs national involvement and a proper advice service.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 67 and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her support for it. My main interest here is in connection with the broader environmental policies of the Government as they bring these forward in legislation. As I said at Second Reading, I very much welcome the ELMS initiative; it is a major step forward in the use of state aid for the farming industry and how it is to be targeted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I did not have an opportunity to flesh out the tests and trials. The tests and trials on the ELM are designed to work with ranges of farmers in different topographies and tenures in all parts of the country. There are schemes that will be suitable. In this case, there are clearly tests and trials with hill farmers in the uplands so that we can ensure that those schemes are in place. Some are under way already and farmers are receiving financial assistance for participating in them.

When we roll out the entire ELM in 2024, we want to follow the success in the recording and improving of those tests and trials so that we can ensure that, in the case of the noble Lord’s concern about hill farmers, these schemes will automatically work for them. Hill farmers are key to ensuring that the environmental enhancements we all want are available. I am confident that, working with those hill farmers, we will get the sorts of schemes that will be of benefit and that the farmers will actively wish to be engaged in.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister for his extensive reply. I was particularly pleased that he mentioned the shared prosperity fund. I realise that it is not a Defra issue, but it is an important structural issue and there has been very little information about when this fund, which is a Conservative Party manifesto pledge, will actually start. While I would like to ask him that question, I am sure he does not know the answer to it as it is not a Defra issue. However, will he really press his colleagues in Government to get this fund going? The EU structural funding is going to end very soon. There will be an end there, and it is very important that the rural parts of that funding start. Will he press his colleagues to get announcements here so that people can prepare and not have this gap?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Clearly, rural-proofing means that anything we do across Whitehall should be considered in terms of the impact on rural communities, and UK shared prosperity means rural communities. I am also grateful because I can assure him that the whole of Defra takes this approach and, as Minister for Rural Affairs, I get my teeth into this regularly because clearly we need to work with MHCLG so that this goes across all communities and will benefit rural communities, which, after all, have so much to offer the country.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to noble Lords for their interest in the Bill and their contributions. In particular, I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and my noble friends Lord Caithness and Lord Blencathra for their stalwart support. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, from the Opposition Front Benches for our constructive dialogue as we have navigated together through the complexities of fisheries.

I acknowledge the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his extensive experience of fisheries matters, and my noble friend Lord Lansley, whose tenacity and force of argument produced an amendment that the Government supported. As a non-scientist, my scientific discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, have been both illuminating and helpful.

Your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has twice reported positively on this Bill, stating that it

“represents a significant increase in the scrutiny that Parliament will have over fisheries policy compared to the last 45 years.”

Noble Lords have certainly ensured that, and will continue to do so.

I place on record my appreciation for officials in both Defra and the devolved Administrations, parliamentary counsel and the clerks who have assisted us all. The Bill team’s officials and lawyers have been exemplary throughout the passage of the Bill, and I am most grateful for their professional approach. My noble friend Lady Bloomfield has been unwavering in her dedication and commitment throughout the passage of the Bill. I much appreciate her support.

Finally, it is clear that we all wish to seek to secure a brighter future for our fishing industry across the United Kingdom, both in the immediate and the longer term. We are united across this House in recognition of the importance of the industry as a source of employment for many in coastal communities, and of fish as a healthy food source. We all appreciate that the future of our fishing fleet cannot be separated from the health of our marine ecosystem. This Bill takes a vital holistic approach to fishing, and I believe that this will spell a brighter future for our industry and our seas. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his usual courtesy in the way he has dealt with this Bill, and for all the information and help he has given us as we have moved through it. I thank all those around the House who have come together to pass a number of essential amendments, including the important amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

Having said that, I hope that the Government will talk to us more about these amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, mentioned, they are very much in line with government policy to protect the marine environment and level up coastal communities. I hope that we can find a way to retain the substance and the spirit of those amendments as the Bill passes through the other place and, potentially, comes back to this House.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very kind comments and for the courteous way in which he has engaged with us, and with our scrutiny of the Bill, throughout its passage. It has been extremely helpful to have the various technical briefings, both with civil servants and in writing; it certainly helped us to raise the level of debate.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, we very much hope that the Government will reflect on the amendments we have passed as the Bill goes to the Commons. They were made in good faith, with the interests of both the environment and our future fishing sector in mind. I very much hope that they are not simply returned to us but used to strengthen the Bill in the longer term.

In the meantime, I reiterate my thanks to the Minister and to all those on the Bill team, who have been very helpful as we have worked our way through the Bill.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure and a bit of luck for me to follow two such powerful speeches from my noble friend Lord Blencathra and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I agree very much with what they said. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, that this is a devolved matter. For the UK Ministers to consult but then set regulations in this Parliament would be quite contrary to any devolution settlement. I was very surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, did not pick that up as she is a stalwart defender of the rights of Northern Ireland.

I agree with my noble and learned friend about the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, that this is merely consultation. It is not—this is hard regulation. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the fishers in Wick 110 years ago remember Grimsby and Yarmouth without much pleasure, as they suddenly introduced bigger and faster boats than the Wickers had. The fishing industry in Wick suffered horribly from the activities of Yarmouth and Grimsby, but that is history.

The noble Baroness who moved the amendment, which has good intentions but is very faulty, gave no real justification for why 65% should be the figure. I think she woke up one morning and thought, “That’s a good idea; we’ll try that one.” There is no justification for 65%. It made me wonder what I would I do if I were the French Fisheries Minister. I see that the Brits are now getting very protectionist; they want 65% of their catch. How would it affect our fishing fleets if the Europeans said to all their boats, “You can land your catches only in EU ports—you can’t land them in UK ports”? That would do huge damage to our fisheries, reducing their flexibility and the economic benefits that they currently produce for all our coastal towns, which we all want to see improve and provide better economic opportunities than they currently do. It is quite clear in Clause 16(1), covered by this amendment, that this relates to non-UK boats.

Another thought that struck me was: if this clause comes in, will we return to something like the klondykers of the 1980s and 1990s? When I was Fisheries Minister, I remember going up to Ullapool and seeing those big Russian klondyke boats in Loch Broom. We would potentially return to a situation where you have one big British fishing tanker taking fish from all the smaller boats, bringing that back to the UK and claiming it as the landing of the catch. That would be a retrograde step.

All my other points have been covered, but I want to stress one briefly mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. She said that, besides the 50% landing at the moment, there are other economic links. This amendment does not cover any other economic links. It takes out just one of the economic links that currently exist and distorts it. Huge difficulties could result from that. It is worth remembering that the vast majority of UK vessels already meet the landing requirements; I think the current figure is 99%. But, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said, it is so variable; it depends on weather conditions and on the sea—and the fishermen require that flexibility. I cannot support the amendment.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, what interesting speeches. I get the impression that almost all those who supported us leaving the European fisheries policy would have had their speeches applauded by Michel Barnier, a previous French fisheries Minister, whom we spoke to in the European Union Committee, particularly the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I do not want to take away the fire of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on some of this, but let us go through some of the points.

First, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, asked in Committee about facilities: could we actually cope with landing more fish in UK ports? What a question. During Committee stage, one of the people I spoke to—I did not know he was coming but he happened to be here—was the chairman of the harbour commissioners of Newlyn, one of the largest fishing ports in England, although still dwarfed by the Scottish ports. He said to me, “If I had just one or two more of these foreign-owned, British-flagged vessels into my port, it would make a huge difference to me and what I am trying to achieve”. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that if we could give the UK fishing ports, particularly the English ports, that challenge, they would love to have those vessels here.

The point was made about this Bill being a framework Bill. I am sorry, but it does not say that. Surely, as parliamentarians we want to be able to affect the key issues, to make changes and to have policies that are better and amendments that improve Bills. We are not here just to have framework Bills. If we think something is of crucial national importance—and this is—then we should be able to debate those amendments and decide whether we accept them.

On devolution, yes, there is an argument there, but if the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, really feels that there should be complete devolution of fisheries issues, he should have voted against the Bill at Second Reading, because the whole Bill is completely concerned with devolved issues; therefore, some of the amendments will be as well.

As for the landing obligation, yes, we have one, but what have the Government done about it over the last few years? It has not changed and there are a number of opt-outs, so some of those economic links will still be there. However, it is vital, surely, that we look at the most important ones, those that actually protect or improve our coastal communities and our fishing industry. We can ask ourselves why the fishing industry has not strongly campaigned for this. I remember going, soon after the Brexit vote, to a fisheries conference elsewhere in London where I raised this point with the main fishing trade associations, and they did not really want to discuss it. Why? Because their members are primarily owned by foreign owners, so it is not particularly in the interest, certainly in England and Wales, of the main fisheries representatives to argue this.

Let us remember that some 55%, by value, of our fisheries are fished by foreign vessels owned primarily by Spain, Iceland and the Netherlands. Those interests are there; what we are trying to do here is to defend all those people who are excluded: the coastal communities we are talking about do not have a vote and do not have a piece of the action at the moment. We are trying to improve that. That is why this amendment is so important and why I back it. In Wales, the by value figure is 85%. One foreign-owned vessel, as I understand it, has 85% of Welsh quota. This is a real issue and it is absolutely appropriate to deal with it in the Bill. What I particularly like about the amendment is that it actually says that something has to come out of this consultation—the 65% or more—but it allows the fishing authorities to make exceptions, such as where the long-distance fleet has to land, perhaps.

Interestingly, Norway has been particularly mentioned. What are the statistics on Norway? Norwegian interests own 100% of Norwegian-flagged vessels, so Norway does not have this problem; indeed, Scotland hardly has it either. In many ways—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on this—we are being global Britain: we are claiming back, as an independent coastal state, rights over our economic zone and our fish stocks. We are putting them out for sale to the world and the world is enjoying the benefits of our biomass and our marine stocks.

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[Lord Teverson]

I will keep my remarks short. First, I remind the House that I have an interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. Some years ago, I had the privilege of visiting New Zealand to meet fish companies and fleet operators there. Coming back to our debate on the previous amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, talked about efficiency and that sort of thing. If we want a really efficient fishing industry, we need completely transferable quotas, to get rid of the small vessel fleet altogether and to have large trawlers that are absolutely efficient. In New Zealand, three companies dominate the market outside recreational fisheries. They look after their fish stocks, and they keep an eye on each other. It is an incredibly efficient business, very profitable, very good for conservation—and zero coastal communities depended on fisheries. It was completely industrialised.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to have this opportunity to speak to Amendment 35A to Clause 27. This is a neat amendment which encapsulates three important points. Paragraph (a) states that quota

“may not be sold … to other persons following the original purchase”.

It should specifically not be sold to non-active fishers and should be

“prioritised for sale to vessels under 10 metres.”

Paragraph (c) has been debated to a large extent under the previous amendment, and the fact that that amendment was carried negates my having to speak to that part of my amendment.

