Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

81: Clause 17, page 13, line 25, at end insert—
“( ) A licence granted under this section must require that foreign fishing vessels fishing in British waters comply with at least the same minimum technical regulations as British vessels for that same fishery.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that foreign vessels have to comply with the same technical rules as British vessels.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 82 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. Before I start, I will go back to the previous group of amendments and say how much I welcome the Minister’s statement on IUU fishing. This is absolutely fundamental to the wider global issues around sustainability of fish stocks, which are under great pressure. Unfortunately, a great deal of illegal fishing still goes on. The UK’s work in this area in the past has been really important. In many ways we have led the EU; let us remember the common fisheries policy. I am glad to hear reaffirmation of that today.

I move on to what I hope is a very easy amendment. It seems important that any foreign vessels allowed to fish in UK waters or our economic zone should have to comply at least with the same technical regulations as our own vessels. I have put that in as an amendment; I assume the Minister will stand up and say, “It’s already happening” or “We’re going to make sure it is”. I certainly hope that is the case with the excellent amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, about employment practices and safety standards. Obviously, we are all very aware of the safety issues on fishing vessels—on all vessels, indeed, but particularly in fishing, which is one of the most dangerous activities. I look for confirmation on both of those. I beg to move.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for tabling Amendment 81, and rise to speak to my Amendment 82, which is on the same matter. I hope that is helpful.

The noble Lord’s amendment requires foreign fishing vessels in British waters to comply with the same standards as British vessels. My amendment is very similar, making it clear that as the UK will be granting licences, the licensing authorities in the UK must make sure that all fishing boats, including foreign vessels, comply to UK standards on safety and employment practices.

Equal standards, the level playing field and equivalence have bedevilled all regulations between the UK, the EU and soon others, through all trade negotiations, not least with the USA. In fisheries, as in agriculture, there is clear interest that fair and equal competitive standards must be adhered to across the board. The Committee has recognised the tough and dangerous working conditions in which all UK fishers work; the whole of the UK would want these to be as safe as possible. It is equally important that employment standards and regulations in the UK must not be undermined by any lesser standards that may pertain overseas.

In conversations, officials in the Minister’s department have indicated that the technical side of this issue is dealt with in the Bill. Could the Minister specify its location? I am not sure whether employment law and practices are dealt with specifically, although the Minister may reply they are included in licence conditions. These amendments make sure they are, and that compliance is mandatory for both UK and foreign boats.

Election promises on standards must be upheld in legislation, not merely stating that we are leaving the EU on 31 January and that our future relationship must be decided by 31 December. These standards also need to be put in specific legislation.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for this short debate, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. He is right to emphasise the need for proper safety regulations for all vessels fishing in our waters.

Amendment 81 seeks to ensure that all vessels, regardless of nationality, follow the same technical conservation measures when operating in UK waters. Schedule 2 to the Bill extends domestic legislation containing technical measures, such as restrictions on the size of velvet crab that can be caught, to foreign vessels. Under the common fisheries policy, this legislation has been able to apply only to British boats, so this change provides for the first time the level playing field between British and foreign vessels sought by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. Further, Schedule 3 provides the powers to set conditions on licences and to extend those conditions so that they also apply to foreign vessels. I make it clear that our intent is to ensure that equitable approaches for licence conditions apply to both domestic and foreign boats in the future.

This amendment seeks to mandate additional licensing criteria for foreign vessels. We regard this as unnecessary, as measures to achieve equitable treatment are already provided for by the Bill.

Finally, the amendment does not take into account the devolved competence of the fisheries administrations to set their own licence conditions in their waters, where they do not conflict with delivering what has been agreed internationally.

Amendment 82 seeks to address two very serious issues. As my noble friend the Minister noted in his opening speech at Second Reading, and as we have discussed previously in Committee, fishing remains one of the most dangerous occupations. I regret that too many deaths and injuries still occur in our waters. However, safety at sea—for all vessels, not just fishing boats—falls within the remit of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency—the MCA—which has powers to enforce safety regulation.

Under the Fishing Vessel (Codes of Practice) Regulations 2017, a non-UK fishing vessel must not enter UK waters unless,

“if its registered length is 24 metres or over, it has been certified by its flag State as complying with the requirements of the Torremolinos Protocol”

on the safety of fishing vessels,

“or … if its registered length is less than 24 metres, it has been certified by its flag State as complying with the requirements of that State applying to vessels of that length”.

If a foreign vessel does not comply with these requirements in the future, it will not be granted a licence to fish in UK waters.

The MCA is also working to implement the International Labour Organization’s work in fishing convention into UK law. Its aims are for all fishermen to have decent living and working conditions, regardless of employment status. It entitles all fishermen to written terms and conditions of employment, decent accommodation and food, medical care, regulated working time, regular payment, repatriation, social protection, and health and safety onboard. It also provides minimum standards relating to medical fitness.

Lastly, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, mentioned discards and European law. This will be covered at a later stage.

With this explanation, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I am very convinced by the Minister. However, coming back to the fact that this is devolved, I must admit that the thought of Scottish waters insisting on it and English waters not doing so rather boggles the mind. But I am very happy to withdraw the amendment, given those assurances.

Amendment 81 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, my proposed new clause seeks to clarify whether we have sufficient resources to patrol British waters and enforce fisheries licences, an issue we did begin to touch on in previous debates.

Apart from the odd skirmish, we have had a settled agreement on the distribution of fishing rights in UK waters and shared waters in recent times. However, leaving the EU and the common fisheries policy will potentially change all that. We do not know the outcome of the trade negotiations with particular regard to fisheries, but there are bound to be winners and losers—and there may well be bad losers.

We very much hope that the settlement works to everyone’s advantage, but that seems unlikely. The truth is that most commentators expect fisheries to be a highly emotive part of the UK-EU negotiations. I am sure that the noble Lord will seek to reassure us otherwise, but it seems unlikely that UK fishers will see a return to the unconstrained access to UK waters that they were promised in the referendum and beyond. The potential for bad feeling and a sense of betrayal could prevail from a number of quarters.

This brings us on to the resources needed to manage these disputes, which is the issue covered by our amendment. The Minister’s helpful letter following Second Reading described how offshore fisheries enforcement in English waters will be primarily delivered by two vessels operated by the MMO. In addition, the Royal Navy is increasing its offshore patrol vessels from four to eight in 2020, but only two of these would regularly be available to support fisheries enforcement. This does not seem sufficient for what could be choppy waters, and it is not clear whether Ministers consider these numbers sufficient or how they intend to deploy this capacity once the UK is an independent coastal state.

Therefore, we are seeking to require a statement setting out whether the UK has sufficient resources to patrol our waters and to enforce the licences. This includes whether we have sufficient vessels and personnel. It should also clarify what training Royal Navy personnel will be given in this specialist, potentially somewhat diplomatic, enforcement requirement. For example, what orders will enforcement boats be given when interacting with those they suspect of breaching licensing arrangements?

Given the PM’s stubbornness on the transition period, everyone is having to work on an accelerated timeline. We need to be confident that the UK is prepared to take up these opportunities to bring the matter to Parliament. Unless the Minister can offer a guarantee of a debate in the weeks and months to come, it seems we will get clarity only by introducing a statutory reporting requirement as set out in this amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for an excellent and important amendment. There is no point doing any of this stuff if we cannot enforce it, and enforcement on the high seas is one of the most difficult tasks that there is in terms of enforcement of laws and regulations, as we well know.

I absolutely take the noble Baroness’s point—I hope the Minister does as well, although I am sure he does—about the sensitivity of this. If negotiations are difficult, potentially we will have quite angry people on the seas from 1 January. It is important that any incident can be dealt with properly and diplomatically. We saw in the Baie de Seine, back in the latter part of 2018, how a dispute on the high seas quickly becomes dangerous and difficult to control—sense came when the two Governments came together afterwards to sort it out. There are all sorts of tensions there.

The question I particularly want to ask the Minister is about something that came up when the Secretary of State was in front of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee last week. One of the officials there with the Secretary of State said that a lot of the money going into enforcement was part of the Brexit process and therefore temporary. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what sort of budget has been put forward for additional enforcement over the time of Brexit and a potential Australian-style deal at the end of this year. What is the ongoing enforcement funding likely to be? There is too much temptation for the Treasury to be generous—realistic, shall we say—with enforcement funding over the Brexit transition period but thereafter ask Defra for huge economies in enforcement as it has done in the past. Assurances from the Minister, or otherwise, would be very useful at this stage.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I absolutely understand the point made by the noble Baroness. My assessment is that this is at the right level, and the fact is that the Royal Navy is growing or doubling its vessels. That is why I emphasised the phrase “at least”. There is an agreement between the MMO and the Royal Navy about those two things. I emphasised “at least”; all our efforts will be to ensure that there are no difficulties at sea, which would be in no one’s interests. That is precisely why I explained about the doubling of the number of front-line warranted officers, and why I outlined increasing aerial surveillance and the work of surveillance technologies. All this is upscaling, precisely to accommodate the point made by the noble Baroness, if we are in potentially uncertain times, rather than where we were before. I described the increase in almost every feature of what is available to us at sea, including technology and personnel, to accommodate the possibilities that the noble Baroness outlined. I am basing my judgment on a much more rigorous assessment than me just saying yes to the noble Baroness. It is also why JMOCC is so important, because so much of this is intertwined with those organisations involved in JMOCC. It is terribly important that the MMO and Marine Scotland are part of that because there may be a time when fisheries protection becomes an issue and all this resource across the United Kingdom and the Royal Navy may need to be deployed.

I will say that the answer is yes, but it is not a glib yes. It is because the people who understand these areas have assessed and advised us that we should increase what we have done. That is why I am confident that we are where we should be. However, I emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that it is really important that all these matters are kept under review. That is why I deliberately emphasised that, on this matter, there is strong working with all four fisheries administrations in the United Kingdom interest.

[Lord Teverson]

How long will the temporary financing of extra resources last and when it will end? At that point, there will be a question mark. Will we go back to where we were when, effectively, for many years there was no real access to the Royal Navy at all because it was off doing other things? This is a really important point to clarify.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I apologise to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that I have no further detail other than to say that I am confident. We have upscaled in the way that we have—constructing vessels and all we are doing is not like turning on and off a tap—and are increasing the number of Royal Navy vessels for this sort of demand. If we were to need additional support because something happened, I am confident that all the resources would be at our disposal.

I do not think we need to discuss a theoretical point, but if in 10, five or three years’ time all is well and we have good negotiations and agreements, the most important thing—the responsibility that all Governments should have—is the safety of UK interests and the safety of people at sea. Obviously, we will need to have all that I have outlined with the assessment that the MMO is constantly reviewing. I imagine that, down the line, there may be an assessment that there is not much of an issue and we are working towards having that capability, but that would be for the future. For now and for the foreseeable future, however, it is precisely why the Navy is upscaling the number of vessels and why we have done what we have by increasing the number on the front line.

I have been handed a note that says that all matters for future enforcement funding will be the subject of the spending review, but we will put in a robust bid, as befits our status as an independent coastal state. I hope I have not offended the Treasury by saying that.

I apologise. I should have addressed that, but in the meantime, I hope I have outlined to the noble Baroness that this is obviously an area of continuing interest and continuing responsibility.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps the Minister can write to me with the figures for the current enforcement budget for England and the amount of Brexit special funding from the Treasury. They are discrete amounts and I would be interested to know what they are.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Yes, I will endeavour to ensure that a letter is directed to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness and put in the Library.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, this amendment addresses a running concern in the Bill that Parliament will be precluded from knowing the details of the trade negotiations as they affect fishing opportunities until it is too late to comment or influence the outcome. In his letter to Peers, the Minister referred to future treaties, including a framework on fisheries with the EU needing to be laid before Parliament before it is ratified. We would argue that this is too late for Parliament to have any real influence. As we have previously said, this is a particularly sensitive issue given the promises made to UK fishers, and to the electorate, about reclaiming our share of EU quota as we leave the EU at the end of the year.

The Minister has previously stated that this Bill is intended to be negotiation-neutral, but the reality is that we cannot debate our transition to being an independent coastal state without considering the prospects for a future UK-EU deal on access to our fishing waters. If this Bill is not the right vehicle for parliamentary scrutiny of future arrangements—it appears from what the Minister has said that it is not—then many of us will feel frustrated. It is important to clarify what the alternative is. New subsection (1)(b) proposed in the amendment includes a specific reference to retaining a share of EU quota for distant-waters fishing outside UK limits. This is an aspect of the fisheries debate which has not received as much attention, but it is important for parts of the UK fleet.

We appreciate that the UK position is that we want to reach an agreement with the EU and vice versa. However, if that does not prove possible, the default position is that the UK will unilaterally repatriate 100% of quota for UK waters next year, while potentially cutting off access to EU waters immediately for those who fish those distant waters. This could have a huge implication for the UK fleet, much of which relies on continued access to those distant waters. We do not know whether the Government intend to do this or whether they would negotiate some other form of transitory agreement with the EU. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify the Government’s thinking on this issue.

Meanwhile, I hope that noble Lords will support the amendment. It seeks to give a clearer role for parliamentary scrutiny over these decisions, which could have profound implications for the future of our fleet. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment. If there has been one mistake made since the referendum—apart from the result of the referendum which, of course, is indisputable and I entirely accept—it is that the Government have attempted to exclude Parliament from so much. That has been part of the reason why we have had the three years of turmoil that we have had. It is therefore important that the Government keep Parliament involved or up to date on how these negotiations are working; though clearly Parliament is not looking for the final resolution, those negotiations have to take place in that context.

Last week, I was concerned that when the Secretary of State was in front of the EU sub-committee, he stated that the Scottish Administration—or a Scottish Minister—would not be allowed in the room when the negotiations took place. He was very specific about it: I questioned him and checked what he had said. He said it was because this was not a devolved matter but a matter for the United Kingdom. It was slightly ironic, given the discussions we have had on this Bill. Will the Government reconsider that position, because the Scottish fishing industry is fundamental to the UK fishing industry? This is an area on which the Government ought to change their view. I very much support the amendment and the spirit in which it was introduced.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for her amendment. The UK Government remain committed to keeping Parliament and the public informed of the progress of negotiations. On 27 February, the Government published The Future Relationship with the EU: The UK’s Approach to Negotiations. This makes clear that the UK and the EU have committed to use best endeavours to agree a new fisheries agreement by 1 July 2020. In line with the practice of other independent coastal states, the agreement would provide a framework for annual negotiations on access and quota and set out a mechanism for co-operation on fisheries matters where we share an interest with the EU. The Prime Minister has already committed to providing further details as the negotiating process develops. Both Houses will also have access to their usual arrangements for scrutinising the actions of the Government—and I am in no doubt, looking at various noble Lords here tonight, that your Lordships will take full advantage of these.

As your Lordships will be aware, negotiations for a fisheries framework agreement and our future relationship with the EU started last week. It is important to note that, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster noted in the other place, the UK Government hope that by June, the broad outline of an agreement will be clear and capable of being rapidly finalised by September. Subsection (1)(b) in the amendment itself refers to distant waters. It is not clear whether “distant waters” was intended to have a specific meaning, but we have taken it to mean waters for which the UK is not the relevant coastal state and which are outside EU waters. Therefore, I make it clear that we will also seek to negotiate fisheries framework agreements with key partners in other coastal states, such as Norway. Again, these agreements will pave the way for annual negotiations on access and fishing opportunities in third-country waters, which I know will be of particular interest to our distant-waters fleet and others whose businesses rely on accessing fishing opportunities in those waters.

As with negotiations with the EU, the Government will keep Parliament informed of the progress of these negotiations. Where we have fisheries or conservation interests in international waters, the UK will join relevant regional fisheries management organisations in its own right and, in so doing, we will continue to collaborate with other coastal states where we have shared interests in fisheries in international waters.

In all these negotiations, leaving the EU creates an opportunity for the UK to secure a fairer sharer of quota, or fishing opportunities, for our own fleets. I assure noble Lords that that is what this Government are determined to achieve but, with all these negotiations, the UK Government must retain flexibility—we may not agree but I think the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was going along those lines—with regard to the timing and content of our updates to Parliament, in order not to undermine our positions in live and ongoing negotiations. We believe that the amendment would remove this flexibility, obliging the Government to publish a statement at a particular time, potentially while negotiations are still ongoing. This risks undermining our negotiating positions entirely.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for his amendment, and to the noble Baroness who moved it. Although I recognise that the aim of the amendment is to make it compulsory for the Secretary of State to determine annual fishing opportunities, it would oblige the Secretary of State to determine all fishing opportunities on an annual basis. Some stocks are determined on different timescales, and for some non-quota species, there is no specific determination. I assure noble Lords that the original provisions are sufficient to ensure that the Secretary of State fulfils the function of determining UK fishing opportunities, through Clause 23(1) and (2), and that Parliament is able to scrutinise these determinations through Clause 24(2)(b).

Further, for non-quota stocks—for which we do not currently have the science to make an accurate determination—the fisheries management plans, as outlined in the joint fisheries statement, will set out policies for getting stocks to their maximum sustainable yield. For such stocks, this will necessarily include our plans for improving the scientific data and evidence that will underpin the future management of our non- quota fisheries. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that this is why he should be more positive about the fisheries management plans, bearing in mind the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, made earlier. I think this is an opportunity, particularly where the science is not the strongest, and we need to improve it—this is where we can get down to some of the pragmatic ways in which we can improve all stocks.

[Lord Teverson]

I am sure that there is the potential to do that, and I look forward to the meeting; I am very pleased that the Minister is going to bring this meeting together, and maybe we will find a way forward from there. I do not in any way write them off, but when they are purely UK territorial waters, that is where I have a problem. So I endorse the Minister’s comment.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

There was, shall we say, licence on my part there because I thought it might excite intervention. Anyway, I look forward very much to the discussions. Anyone who wishes to come is welcome; I will send a wide invitation and get scientists there so that we can get to the heart of some of these matters.

On Amendment 92A, the power set out in the clause would be used to set the UK’s total allowable catch, or the absolute amount the UK is able to fish, reflecting the outcome of the negotiations with the EU and other coastal states. It could also be used to ensure our compliance with Article 61 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, which provides that catch levels should be set at sustainable levels, taking into account the best scientific evidence available. As an independent coastal state, we are committed to working closely with our partners to manage shared stocks sustainably and to share fishing opportunities on a fair and scientific basis.

It is imperative that we meet our international obligations, such as those I have described under UNCLOS, as we strive to set a gold standard for sustainable fishing around the world. I say to my noble friend that sustainability, as set out in the objectives of the Bill, is a key driver for our future plans for the industry and our negotiations. We have been clear that, in entering into negotiations and making determinations, we will be informed by independent scientific advice from ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, CEFAS, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, and its equivalents in the devolved Administrations. In conjunction with our commitments through the scientific evidence objective, this provides the assurance that determinations will be fully informed by the best available science.

The existing clause also ensures that we respect the devolution settlements. The Secretary of State will make determinations on UK fisheries opportunities only where this relates to an internationally negotiated outcome, which is a reserved competence. Removing this subsection would give the Secretary of State powers to set fishing opportunities directly for each devolved Administration, which would contravene the devolution settlements. This clause provides the necessary reassurance to the devolved Administrations that the Secretary of State would not seek to overstep on areas of devolved competence.

Our fisheries White Paper made it clear that for existing quota we will honour the allocation and distribution through the FQA units. However, we have been clear that we will explore alternative methods for allocating and distributing any additional quota negotiated both at UK level and within England.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Again, the problem with the amendment stating “must” is that it concerns the determination of all fishing opportunities. If it says “must”, the amendment becomes a requirement that would involve stocks determined on different timescales. There are also some non-quota species where there is no specific determination. The word “may” allows the determination of the annual fishing opportunities. The problem with the amendment making it “must” is that it brings in these non-quota species. The issue I have sought to put across is that making the determination compulsory embraces all stocks—because it “must”. Obviously, there will be annual fishing opportunities for all those that involve quotas and so forth, and we will be having annual negotiations and arrangements. It is not that the Secretary of State will suddenly say, “I don’t think we’ll do this, this year”; it is that making it “must” brings in these stocks determined on a different timescale and non-quota species. That is the problem as I understand it: the amendment has that legal interpretation.

The original provisions ensure that the Secretary of State fulfils the function of determining UK fishing opportunities through Clause 23(1). Making it a “must” brings into scope stocks that would not be subject to the determination of annual fishing opportunities. That is as I understand it. If it is any different, perhaps I can discuss with the noble Baroness, but that is, in our view, the problem with the interpretation of that amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I strongly support this amendment and, if that is the case, clearly the Government should just bring forth an amendment themselves. It should say that for quota species it should be a “must”. That is how we solve it. Clearly there must be that assessment or process every year for quota species. It is obvious and clear. The Government need to bring forward their own amendment to make sure that it includes only quota species.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Again, the provision talks about “for a calendar year”, so these are annual fishing opportunities. “Annual” means every year; it does not mean that by saying “may”, the Secretary of State can decide not to bother one year. That is not the case—rather, it is about the fixing of annual fishing opportunities.

As I say, I have been informed that the original provisions are sufficient to ensure that the Secretary of State fulfils the functions of determining UK fishing opportunities, but if I have anything further that will assist noble Lords, I will of course communicate it. I think that the interpretation of this power to determine serves the correct purpose, but if there is a pressing need to have discussions with noble Lords on the matter outside the Committee, I am happy to do so. However, as I say, I have been advised that there is no problem with it.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

94: Clause 23, page 15, line 27, at end insert—
“( ) Any rise in the total quantity of an annual quota in England shall be disproportionately allocated to the under-10-metre fleet.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to gradually increase the viability of smaller fishing vessels and protect coastal communities.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I come to two amendments; I cannot imagine there is any way the Government could disagree with them, but we will see how we do. They are entirely in line with government policy, as I understand it. In fact, I have given credit before to the Secretary of State. When he was Minister, he managed a redistribution to the under-10-metre fleet, despite the resistance of the English legal system, for which I give him credit.

Amendments 94 and 106, to which I will speak as well, state that we are in a situation in which it is the Government’s intention, through their negotiations later this year, that we will move to a system of zonal attachment, or whatever you want to call it. The outcome is that we should have more entitlement and shed the straitjacket of relative stability, and there should be more fishing opportunities for the UK fleet. That is the bottom line. Amendment 94, which I am perfectly happy to write in future as an English as opposed to a UK amendment, says that as we increase those harvesting opportunities for the UK fleet, the local fishing fleet’s proportion, which is estimated at between 2% and 5% of quota, should increase. Those are the fishers in this industry under greatest pressure. They are part of local communities, and the ones the fisheries campaign around Brexit focused on, if we are honest. Let us deliver on that and make a commitment that the redistribution strongly biases the under-10-metre fleet.

In the agriculture and farming sector, we often concentrate on and hear the question: how do we make sure we get new entrants into the agricultural industry? Yet, we talk about this only infrequently in fisheries, where the barriers are equally high. Here is another opportunity, through the increased harvesting opportunities which the UK—or English—fleet will have, to have a scheme for new entrants and younger people. This industry, on the whole, has a fairly aged profile and not a lot of new entrants. Here is an opportunity for new entrepreneurs and people with new ideas to come into the industry and start to thrive.

Having said that, as the amendment states, if people move out of the industry or are not able to succeed for whatever reason, their quota cannot be sold on. It has to come back to the authorities or to the state. These propositions make the Bill almost mildly exciting for the industry. I hope the Minister can grab that opportunity.

I also support, in general, Amendment 105 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. As in my amendment, with which we started Committee, this all comes down to who owns the stocks. The noble Baroness introduces the interesting concept of those stocks being held in trust. I am concerned that we are stuck in a straitjacket at the moment in the way quota is distributed. The Minister said earlier, on one amendment, that FQAs are staying as they are, so we will still be in a situation where almost half—40%—of English quota is effectively owned by foreign vessels. I put this question to the Minister: even if we increase our quota, largely get rid of relative stability—or at least move towards that—and increase UK catch opportunities, and I am a Danish, Dutch or French corporate that owns fishing rights in the UK, what will I do? Am I going to be excluded from UK fisheries? No, I will just use my deep pockets to buy more UK quota; rather than having my Dutch, Danish or Spanish-flagged vessels fishing extra UK quota, I will have a British flag on my boats. So the status quo is maintained.