My main concern lies with a practice that has become widespread. I do not think it was ever intended that quotas should be tradable, but it is a bit like the milk quotas. If you give something an economic value, it suddenly becomes of great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, spoke about hedge funds. I was surprised to learn that football clubs had chosen to invest in fish quotas. I cannot think of anything that could possibly be further removed from an active fisherman. I would like to return to active fishermen benefiting. We have discussed how boats under 10 metres do not have access to anything other than shellfish, for which no quota is set, but they would like to have further access. As I say, that point has now been addressed, but I would prefer to see that quotas are not sold under any circumstances to non-active fishers. I should be interested to know the Government’s position—whether they would look favourably in that regard.

More especially, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the fact that this practice of quotas becoming tradable is regrettable. We should revert to the original practice, where those who bought the quotas kept them and did not sell them on. I do not think it is good practice to sell the quotas on and, if we can couple ownership to the use of quota, we will develop more responsible behaviour as to how the quota is exercised. It would be my fervent wish that quota is, in both the shorter and longer term, owned and used by fishermen directly, which gives everyone the opportunity to behave better, not being able to cut and run and sell quota off as surplus to their requirements purely as an economic commodity.

With those few remarks, I hope to gain the support of the Government in this regard for ceasing the practice of tradable quotas and to revert to practices where the quotas are sold to those who use them and, ideally, active fishermen. I do not intend to press this to a vote, but at this stage, I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for tabling this amendment; I will be interested to hear the Government’s response to it. As the noble Baroness said, milk quotas became purely financial instruments, and it is absolutely right that we should not be in that position. They should not appear on the London futures market or whatever it may be because that is not what this is about, especially in the area of fisheries.

However, in Cornwall there is an organisation called the Duchy Fish Quota Company. While it is not itself a fishing concern, it attempts to use money from donors to buy quota in order to keep it for Cornish fishers. It does so because we have the exact problem that has been set out so well by the noble Baroness: these quotas are traded and there tends to be a concentration of them with the risk that they can be owned outside the United Kingdom. The nice thing is that if this problem could be solved through such an amendment or a similar policy, an organisation like the Duchy Fish Quota Company would no longer be necessary. I am strongly in favour of this amendment in principle and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response in terms of its policy for the future in this area.

[Lord Grantchester]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for this amendment. She has proposed three conditions that the Secretary of State should meet when making regulations to permit the sale of fishing opportunities in England. The noble Baroness speaks with great authority, having chaired the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee in the other place. She has made a powerful case against potential abuses under proposed new paragraphs (a) and (b). For example, large quota holders could mop up quota as a quota trader and then later resell unused quota, or the other case is where a sofa fisher—that is, a non-active fisher—could trade quota. Incidentally, I cannot quite believe the scurrilous gossip that football clubs would be interested in such activities, especially as they are not registered fishers.

Be that as it may, the amendment might appear to be in difficulty where there might need to be emergency provisions in a given situation. Furthermore, there might be unintended consequences. The amendment does not provide a definition of a non-active fisher. Would someone who inherited a family member’s business and its vessel potentially find themselves frozen out of the bidding process because that vessel had not gone to sea in a previous year? Would this provision exclude those whose boats had been undergoing extensive maintenance, or even new entrants with no previous catch quota?

We support the third provision in the amendment in relation to prioritising the sale of rights to the under-10 metre fleet. This ability is enshrined in our Amendment 29 which we debated earlier. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide detailed assurances that the noble Baroness is clearly looking for in identifying this potential abuse.

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[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, I shall be brief. It is difficult to see why Ministers negotiating international agreements specifically about, or relevant to, fishing policy would not have regard to fishing objectives. I listened to my noble friend and I was not persuaded by what he said. In any negotiation, and in any section of our society, there may be overwhelming reasons why something affecting UK Ltd causes certain other objectives not to be met, or indeed to be modified. Moreover, I was taught long ago that “must have regard to” is not a very definitive phrase—so I am afraid the amendment does not find much favour with me at all.

[Lord Teverson]

Well, there we are: the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is not happy again. I have to say that one of my motives for putting my name to this amendment was the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has such a good track record of getting amendments agreed by the Government. I thought that if there were one way of getting my name down and making sure I can tell my grandchildren that I got something into the Bill, it would be by following this amendment. I am very optimistic that the Minister will say yes.

More seriously, it is clear that the amendment makes eminent sense. The noble Lord’s analysis of EU negotiations is absolutely right. That became clear when we in the European Union Committee spoke with Michel Barnier yesterday: there will be a connection there. It is also my memory from my days in Select Committee going through international agreements being made, that there is already one of those—with the Faroe Islands, I think. It is a general free trade agreement that includes fisheries elements. So I am pretty sure that that is already happening.

Fisheries are often an important part of international negotiations. It makes absolute sense to me that the amendment should be made to the Bill and become part of the eventual Act. It is so easy, particularly for an area such as fisheries, to be forgotten when trade deals are done, and I would be a lot happier if a Permanent Secretary, or whoever was there, were reminding a Secretary of State that this has to be taken into account. I strongly support the amendment.

[Lord Grantchester]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for proposing the amendment, which would require Ministers to

“have regard to the fisheries objectives”

in all relevant international negotiations, not just those relating wholly to fisheries. That is a welcome approach, particularly given the added emphasis that we have sought to place on sustainability and climate issues throughout the Bill’s passage.

Just as Ministers have to account for commitments set out in domestic climate change legislation and international treaties, it seems appropriate that they should also have regard to the fisheries objectives that we have spent so much time debating over recent months. I agree with the noble Lord’s argument that fisheries and trade cannot be separated into distinct propositions.

We know from previous ministerial responses that the Government are committed to upholding their international obligations, and that such obligations will feature heavily in the discussions that Ministers and their officials have with neighbouring coastal states. The Minister will no doubt have reasons why this matter does not have to be addressed in the Bill, but it would be all the more convincing to coastal communities to see this commitment enshrined for posterity at this opportune moment. I need not remind the House that the new trading relationships with the EU have yet to be concluded.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

52: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Regulatory enforcement and data collection scheme
(1) The Secretary of State must—(a) by regulations provide that all vessels over 10 metres in length, and of whatever nationality, fishing within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone must be fitted with remote electronic monitoring systems and cameras for the purposes of—(i) full and accurate documentation of fish activities and bycatch, and(ii) monitoring compliance with fish activities, bycatch and other marine management regulations;(b) by regulations provide that all British vessels fishing outside the UK Exclusive Economic Zone must be fitted with remote electronic monitoring systems and cameras for the purposes of—(i) full and accurate documentation of fish activities and bycatch, and(ii) monitoring compliance with fish activities, bycatch and other marine management regulations;(c) publish a timetable for the phased introduction of the provisions under paragraphs (a) and (b), the final phase of which must be implemented within three years from the day on which this Act is passed; (d) publish plans, within two years from the day on which this Act is passed, following a consultation, to extend remote electronic monitoring systems with cameras to all motorised vessels of whatever nationality fishing within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone.(2) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment mandates the use of remote electronic monitoring (REM) on all fishing vessels above 10 metres in length that fish in UK waters and requires plans to be published to extend REM to all vessels.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, this amendment is very much about marine conservation, the marine environment and the science, based on data collection. I will just put it into context. We currently have three Bills in Parliament that strongly affect the environment: the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill—which has just entered this House and had its Second Reading—and this Fisheries Bill, now on Report.

The Environment Bill is excellent in a particular area, in that it introduces the concept of net gain in biodiversity. That is quite radical, and I absolutely congratulate the Government on putting that in the Bill in a very practical way. It is a framework Bill but puts that in as a specific measure.

In the Agriculture Bill we have the ELMS—environmental land management scheme—which, although this is not actually mentioned, is the whole basis of the finance and how state aid in the agricultural industry will happen. This too is a very radical move on the environment, and I congratulate the Government on their courage in moving the way that that system works.

We can mirror that move forward in terms of the environment and conservation in this Bill by finding a way of practically enforcing the regulations and by greater collection of scientific data through fisheries, as well as all the scientific investigations that take place. In the fisheries area, I congratulate the Government particularly on the Blue Belt programme and everything we are doing in overseas territories on the marine environment and conservation, but also on their determination to keep the discard ban and the so-called landing obligation, which was in the common fisheries policy largely because of the British Government’s advocacy in the European Union.

But as the energy and environment sub-committee that I have the privilege of chairing found, the evidence is completely undeniable that the landing obligation—the discarding rule—is not observed by fisheries fleets. I am talking not just about the UK but across the European Union. It is imperative for the future of the marine environment that it is. The EU, essentially, wants us to obey the rules of its club.

What are the benefits of remote electronic monitoring, which is what this amendment is about? That is the technology. It is tried and tested but not compulsory in this part of the world. I think in Chile it is and has been found to be successful. It is recognised by all authorities—and, I think, by the Government as well—that this is by far the most effective way of ensuring that we can do two things. One is collecting data, not just on discarding but on fishing collection and bycatch. The other is that it is one of the few ways of ensuring that discarding does not happen. It cannot be done by aerial surveillance or drones. All those other technologies we have are not sufficient to do it and have been largely unsuccessful in enforcing that policy in the past.

So, what are the benefits of remote electronic monitoring? First, there is data and, secondly, we can see what bycatch there has been. It is a technology the costs of which are going down quite steeply, and the cost of capital investment and data transfer are not huge, whereas other costs of monitoring and enforcement are rising, whether we have observers on boats or the existing very expensive processes involving naval vessels, marine management patrol vessels or Marine Scotland. The costs of those services have been rising over time. It is an effective means of enforcement. It would apply to foreign as well as UK vessels. This is particularly important as the UK becomes an independent coastal state, as we are likely as a result of our negotiations to have some foreign vessels fishing in our waters.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s amendment and I can be unequivocal in saying that the Government fully support the principle behind it.

Let me be clear in emphasising the importance that the Government place on this country, as an independent coastal state, having the best possible monitoring and enforcement. To achieve that, it is important that we remain flexible and do not prescribe one specific action in the Bill. Leaving the common fisheries policy and taking the Bill forward with its many enabling powers means that we can now design and implement the right policies to fit our diverse fisheries. We must indeed grasp this opportunity, working in close co-operation with all those who have an interest in a healthy marine environment, including the fishing industry. I agree with my noble friend Lord Naseby that this will best be done by working in consort with the fishing industry,

I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill. They all make very clear the Government’s intent to enhance the marine and terrestrial environments and all that goes with them.

As I made clear at earlier stages of the Bill, lawyers have advised that the Bill already provides the Government with the necessary powers, in paragraphs (h) and (q) of Clause 36(4), to mandate the use of remote electronic monitoring on both domestic and foreign vessels—I emphasise that point—fishing in English waters or across UK waters, if that is agreed with the devolved Administrations, as provided for in Clause 40.