It comes down to this: even if we have the additional catch limits, I see no reason why there will be any difference in the structure of the industry; it will be completely open to foreign individuals to buy British companies that own British quota. What is going to change? Companies on the other side of the Channel or the North Sea, or in Ireland, have the deep pockets to do this. Moving slightly away from my amendments, I bring the Minister’s attention to who owns the quotas and fish stocks, and the possibility of bringing them into public trust. At the moment, FQAs are effectively owned by well-off and profitable companies, individuals or families. They pay no rent or income whatever to the UK, the taxpayer or British citizens. I am very interested in the Minister’s response to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington.

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I shall write to the noble Baroness on that detailed point.

On Amendment 106, which addresses new entrants, we are aware of concerns about shortages in crew and an ageing demographic within the fishing industry. The average age of fishers in the UK is 42. To address this in England, we are working closely with the Seafood Industry Leadership Group, whose work has highlighted the importance to a thriving seafood industry of training, skills development and workforce retention. I take on board the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on apprenticeship training, which is very much in line with our own intentions. A number of fishing organisations have tried to develop schemes for new entrants, and apprenticeships. They have had varying degrees of success and many lessons have been learned. It is not easy, but it does not mean that fishing organisations should not continue to try. We must also ensure that there are fish for new entrants to catch, which means balancing the environmental, social and economic objectives.

We are also looking at examples from around the world, such as the Faroes, Scandinavia, Jersey and Guernsey, to identify options to support the UK fleet now and to ensure that it has the labour force necessary for its long-term future. To ensure certainty and stability for the UK fishing industry, after discussions with industry and, as stated in the fisheries White Paper, we took the decision not to overhaul the current system of allocation for existing quota. Quota for new entrants could, therefore, be set aside only from increased fishing opportunities gained through negotiations. Part of the work that we are undertaking with industry and other stakeholders this year will include consideration of the option of using additional quota to support new entrants. We have the powers to do this.

Ensuring that fishers can fish sustainably will be an important aspect of the considerations for allocations. The amendment does not refer to any sustainability criteria and could therefore ultimately restrict our ability to set a gold standard for sustainable fishing. I have been advised that there are, regretfully, a number of other practical issues with the amendment as drafted. It is not clear which quota this allocation should be made from: the UK, English, existing or new. Further, it is not clear for how long a new entrant could keep the quota. If it is for the entire career of the fisherman, provided they continue to fish it, the requirement to always have a proportion available for new entrants could mean taking quota from existing fishermen. With this explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister for those 101 reasons why it is difficult. My question is: do the Government want a new entrants scheme?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I think that I just said that we do, and how we could do it with additional quota.

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I note the noble Baroness’s disappointment, but that is the Government’s position and we have no plans.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for going through all that, but another term for stability and certainty is fossilisation. That is what we are being told. The whole Bill is in many ways on that theme, I am afraid. One fundamental question that the Minister did not answer is: what is to stop all the new fishing opportunities landing up exactly where they are at the moment, particularly with foreign-owned companies? I do not understand how anything can stop all our new fishing opportunities being taken by existing players, because they have the money, influence and experience. What stops everything that is new being exactly the same, replicated? I do not understand that.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I am assured that the economic benefit objective will have some bearing on that.

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[Lord Teverson]

Anyway, I look forward to the new entrants scheme. That is good. I misunderstood the Minister, who seemed to suggest it was possible only if it was sustainable. We have a sustainability objective so it obviously cannot happen unless it is, but the whole point of Brexit was to have more fishing opportunities. I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Worthington and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for really bringing into focus the whole area of allocation of these incredibly valuable rights. We are talking about tens of millions of pounds—more than that, I am sure. I had not anticipated that this was an area that we would have to return to, but we absolutely will have to.

I understand the point about needing some degree of understanding for investment into the future. That is a dangerous argument, because it is exactly what the European Union will argue in terms of all the people from across the water who have invested in fishing in our waters, so we should expect that to be echoed by the other side in negotiations with us over fisheries agreements in the future. As I said, I look forward to the new entrants scheme and fully accept the Government’s wish to have a better allocation for the under-10-metre fleet. I fully accept the criticism of the Minister that my amendments are relatively minor in comparison with the grand plan. I am with the grand plan as well, but at this moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 94 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, Amendment 107 in my name follows on from our previous debate about the management of, and criteria used for, allocating future fishing rights, which could be the subject of competitive tender or auction. Without repeating the whole debate, the Minister said in winding up on the previous amendment that consideration is being given to the new quota allocation. She also told the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that there was support for a new entrants’ scheme. If that is the case, my challenge back to the Government is: why can we not include the principles of that in the Bill? If the Bill is for anything, it should be for those sorts of future planning activities. I hope we can find a form of wording that incorporates that in the Bill.

We have addressed our concerns about how any future auctions will be run, and what the consequences would be if they were driven solely by the highest bidder. Our amendment would require regulations made to deliver the auctions to reserve a proportion of the fishing opportunities for the under-10-metre boats. The previous debate sought new opportunities for new entrants to the sector. This amendment more specifically focuses on the smaller-sized fleet.

We have already explained the importance of the smaller boats to the economic and environmental sustainability of the sector. They generally use lower-impact gear and provide more jobs per tonne, but their current share of the quota is limited to around 6% of the total. Yet in the UK, the under-10-metre boats represent more than 70% of English fishing boats and 65% of direct employment, so we should be using this opportunity to boost their numbers and their share of the sector.

This is a central argument in our bid to revive the declining and impoverished coastal communities, and for that to work we need a spread of smaller boats accessing the smaller harbours and ports. This intervention is particularly necessary as the small-boat sector is shrinking every year. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of fishers on UK-registered vessels decreased by 10%. In his letter to noble Lords of 10 February, the Minister explained that the Government were indeed keen to support the under-10-metre vessels. He explained that in England they were already taking steps to ensure that they received a higher share of the reserve quota and that further consideration was taking place on the distribution for this year. That is all fine as far as it goes, but it does not represent the step change necessary to really revive the under-10-metre sector.

Nevertheless, given the Minister’s previous comments, I hope he will support this very modest amendment. After all, all it does is to require the auction regulations to address the issue of reserving a proportion of the auctioned fishing opportunities for the under-10-metre fleet, so I hope he can support it.

Amendments 108 and 109 address our wider concerns about the competitive tendering and auction processes. They rightly raise whether we should take into account the bidder’s impact on the marine environment when allocating new quotas. As we have debated before, these amendments have considerable merit and are in line with our earlier arguments and I hope the Minister will support them.

Amendment 110 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, proposes a new Clause 27. Again, she has taken on the Government’s drafting to a considerable extent. I am grateful for her efforts. She specifies in detail what she feels that the ownership and distribution rights of English fisheries should be. These include quite detailed proposals, but they also keep the competitive tendering and auction principles with which we have some concerns. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness’s explanations for these proposals. It may well be that we will be persuaded at that point. In the meantime, I beg to move Amendment 107.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for putting steel in my backbone again and demanding that this is in the Bill—whereas earlier I sort of retreated a bit.

I am interested in hearing from the Minister how these auction rights will be used. Will they be for all quota or the new quota? I would like to use this opportunity to understand the Government’s specific intention for using these rights in the Bill. How will they do it and when? Will it apply to new quota or all quota? I am unclear, because it all starts with the Secretary of State in May. I would be very interested in understanding what the Government intend to do in the near term.

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 110 in my name. I have, perhaps overconfidently, attempted to redraft Clause 27 to set out the mechanism through which the rights to fish held on public trust are reallocated in the context of the English fishery, which is unequivocally the responsibility of the Secretary of State, since we are not talking here about anything that affects the devolved Administrations.

We set out this redrafted clause to try to mesh together the various elements that the Bill is founded on. I strongly believe that this should all be on the basis that this is a right held on trust and conferred to the private sector via the Secretary of State, and that these powers are held by the Secretary of State and then conferred. We see that there needs to be some allocation process by which those rights are transferred. I would like to hear—yet again, rather depressingly—whether this power being taken under Clause 27 applies to all quota or simply quota that may or may not be released as a result of some kind of negotiation with Europe. It feels like a real missed opportunity if it is the latter. Nothing in the Bill should prevent our applying these principles to all quota.

It seems incredible that we are here, at the start of a new decade, thinking about an unlimited right being carried on in perpetuity by the holders of the FQA system. There really needs to be a clarification. In a sense, Amendment 110 and the reworked Clause 27 speak back to Amendment 105 and the reworked Clause 25. They are a pair: the second implements those principles exclusively in relation to the English fishery.

In response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the auction and competitive tender, this is a valuable tool to have in the kit. It would need to be carefully managed, and we would need to think about how an auction is carried out. There are other auctions for government contracts or rights carried out in different sectors of the economy. The one that I know best is the allocation of contracts for zero-emissions energy, in which case certain pots are made available and certain rules written around the allocation of those rights. If the fear is that these competitive tender processes would always lead to the more dominant players gaining more access, there are policy mechanisms that one can use to mitigate that risk.

This is a crucial clause because it also establishes this concept of payment for something held for the public trust. I am always a bit worried when I hear the Ministers saying, “We’re going to use grants to encourage better behaviour.” They should not have to use grants, because they are granting a right worth tens of millions of pounds every year. In a sense, they do not need to invent additional financial incentives when they have this existing financial instrument in their hands. It should be seen as such, because it certainly is by the fishing operators. It is not a pastime carried out without focusing on the bottom line and the profitability of the activities. The Government must take that approach.

To bring holding a property right in trust to life for noble Lords, if you own a piece of land or a house and simply give it away and say, “It’s fine. You can have that, no questions asked”, it is not likely that that property will be well looked after. You would also feel very vulnerable if you did not have a solid legal basis against which that transaction was carried out.

I am afraid that the current drafting of the Bill is not clear. There is still a lot of uncertainty, which is why the courts get involved and we lose legal cases around this question of quota allocation. There is not a really clearly laid out basis on which we do this transaction, confer these very valuable rights and hand them to the private sector.

As I say, this is a partner to Amendment 105. Listing in proposed new Clause 25(5) the links back to the various plans and statements—fisheries management plans and the marine plan—is an attempt to make the Bill holistic, mesh it together and make it read back against itself in a way that has some meaning in the real world. I will leave it at that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Wilcox (Con)]

My Lords, I have been sitting here and listening for a long time. I have worked with these people and know their stories really well. We are also very passionate. We do not expect the English to get upset and worried—to love their boats, to want to bring in their youngsters, teach them properly and bring them forward.

I tried to look back and see what things stuck out for me. A lobster hatchery that I put together down in Cornwall is going jolly well—we enjoy it. In those days, people were able to take money from the European Community to train children to go to university and learn. At the same time, they would come over and take what they liked: when you came to another place, you were supposed to bring your police with you and not have any cheating. You were supposed to be watching it. However, when you talk to the Spanish and the rest of them, who had a hell of a job to get themselves enough fish, they just took it—they left the police back at home. I grew up like that.

We will find it very difficult to pull our people away from saying, “It’s all right now. Everything’s fine. We don’t need to worry”. We do need to. This is what we have heard from this marvellous lady here. I did not know her before, but she is terrific. What these two Ministers have done with patience over hours and hours is something that you do not see at sea.

I remember the first time that you could look down and see all the fish coming, because of the technology that showed it to us—watching us taking loads ourselves and pulling through. We just had to lose it. We had so much that we did not know what to do with it.

At the end of the day, what we do best is fish and chips. We love it down in the West Country. We love to sell it. The frightening thing is realising that our water goes right up to France. We have this huge amount of water around us, this great big place. We also have a place where we can eat the food we love. Hands up—who knows what we eat more of? What is it? Can no noble Lords say what they love to eat? Are you not going to be able to say, “of Britain, of England”? What do we eat? It is beef. We do not eat fish; we eat beef.

I will finish in just a moment. I do not think that it is a problem, or what we are doing is wrong. I think we are recognising, hearing and seeing the great excitement that is coming to us. We have not yet spoken about training up the youngsters to bring them in, get them keen, and get the mechanisms through. I would like to congratulate the Front Bench. I hope that we do not hang around much longer. It has been a long time and I have enjoyed it.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her work on the lobster hatchery in Cornwall, which really is something quite special and has been very successful.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Wilcox very much for her distinguished support for fishing interests over many years.