The Clause 36 provisions also allow the Government to introduce new and emerging monitoring and enforcement technologies. We all agree that we want to move to a situation where the UK has the best possible monitoring and enforcement regime. However, REM may well find itself being replaced by something more contemporary and more effective in the near future—a point that my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern alluded to. In terms of good law-making, putting something on the face of the Bill that we are already able to do and know that we will want to change in the future is, in our view, not desirable. Instead, providing for its use in secondary legislation allows us to remain flexible and to react more quickly to the latest scientific and technological advances.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred to other future technologies, and these are being explored by the MMO, including through a joint project with Defra looking into the use of drones more widely. The MMO has previously used a drone to review aquaculture compliance and has used drone data to inform another investigation. Were we, in future, to legislate for these advances in technology, we would be able to do so through secondary legislation.

In addition, I remind noble Lords that monitoring and enforcement are devolved policies. The amendment covers the whole of the United Kingdom, which is contrary to our devolved settlements. It is also contrary to the spirit of the Bill with regard to how we develop fisheries policy, where we seek to build consensus with our devolved Administrations. A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends the Duke of Montrose and Lord Randall and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, asked about this, and I will be very straightforward in my reply. The Scottish and Welsh Governments do not support the amendment. REM is being used in their waters in different and appropriate ways. For example, the Scottish Government are rolling it out across their scallop fleet, but their view is that the broad-brush approach in this amendment is not welcome.

In response to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, we have small inshore boats that can catch as little as a couple of pots of shellfish or a box of white fish on a single fishing trip, larger boats that use multiple gear types throughout the year and target many different species, and large pelagic vessels that can catch hundreds of tonnes of pelagic species in a single fishing trip. Each of these would benefit from different approaches to enforcement, as the risks are different for each of them. Even with the differentiation between over and under-10-metre vessels, as set out in the amendment, a one-size-fits-all approach to managing these diverse over-10-metre fisheries does not, in our view, work. The amendment does not reflect this variation. Instead, it calls for a blanket rollout of REM on all over-10-metre vessels, irrespective of the fisheries in which those vessels operate or their impact on the marine environment. To put it into context, in 2018 there were more than 514 over-10-metre vessels in England alone.

Another point I should raise is that REM is not just an enforcement tool. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, referred to this. It can be used to collect scientific data on things such as catch composition or to assess which gear type is most selective. This could in turn help us better understand the health of our fish stock and wider marine environment. As an amateur ornithologist, I was interested in my noble friend Lord Randall’s points about fulmars and guillemots. It is right that we maximise the benefits of any electronic monitoring by ensuring that wherever possible it can address multiple objectives. However, that brings new questions which must be addressed. For example, we expect that the images collected for enforcement purposes may not be wholly appropriate for scientific data collection. We must ask ourselves what changes we can make to the camera set-up that will allow us to do both.

I also want to use this opportunity to draw out some other issues we must address before committing to a rollout of REM. The first is cost, including up-front costs such as hardware and installation and even greater ongoing costs such as maintenance and storing and reviewing the data collected. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the initial cost of an REM system is around £9,000. That does not cover any ongoing costs, which also need to be factored in. We believe it is right that we conduct a full cost-benefit analysis of all our options to make sure that we are using the most effective tools for the job. REM costs are not insignificant. Indeed, profitability across the 10-metre sector can vary, and some segments operate with very low profits.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the Government do and will consider all technology. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising what is going on in other countries because we want to make sure that we get the right technology for all our fisheries and our marine environment. Clearly, we must work closely with all our neighbours, including those in the EU and other coastal states, to ensure we have compatible monitoring and enforcement systems. This amendment recognises that we would need time to work through issues such as how we would store data and share it between countries before requiring REM to be used on foreign vessels fishing in UK waters. Sensitive personal data could be collected via these systems, so we must have a robust data protection approach in place before a widespread scheme could be rolled out.

I say to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who mentioned England, that the Government have already taken a number of steps to test and, where appropriate, use camera equipment in our fisheries, so I gently chide the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulescoomb, about her suggestion that perhaps we are not doing anything. We are already undertaking these matters. We are running the English fully documented fisheries scheme whereby we put cameras on vessels operating in the North Sea cod fishery. This scheme has shown that REM can be an effective tool to monitor and enforce the landing obligation. Defra is also launching a project this year to use electronic monitoring in the complex mixed Celtic Sea fishery, focusing on generating scientific evidence on catch composition. This will build on previous studies in the south-west focused on haddock. We expect data collection to start in the autumn, with initial results emerging next year.

On the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, about data on shellfish, there are a number of projects already under way relating to non-quota shellfish and improving the quality and quantity of data collected for these fisheries. One of the projects to improve data collection in England is a king scallop stock assessment programme that is jointly funded by Defra and industry at a cost of around £450,000 per year, and there are further projects.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, also asked about the implementation of real-time closures. Indeed, the United Kingdom already closes certain fisheries at certain times of the year to protect juvenile or spawning fish.

The Government are developing an integrated package of reforms to be phased in over the coming years, once we have left the transition period and the Bill receives Royal Assent. This will include new tailored approaches to monitoring and enforcement. I think we are all on the same page as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. We all understand, since we are good custodians, that monitoring and enforcement will be vital for both domestic and foreign vessels fishing in our waters. I say candidly that there are strong reasons why setting out in the Bill explicit requirements to use REM—I have explained to noble Lords that we have been using it and undertaking trials—when it might be superseded by new technologies, could inhibit the UK delivering the right policy. I am dutybound to draw that to your Lordships’ attention.

I know exactly what we all desire. I am sure that the noble Lord will say that it is not happening fast enough, but we need to work with industry and with the devolved Administrations. We need to work with our partners in other waters as well. We all like action this day, but sometimes these things should be done in consultation and by working together to get them right, although I absolutely respect the desire for action this day. I hope, with that rather lengthy explanation, that the noble Lord will at least feel able to consider withdrawing his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I really find it interesting that the Minister is arguing for a level playing field with the European Union over fisheries regulations. That is fantastic. I shall tell Michel Barnier that the Minister is on board with all the European Union’s demands.

This is a really important issue. I will be as brief as I can, but I want to thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is absolutely right about retailers, but let us get ahead of the retailers, for goodness sake. Let us get our industry match fit before the retailers come and say that this has to be implemented, and other people do it first. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Randall, in particular. Bycatch of birds is a whole area that is important in itself.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, asked who would enforce this. Marine Scotland, the Northern Ireland authorities, the MMO in England and the Welsh authorities would enforce it. On who pays for the technology, although it now costs way less than £9,000—I think it is estimated at £3,500 per year for these systems, which is an absolute fraction of the turnover of vessels over 10 metres—we can have government schemes. The European Union had schemes to pay for such implementations and the Government have promised to replace the European funding to the fisheries funds, so that could be used if we want to do it.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, implied that we somehow should not catch people doing illegal things. That is a really strange concept. I spent 20 years in the haulage industry. I remember the industry arguing about tachographs in the early 1970s—“We can’t have those”, “Spy in the cab” and all of that. Thank goodness, the Government kept their nerve and did it. Was it a problem afterwards? No. Tachographs gave excellent management information and made sure that the law and road safety regulations were complied with. No one has looked back since. I do not recall the noble and learned Lord asking for the repeal of tachographs in the haulage industry.

I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. There is no stronger argument: the common fisheries policy did fail on this. We have this opportunity to put the common fisheries policy absolutely right.

As for all the rest of the changes that the noble Lord mentioned, all the regulations will stay exactly the same, because we have now embedded them in UK law. The regulations governing fisheries will not change on 1 January 2021, so far as I can see. We would then start to change them as time goes on.

The point is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said, we need to get on with it. This is a tried and tested technology, both globally and in the United Kingdom, and the fisheries industry is used to it. I notice that the Minister has not taken me up on my offer of getting round the devolution problem by making this an England-only application, which I would have been prepared to talk about. No, this is something that we need to get on with. The marine environment is important, we are an independent coastal state, we have foreign vessels coming into a very large EEZ, and we need to ensure that they are monitored and that we increase our data for the science. We just need to get on with this, and on that basis, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Mackay of Clashfern [V]]

My Lords, it seems to be my privilege always to follow my fellow Scot. I do not think that the data being relied on is being referred to as theoretical. What is theoretical is the MSY itself, which is basically a modelling of the future from the data of the past. Strictly speaking it is theoretical, because it is in the nature of a prophecy about how matters will proceed.

As for the second amendment, by “reproduction” it means the full process that reconstitutes the stock from time to time—the process going on continually to bring the stock up. The Members who tabled it are not thinking particularly of one aspect but of all aspects and, in my view, the definition can be understood. It may well be that—and I have the greatest respect for the ICES—there are other possible definitions, but I do not think that this one is based on theoretical data. It is based on real data, but it is a theoretical calculation.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much support this amendment. I want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his work in this area. He was a member of my EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, when he really went through this issue of the drawbacks of MSY. I am very grateful for all his work on that, and I wish to show my support for this amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am also very pleased to have added my name to these amendments, and I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has done an admirable job, not only in moving and speaking to his amendments this evening, but in making sure that, throughout its passage, the Bill is based on the best scientific principles. I also think that, in this case, he has made an important argument for using the ICES definition.

We have all been concerned about the different ways in which the established measure of maximum sustainable yield can be misapplied or misinterpreted. It remains the case that there is currently no legal commitment not to fish above MSY in the Bill. The Government also seem to have resisted adding a legal commitment not to fish above MSY because the UK—as we heard in other debates—is negotiating access to shared stocks with other states and do not want their hands tied. This should not be an excuse for inaction.

We remain near the top of the league table for EU member states with the highest percentage of their tack fished in excess of scientific advice. As a start, it is vital that the definition of MSY, set out in the Bill, does not allow further opportunities for dispute. We are therefore very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing us back to the need for a clear definition which puts hard empirical data at the core of the meaning. The noble Lord also rightly highlights that the viability of the stocks should be based not just on reproduction but on other environmental factors.

These definitions are the first step to delivering robust, clear application of MSY, and the contribution it needs to make a truly sustainable fishing policy. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has made a compelling case for these amendments, and I hope that the Minister can confirm his support for them.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Fisheries principles
(1) Fish present within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone shall be a common resource owned by the United Kingdom on behalf of its citizens.(2) Quotas or other rights to harvest fish whether allocated to vessels, public bodies, or individuals natural or corporate shall remain the property of the United Kingdom.(3) No vessel, public body, or individual natural or corporate shall have a permanent claim over quota or other fishing rights granted to them by a public authority.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes clear that UK fish stocks are the property of the nation and not private organisations.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, we very much come back to something that is completely fundamental to the concept of this Bill and in terms of fisheries in the United Kingdom: who has ownership of these stocks. It is absolutely fundamental that they are owned by the nation. I am very aware that in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, challenged me, quite rightly, to say what is the “nation”, given that we have devolved nations and what can be described as the nation state. So I have made the amendment far clearer than it was, to make sure that there are none of those differences of interpretation.

This comes back to the fundamental principle that fish stocks do not belong to an individual, a public authority, a business or a vessel. They are the common property of the nation. That is very important because, although it might seem obvious, and again I was challenged in Committee on why we need this amendment at all, the fact is that when the Government —I am very much on the Government’s side in this amendment—were challenged by the UK fish producers’ organisations about a restructuring of the quota, on that occasion the Government lost and the UK producer organisations won.

I am giving the Government the opportunity here to right that wrong. They rightly thought it was in the Secretary of State’s power to make it clear that this is a common resource owned by the nation. Sure, it can be allocated for quota or effort control—all those sorts of things can be done, and the Bill delineates how they should be done—but that ownership remains there.

It seems that if one thing comes out of Brexit on fisheries, it is—exactly as the Government themselves say—that we will be an independent coastal state. But if you asked the population and voters of this country who those fish stocks that we now have control over belong to, they would not say the industry, which is 40% owned by foreign companies, but the British people—and they would be right. That is why this amendment is here and is important. I beg to move.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the concept of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. It is right that we discuss this. However, the more I look at it, the more complicated I feel even this new version will be. It will be very important to hear what my noble friend the Minister says on this. Of course, we feel that it is the nation—I take the point that four nations comprise the United Kingdom and, knowing that some of them are a little more territorial than others at the moment, they might start claiming the fish stocks as they move across—and that the concept is absolutely right, but I am waiting to see what my noble friend says on this before I make up my mind on whether or not to support this amendment.

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[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank everybody, particularly the Minister, for their contributions.

I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, believes that the Scottish legal system is far better than the English one and that our problems in this regard may be with the English system, but my amendment does not challenge devolution in any way. As the Minister said, it aligns absolutely with UNCLOS, the law of the sea, in terms of national rights over parts of the sea.

I accept entirely the Minister’s criticism of my wording in that I did not include coastal waters—I hope that he will forgive me for that—but I am encouraged that he is taking a robust view of the legal situation. I am not a lawyer but I accept his assurances. However, the 2013 case seemed to say the opposite to me. I still find it difficult that, in the Government’s response, there seems to be an assumption that those people who have allocations will continue to have the same or more and yet all sorts of other businesses and individuals that want to come into this industry are effectively barred by the present allocation system. I accept the Minister’s assurances; I just hope that the Government take their position strongly and implement it because of the current situation.

I was wrong when I said that foreign vessel owners, mainly from Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands, own 40% of the quota; in 2019, it was estimated that, by value, it is 55%. This is not what people voted for in the Brexit referendum.

I accept the Government’s assurances but ask them to use their powers and change this business radically. It is not often that we hear from a Conservative Government that we should keep an industry in aspic, which is basically what happens with ownership at the moment. We should allow it to be more entrepreneurial, allow more people to come in and shake this industry up. We should make it work well and conserve its resources.

Let us move on. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[The Earl of Caithness [V]]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. My instinct is to support this amendment wholeheartedly, because I am a great believer in environmental sustainability, but we must also look very carefully at sustainability, because in all our discussions sustainability has rested on the three pillars: economic, social and environmental. If we change our understanding of that, it will affect not only fisheries but also every other industry.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, gave the game away completely when he said that it should be introduced to every other piece of legislation. I do not think that this House has given enough thought to that. If this amendment is accepted, it will become a precedent for the Agriculture Bill. That will mean that the son of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, will now be told that he cannot farm a certain crop because it is not environmentally sustainable in the way that people would like it maintained. It will mean foresters being told that they cannot cut down trees because it is environmentally unsustainable to cut down a tree when that will happen anyway through natural regeneration. There are huge complications that we have not considered if we alter the balance now, because this will go into legislation and become a very firm precedent for the future. That gives me great concern.

I strongly believe that the environment should be given priority, but it must be in a way that respects the other two legs of the sustainability stool. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said that, legally, this is almost impossible. We are in a real quandary here. I hope that, between now and Third Reading, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, can get together to achieve what I know they both want. We are all on common ground regarding where we want to get to, but the wording of this amendment will cause us problems.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, also mentioned the effect on coastal areas. If suddenly a report said that fishing must stop in a certain area since environmental sustainability was the prime objective, the effect on that area socially and economically would be immense, and the Government would not be able to mitigate it in the way that they could as the Bill is presently worded.

Although I support the spirit of this amendment, I cannot support it in the way that it is worded. My noble friend Lord Lansley was right to highlight the question of “fishing fleets must”, which is a wording that we are not used to in legislation. I do not see how that can be implemented. I look forward to what the Minister says and hope that we can reach a common position on this, rather than bringing into law something that we may all regret in a few months’ or years’ time.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, if I may just respond first to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, this amendment does exactly what he asks. It gives priority to environmental sustainability, but the other elements are there as well—so, bingo, we are there. We do not have a Content Lobby, but if we did, the noble Earl would need to go through it.

I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Cameron of Dillington, on their amendments, both of which I put my name to. The irony in this debate is that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, are arguing for the old-style common fisheries policy. What they are asking for is exactly what the CFP did. It gave a range of options to politicians—Commissioners or the Council of Ministers in that bun-fight that happened every December—which allowed fudge in decision-making about future quotas and fishing rights over the next year. They could look at some other objective or reason and decide to take an easy way out, forget environmental sustainability or put it second, third or fourth, and go for a short-term decision on fisheries.

And what was the outcome of that? We have hugely depleted stocks in our own EEZ and globally, because of all those fudge factors. Tell me an organisation that can survive with eight objectives but without anything being said about which is the most important. You cannot do that. You must have some idea of what the priorities are. None of us could run our lives on that basis; it would be impossible.

I come back to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, when he criticised the word “prime”. I did Classics up to O-level—pause for a “wow” from the Chamber—and “primus” means first. We know what “first” means, and it does not push the others aside. We have a first Secretary of State in the Government but that does not mean to say that the other Secretaries of State are all redundant; they are not. It is just giving a priority.

We also know, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said, that if we do not have environmental sustainability first, then everything else falls aside; it just goes away. Sometimes we have zero quotas, as I think the Minister said earlier about my first amendment, and they are dealt with by finding ways around them, either with financial compensation or otherwise. That means those stocks, the health of the industry and jobs in those coastal communities are there for the long term. That is why this is inarguable; you cannot have it any other way than that environmental sustainability has to be a prime objective. That would not get rid of the rest of the objectives; they are in the Bill for us to see.

I want to take a point that has not been mentioned: devolution. We are told by the Government that this House is not competent to amend the Bill because of devolution; we are going through this process for no reason at all because everything in it is devolved. The Government have brought a Bill to us that they may have agreed with the executives but, as I understand it, it has not gone through any of the democratic assemblies or parliaments of the nations. We have been given a Bill that we have to make decisions on. The Government cannot put a gun to our head and say, “Because we have done a deal with the other executives, the Bill can’t change at all”. If the Government hold that view, they should dissemble this Bill, bring an English Bill to this House and let the assemblies and parliaments have their own fisheries Bills. That is the solution. However, we do not have time for that because we need to get this right and we need to do it before the end of the year when we move out of the transition period. All we can do is ensure that the Bill is right and protects the industry and our marine environment for the future—for the long term as well as the short and medium terms—by making sure that the amendment is passed.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am pleased to have added my name to Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and to add our support to Amendment 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. Amendment 2 goes to the heart of our future fisheries policy. It spells out that, within all the other important objectives, the sustainability of our fishing stock is the number one priority. This is a hugely significant prize as we take control of our coastal waters. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, it leaves behind the deals and compromises that were inevitably part of the common fisheries policy, and will put our fisheries on a more long-term assured footing where there will be fish stocks to fish for generations to come. The logic of this is obvious: we all want a thriving and economically viable fishing industry and we aspire to have better managed stocks, enabling a renaissance in our coastal ports and towns. There could be huge new opportunities for jobs and prosperity in this sector. We have other amendments, which we will debate later, that would give greater impetus to new jobs and growth.

However, this economic regeneration will be permanent only if it is based on the certainty of an abundant long-term fish stock. If not, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has asked, how will the trade-offs between the competing objectives be made? Will there be an inevitable skew towards short-term economic pressures at the expense of that long-term viability? In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and indeed as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, says, if you have too many objectives then, quite frankly, you end up with none at all.

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[Lord Randall of Uxbridge [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has put this very succinctly. I have concerns, not just about the fish bycatch but about the wider marine environment, which he mentioned. It may be of interest to noble Lords that Saturday was World Albatross Day. As many noble Lords will know, a large number of the world’s population of those birds breed in the UK’s overseas territories so, as well as having a general interest in biodiversity, we should all take this seriously. On the subject of albatrosses and other sea-bird bycatch, I recommend that, if he has not already, the Minister looks at a British invention called Hookpod that cuts sea-bird bycatch on long-line fishing. I will not detain the House with a long discussion of it, but it has made significant progress in reducing that bycatch in a cost-effective way. I would be interested in what the Minister says on the whole subject of bycatch, because I have great concerns about it.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I like this amendment very much. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has managed to write out and explain clearly exactly what a bycatch objective should be whereas, in the Bill, there is not so much that and more a breakdown of how it will be achieved. Having said that, I congratulate the Government on their determination to stop discarding and to prevent bycatch or at least ensure that, if caught, it has to be landed and accounted for. That is the positive side, but the definition in the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is a much better one. To make sure that the bycatch objective is actually fulfilled, I hope that the Government will support the amendment on remote electronic monitoring, which the House will probably deal with on Wednesday.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for tabling the amendment and for succinctly and ably addressing the concerns that we raised in Committee about the definition of the bycatch objective in the Bill. We were concerned that the existing wording, which referred to bycatch below minimum sustainable yields being “avoided or reduced”, and bycatch to be landed but only when “appropriate”, lacked the rigour and systematic monitoring of bycatch and discards which the UK Government had agreed. As other noble Lords have said, this issue was explored thoroughly and expertly by the report of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee. It confirmed the case for an absolute ban on discards, but also identified how the policy was being undermined. We believe that urgent action is needed to make a more stringent policy a reality.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has now taken the debate further by seeking to better define the outcome of a bycatch objective. The outcome should be defined not by whether the bycatch is landed or not, but by whether bycatch is reduced using sustainable fishing applications. Obviously we want to drive this down to the absolute minimum. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, this will be increasingly achievable as we harness the advantages of new technology, particularly the application of remote electronic monitoring, which will be dealt with on a later amendment. We should also learn the lessons of the now discredited catch app, which threatened fishers with legal prosecution from the Marine Management Organisation if they failed to record their catch accurately on the app.