Amendment 107 in particular would seek to reserve a proportion of English quota to be sold solely to the under-10-metre fleet. In England, the decision about whether to tender any quota is still being considered. I would say to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate that all these matters are under active consideration. I will want to take back a large number of the points that have been made, but the criteria to be applied to any auction or tender could address concerns raised in relation to the under-10-metre fleet. Measures could be introduced to limit the lots being tendered, the amount of time they are tendered for, and the groups that they are targeted towards. As I have said, the Government will consult on the scheme and any allocation criteria. Other countries, such as Iceland and the Faroes, have explored auction systems for selling national fishing quotas. We will, therefore, also look to learn from these and other countries’ experiences. The Bill provides flexibility about how any future scheme might operate. It would already allow a scheme to be made only for the under-10s, for instance.

I turn to Amendments 108 and 109. The Government are committed to using the additional quota we secure to benefit our fishing industry and the coastal communities that they support. I know that the noble Baroness and many noble Lords will be disappointed, but the Government’s intention is to use this power to auction and tender additional quota. We recognise that this is an opportunity to support different catching sectors and will be consulting in the future, but the Government are committed to the support of coastal communities. While it is our intention that that these additional fishing opportunities be sold, and fished, the clause does not currently prevent someone from buying it and not fishing against it, as Amendment 108 seeks to provide. That said, I would caution that stopping this additional quota from being fished could reduce the benefit for our coastal communities. Encouraging those who do not intend to fish the quota to compete in auctions could also increase prices, and potentially outprice our fishers.

To address Amendment 109 specifically, I highlight that the quota tendered or auctioned through this clause would be only a proportion of total UK quota, as it relates to England only. It would therefore apply only to a proportion of fishing activity, and we must not forget that a significant proportion of our most valuable catches are actually of stocks that are not covered by quotas. Our ambition is to make the whole fleet more sustainable. We believe that this amendment, while well intentioned, is actually too narrow in focus, given that the Bill already provides a range of tools for fisheries managements to ensure that the impact of fishing on the marine environment is minimised.

Any scheme developed under Clause 27 would be developed in line with the sustainable fishing policies and practices that will be set out in the joint fisheries statement, which we have already discussed at length. However, as with everything relating to fishing, it is not as straightforward as might be imagined to determine what a sustainable fishing method is. As with all gear types, an assessment of sustainability is dependent upon how, when and where they are used. Advances in gear technology have also transformed sustainability and greatly cut unintentional bycatch. It is worth noting, for example, that, in line with a management approach the UK supported when an EU member state, Defra has already taken action to end a fishing technique that has caused concern—one that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, referred to in an earlier group of amendments—being used by English vessels: namely, electric pulse trawling. English licences will be withdrawn at the end of the transition period to end the practice in UK waters by English and any foreign vessels we allow to fish in our waters. Decisions on a future scheme regarding the sale of English fishing opportunities are yet to be determined and will depend on further exploration and consultation. It is right that we continue to develop the details of the scheme with the relevant stakeholders, so that it is flexible.

I turn to Amendment 110. While I agree with the noble Baroness’s intention to ensure that any sale of English fishing opportunities is regulated and based upon clearly defined criteria, I am advised that this amendment would undermine the existing quota allocation system. Case law has recognised that fixed quota allocation units—FQAs, the units by which quota is allocated—are a form of property right. We have committed to maintaining the current system of FQAs in relation to current quota allocations. This has to be taken into account in any new regime for the distribution of fishing opportunities. However, it is also important to highlight again that the UK’s sovereign rights over its fisheries and the public right to fish are already recognised in law. UNCLOS recognises in Articles 2 and 56 that coastal states have sovereign rights over the resources, including fisheries, in their territorial waters and EEZ. At home in our domestic courts, as had been referred to, Mr Justice Cranston noted, in the UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations Judicial Review of 2013, that the Magna Carta recognised fish stocks were a public resource and:

“Consequently there can be no property right in fish until they are caught.”


Additionally, the amendment links quota allocation and the provision of fishing licences in a manner which could inadvertently lead to confusion. While quota is indeed allocated to licence holders, these two concepts are separate issues and should be treated as such. This distinction is important as it allows, for example, quota to be exchanged between licence holders during the fishing year. Such flexibility helps fishers adapt to weather patterns, choke risks and other circumstances.

I absolutely understand the reason for the amendment, particularly given that the noble Baroness and whoever may be working with her have tabled this new clause. But the Government’s position is that there is more work to do on this. We want to consult on it; we want to get it right. All the points that have been raised, not only in the noble Baroness’s amendment but elsewhere, are on work that we wish to continue. That is why I am not in a position to confirm support for these amendments, but the work is continuing. I have found the points that have been made very helpful—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

I just seek a couple of clarifications. With any new fishing opportunities, there will have to be an auction that people have to pay for, but with existing quota they will not. That gives a competitive commercial advantage, completely, to those who are already incumbents of the industry. I would think that the Competition and Markets Authority would be severely challenged by that. That is a real problem. If they are auctioned, do they then become permanent FQAs for those people, or is it a right for only five years? I was also very interested in the Minister’s comments that the rights over the fish stocks come from UNCLOS, which is an international agreement. That suggests to me that this is not a devolved issue. It is clearly a national issue, not a devolved one.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Clause 27 is about English fishing opportunities as far as I recall. The other thing I should say is that I have been very clear that the Government’s intention is to use this power to auction and tender additional quota. I have also said that the Government will consult on and consider this matter, so in matters of detail, I shall certainly not pre-empt any consideration by confirming or otherwise what the noble Lord has asked. This is obviously a matter that we wish to work further on and explore. I do not propose to take any more observations, but I will say to the noble Baroness that I am very happy for her and any other noble Lords—if they would let me know—to come and have a think piece on Clause 27.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my own amendments in this group–Amendments 76A and 79. One of the characteristics of this Bill is that we start to talk about recreational fishing, which is an important leisure activity—not one I indulge in myself, but one I would certainly encourage.

However, there is a big difference between someone going out in their own unpowered vessel and the charter recreational sector, which could have a significant impact on local fisheries. In a way, this is a probing amendment to better understand the Government’s view on the recreational side, but there is a strong argument that charter vessels should be licensed. They are quite substantial, have a number of people on board who are fishing recreationally, and they may be targeting certain fisheries which are significant in terms of environment and biodiversity. Although this amendment does not cover it, there might be an argument that, now that Defra has invented the very simple catch app—controversial in certain areas, but I think it is a pretty good idea—we could easily use that for this type of fishing, as that would give extra information about the types of fish that are being caught and landed in the recreational sector.

My second amendment looks at the area of capacity. It has been mentioned by many noble Lords during Second Reading that the British fleet has gone down and down in size. Of course, the prime reason for that is that the efficiency of fishing vessels has increased hugely over recent decades, so you need much fewer vessels due to their power, fishing techniques, electronics, sonar and engine power. All of those features have led to a reduction in the fleet. In the past, we have had to have decommissioning schemes to equate fishing fleet levels with available stocks. They are never the best things to do, but sometimes they are necessary.

I am trying to find out how the Government expect the capacity of the fleet to be managed. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments and he may well be able to reassure me in this area. My amendment says that there should be no additional licences granted if there is already a sufficient capacity for the fishing stocks available for the total allowable catch. We know from history that a mismatch in that area, whatever the rest of the regulations are, is highly negative to sustainability.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I will speak to Amendments 85 and 87 in my name, tabled for probing purposes. Amendment 85 concerns conditions being imposed on sea fishing licences regarding matters that are not themselves directly related to the regulation of sea fishing. I am sure there will be a number of examples of conditions that it would be both logical and reasonable to impose, and I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify for the record what these include.

Amendment 87 deals with the duty of a sea fish licensing authority to comply or not with a request submitted by another licensing authority. In paragraph 4(3) of Schedule 3, there is an exemption to the statutory duty to comply:

“unless … it is unreasonable to do so.”

This amendment merely seeks clarity from the Minister to highlight the designation between reasonable and unreasonable, as presumably the requesting authority may consider the request entirely reasonable. What steps must a fish licensing authority take when a request is denied, and is that the end of the matter? Would the licensing authority need to justify that denial and, if so, is there a timetable for this, should the requesting authority wish to follow up?

I turn now to other amendments in this group. Amendment 76ZA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, brings into focus in my mind the interplay between farmed salmon, which is not regulated in this legislation, and the Fisheries Bill. The Norwegian Government believe that farmed salmon escapes are the biggest threat to Norway’s wild salmon population. The Scottish Government are certainly aware of the significant risk to the vital recovery of remaining west coast salmon stocks. Experts estimate that the number of escapes—often laden with disease, especially lice burdens—is around double the number of wild Atlantic salmon that return to their spawning rivers on the west coast of Scotland. During Storm Brendan in January, around 73,000 farmed salmon escaped from the open-net cage near Colonsay. I draw attention to the considerable effect this may have on west coast fisheries.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his amendments in this group. In Amendment 76A, he poses the question of whether the recreational use of a charter fishing vessel requires a full licence and in what circumstances. Would the planned exemption for recreational activities still stand? The Committee has welcomed the previous positive comments from the Minister about recreational fishing. Indeed, my comments on salmon are apposite. It is an often overlooked yet important part of our fisheries industry, reported to be valued at over £2 billion annually and supporting more than 18,000 jobs. I am grateful to David Mitchell at the Angling Trust for making contact regarding the size of recreational fishing and the economic impact it has. This merits some attention.

Finally, I thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, for his careful scrutiny of the provisions under Schedule 3, seeking clarity on the balance and pertinence of information required by a licensing authority.

--- Later in debate ---

We take all amendments very seriously but I hope, particularly in this group, that noble Lords and my noble friend will feel able to reflect that all these matters are either found in other pieces of legislation or are acknowledged to be important. For the moment, I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister, particularly for his very helpful answer on recreational fisheries matters. I felt his answer on capacity was useful, but I just want to be clear. Is he saying that after this year, even when the Bill becomes an Act, through retained common fisheries policy law, the capacity rules from the common fisheries policy will remain for the United Kingdom? That is what I understood, and I am fully reassured.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I repeat that the requirement on the UK to limit its fleet will become part of retained EU law.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 77A, I will speak also to Amendment 80A. I also have a few comments on Amendment 124 from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, which seems very sensible.

The Minister will recall my concerns on earlier clauses as to how policies such as discard charging schemes and other items will be policed. I have tabled these two amendments as a way of allowing me to debate these issues. In particular, I understand that it is quite possible—this was not news to my noble friend and other noble Lords—that a Scottish fisheries Bill may be introduced. While I understand that Clauses 15 and 17 will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, is the discard charging scheme intended to apply only to English boats or also to foreign boats operating in UK waters? In that case, Scottish boats would be included as well. How will REM—the remote electronic monitoring—work? Is it envisaged that cameras will be included in all cases? Will it be a mandatory scheme? Will it be a statutory provision of the licence that British fishing boats under Clause 15 or foreign boats under Clause 17 require as to how it will apply? I do not see how the scheme will work if it is not mandatory and does not include cameras.

As my noble friend is aware, I am particularly exercised about the discard charging scheme. I would have preferred the original government policy, which clearly pointed to complete elimination. The purpose of these amendments is to allow my noble friend to explain how it will operate in practice. Will it apply to all British boats or only to English boats? What will the relationship be if the Scottish Parliament passes a separate fisheries Bill, and what will our relationship be with foreign fishing vessels? Will they be put on exactly the same footing and will it be a mandatory scheme? Which clauses will it apply to?

In Amendment 124, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is doing something not dissimilar to what I am doing. He too refers to remote electronic monitoring with cameras, which, unless my noble friend can put my mind at rest about how any remote electronic scheme could work without cameras, I am keen on. Can the noble Lord tell me why he seeks to phase this in? I am much more at one with the Government, unless I have misunderstood the drafting of his amendment, which talks about this being phased in. I hope my noble friend insists that this is brought in immediately as a provision of the licencing regulatory regime.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, we come now to one of the most important groups of amendments. I was interested in the reply given by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to the fourth Oral Question earlier, which was about what the Government are doing to make this country an environmental leader. He went through a number of Bills which are going through at the moment, including the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill, before mentioning the Fisheries Bill. He is right on the first two. Under the Agriculture Bill, there is ELMS, a very radical policy to ensure that farmers who are paid a subsidy produce public goods. A lot of those are going to be focused on the environment. As the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said, as part of the Environment Bill we have net gain and nature recovery networks, both of which I applaud. They will add greatly to the environmental growth of the United Kingdom.