We support this amendment, which adds considerable clarity to the need for bycatch objective, and hope that the Minister will feel able to accept it.

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[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I do not have very strong opinions on these amendments or the way in which they are drafted. Clearly, there need to be economic and social benefits from an industry. In fisheries, that is more important than most because coastal communities very much depend on that sector. We sometimes forget that the food processing industry is the UK’s largest industry—chemicals is second—of which fisheries is an important part, particularly in areas on the east coast such as Grimsby and Hull. It is vital that we get landings into the UK, although—ironically—often in food processing, the arrival of the fish is not by boat but by an articulated vehicle that has just come across the other side of the channel. That is the way that the industry works, and we sometimes forget that.

I am generally in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. That is a good way to do it. Having said that, we have further amendments that are more specific about the economic benefit. That is where we have to decide where the balance, to use the Minister’s phrase, lies. We need to be more specific about the way that is done, whether it is through a licence or a new clause in the Bill. I generally would favour the latter. The most important thing, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said on our first amendment, is that whatever we bring and land in the UK, we export a huge proportion of that, and we need to have the trade deal to be able to do that. I am more optimistic about that than I was, given the Prime Minister’s video discussions with the European Commission. We hope that things will start to move very soon.

Tomorrow Michel Barnier will be talking about this area at an EU committee, and I have a question on fisheries. We need to make sure that whatever we land, if we are not going to eat it, we need to export it and add value to it. That is the key economic point that we need to remember.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raise interesting points on the economic benefits that we want fishing-related activities to generate. This is an area that was touched on by several groups of amendments and it is the core focus around Amendment 22, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. Fishing might be a small sector when compared to other parts of the economy, but that should not diminish its importance, particularly at the local community level, where it is key to many people’s sense of identity as well as their employment opportunities.

The measures in this Bill are supposedly designed to help fisheries flourish. It therefore struck me as slightly perverse that the original version of the Bill included employment as part of the sustainability objective but not as part of the national benefit objective. I cannot believe that the Government, who have so often claimed to be on the side of coastal communities, do not believe that boosting employment in the fisheries sector is in the national interest and that fishing activities have to be so managed as to contribute to economic well-being.

In Amendment 4, there is a case for looking at the revision of the national benefit objective, and for including something on economic and employment benefits in relation to licensing conditions. I am sure that the Minister will say that employment is implicitly included under the socioeconomic heading. If that is the case, why did the Government include explicit reference to it elsewhere in the Bill?

While these amendments are important, I believe the later amendments will have a more significant impact when it comes to strengthening the social, economic and employment benefits of fisheries and aquaculture activities.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

8: Clause 2, page 3, line 13, at end insert—
“( ) sets out how the fisheries policy authorities have taken into account the migration of species into and from adjacent Exclusive Economic Zones or territorial waters and how they have coordinated policy with the authorities controlling those zones and waters.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that fish stocks in UK waters are not considered in isolation and that it is recognised that marine stocks migrate across boundaries, and that management of stocks must take this into account.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover of an amendment and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or any other amendment in this group to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, rather late in the proceedings, I declare an interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership, which has a bearing on some of the areas that we are talking about as we take an interest in marine issues in Cornwall, obviously.

I want to talk not just to Amendment 8 but to Amendments 12 and 13, which are all part of the same issue. This brings us to management plans, which are the Government’s big idea in the Fisheries Bill. I was fairly sceptical about them because of the issue that I am about to go through, but I thank the Minister for the meeting that we had virtually some weeks ago. Also, having spoken at length to Barrie Deas of the NFFO, I am much more comfortable with these in general; indeed, subject to what I will talk about in a moment, I welcome them in general and think they are a good move forward.

The issue, however, as even my one year-old granddaughter just about knows, is that fish swim. The Government may not have noticed this, but fish swim. When it comes to the main species that we fish for, they cross boundaries, be they EEZs or territorial water boundaries. I believe that something like 80% of our stocks—not all the shellfish stocks but most of the demersal and pelagic species—swim enough to cross a boundary at some point during their life cycle. In fact, many of the spawning grounds are in other EEZs, even though we have the bulk of those stocks.

We need to avoid the so-called tragedy of the commons —I am not referring to the parliamentary Commons, of course, although we could have a debate about that, too. The problem of common resource is that no one takes responsibility; everyone wants the benefit but everybody maximises their own position. Moving out of the common fisheries policy into being an independent coastal state, we have that challenge again: how do we make sure that we do not fall into that pit of the tragedy of the commons?

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for the opportunity to discuss these amendments and to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I am interested that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, did not believe that the Government thought that fish somehow go about. Perhaps I may reassure the House that we recognise that fully; there is nothing in the Bill to suggest anything else.

We recognise fully that it is essential to manage fish stocks across shared boundaries. Many of our important stocks migrate to and from, or are simply spread across, the waters of the UK, those of other states and the high seas. As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, mentioned, our international obligations require us to work with other countries on the management of shared stocks. It is therefore imperative—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—that our policies take this into account and are effectively co-ordinated with other states.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, raised international co-operation, which is critical to achieving the ambitious objectives set in the Fisheries Bill. We recognise this, and it will be integral to the joint fisheries statement. For example, the ecosystem objective requires us to use an ecosystem-based approach to manage fish activities and to minimise and where possible eliminate incidental catches of sensitive species. This cannot be achieved without considering the needs of migratory species across their range and by working closely with our neighbouring states. The scientific evidence objective requires us to follow the best available scientific advice, which will entail working closely with other countries, as well as international bodies such as ICES. As further reassurance, the joint fisheries statement will indeed include our approach to co-ordinating with adjacent coastal states and, among other elements, how migration of species into and from adjacent exclusive economic zones or territorial waters will be taken into account in that co-ordination.

I also emphasise the importance of another piece of the legal framework which is not covered in this Bill as it is already part of our international agreements. As noble Lords will be aware, we do not as a matter of course restate international legal commitments in domestic legislation, but that does not mean that they do not continue to be relevant to the United Kingdom. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea—in particular, Articles 63, 64, 66 and 67 of UNCLOS—already provides an internationally recognised and binding set of requirements setting out how states should co-ordinate in, among other things, managing shared and migratory stocks that occur in their waters. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, raised this issue. These requirements are given further effect and developed in more detail in the UN fish stocks agreement. These already oblige us to take into account the nature of such stocks and to co-operate with other states in their management. We should be mindful not simply to duplicate existing international obligations in domestic legislation, which I fear could be a consequence of this amendment.

The Government are committed to continued close co-operation with our regional neighbours and international partners more widely. We will join regional fisheries management organisations as an independent contracting party. In so doing, our commitment to fulfil the obligations that come as part of RFMO membership will continue, but having our own seat at the table will give us a renewed opportunity to co-ordinate effectively with other states.

We also intend to develop new fisheries agreements with other coastal states so that we can work directly with them to develop frameworks for effective management of shared stocks. The more detailed aspects of the co-ordination with other states—by which I mean the arrangements we make with them on the management of shared or migratory stocks—will be determined through the annual cycle of RFMO meetings and consultations with other states. Our approach to these consultations will need to remain flexible and adaptable in order to co-ordinate effectively with other states, whose own positions will change and evolve, and to reflect the dynamic nature of fisheries management. For this reason, Clause 10(1) includes provisions for some flexibility in our approach due to changes in circumstances, which could include changes relating to the United Kingdom’s international obligations. It is for this reason also that stipulating the detail we should include in the joint fisheries statement on matters of international co-operation presents difficulties.

I will raise some specific points on Amendments 12 and 13. As noble Lords will know, international law and domestic law are different legal systems. While we will of course use our best endeavours to seek to agree sustainable management of shared stocks, the legal position is unequivocal: we cannot impose requirements on other states via domestic law. International agreements are creatures of international, not domestic, law. Amendments 12 and 13 seek to bind foreign states to comply with UK law in respect of developing management plans for shared stocks. Those states clearly would be bound by any international agreement agreed with the UK, but we cannot use a UK statute to bind other states.

I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, found the discussion of fisheries management plans of some use. I was grateful to all noble Lords who attended those meetings and am genuinely very pleased that the noble Lord found these matters positive in principle. These management plans—I say this also to my noble friend Lord Lansley—are designed to be a domestic UK model for managing fishery activity within the UK waters. As I have said, the process of agreeing joint management plans with other countries in relation to shared stocks is necessarily separate under international law. We will set out our policies for doing this in the joint fisheries statement.

There will also clearly be links between international plans and our domestic fisheries plans. Measures agreed internationally will be reflected in our fisheries management plans, and we will seek to ensure that measures we support are adopted in international plans. The joint fisheries statement would include policies on how we intend to do this in practice.

On a separate matter, this amendment does not take account of the UK Government’s reserved competence in relation to international negotiations. This amendment would place a duty on all the fisheries administrations to seek to reach agreement on shared stocks. International negotiations are a reserved matter, and one in which the UK Government should represent the interests of the whole of the United Kingdom, engaging—I emphasise —with the devolved Administrations through our established consultation processes.

I take extremely seriously all that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and others have said. I have set out the position as I see it, but I absolutely emphasise that the only way in which we are all going to have success on these matters—a vibrant ecosystem and a vibrant fishing industry—is through co-operation. That is absolutely intrinsic to both our international obligations and the way in which we have constructed the Bill. Yes, it is a framework Bill, but there is more coming for parliamentary scrutiny and consultation.

I hope that the noble Lord will be reassured that the matters he raised are taken extremely seriously. They are absolutely pertinent to a successful fisheries system across our waters and those we share with our neighbours. For tonight, I very much hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister very much for that positive and upbeat response, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed—particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, illustrating the particular issues between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Sometimes we over on this side, in Great Britain, look a little too often just to those on the other side of the North Sea and the channel, rather than the Irish Sea.

There is absolutely nothing in Amendments 12 or 13 that tries to bind any foreign state to anything, but I do not want to go down a negative route on this. I am very assured by the Minister’s response. The Government’s tone on this seems to have changed substantially since Committee. Maybe we were talking at cross purposes in Committee—I am not sure. From the conversations we have had with his officials over these management plans, it certainly seems clear that they expect to engage strongly with adjacent coastal and EEZ states.

It was useful that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, mentioned the science, ICES and the fact that we continue to share that resource. Both we and the European Union at least—and Norway, I presume—use ICES. On mackerel stock, that is a pelagic species; stocks in that area are a lot more straightforward than in a mixed fishery, as in the Celtic and south-west seas.

Given the Minister’s very positive response and that of his officials when we have had discussions, I feel far more confident that these management plans will achieve what we both want them to. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

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[The Deputy Speaker]

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, does not wish to speak on this amendment so I call the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I will be brief. Something that I tried to do in Committee but have not pursued on Report is to get more transparency from the producer organisations on how much of this quota allocation works. I very much welcome the two amendments in this group, which seem to provide greater transparency. Indeed, I hope that the Government go ahead and accept them.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

10: Clause 2, page 3, line 35, leave out from “restore” to end of line 36 and insert “or manage one or more stocks of sea fish to maintain them at, or above, sustainable levels.”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment allows plans to go beyond just sustainable levels.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for setting a precedent for us. Parliament is built around precedent and now we have it, which is most useful, and I am most grateful to him, and to the Minister for having changed policy in such a fundamental way on this Bill. I can give the Minister another opportunity to do so, because if any amendment is totally, screamingly obvious, it is this one.

The Bill reads:

“In this Act ‘fisheries management plan’ means a document, prepared and published under this Act, that sets out policies designed to restore one or more stocks of sea fish to, or maintain them at, sustainable levels.”


I am sure the Government do not mean it, but if one sentence of this Bill lacked ambition, this would be it. Surely we are not trying just to get back to where we were—that is, to “restore”—or merely to a “sustainable” level. That level of ambition is about as neutral as it can get. My amendment would not change the intention of the Bill but would have it say

“manage one or more stocks of sea fish to maintain them at, or above, sustainable levels”.

There is no reason why we should not aim, or potentially have as an aim—I shall not say that it has to be the aim; it could still be to “restore” and to get to sustainable levels—to get to above sustainable levels. As the Bill is written, it seems that we are not allowed to go beyond sustainable levels; it prohibits it. It is a straightforward amendment. Let us be more ambitious and allow ourselves to go beyond sustainability. We want, as a result of the Bill, to see success over years— it will take a number of years or a number of stocks—in going well beyond sustainable levels so that, in five or 10 years, we have a much greater harvest that allows a much bigger fishing fleet, a bigger catch and more prosperous coastal communities. I beg to move.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 14, 15 and 54. Amendment 14 would require the management plan to explain how it gives effect to the fisheries objectives. That is an important way of ensuring that the authorities responsible take account of all the fisheries objectives, notwithstanding that one has now been promoted to be the first; it is not of course the last, and therefore all the others have to be taken into account as well. It is a very good discipline in managing that kind of responsibility to have to show how you have done it, so that you can show the working, as it were—if you are mathematician, it is important that not only the result but the working be exhibited. That is what Amendment 14 does. By requiring illustration, it would enable us to make sure that the system that we are setting up will work.

Amendment 15 would ensure that the Secretary of State secured consultative advice regarding the design and implementation of the fisheries management plans and the viability and make-up of a group to do that. In the spirit of getting everyone together, a consultative group should be able to assist in working out the detail called for by the previous amendment.

Amendment 54 would build on the duties of the Secretary of State in relation to economic matters. It would ask him within a reasonable time—I have stipulated six months; I am not particularly insistent on that because he has a lot to do before the end of the year—to set out in some detail what he hopes to achieve in the way of economic benefits. All the amendments help to implement the underlying spirit of the proposals already made.

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[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister for that reply. I have looked at Clause 48 and I have to admit that she is right. There we are: I am wrong; the Minister is right. It is unfortunate that the Bill reads so unambitiously, but I accept entirely that the definitions in Clause 48, which I have used in other amendments, are right.

I thank the Minister for responding to Amendment 17, which I entirely forgot to talk to because I did not turn over the page of my brief. In many ways it is the most important of the amendments I tabled because consultation is really important. I was reassured, to a degree, by the various organisations that she mentioned. As we know, government consultation can sometimes be just to avoid a judicial review and other consultations affect policy. I thank the Minister for stressing the positive side, rather than the other. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone [V]]

When I originally read this amendment, I thought I supported the proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for an independent review if there was disagreement among the fisheries policy authorities. However, the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. The problem with independent reviewers is that the selection of them does not always do the business, especially when environmental, economic and social considerations need to be balanced within a requirement for sustainability. Independent reviewers are often identified as having come from one or other of the sectors involved, and their background is deeply suspected by people from the other sectors.

We have just had a perfect example of that in the recent so-called independent review of HS2 costs and benefits, with the result that ancient woodlands are being comprehensively trashed along the length of England. So I hope that the Minister will meet the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and come up with some other good idea for working through disagreements between the fisheries policy authorities that does not involve independent review.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I will be very interested in the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Grantchester]

My Lords, Amendment 11, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raises an important question in relation to the formulation of joint fisheries statements. Indeed, what happens if the authorities disagree on the policies to be included or their suitability in relation to the overall fisheries objectives? This is an area where we tried to tease out a little more detail in Committee, albeit with a focus on the Clause 9 power for authorities to make transitional provision. My concern then was to ensure joined-up policy-making rather than dealing with a formal dispute between different parties. However, the essence of the problem is the same. With different authorities working on different areas of policy, what mechanism is or should be in place should differences occur?

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, proposes an ability to refer matters to an independent review that would report in a relatively short timeframe. Such an approach would not necessarily resolve the differences of opinion, but it would at least provide an external arbiter whose findings each body would have to take account of. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline the process envisaged under the current formulation. If he does not agree with the approach suggested in Amendment 11, will he acknowledge that this may require further thought as the Bill progresses through the Commons?

Agriculture Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. In some ways, I have a slightly different view, and have always been pretty critical of the state aid that the agriculture and farming industry has received, largely unconditionally—some £3 billion to £4 billion a year. Many of us think that that money could have been spent in much more effective ways, whether in the National Health Service or social security, or in all the other areas that are so demanding on the Treasury. We have a real chance now, outside the European Union, to change that.

At the same time, I am very aware that as well as the climate change crisis facing us globally, there is also a biodiversity challenge for ecosystems and ecosystems services, not just globally but here in the UK. I remind Members of the State of Nature report by the Wildlife Trust, which, to give just a few examples, pointed out that 40% of species in the UK are currently in decline, some 13% are at threat of extinction, and one-quarter of our mammal species are at risk. The reasons for this are due in part to climate change, but the main reason identified is land use for agriculture. Of course, 70% of England, and slightly more of the UK as a whole, is under agriculture and farming management. It was in looking at those trade-offs that I made a personal decision: it is important to direct that subsidy, or state aid, at this crisis, as we have started to direct many other resources at climate change.

I very much welcome the environmental land management scheme set out in the Bill, although I would like to see a lot more detail on it. I believe that this is one way to make sure that we start to meet the biodiversity and ecosystem challenges across our nation—it is not the only way, but as it is the only way the Government are proposing, I support it. This is an emergency and we need to get on with it. For that reason, I speak probably in the opposite direction to some of those involved in the industry itself, and ask why the transition is seven years. It seems to me that, for an emergency, that is an extremely long time. Why can we not take five years to move across to the different system, to make sure that we keep our ecosystems safe and maintain everything that our economy depends on?

I welcome that the Bill mentions agroecology, which is a new way of looking at agriculture and whole-farming systems. I hope that ELMS will take seriously that whole-farming systems approach. My question for the Minister is this. There have been a number of trials of ELMS. How do we see those now? I am concerned about whether farmers will take up these schemes, so that we can have a real effect on our environment.

All environmental measures need to be a long-term commitment; it is no good growing trees if we cut them down in five or seven years. How do we ensure that these improvements, be it peatlands or whatever, are maintained over a long period? Reflecting in particular on my noble friend Lady Parminter’s excellent speech, I wonder also how we will enforce this. We are not good at enforcing environmental regulations in the United Kingdom at the moment, something the Government really need to confront.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I very much support the amendment. I admit that there is, perhaps uncharacteristically, a smidgen of innovation in this part of the Bill. The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and I will listen to the Minister’s reply very carefully because, as we know from Northern Ireland and “cash for ash”, these schemes can have unintended consequences. While, as always, I commend the Government on being determined to keep the discard ban active and well managed, we need to understand how this will operate practically and make sure that those unintended consequences do not arise.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I seek clarification as I raised a number of points earlier in the Bill relating to this issue. The amendment is useful in that regard to tweak information out of my noble friend. I wondered what the background was to the move away from eliminating discards to this discard prevention charging scheme. Is it from the model developed in New Zealand, and are the Government satisfied that that model is working better now than when there were initial teething problems?

I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify, but I understand that this provision is not deemed to apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Has he had any discussions with the devolved Administrations to see if they are proposing to go down this path at a future stage? I understand that the Scottish Government may bring forward their own Scottish fisheries Bill in this regard; I simply do not know the answer to that.

In Clause 28, how does my noble friend imagine the discard prevention charges being monitored? The way that subsection (4)(a) and (b) is drafted could indicate that this is a voluntary scheme. Are the Government minded to link the scheme to the REM that we discussed earlier, and would that involve cameras on boats as well as other equipment?

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful response. We are all looking for the best way to stop wasteful discards. As he will know, that has been campaigned for over many years. We were very pleased when the discard ban was introduced because it felt as though it was finally beginning to address the issue. If we now move away from it, we need to be assured that anything that runs in parallel has equal advantages.

I suppose that I had not quite understood that the scheme would be voluntary, so I assume that it is all still underpinned by the current discard ban and the charging scheme will work only in certain areas and certain fisheries.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I may make an obvious point. It is generally understood that discarding is continuing as it always has done and that there is very little change in fishers’ activity in that regard. Therefore, bringing in a charge will be a greater incentive to them to carry on as they are at the moment. I welcome this initiative but for the scheme to be successful there has to be remote electronic monitoring or whatever on the vessels so that fishers cannot discard at sea. The scheme will work only if that is done; otherwise, it will be an additional incentive to discard.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

That reminds me of a point that my noble friend Lady McIntosh raised. We have had a discussion about the requirements—not only REM but all the ways in which we need to work. We absolutely need to work with industry but we also need to say to it, “It is in your vital interests to work on this area because, in the end, if there aren’t sustainable stocks, there isn’t a sustainable industry”. They are so intertwined. I repeat that, once a scheme is up and running, the existing arrangements for prosecution of overfishing and the issuing of fines remain. This is an add-on, a further tool. There are other countries where it has worked well; this is an opportunity and work is in hand. We want to get the best scheme. It is important that we look internationally to see where it has worked and where it has not so that, when we deploy this, it hits the right target.

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I assure noble Lords that saying what I have said is not in any way to diminish anything that has been said on the issue of the importance of scientific endeavour, but I wanted to put on the record what we think the Bill enables. On that basis, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

May I come back on a couple of points? I thank the Minister for his positivity and I am grateful that he points out that the Bill allows financial intervention in terms of selective gear—that is very useful. One of the things that has come out from Select Committee work is that something that is perhaps not tracked by government, and I am not saying that this is easy, is how selectivity is being applied or is increasing. It is one of those areas that is quite important to track, so I just make that point.