What does the Fisheries Bill do to enhance the UK’s environment? The withdrawal Act gave us control over the EEZ, but all the Fisheries Bill does is change one set of administrators to another, replacing a lot of objectives in the common fisheries policy with similar ones. There is nothing in this Bill that enhances the marine environment. I cannot think of anything in it, as it stands, that does that.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

It is a rare event when I chide the noble Lord on his own Front Bench, but the fisheries management plans, if properly carried out, are quite a major step forward.

[Lord Teverson]

I think quite the contrary, because they do not co-ordinate with other adjacent EEZs. They account only for fisheries in our EEZs, not the rest of the circulation of those stocks. As they stand, they are substantially inferior—they are unable to carry out their mission. The one area where we can change this is remote electronic monitoring. That is one of the most important challenges. The Government believe in remote electronic monitoring in terms of making the discard ban effective and in terms of much better data, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, stresses far better in his amendment than I do in mine. I fully endorse what he is trying to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for her Amendments 77A and 80A, and to other noble Lords for their amendments, which, in various ways, seek to place requirements on fisheries licensing authorities to introduce onboard monitoring equipment and cameras on British boats and foreign vessels fishing in UK waters. I reiterate that this Government remain fully committed to reducing bycatch and ending the wasteful discarding of fish. While we recognise the potential of onboard monitoring and cameras as an effective technology to monitor, control and enforce the end of wasteful discarding, Amendment 77A could divert us from taking a more appropriate, risk-based, intelligence-led enforcement approach through vessel monitoring systems and aerial surveillance, for example, as well as ones that may develop in the future, such as onboard observers or drones.

Control and enforcement, and fishing vessel licensing, are both devolved matters. The amendment cuts across devolved competence by trying to prescribe this at a UK level. It is for each devolved Administration to decide how best to control their waters, tailoring their management measures to their specific industry.

[Lord Teverson]

I just remind the Minister—this comes back to something the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said—that last Wednesday, when we last discussed the Bill, the Minister made it clear that the whole area of objectives is a devolved area, yet the Government have put all those objectives in. It seems to me that the Minister is saying, “Do what I say, not what I do.” The Government have put in devolved measures, but they are saying to Parliament that we should not. I find that very difficult.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am sorry that the noble Lord finds it difficult. The objectives have been agreed with the devolved Administrations; they have asked us to legislate with the agreement of those objectives which are in Clause 1. However, as the noble Lord knows better than I, all the things I have outlined ad nauseam about the seeking of amendments mean that they cut across the settlement we have with the devolved Administrations. I am very pleased to say that the devolved Administrations have come together, have agreed and have asked us to legislate on these matters in Clause 1 and, indeed, in the schedules that relate to those issues that the devolved Administrations would like us to deal with in the Bill.

I sense that the noble Lord and others may want it all best ways, which would mean that somehow we do not respect the fact that the devolved Administrations have it entirely in their gift to make the arrangements they so wish. For instance, my noble friend Lady McIntosh asked about the discard prevention charging scheme in Clause 29(1). This provides that

“‘chargeable person’ means—(a) the holder of an English sea fishing licence, or (b) a producer organisation that has at least one member who is the holder of an English sea fishing licence.”

We are taking measures where we can, which is where we can make those provisions, but it is entirely up to the devolved Administrations.

If the noble Lord will let me, I shall outline some of the areas where I hope he will be pleased, also, that the devolved Administrations are working on this, but it is their right to do it through their own legislation as well. I hope we will not go around in circles.

[Lord Teverson]

Have the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Welsh Assembly approved these measures? The Government are saying, “These are devolved areas” and have put it in a UK-wide Bill. Parliament here is doing exactly the same. We are a UK Chamber, just as the Minister’s Government are a UK Government. They have not got permission from those legislatures, so we have to take on that role ourselves. I do not take the Government’s point on this at all.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I think I will take this offline with the noble Lord, because why are those schedules in the Bill, specifically requested by the devolved Administrations, giving them the powers that we are also seeking through the Bill? The Bill comes with the working, active collaboration—as I have said almost every day in Committee and at Second Reading—of all the devolved Administrations.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Grantchester. They are, in the main, probing amendments. They follow on from the earlier group of amendments and concern the scope of powers to amend or depart from proposals in the joint fisheries statement.

As it stands, the Bill allows the fisheries policy authorities to depart from proposals in the joint fisheries statement if there is a change of circumstances. It goes on to say that the changes of circumstances include, but are not limited to, international obligations, actions by a territory outside the UK, scientific evidence, and evidence relating to the social, economic or environmental objectives. Amendments 59 and 72 tighten up that wording so that those are the only reasons for agreeing a change of circumstances, the reason being that quite a wide scope for change is already given in the joint fisheries statement, which is envisaged to be a longer-term planning document rather than one constantly under revision. Therefore, we believe that the original wording is too loose and could allow other, extraneous factors to come into play.

Our Amendment 60, in the name of my noble friend Lord Grantchester, goes one stage further and removes international obligations altogether as a reason for a change of circumstances. Our concern is that the negotiations with the EU 27 and other external coastal fishing areas will be taking place this year and in future years, and those international obligations could be used as a reason to revisit the joint fisheries statement and abandon our commitment to the sustainability and climate change objectives and the other important objectives in Clause 1.

During our debates on the Bill, all noble Lords have been concerned that a good set of objectives in Clause 1 will end up being watered down by the economic pressures of the trade deals and that we will end up back at square one with something not dissimilar to the common fisheries policy, which has, rightly, been discredited. Therefore, we tabled this amendment to explore under what circumstances international obligations might be used as a reason to amend the joint fisheries statement.

Finally, Amendments 62, 63 and 73 tackle the rather vague reason for a change of circumstances being

“available evidence relating to the social, economic or environmental elements of sustainable development.”

We felt that phrase could mean anything. Changes in these elements relating to fishing management will happen constantly. New reports and statistics about progress in these areas will appear regularly. At what point could this be used to promote a review of the scheme, and is this how we envisage it would work? Instead, we have proposed a much tighter phrase, which is to limit reviews of the joint fisheries statement to resulting from

“catastrophic events which have an impact on fisheries management or the marine environment.”

The previous wording of the Bill did not have the reference to changes in socioeconomic circumstances as a reason for non-compliance with the JFC. Instead the Explanatory Notes listed catastrophic events as a reason for revisiting it, so we have taken this wording and added it to this version of the Bill. Does this not make more sense? Obviously we do not want to put a complete straitjacket on the wording of the JFS, but those drawing up fisheries management plans and those employed in the industry need certainty to plan and invest, otherwise there is a danger of constant lobbying to change the provisions and much confusion among those tasked with implementing the plans.

I hope noble Lords will see the sense in what I say, including the Minister. I therefore beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I very much welcome these amendments and support them. I have put my name to Amendment 62, which is about my genuine concern—I will not go over it again at this time of the evening—that somehow social and economic elements will be used to trump a sustainability issue, even if it is not the will of the present Government or of the Minister. It just makes me uncomfortable, and I would much prefer this whole area to be tighter, as with the other amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which she has explained. It is coming back to this area again of ensuring that we do not prejudice the long term by making life easier politically in the short term.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness and indeed the noble Lord for the points they have made. This gives me the opportunity to set out the reasoning behind the ability of fisheries policy authorities to diverge from policies in the joint fisheries statement and from policies in the fisheries management plan, in the narrow circumstances where relevant considerations apply, and to take a different approach for stocks for which it would not be appropriate to gather data to calculate their MSY.

Starting with Amendments 59 and 63, it is clear that fisheries management plans will need to evolve over time to retain their efficacy and feasibility. While the list presented in the clause in question covers some of the major changes that we could predict might take place, other circumstances may bring to light fundamental factors to consider in updating fisheries management plans. This legislation aims to be future-proof and flexible enough to allow dynamic, evidence-based policy-making.

The premise behind this amendment is that the fisheries administrations could use this clause to somehow water down plans. However, it would also hinder their ability to strengthen plans in the light of changing circumstances. It would limit those circumstances under which fisheries administrations might consider amending, revoking or developing new fisheries management plans, or to set out a plan described in a different way from that initially proposed in a joint fisheries statement, to one or more of four exclusive reasons that we believe will severely limit their ability to react to new or emerging issues. Furthermore, preventing fisheries administrations making use of new economic, social or environmental evidence as a trigger to amend or replace fisheries management plans, and by inference informing the development of new fisheries plans, is contrary to the core principle of evidence-based policy-making.

The amendment proposed by the noble Baroness puts the threshold for using evidence at that relating only to “catastrophic events”, which would seem extremely high and to relate, one hopes, to very rare occasions. I have reflected on this and feel that it would mean that fisheries administrations would have to wait to react to events, rather than be proactive and use all new evidence potentially to head off a catastrophic event. I am concerned that the amendment creates an unacceptable risk that our fisheries administrations would be unhelpfully bound by what was foreseen as necessary at the point at which the joint fisheries statement was published, rather than having the flexibility to react to changing circumstances or moving stocks that could result in environmental, economic or social harm that was not yet catastrophic.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

So that I am not anything other than very clear with the noble Baroness, I shall read from the Bill: in Clause 48, on interpretation, an

“‘international obligation of the United Kingdom’ includes any obligation that arises or may arise under an international agreement or arrangement to which the United Kingdom is a party”.

That is the definition.

[Lord Teverson]

Does that include the 5,000 agreements that the Minister talked about in order to negate one of our earlier amendments?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I think I am consistent, in that there are many treaties that do not relate to fisheries, and I am consistent in saying that this is in relation to our international fisheries obligations. With the other amendment that we discussed, the drafting could have involved us in all the 14,000 treaties—I think it was 14,000—whereas here I believe it is distinctly involved in and engaged with the arrangements for fisheries within our international obligations.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

64: Clause 8, page 8, line 31, after “means” insert “an English advisory board and”
Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment brings an element of devolution into England’s fisheries plans, and introduces consultation with fisheries’ stakeholders.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I repeat my declaration of interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership, as one of my amendments mentions local nature partnerships.

I was grateful to the Minister for his letter of 4 March, which I think was to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. In the passage dealing with “Stock definition areas”, the Minister stated:

“One of the matters the Department will consider is whether and how it could take a more regionalised approach to quota management.”


I welcome that statement very strongly. One of my aims with this group of amendments is to try to understand what is in the Minister’s, and indeed the Government’s, mind.

We are constantly reminded that the Bill has been knitted together by the various devolved authorities along with Defra and the Secretary of State. That is great: the devolved authorities can go off and agree their authority in terms of how fisheries management works. However, in England we do not have devolution at all; the whole of England is treated as one. I feel strongly that that advantage of devolution in the rest of the UK should be allowed to happen within England as well. I do not see why England should be at a disadvantage here. There are very different fisheries; even within south-west England there are significant differences, let alone further along the south coast, and certainly once you get to the North Sea. There is a very wide range of fisheries, and there will be a very wide range of fisheries plans.

I am sure the Minister will be able to pick holes in this amendment in all sorts of ways, but what I am trying to say is that there needs to be a method of devolution within England around fisheries management in how the industry operates that goes beyond bog-standard consultation, which, to be honest, is very limited in its effect on the way that it works. What I have suggested—I am not saying that this suggestion is perfect; I am just looking to the Government to take the issue seriously and come back to what has been suggested in that letter—is a way to a devolved situation.

I suggest that the major ports should have an advisory board—I am not saying that it should be an executive board, so I am being very modest in my aspirations—that should be able to have a major influence over the management plans. In fact, in many ways the advisory board should be the initiator of the local or regional strategy. It should then meet to go through the issues and make suggestions to the Secretary of State before the draft management plan comes out. When the draft management plan has been produced, the advisory board would then have a second bite at considering that and making recommendations. This is a process, and the amendment is very process driven.

I am trying to present a possible model of a way to involve and get expertise in a real sense—not just in a passive consultation—to make sure that these management plans are workable, have real buy-in from those that are affected by and have to operate them, and include the organs of the state, whether it be Natural England, the MMO or Defra. These should be able to participate in the process as well.

I am looking for the Minister to set out how we are going to achieve this in England. This will makes a difference not just to the fishery but also—as we have talked about so much—to the local communities, particularly coastal communities, which are affected. This allows that wider dimension to affect the local benefit of these fisheries plans.

One of the possible methods of devolution is already established. IFCAs are already responsible for management in quite a broad sense, not just in fisheries but in conservation more generally up to the six-mile limit. There are local fisheries all along the English coastline that operate within the six-mile limit. These organisations are already well represented by stakeholders, from local authorities, NGOs and the fishing community. Could we not use them to be able to have a strong power —in fact, executive power is what I am suggesting—over their own local fisheries? By doing so I believe we will have much greater buy-in and much more effective management plans.

I am not sure what the principle of this Government is regarding devolution at this stage, but I get the impression that they are keen to push power downwards where appropriate. I feel this is an area where that could be done successfully, but I stress again that this is a model and not necessarily the definitive answer. I beg to move.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, particularly Amendments 98 and 99. It is an interesting idea to have the IFCAs involved in determining fisheries’ opportunities.

There does not seem to be much respect for the MMO among smaller fishermen. In our committee last year, for instance, we heard complaints that it tended to take a short-term view of micromanaging individual small fishermen’s quota—that is, the quota for the under-10 boats. As opposed to issuing an annual quota, which would let them decide when and how they should be managed, the MMO issued weekly or monthly quotas, which did not go down well.

Since then, I have spoken to fishermen operating in Cornwall, south Devon and south Dorset. While I have no sense of the veracity of what I heard, it is clear that respect is pretty low. One said: “The MMO do short term quota fixes, sometimes on a daily basis. People go out and come back and find their quota has changed.” Another said: “With the new catch app, a skipper has to compulsorily weigh up his 20 species of fish before he lands, while meanwhile the coastguard says, ‘Do not work the app while steering your boat.’ Who do you obey?”. The last one is pretty damning—again, I am just repeating quotes; I have no idea about the truth of them—“The MMO is always looking for ways to prosecute the under-10s industry, which is already on its knees.”

As I say, I do not know where the blame lies for the breakdown in communication and trust, but clearly something needs to change. It might be worth looking at the more democratic and wider interests of the IFCAs—as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was saying—to see whether they could be involved in the setting and monitoring of the inshore fleet quota.

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[Lord Teverson]

How do I reply to the Minister on that one? If I am really honest about it, what I hear is “We would quite like to keep it as it is at the minute, all we want to do is go through our normal consultation exercise and that will be okay.” I was quite encouraged by the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, which began to talk about regional devolution—just on quota management—but I did not really hear anything from the noble Baroness the Minister that suggested that the Government would develop that idea further.

On the arguments about forcing people to be on an advisory board, you would have a queue of people—in fact, the problem would be that the queue would be worse than a queue in a hospital at the height of the NHS crisis. Lots of people would want to participate in this, and for good reason: they want to do good for their region, they want to get this right and they want to stimulate the local economy and have greater authority over these fishing plans.

I feel severely disappointed. As I have said, this model is not perfect but, if you are going to have management plans that work, you have to base them around the industry, and the industry operates from ports. That is why you have to base this at ports. Sure, some of the same fisheries relate to different ports but, on the whole, they are adjacent. Often, even close ones—certainly the fisheries out of Brixham, Newlyn and Plymouth—are very different. I have had representations from the Cornwall and Scilly LEP for it to be sensibly and actively involved somehow, rather than in the normal run of consultation. There is a big difference between consultation and devolution. What we are looking for here is real devolution. In the model that I have put forward—perfect though it may not be—I have not made it so it has statutory power; I have tried to make it moderate and reasonable.

I would really like the Minister to develop the undertaking that was given to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in that letter and to think about this further. This Bill could really make a difference. At the moment, I feel that all the Bill does is create more of the same. There is so much that we could do to really make a difference here. I am sure we would agree to most of that, yet we have a framework Bill that pretty well keeps everything as it is. All is does is replace the mechanisms of the common fisheries policy with something else; it does not really act to a greater good than we have at the moment. These are the sorts of things we could do but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 64 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

75: Clause 11, page 10, line 28, at end insert—
“( ) The Secretary of State must, in consultation with the devolved authorities, publish a report annually that details the state of all stocks for which there are fisheries management plans.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that there is a report on the state of the stocks each year, not every three years.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I am sure we will deal with this very quickly: there may be a misunderstanding here. One of the most important things if we are to have a sustainable fishery is that we understand the state of the stocks on an annual basis, as we do at the moment. We have cited many times this evening and on Monday the proportion of the stocks that are or are not meeting MSY within the common fisheries policy. I just want to be assured that there will be something similar each year, certainly for those precious stocks and, I hope, for some others as well—I am looking to the Government to guide me here—so we can understand, as Parliament and as the industry, what the states of the stocks are each year. I cannot understand why this could not be the case if we have any sort of quota allocation or annual international negotiation with adjacent coastal states. I am looking to the Minister to clarify this and to assure me that we will keep that regular feedback on the state of the stocks. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for tabling this amendment. He raises an important point about the need for the most up-to-date scientific evidence on the state of stocks to aid planning and quota allocation. As previous debates established, there are a number of different timescales resulting from the provisions in the Bill and it is important that we somehow manage to mesh them effectively. One of them, the reporting of the state of stocks, is currently a three-year timescale, whereas this amendment quite rightly proposes a timescale of one year.

We feel that there are strong arguments for this. Given that quota negotiations and fishing opportunity determinations are due to be made annually, and they are meant to draw upon the latest and best scientific advice, it makes sense for the stock reports to coincide with this timescale. Given that the Secretary of State has the opportunity to make mid-term revisions to fisheries management plans, access to the latest data would provide the best possible motive for change. We would go one stage further and hope that these stock reports could be officially collated by Defra and the devolved Administrations and made publicly available. Given that we are moving towards real-time stock measurement and given that the scientific processes we are putting in place will be much more real-time and up to date, I do not think that this is too onerous; therefore we support this amendment and hope the Minister agrees.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his Amendment 75, which requires annual reports on the state of

“stocks for which there are fisheries management plans.”

Existing annual publications provide information on the state of our fish stocks. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee publishes the UK biodiversity indicators annually on behalf of Defra and the devolved Administrations. These indicators include two covering sustainable fisheries: one shows the percentage of quota stocks harvested sustainably, and the other the percentage of quota stocks whose biomass is at such a level to maintain full reproductive capacity. These indicators are national statistics and part of the UK’s commitment to the Convention on Biological Diversity to report on our progress towards its goals and targets—the Aichi targets. Our indicators on sustainable fisheries show data back to 1990.

The Government published their 25-year environment plan in 2018, in which they committed to develop a new set of indicators to report on the state of our natural assets, and to publish an annual report on their progress in meeting the goals and targets set out in the plan. The first annual report, published in May 2019, had an indicator on sustainable fisheries alongside a narrative setting out how we are progressing towards our broader goal for sustainable fisheries. The indicator and narrative will be updated in the 2020 report due in the spring. The evolution of the Fisheries Bill and the introduction of our provisions for fisheries management plans means we will need to reflect and consult more widely with stakeholders as it may be more appropriate for each plan to contain its own reporting framework rather than for us to do a single annual report.

There are also some devolution implications arising from the amendment which cause concern. It would commit the Secretary of State to report annually on any stocks in fisheries management plans published by the devolved Administrations covering their waters only. The devolved Administrations would determine how and when they report on the state of stocks covered by their fisheries management plans. In addition, we have enhanced the transparency framework set out in the Bill by committing to provide triennial reviews of the joint fisheries statement and the implementation of fisheries management plans. There are stocks for which we do not currently have sufficient data to assess their status, and we have made provision in the Bill to collect further evidence to determine sustainable levels. The proposed three-year reporting cycle for fisheries management plans will set out our progress for these data-poor stocks.

I am very happy to have further discussions with the noble Lord if he thinks there are any loose ends, but with the existing annual publications—he is probably aware of them already—and the requirements in the Bill, we are asking the question that we all want to know the answer to, which is: are we making progress and is this working? With what we have already and what is planned in the Bill, his aspirations are covered. On that basis, I hope he will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

Whenever the Minister gives such a comprehensive answer, I get more worried. This was an amendment where I was expecting an answer such as, “Lord Teverson, on this, don’t worry. We’re just going to carry on. You will know each year how many of these stocks are at MSY and how many aren’t.” That is the core of what I was trying to get to. I am even more concerned because devolution means that we might not all be on the same page in reporting our fish stocks as a nation, so I ask the question: at the end of 2021, when we are outside the common fisheries policy, will Defra be able to give us or anybody else who wants to know the percentage of stocks that are meeting MSY, just as it does now through the common fisheries policy? Will we know that?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Let me repeat what I said. The existing annual publications include one showing the percentage of quota stocks harvested sustainably and another showing the percentage of quota stocks whose biomass is at such a level as to maintain full reproductive capacity. I will be happy to look at those myself, but I am afraid that I do not have them with me. However, not only does the Bill refer to reporting; annual publications already exist.

The noble Lord is worried when I give a comprehensive answer but if I have read this correctly, there is an existing annual publication. Perhaps the noble Lord has got me worried now, but I have no doubt about this. This is published as a part of our indicators on behalf of Defra and the devolved Administrations. I understand the point about the references to the devolved Administrations in the Bill. The task for Defra Ministers, which is an interesting one, is to work very productively with the devolved Administrations, which we are. There is no suggestion that matters which are devolved are no longer going to be devolved; they are absolutely part of the devolved settlement. Whether or not that proves to be an inconvenience for some, that is the settlement which is enshrined, and we will continue to work extremely collaboratively.

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[Lord Teverson]

If the current publications are going to continue as they are, that is probably the answer, but I will check that myself. I thank the Minister for coming back on that point.

More seriously, I accept his point entirely about devolution, and I know that there are problems in other areas. For example, you get only the English figure for fuel poverty because Scotland defines it in a different way. Maximum effort should be made regarding the state of fish stocks because clearly, they are shared between England, Scotland and Wales. There should be a uniform measurement that we can understand, because this situation is different. Fish move across the devolved national boundaries and their stocks are absolutely fundamental to the health of our marine environment. Again, I accept entirely what the Minister has said about devolution and we are not trying to change that, but there really does need to be co-ordination in this area. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 75 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I hope that this will be a fairly brief discussion. Amendment 76 has been tabled to seek clarification about the circumstances in which foreign fishing boats might legitimately enter UK waters without a licence. The kind of circumstances we had envisaged were during a storm, if there is an illness on board or when sailing through UK waters to reach a more distant fishing ground. This topic was raised at a meeting with the Minister last week and we were offered assurances by officials that appropriate international agreements and conventions would trump this Bill in the event of an emergency incident. I hope that the Minister will be able use this opportunity to clarify the conventions, how they would apply in these new circumstances, and the legal advice that he has received in relation to this matter.

We appreciate that the criminal offence set out in the Bill relates only to fishing in UK waters without a licence, rather than using UK waters for transit or an emergency landing. However, presumably it is not unusual for foreign vessels which are not licensed to enter UK waters to cast their nets as close to the EEZ boundary as possible. If a vessel were to be swept off course by changing weather, could that be construed by a patrol boat as unauthorised fishing?

I accept that these are hypotheticals, but there are potentially difficult times ahead for policing our waters. We need to recognise that while we will have robust enforcement in our waters, emotions can sometimes run high when it comes to perceived incursions. It is vital that there be a responsible approach which puts safety first, while ensuring that all foreign vessels understand the implications of the licensing regime we are proposing to introduce and do not flout them without recognising the consequences. I therefore beg to move the amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, this is a really important issue and one that we need to clarify. I am sure that there are international obligations to do this, but I would be very interested to hear what they are. The noble Baroness raises some really important points about the fact that at sea, things can get difficult and emotional. We saw the incidents in the Baie de Seine last year or the year before, so we have to be very clear and careful about some of these things.

One thing I want to point out, which the Minister will be completely aware of, is that we sometimes envision an EEZ where foreign vessels have to stay on one side and British ones on the other; but under international convention, as long as they are steaming and not fishing, they are absolutely allowed to go through international waters. It is important to remember in this debate that it is not all about keeping foreign fishing vessels out of the UK EEZ; they are perfectly entitled to be there, not necessarily in territorial waters but between 12 miles and the median line, or 200 nautical miles. They are entirely allowed to steam through there as long as they do not fish, and we should remind people of that.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her amendment. This again touches on an issue that I am sure we can all agree is of great importance. The Merchant Shipping Act 1995 has special provisions for assisting vessels in distress. These provisions allow for any UK or foreign vessel that is wrecked, stranded or in distress at any place on or near the coast of the United Kingdom or any tidal water within UK waters to receive any assistance required. In addition, Articles 17 and 18 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allow for the right of innocent passage, which applies to all ships of all states, to territorial seas——between 0 and 12 nautical miles—and to the exclusive economic zone, which is between 12 and 200 nautical miles, or the median line. Passage in this instance means navigation through the territorial sea, anchoring or stopping in territorial waters in cases of force majeure or distress or for the purpose of rendering assistance to persons, ships or aircraft in danger or distress.