I find it difficult to accept the idea that by giving a financial answer to sustainability we will get a rush to fish. Let us get back to the real world. The way it has worked in the past and will do in the future is that there will be, I presume, an annual agreement about quotas for the various fisheries. At that point we will get the dilemma that if we have an extremely low TAC we know that it will be very difficult for certain sectors of the industry, whichever sectors they are. That is the point at which the political compromise will be made and we will say, “All right, that is not sustainable. We have to help coastal communities, so we will fudge the scientific advice and allow that quota to go up.” This amendment would mean that at that annual negotiation we can say, “No, don’t fudge the scientific advice. You have to go by the scientific advice, but we recognise that there is pain in that sector of the fleet and we will find a financial way around it.” The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has often made the point that this has often been used in Europe as an alternative, sometimes quite successfully.

I was in Mevagissey at the weekend, looking at the vessels there. It is the second largest Cornish fishing port, and there was a proud sticker on the side of one wheelhouse saying “Fishing For Plastic.” There are schemes like that, so we are not paying for fishers to sit down with their feet up and enjoy the rest of the year at the taxpayers’ expense. It is a bit like the initiative on elms in the Agriculture Bill that I praised in the past. There are ways of doing it. There is no incentive to rush out to get your quota and then stop: this is about an annual situation. Responding to the positivity of the Minister, I am trying to explain that this amendment does not do that; it is trying to solve the dilemma in a positive way, a way that has been done by other fisheries administrations before. I think it is key to solving the economic issue while making sure that we are able to stick to sustainable fish stocks and scientific advice. I just wanted to make that clear.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made that point extremely well, and I hope the Minister will take it away and reflect on it further. As he says, there are all sorts of sustainability activities that one can imagine the fishers being funded to carry out that are not just straight fishing. If we were being more imaginative in the Bill, we could be more imaginative on those sorts of issues as well.

I want to say something about funding, because the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, quoted the Secretary of State on long-term funding commitments and asked which budget they will come from. I know that the Minister mentioned the spending review, but that is not the same as the commitment that seems already to have been made. I think he said that he would write or give us further information. Perhaps he could do that in writing to say what that longer-term funding will be and how it will be funded in the future. That would be extremely helpful, because that question mark still hangs over this.

I was not convinced. I did not come to bang my drum for Amendment 113 in particular, but the more the Minister tried to rubbish it, the more I got quite defensive about it. For example, in the Bill we have this long list of reasons for funding to be given by the Secretary of State, some of which are quite major and others one might think are not so significant. We are trying to say that collecting the scientific data is as important as them. I am sure that it is. It must be on a par with that because it is at the heart of our sustainability measures. Given that we already have a long list, I cannot see why we cannot add a paragraph (j) to the bottom of that long list.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

117: Clause 34, page 23, line 15, at end insert—
“( ) licensing of fishing vessels.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment includes an additional activity as a relevant marine function for the purposes of imposing a charge.

[Lord Teverson]

I shall speak also to Amendment 119. When I looked through the list of items that the Marine Management Organisation should be able to charge for, I was surprised that it did not include fishing vessel licensing. It is like saying that people do not have to pay road fund licence tax for their cars, which I am sure we would all like individually but would not be a good idea for the environment. In this case, for incumbents, we are not even charging for quota, or whatever, and yet vessel licensing is an important activity. I just do not understand why that is not in the list. The majority of the fishing industry can well afford to pay the administrative cost of licensing. All sorts of Treasury rules limit how much public charging can take place to ensure that it is reasonable. I know that variation of licences can take a lot of the regulator’s time, so I do not understand why it is not included. It should be. I shall be interested to hear from the Minister.

My other amendment states that the Marine Management Organisation should not be dependent on public funding. A huge number of regulators in this country do not receive any public finance. Two years ago, I asked a Question about that and the Government kindly sent me a list of 25 regulators in the UK that require no public funding because they charge the industry for regulating it. I will not read them all out, but it goes from the Animals in Science Regulation Unit, which I must admit I had not heard of, to much more important organisations, such as the Land Registry, the Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Office of Rail and Road, Ofwat and the Oil and Gas Authority. In financial services, there is the PRA and the Financial Conduct Authority. There is Ofgem in energy. There is the Civil Aviation Authority. All those organisations just say, “We provide an important public good, the regulation of an industry, and we expect the industry to pay for doing it.”.

I do not understand why we as taxpayers should have to pay subsidy for the industries that the MMO regulates, from offshore wind through to fisheries, all of which are extremely profitable. Why do the Conservative Government not expect the taxpayer to be relieved of that burden? That is obvious to me. That is why I have tabled the amendment. The Marine Management Organisation should fend for itself. It should be able to set sensible charges, as any other UK regulator does. I should be very interested to hear from the Minister why taxpayers should subsidise those extremely profitable industries, which include, as I said, offshore wind, marinas and most of the fishing industry. I beg to move.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I rise to speak to Amendment 118 in my name, which is a probing amendment and seeks to upgrade the regulations on this matter from negative to affirmative. While the Bill’s negative procedure has not been commented on by your Lordships’ Delegated Powers Committee or Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and may seem technical, it involves money.

Under Clause 34(5), the MMO has considerable discretion. The initial charging structure becomes important as the UK sets up the fisheries framework outside the CFP. Some questions arise, to which it will be important to have answers. Will the MMO undertake this charging function on the basis of full cost recovery? That lies behind the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Schedule 7 replicates that clause in relation to Scotland on page 74, Wales on page 75 and Northern Ireland on page 76. Is it expected that all the Administrations will set up identical charging structures to avoid any competitive imbalances?

I acknowledge that the MMO is an existing body with an excellent track record; its relationships with stakeholders are usually very positive and productive. However, if this legislation established a new public body, your Lordships’ House and the other place would have a strong interest in the exercise of this power and the procedure attached to it. When the Minister replies, I would be grateful if he could give as much detail as possible on the level of charges, the frequency of any changes envisaged and the relevant percentage of cost recovery that any sector of the industry will be required to cover.

This last point is of particular interest, as I have noted, and covered by Amendment 119 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. I am curious about the noble Lord’s use of “appropriate” in proposed new paragraph (b) in relation to his subsequent use of “must” in proposed new paragraph (c), in that there may be some implicit contradictions in the amendment. I ask the noble Lord: does the maximising of charges on the 10 metre-plus fleet mean that it could pay more pro rata and therefore be seen, in some way, as partly subsiding the under 10-metre fleet? This amendment also seems to mandate the MMO to make full cost recovery across all its responsibilities. I await the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, relating to the charging, or not, of the MMO’s services. He is absolutely right that in most other industries the regulators are funded by the industry.

I had cause to write to the MMO because a neighbour of mine in Cornwall had a problem with it over a small planning issue. I do not want to get into the rights and wrongs of it except to say that the general reaction of the neighbour and others was that the service was incredibly slow. In fact, it took a whole year for them to get an answer on whether they needed to apply for a licence. I suspect that this had a lot to do with the fact that the MMO was probably subject to government financial cuts and was not allowed enough people. I am sure that it is very good at what it does, technically and commercially, but it did not have enough people to answer on this small issue.

Looking at all the regulated industries mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, some of which I know about and some of which I do not, whatever one thinks of their decisions, they usually operate in a timely and professional manner. If they do not, we can still raise issues in your Lordships’ House. At least it is not an issue that they do not have enough money to employ the right people. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister why this sector gets all the regulation for nothing while in virtually every other sector, the people who are regulated have to pay.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I may come back to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, whose point is well made. I have probably not written the amendment exactly as it should be and he is right to pull me up on it. What I am trying to say is that that part of the amendment seeks to recognise that there has to be some sort of relationship between the charging regime and the ability of a particular unit in the fisheries industry to make money. It is clear that there is a deep division in the sector between larger vessels, which on the whole are pretty profitable to very profitable, and the under 10-metre sector, which struggles rather more. I would not want to see punitive charges being put on that sector because that would not be the way to proceed.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his amendment. It is Government policy to set charges in order to recover, where possible and appropriate, the costs of services provided to industry, which is why we are using this Bill as an opportunity to expand the existing powers available to the MMO. I should also say at this juncture that I want to acknowledge the noble Lord’s service during his time with the MMO, which I have been informed about many times. He has an advantage over us all in terms of knowing the inner workings of the organisation.

Currently, the costs of regulating sea fisheries management functions are met by the taxpayer. Fisheries management is one element of the broader function, although it includes other activities that will not be included within the scope of the charging power. However, in line with Treasury guidance, it may be more appropriate for some costs to be met by those being regulated. This may sometimes include services relating to compliance and monitoring.

The charging powers under the Fisheries Bill will enable us to move over time to increased cost recovery for the MMO where appropriate, thus ensuring consistency with the application of charges to other users of MMO-regulated services and more widely across the Defra group. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his comments, which I will take away as well. We are all in public service and we want to get these things done in as timely a way as possible.

As set out in the Fisheries White Paper, costs recovery will ensure that the MMO has the funding it needs to carry out a process of continuous improvement, making the service it runs as efficient as possible. We will need to work closely with industry to agree the pace of this change to ensure that it is sustainable. That is why the clause also places an obligation on the Secretary of State to consult appropriate persons before implementing a charging scheme. This will provide the industry with an early indication of the type of services being proposed, the detail of the charges’ composition, and when the charges are going to be brought into effect. I should also say to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that paragraph 7(3) of Schedule 3 to the Bill already provides for the relevant national authority—in England, the Secretary of State—to make regulations authorising the making of charges in relation to a sea fishing licence.

Amendment 118 would change the parliamentary procedure for regulations made under Clause 34 from the negative resolution procedure to the affirmative. The Government have carefully considered the delegated powers in the Bill and the procedures which should apply to regulations. We consider that we have struck the right balance between the need for parliamentary scrutiny and the need to be able to update MMO charges through secondary legislation. Indeed, I am reminded that it is usual for fees and charges to be imposed by arm’s-length bodies to be set out in regulations made under the negative resolution procedure. A recent example is the power for the Secretary of State to charge fees through regulations under the Ivory Act 2018, where the negative procedure is used.

As highlighted earlier when we discussed the procedure for the days at sea regulations, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has reconfirmed in its report of 26 February its view that we have struck the right balance with all our delegated powers in this Bill.

Turning to Amendment 119, the MMO has some existing cost-recovery powers that are currently utilised for marine activity. An activity for which the MMO currently charges is customer-initiated advice direct to developers without Planning Inspectorate involvement. Such developers could seek licences for building wind farms, for example. While the reasons for the amendment are entirely understandable, the Government feel that prohibiting the MMO receiving grant in aid funding would risk significantly limiting the activities it currently provides to industry. It is current government policy not to charge for activities such as control and enforcement, marine planning, research and delivering grant schemes. If the MMO were put under an obligation to self-fund entirely, there would be difficulties with charging for and delivering the activities I just outlined.