For example, in poor weather, foreign vessels can stop fishing and shelter behind a headland to escape the worst of the wind and waves. According to the MMO, it is a common occurrence, especially in east and south-western areas and in Northern Ireland waters, to allow vessels safe navigation and passage. Through this existing legislation, we have a duty to provide shelter in our waters and in our ports so that vessels may deal with injuries, replenish their provisions and refuel; and also to allow them safe transit through our waters to reach more distant fishing grounds. Therefore, foreign vessels that need to access UK waters to get to their fishing grounds, or where there is a concern over danger to life or property, will continue to be able to do so. Any further exceptions will be agreed in international arrangements or set out in vessel licence conditions. This is already provided for in Clause 12(1).

I thank the noble Baroness for her explanation, but I regret that the second part of the amendment, which allows the Secretary of State to prescribe other reasons by regulation, is rather broad and potentially could be a catch-all. Additionally, as drafted, the breadth and ambiguity could cause challenges within the devolution settlements, depending on how broadly or narrowly the reasons were interpreted. I believe that the matter that this amendment relates to is covered in legislation already. With this explanation, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Perhaps I could just follow up on a couple of the things that the Minister stated are important. As he knows, one of the things I questioned on Monday was the equal access objective. He made rather a different point going through the objectives today than he did to me on Monday. If I recall, he said that that objective means there is equal access to fish. I think he said in his answer to me on Monday that the equal access is to waters, rather than to actual fish. If there is equal access to fish, that concerns me greatly.

I take the Minister’s point about the Government not changing their attitude to sustainability. I want to make the obvious point, and I know that he will not disagree. While I would not question for a minute this Minister’s—or maybe even this Government’s—wish to have sustainability as the most important point, we have to make sure that that is true for future Governments, who might not have the same sensitivities as this Government. That is why we spent a lot of time on Monday trying to clarify the sustainability objective. If it is fudged, as it is at the minute, that will allow future Governments to move away from those pure sustainability objectives in marine ecology without changing the legislation.

Does the Minister see these fishing objectives as a reserved or a devolved matter? I would be interested to understand that.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I might need to clarify this, but on the noble Lord’s first point, using “to fish” as a verb refers to the act of fishing. I will look at what I said on Monday and what I said today, but as far as I am concerned equal access enables UK fishing vessels to have that access across UK waters. This enables, for instance, English vessels to fish in what would be Scottish waters, and all the arrangements of the four fishing administrations.

The most important thing is that I do not mislead the noble Lord, or anyone, if there was a looseness of mine either on Monday or today. I am very clear that this equal access objective confirms the position of the four fisheries administrations regarding the abilities of UK fishing vessels in the act of fishing. I do not want to play with words; I want to get this right, because I believe the equal access objective is important for all four parts of the United Kingdom. This is something that the four fisheries administrations have come to agree.

We might have a collision point on sustainability. I think we all agree that, if we overfish our stocks, the safety at sea objectives will be academic, because there will not be any fish to fish. Given this set of objectives on bycatch, climate change, precaution and science, I do not think that this Government or a future Government will suddenly think that having sustainable fish stocks is not a desirable objective towards which we should all work. I very much hope that, by the time that there is a new Government, we will have achieved many of these objectives, in the same way we have gone up from 12% to 59% fishing of MSY. The objective is that we need sustainability for all stocks, and the precautionary objective is very important. One of the things that we must all wrestle with is that currently, we do not have adequate scientific information on all stocks and we need a better assessment. That is why the precautionary objective is in place. The aim is for the activities to be environmentally sustainable, while delivering economic and social benefits. As I said in the agricultural context, we must ensure that farmers produce food and enhance the environment, both of which are entirely compatible.

This Government have not invented the idea that sustainability involves social and economic considerations; this is a UN framework for interpreting sustainability. If we are so rigid that there is only one view, where will the coastal communities be? I have been thinking a lot about this and about how to deploy the arguments at Report, so I must not say too much. We need to think about ratcheting sustainability to one element of the prism, which I am prepared to say is the essential part. However, if the law said that we could not have arrangements whereby moving upwards from 59% involved nuances and an ability to keep coastal communities alive, in order to work to sustainable harvest for all stocks, that would make it a blunt instrument.

We are all on the same page, and I am sure about what we want. However, I am afraid that the Government are not going to suggest that we should not think about the social and economic consequences. I am clear, given the comments of noble Lords who spoke about sustainability and then spoke to the amendments about economic and social benefits, that we want the same thing. However, to put one objective beyond all others in what is a balanced package will result in something that none of us wants.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

That is a very intriguing aspect of an issue that we will wrestle with on Report, but we are all on the same page in many respects. I need to refine my arguments, and perhaps we might then meet somewhere. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and all noble Lords, for this rather elongated discussion.

[Lord Teverson]

I had a question about whether the objectives were effectively a reserved area, or a devolved area and the Administrations had come together and agreed this. Are they a reserved area or not?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Again, I will probably need to take some advice, possibly legal. The management of fisheries is devolved. The great thing about what has happened—I had no part in the discussions, so I can say this—is that the fisheries administrations of the four parts of the United Kingdom have come together with these objectives. I have the privilege of taking this Bill through the House, but it is at the request of, and the work of, all four Administrations.

We all know about international agreements. This is a domestic agreement between the four fisheries administrations, working collaboratively in the interests of fish stocks and of the communities, which are very important. If there is any flavour of ambiguity in what I have said regarding the legal position, I will put this information in the letter. This is absolutely the work of the four Administrations, seeking to do the right thing for fish stocks and for the communities that harvest the fish for us.

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I do not claim that my amendment would be any better or more effective than this amendment, but I do say that this one has a difficulty, in putting on public authorities an obligation that many of them may have no power to accomplish. In particular, if they have to do the whole lot—that is, to achieve all the fisheries objectives—that seems a tall task to give every public authority. Yet that is what the amendment seems to say. However, I agree that we must attend to the expectation that fisheries authorities are not there just as matters of speculation but are supposed to be practical.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment. It is obvious common sense. When I first read the Bill I never even thought about there being a gap, but as soon as we see the amendment we have that lightbulb moment: there is a gap. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, if no duty is stated in the Act, this just will not happen. I have been critical of the number and style of some of the objectives, and the fact that there is no priority within them. However, I am clear that once this has been resolved—or even if it remains as it is—that duty must be there.

On Monday we had a debate on an amendment of mine about the office for environmental protection, and I would have thought that this amendment would strengthen that body’s role in making sure that some of the things in this area happen. I do not know whether or not the Government would like that, but if there is a duty there, there will be much more ability to enforce the objectives that the Government and the devolved authorities feel are so important.

I take the noble and learned Lord’s point about the range of authorities. Maybe that needs reconsidering; I am not sure. We should not forget that many unitary local authorities on the coast of England are strongly involved in inshore fisheries and conservation authorities —IFCAs—which in many ways are an animal of local government. We should remember that public authorities include not only the devolved authorities, the Secretary of State or the enforcement organisations, but local authorities, which are at the heart of much of the management of our territorial waters—the 0-6 mile limit.

I strongly support the amendment, and even if it is not perfect I encourage the noble Lord to bring it back on Report—if, indeed, he does not intend to test the opinion of the House this afternoon.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for tabling Amendment 28, and to other noble Lords who have made comments in this short debate. I agree that, although the drafting may not be entirely correct, we must not lose the crucial point. The amendment raises an important matter, because at this juncture, as the UK becomes an independent coastal state outside the EU, there must be a signal to the whole industry, including any relevant public authority or other body, that it must make sure that its strategic objectives align with this reality and that it sets its strategic direction towards supporting the fisheries objectives included in Clause 1.

It is worth repeating that, although many of those objectives are a legacy of the UK’s membership of the common fisheries policy, they have been expanded, updated and made more relevant to the UK, with the addition of three important key objectives. On Monday I drew attention to the new climate change objective. Adding this duty for public authorities to have regard to the objectives means that they must ensure that their activities comply and that any objective is not overlooked. My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, my colleague on the Bill, has tabled further probing amendments in the next group of amendments, which begins with Amendment 30, probing the use of the term “proportionality” in relation to the application of the objectives in future joint fisheries statements.

It is not just fisheries authorities that have a role in aquaculture activities in ensuring success. Other public authorities with responsibilities that will have an impact on the industry must play their part, be that regulating standards, carrying out inspections at ports and processing plants or whatever. There is little mention in any guidance on this matter, and perhaps that is something that should also be looked at. There is real concern that other priorities in different localities may take precedence over these national objectives, particularly in relation to the key objectives relating to sustainability and climate change. This is crucial to understanding the main reasons why the UK could make a difference to fisheries and fishing communities now that it is outside the CFP.

[Lord Lansley]

I asked a question, but I do not require an answer now. In so far as the Department for International Trade, for example, is engaged in trade negotiations that might impact on fish stocks because of market-access considerations, it will do so by exercising prerogative powers. It does not have duties derived from statute. So it might be interesting to know whether the Government regard these fisheries objectives as relevant to the task that the Department for International Trade will perform.

[Lord Teverson]

I will make a point very quickly. I was slightly disappointed in the Minister’s response when she said local authorities had not been consulted in any way on this Bill. The IFCAs—which are incredibly important vehicles for the conservation of sea fish within the six-mile limit around our coast—are very much creatures of local government. Some of their members are appointed by the MMO, but they are largely local authority organisations, and are significantly funded by local authorities. I wonder whether a consultation —at least with the LGA—might have been a good thing. So I do feel some disappointment.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

In answer to my noble friend Lord Lansley’s question, it probably would be better if I wrote about the international trade position on these objectives. I said that we have consulted with the inshore fisheries conservation authorities, which would have had their own contacts with local authorities. So while perhaps not directly, they would have been indirectly involved in all these discussions.

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The amendment would build on a commitment given in Committee in the Commons in a previous Session. It was George Eustice himself who suggested that the Government could add a reference to recreational fishing to what was then Clause 2. The clauses have now been reorganised and the first section of the Bill redrafted so the placement would be different, but we expect the Government to uphold that previous promise and look forward therefore to hearing from the Minister how he intends to deliver this. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. It is always useful to go back to the Government’s own approach to negotiations published in February. In part 2 of the document, headed “Other Agreements”—maybe fisheries did not quite get the profile it should have done in the document—paragraph 3d states:

“The UK is committed to acting as a responsible coastal state and to working closely with the EU and its Member States and other coastal states on the sustainable management of shared stocks in line with our international obligations.”


How could I ever improve on that? It is absolutely on the button.

It is therefore completely in line with government policy that we should put those agreements within the statements. That would make the statements far more comprehensive. This is a good part of the Bill, in that it deals with a lot of the areas that we are concerned about, but there are gaps in two areas. The first is in respect of those agreements that have been reached on adjacent stocks. Let us not forget that something like 80% of UK fish stocks are shared with other EEZs, so it is a positive thing to include that in those lists. Secondly, given the Government’s right focus on complying with international agreements—the Minister has referred to it many times—it would be good to boast and be proud of how we have implemented and complied with those obligations. That is obvious and would be helpful, and I hope the Government would not find it difficult to agree.

On Amendment 34, it seems to me that that part of the Bill is mealy-mouthed. We ought to be able to go beyond sustainability, whereas that clause seems to suggest that sustainability is all that we need to aim for. It may be the way it is phrased, but it is almost as if we need to stop once we have achieved sustainability or MSY. I want to go beyond that to a much more bountiful harvest, if that is possible.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 31 in this grouping because I think it is important that we put in place agreements with other nations who host most of the stock we live on.

When I first heard that a new UK fisheries policy was one of the primary reasons for Brexit, I scoffed, because surely fish do not understand national borders. As we know, they move about and we can never have a fishing policy without close co-operation with our neighbours. But that was before I understood the absurd principles of relative stability and how our total allowable catch was based on fishing records from the mid-1970s, when our large fleet was fishing around Iceland before the cod wars and our inshore fleet kept very few records, and before climate change moved our national dish of cod into northern waters. Did your Lordships know that we are only 8% self-sufficient in cod? Furthermore, we currently consume in the UK three times the total EU quota of cod. We are no longer blessed with being—as I was taught in my childhood—an island built on coal and surrounded by cod. Climate change has changed all that. So, to some extent, our fishing arrangements with Norway, the Faroes, Iceland and even Russia are going to be as important as our fishing arrangements with the EU.