So far as paragraphs (b) and (c) in the amendment are concerned, there are existing government guidelines in place to provide guidance on cost recovery. Clause 34 also sets a statutory requirement for the Secretary of State to consult before any charging scheme is introduced. The industry would therefore be fully engaged with any decision on a proposed scheme.

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I hope that reassures the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that the charge will not exceed the reasonable costs incurred in carrying out specified fisheries management functions. Again, this is work in progress. It has been helpful to have this debate on the desire for the MMO and us to move forward on cost recovery. We need to work candidly with industry on the requirement for consultation. The direction of travel is entirely in line with the noble Lord’s aspirations. There are areas in which we think this is appropriate, but current government policy is that we would not seek cost recovery in areas such as research, because they are important and in the national interest. On the basis of work continuing on this matter, I hope the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. Did I hear correctly that the Bill already gives powers to charge for the licensing of fishing vessels or the variation of those licences?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Yes; as I said, it is in the Bill. Paragraph 7(3) of Schedule 3 provides for the relevant national authority—the Secretary of State in England’s case—to make regulations

“authorising the making of charges in relation to a sea fishing licence.”

If there is any embellishment to some elements of that, I will include it in the letter, but that is what Schedule 3 says.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister for that reassurance, and for his extensive reply. Regarding the funding of the MMO, I fully agree that it has some broader activities, including marine planning, although I am not aware that it does research. That is new to me.

The direction of travel is absolutely right, and there are all sorts of challenges. We know that departmental budgets get cut. Defra is always on the front line of those cuts, as is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and a number of others. When cuts occur, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies have their budgets cut as well, and although we expect increased efficiency from all those bodies, sometimes they are unable to provide exactly those services, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, illustrated. We must try to free them from that, because on the whole, what do users of those services want? They want quick decisions; they want to invest in offshore wind, or marinas, or coastal developments or nuclear power stations. Obviously, they are worried about the charges, but they want action. If there is proper cost recovery and those resources can be put against those needs, it will suit everybody, because everybody can get on with the job they want to do. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 117 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

122: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Producer organisations
Producer organisations in England must publish on their websites the following information—(a) the names of their members;(b) their most recent annual accounts;(c) the sources of their funds;(d) their constitution;(e) the quotas and other fishing rights distributed to each member and any other party;(f) their method of distributing quota and other fishing rights;(g) all management plans required of them by legislation or regulation;(h) the members of their governing bodies.”

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, one of the central themes of Brexit was escaping the common fisheries policy. However, a bedrock of that policy is the producer organisations and I do not think that the Bill refers to them anywhere. They are effectively co-operatives in the fishing industry, but they are an essential part of the common market organisation which is the core of the common fisheries policy. They have important powers and abilities, which stem from the fact that they allocate the vast majority of quota—itself a very valuable national resource—among their members.

I am not against producer organisations. There might be better ways of doing this in future, but I do not disagree with the Government ejecting them and finding some other method. What is exceptionally important, given the value of the assets they distribute, is that there is maximum transparency about who owns them, their legal structure, how they make decisions about their constitution, how they distribute their assets and who their members are—all information we want to know when taking about valuable assets that are part of the national resource of fish stocks and quotas.

This is a probing amendment more than anything else, to try to understand the Government’s approach to producer organisations. Will it be just carry on as you are? I believe there is a need for full transparency about how these organisations operate. I will be interested to hear from the Minister how the Government will ensure transparency about this key national asset. I beg to move.

[Lord Grantchester]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for tabling Amendment 122 on producer organisations. It is right to say that the more someone learns about the fishing industry, the more they realise they know very little. This is certainly true of a key part of the fisheries industry: the boat fraternity, its ownership, quota and producer organisations. It is far from transparent, which makes for a difficult task when trying to appreciate the consequences and implications of Government policy. This amendment is one way to shed light into this opaque part of the industry. Whether it is the right or best way to bring transparency the Minister can help to determine. If there are other, better ways, perhaps he can bring them to our attention, which would be to the benefit of everyone.

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[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister for that extensive reply. I knew that it might be a hostage to fortune when I said that this was not mentioned in the Bill. I apologise to his Bill team for not reading their Bill sufficiently before making that comment. I welcome the Minister’s response; again, it is around the direction of travel. Transparency is important in this area. He is absolutely right that producer organisations have marketing and production plans and a much broader remit than just managing quota. I ask the Minister and his colleagues—perhaps his honourable colleague at the other end who deals with fisheries full-time—to keep an eye on this issue and progress it, rather than forget it. It is for the industry’s longer-term good that it is transparent and beyond criticism. I thank the Minister for his reply; I accept it and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 122 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

123: After Clause 45, insert the following new Clause—
“Marine regulators
(1) The Secretary of State must carry out a consultation regarding—(a) the rationalisation of, and(b) the sharing of,regulatory activities between the Marine Management Organisation and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and lay a report of the conclusions of the consultation before both Houses of Parliament.(2) The Marine Management Organisation and the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities must—(a) fully cooperate in each of their geographic areas in order to maximise the use of resources and intelligence;(b) draw up and submit joint plans for cooperation in fisheries management to the Secretary of State annually.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to ensure the best use of all marine regulator resources by better shared facilities, resources and coordination.

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[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, we come to the last group of amendments. I suppose one is not really allowed to call this an amendment with my tongue in my cheek; it is around an important issue. The original Marine and Coastal Access Act laid out quite a structure around how the seas are regulated. It had a divide between IFCAs, which were inshore, up to six miles out—if I have it right, rather than 12 miles—and the MMO, which went out beyond that on our territorial waters to 12 miles, and then there was the EEZ fisheries enforcement. I do not think that that divide has worked particularly well. Also, when the MMO was originally set up, there was a vision that it would have a much broader role over what happens on our seas. That role is, of course, also divided with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency—a very important agency but under the purview of the Department for Transport. It seems to me that there are opportunities for better co-ordination and more efficiency in the way that we regulate our seas, in all sorts of fashions. I do not necessarily say that this is easy, but I do not think that we are at the right solution at the moment.

In fact, in spite of my amendment, the biggest challenge is perhaps between the roles of the IFCAs and the MMO. That is why I have perhaps been overprescriptive in this amendment in saying that there needs to be an actual plan between the MMO and those organisations—for each region that the IFCAs cover—to make sure those resources are used efficiently. As the Minister mentioned, I was proud to be a board member of the MMO for six years. I am no longer that but, during that time, there was—I would not say a turf war—quite a struggle between IFCAs and the MMO. The IFCAs were concerned that they would be taken over by the MMO, or that the MMO would be quite strong in telling them what to do. It is a difficult relationship. It works well in certain areas—it has always worked very well in the eastern region—but not necessarily elsewhere. I am trying to highlight that.

The Minister has often said that there are now all sorts of co-ordination methods out there on the seas, which I welcome. But I still feel that the workings of the IFCA-MMO relationship is not good enough and that there is room for rationalisation between our ocean regulators, the MCA and the MMO. As previously, I am very interested to hear the Minister’s comments on how the Government see this. The main challenge is making sure that IFCAs and the MMO work closely together, maximising their resources and maximising sustainability and conservation. I beg to move.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 128, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, has attached her name.

In 2001, I was top of the Private Member’s Bill ballot in the other place and introduced the Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill, which passed its stages in the Commons but, sadly, did not go through your Lordships’ House. At that time, I realised how complex the whole marine environment—in the wider sense of the word—is, including how many different interests there are and the different contexts; fisheries is the most obvious, but there are many others. I am pleased to say that my early foray into this area led to the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, to which my Bill was a little nudge.

I am a very simple person and this is a very simple amendment. It seeks to add to the Short Title of the Bill the words “and Marine Conservation”, as in the Long Title. I have listened to much informed debate here, and now have much more knowledge of fisheries than I have ever had; when I have not been in the Chamber, I have looked at Hansard. I therefore realise that this is very complex. I think it is the Government’s intention to make the Bill not just about the fishing industry but about sustainability, and to look at marine conservation—as I said, it is in the Long Title. It is important to put it in the Short Title also because a lot of people, including probably me, think that when we talk about fisheries we are talking purely about the industry. It is of course much more than that.

As most life in the marine environment is under the sea, it is not visible—there are obvious exceptions, such as birds and the cetaceans that surface from time to time. I am not sure that the public are entirely aware of what has happened in our depleted under-sea environment. I think that if it was terrestrial, many people would realise what was going on. It is rather like the American bison that once roamed the plains in their millions, and was then reduced to very few, or perhaps the passenger pigeon that once darkened the skies, and was shot and used for pet food, and then suddenly went extinct. If people realised what was happening under the water to a lot of our fish stocks, they would be appalled.

This Bill does a lot towards that. Although I am a little disappointed with some areas, I am beginning to understand this place and know that the Government will look again at some of these things on Report, and that the Bill will go down to the other place. But we have to be very careful. In the first speech I made on this Bill, I mentioned the Newfoundland cod stocks that disappeared. I am very concerned that, if we are not careful, similar extinctions will occur, which will have an economic and social impact on our fishing communities, not to mention on wildlife. Obviously, it is not just us who enjoy the nutritious meal that is fish; the sand eels that are taken are a very important part of the diet of many seabirds.

I always want to be helpful to the Government—it is a trait I have had ever since my party has been in government—and I think this would be a good addition to the Bill. It will not cost much, only the cost of reprinting, and it would send a message. Of course, it would also make it easier for us to make sure that the Government’s feet are firmly to the fire on some of the conservation measures in the Bill. With that, I leave this with the Government. If they want to take it as their own clever idea, I would be more than delighted.

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In light of this explanation, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I thought that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, was far better than mine. I am very sad that, despite the fact that it would have “no legal effect”, it is not possible. We come to the end of Committee. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is not still here, because he was here at the beginning. He said that he was just so excited; I am sure we all remember that strong advocate of Brexit saying how exciting it was to be able to talk about all the new ideas coming through in these amendments. Well, where are we? We have had the charging for things that should not be discarded, which was a change, but, other than that, I find the Bill very conservative. If I were to give the Government one bit of advice—I never thought I would hear myself say this—I would tell the Minister to deliver the Bill to Dominic Cummings at No. 10 and ask him to sex it up. I think that is seriously what is required. We have an opportunity here really to make a difference. This is Brexit and we are an independent coastal state for goodness’ sake—let us make the most of it. But what do we have? Something that is really just the status quo. Anyway, that is my feeling about it.

I thank the Minister for his perseverance with all of us during Committee—I know we do not normally do this at this time, but I really do—and I thank the noble Baroness. On this amendment, I recognise the progress that the Government are making in this area. I think, in reality, that the IFCAs and the MMO are structurally flawed; this is very difficult to solve. I am not saying anything else, but progress is being made there. The memorandums of understanding are probably new since I was involved in this—or they are being developed —but I welcome them. With those comments, and my commiserations to the noble Lord, Lord Randall, on his last effort, I look forward to Report and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 123 withdrawn.