But the problem for the EU fleets is that their catch, like ours, has moved north. Therefore, they catch a lot of their fish in UK waters. The European Fisheries Alliance reckons that cutting them off from our waters would slash profits for the EU fleets in half, leading to job losses for at least 6,000 people. A fish war with the EU, or at least clashes between boats, is not such a remote possibility, which is why the EU Commission has given itself the powers to command any or all EU fishing boats to return to port. They have also allocated funds from the EMFF to compensate fishermen forced to retire due to Brexit.

The EU is also gearing itself up for the possibility of tariffs or other restrictions on the 60% to 70% of the UK catch that is currently exported to Europe. I have often thought that one of the best ways we could spend the replacement for European Maritime and Fisheries Fund money would be to have a massive marketing campaign to stop us eating so much cod and persuade the great British public to eat more of the fish we produce. Sadly, I suspect that the great British public could not afford to do that, even if they were so inclined.

We all hope that it will not come to clashes at sea, but the point of this amendment is to prevent future clashes with our neighbours while at the same time ensuring that we use the best up-to-date science to sustain our fishing stocks. Zonal allocation is a far better way of distributing quota among national fishing fleets than the historically based quotas. The seas are always changing, and so are the fish within them; this amendment is an effort to take account of that fact.

However, the problem is that looking at relative stability terrifies the Europeans—opening up a whole can of worms for them, from the Black Sea to the Baltic —even if they know in their hearts that it is the right thing to do. We have to enter into very serious negotiations with not only them but our other fishing neighbours in order to achieve sustainable fisheries.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this issue, and the Minister for his response. We are flogging the same issue of proportionality over and again with different wording. I was not totally convinced by the Minister’s response. He talked about the need for a balanced approach between all the different objectives. We have already rehearsed the fact that that could lead to an unbalanced approach if we are not very careful, or the wrong objectives coming to the top in the hierarchy, so I am slightly anxious about that. I took it from the Minister’s reply that it would not be appropriate for other objectives that were not already listed to be put in that balance. If that is what he was saying, it is certainly reassuring.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made a very compelling case on the international issues and I am not sure that the Minister managed to unravel it, particularly on the first amendment. There will be a need for us to carry on co-operating with our international neighbours, so I do not see what would be wrong in putting that in the joint fisheries statement alongside all the other tasks that have to be carried out. It is not a minor issue: it will be a major part of the authorities’ functions. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will reflect on that because I think it is worth further discussion. It may be in a slightly different form of words, but that balance—

[Lord Teverson]

I assure the noble Baroness that, in the next group, I will very much take hold of that issue.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

We are rehearsing and repeating some of these debates, but that was very reassuring to hear, and I am glad the noble Lord has taken that on board.

The Minister’s point that we will report after the event, rather than be forward-looking, was well made and we need to reflect on it. I was a bit disappointed by his answer on recreational fishing. It is not just about funding or having access to financial assistance but more about the importance of recreational fishing. As I said to the Minister—and he reflected it back to me—it is a major part of the fishing sector, not a minor part. It employs more people and involves more money and jobs, so to say that the joint fisheries statement should not explicitly take account of that does not feel right to me. Again, we may not have put the amendment in the right place, but I think we can firm it up in some way. I will reflect on his comments in Hansard. It may be another one of those issues that will crop up somewhere else during the course of the Bill. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 34. As has been said, it is crucial that there is something on the face of this Bill making clear our serious intention to allow our stocks to recover. I fear that with all ecological assessments there is a danger that we become immune, that the steady decline becomes the new normal as we become more and more used to empty seas, the lack of birds in our hedgerows and the lack of wildlife in general, and that we simply adjust down our expectations to this new normal. We simply cannot do that.

The wonderful thing about fisheries is that if you take the pressure off them, they rebound. Fish are one of the most resilient of wildlife species. We must allow ourselves to take that pressure off. We have had decades of overfishing, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, pointed out, we saw a 10% decrease in one year in the number of stocks that are at sustainable levels. That tells us that there is something deeply wrong. It is fine to say that 59% of stocks are better than they were a decade ago, but that is 10% fewer than the year before. So we must give ourselves the opportunity. We do not want to be subject to legal challenge. If we believe that we must take a management approach that will set stocks at well below the sustainable limit, we must be allowed to do so. They can then recover quickly and everyone can benefit, including the fishers.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I was going to speak further to Amendment 34, but the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have said it far better, so I shall resume my place.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 48 in my name, but I also echo the arguments made by other noble Lords. Our amendment seeks to achieve a very similar objective to many others in the group: to maintain stocks of sea fish at or above sustainable levels. We are all, in our different ways, seeking to clarify and firm up the wording which would achieve that. As with some of the other debates, we believe that this is a core principle that should lie at the heart of the Bill.

The objectives set out at the front of the Bill emphasise the importance of sustainability, but this means nothing unless we use the Bill to tackle the scourge of overfishing and bring fish stocks back up to sustainable levels. Of course, as we have discussed before, we recognise that this is not just a UK problem but a global problem. Globally, 29% of stocks are overfished, many of them illegally, or they are unregulated. The Blue Marine Foundation has said that, if these trends continue, the world’s seafoods will collapse by 2048.

This is an opportunity for us to play a leading role globally in addressing this crisis. However, we will only have respect and influence if we are seen to be putting our own house in order. Coming out of the common fisheries policy is an ideal time for us to show leadership on this. Taking more control of UK waters provides a rare opportunity to revisit the scientific data, make a baseline stock assessment, create space for stocks to replenish and reset the dial on how much fishing should be allowed to achieve long-term sustainability. That is why we want to see a requirement not to fish above sustainability levels as a guiding principle running through this Bill.

This should apply equally to UK fishers and foreign vessels given a licence to fish in our waters. Amendment 48 would require fisheries management plans not just to contribute to the restoration of stock levels up to sustainable levels but to go further, by restoring the stock and creating a long-term reserve, so that we can begin to repair the damage that has already been done.

Of course, we recognise that much of the fishing allocation around our shores will continue to be determined through negotiation with our European neighbours, but they have already signed up to the principle of maximum sustainable yield through the common fisheries policy, so they cannot really object if we take a more robust stand on this issue than the negotiations around the CFP have so far delivered.

As we have discussed, we will in due course have new opportunities to fish in UK waters, and this is an area where we could make the most progress. This will be under our direct control, so the benefits can be shared between the recovering fish stocks and the UK fishers who understand that it is in their interest to let those stocks regenerate.

I hope that the Minister will recognise the sense of these arguments and seek ways to incorporate the principles into the Bill.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

35: Clause 2, page 3, line 36, at end insert—
“( ) The fisheries policy authorities must whenever possible draw up fisheries management plans that are agreed with all those non-UK authorities that share those stocks.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires management plans to take account of the fact that fish migrate across boundaries.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 46. I was surprised that the Minister seemed to give the impression that we were saying that the British fishing industry or this sector had a bad reputation, or that we were somehow denying that it was trying to obtain sustainability. I do not think that anybody in the Chamber has said that at all. However, that provides a good introduction to this amendment.

One of the things that the UK did, as part of the European Union, was to help reform the common fisheries policy quite successfully in all sorts of ways. The landing obligation was one of those reforms, which I am delighted the Government are still pursuing post Brexit, and so was the issue of regionalisation—an area of fisheries management that the UK always pursued in the Council of Ministers. In the last major reform of the common fisheries policy, we achieved regionalisation to a large degree.

Why did we do that? Why was that important? Well, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred to, a large proportion of our commercial, and indeed other, species are not confined to the UK EEZ. As he said, spawning grounds, for instance, are more likely and more often to be found elsewhere rather than in our exclusive economic zone. What that means—and this is stark-staringly obvious—is that we have to continue co-operation to manage these stocks because, if we do not, it will not work.

A key difficulty with this Bill for me is that, to a degree, it asks for three fictions—or three novels—in the form of the two documents on sustainable fisheries, which we will continue to talk about, and also, particularly, the fisheries management plans. I welcome the Minister’s offer to talk about those, because I do not think the Bill is very clear about what these plans are trying to do. However, one thing that I am sure about is that the fisheries management plans need to take into account the total circulation of the fish, or other marine animals, in the areas that we are trying to manage. If we do not do that, the plans are a waste of time; they are just not going to work.

This amendment says that there has to be an obligation—of course, all our international obligations are general rather than specific, so they would not work sufficiently in terms of the detail that I would see in the management plans—to do our best, or a best endeavours obligation on the fishing authorities, to come to agreement with other non-UK authorities that are in charge of those fish stocks that are within that management plan, so that we have a holistic plan for the range of those stocks. I cannot think why we could not do that, but I do not believe that the international obligations are specific enough for there to be a need to do that at management plan level. There is a general obligation; it is not a specific obligation.

That is why my amendment proposes that fisheries authorities, in bringing those management plans together, have to try to reach agreement with other coastal states or member states of the European Union. It is not compulsory—clearly, agreement might not be reached—but, equally clearly, those others will want that same result. This will not be part of the Brexit negotiations, so it is not around high negotiation; it is around practical effect, once we are out of the common fisheries policy and we are into our future relation. There is not some great negotiation point here; it is a matter of trying to achieve all the goals in those objectives, all of which will be largely impossible to achieve if we do not have management plans that co-ordinate with those of adjacent coastal states.

That seems to me to be a complete and clear proposition—one that not just biologists but anyone who has been involved in this area would recognise—and I hope that the Minister will find a way of getting this aspect into the Bill. I say once again that, without this aspect, we are looking at a Bill that talks about management plans that become a fiction. I beg to move.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 57 and 58, which were put down by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern.

The premise I start from is that conservation and sustainability are essential if we want to conserve all kinds of fish for the good of our planet and as a legacy that we can be proud of for the future generations who will inhabit it. To achieve such success for the future, we need both clear, co-ordinated objectives and detailed management plans working in concert. The changes proposed will improve the coherence between the objectives contained in the detailed management plans. These plans will have to include an explanation of how the overarching objectives of sustainability and marine conservation have been interpreted and applied.

I ask the Minister to give more details on the operation of these new management plans and how they will co-exist alongside other co-management initiatives, which already exist in the industry. For example, the shellfish advisory group is engaged in such an arrangement, and this can be built upon.

We also believe that, within six months after the passing of this Bill, the Secretary of State should issue a consultation on the design and creation of these management plans. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the Government’s long-term vision for the future of this very special industry?

On the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—who, if I may say so, was an excellent chairman of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, on which I was privileged to serve—I believe what he said is essentially right, in that every interest should look at this issue with a considerable sense of realism. In his speech, he pointed the way to a meeting of minds, which I believe and hope very much will come into existence. Surely, it should not be beyond the wit of humankind to come to a meeting of minds on this subject.

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I am grateful for all the amendments tabled and points raised during the debate on this group. Again, I hope I have spoken in enough detail, but if there are any residual points of detail that noble Lords would like to raise after Committee or thereafter, I would be very happy to discuss them further. I hope that in many of the cases that have been raised I have been able to highlight that there are already provisions catering for them in the Bill. Again, at the international level these are subject to our international obligations, and we will be working through them. At this stage I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the Minister for what I think was a very constructive reply. I could see the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, almost thinking that the Minister was going to concede one amendment—but then it was taken away. What a disappointment, but there we are. Of all the amendments, the one tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, which would put how the objectives have been met in the fisheries management plan, seems to be totally obvious and, while not a substitute for what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, wishes to do, something that would really tie that down. The statements are too high a level to do that; it needs to be done at the level that the noble and learned Lord suggests.

I have one question for the Minister before I— probably—withdraw my amendment. We leave the common fisheries policy on 31 December this year; it will all go and we will have a clean sheet. When does he expect the first of these management plans to be in place, and what will happen in between?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I think I will write to the noble Lord on that precise issue. As I have said, there are some existing plans, as well as work that we are already undertaking. The whole purpose of this is to take those management plans even further. That is why we need to get this framework Bill through, and then we can work on the plans. I could not give the noble Lord a precise date and I am not going to make one up. Obviously a lot of work is being undertaken and we will need to work with the devolved Administrations and interested parties.

As I said in relation to the consultation following Royal Assent, there are provisions here with the affirmative statutory instruments, which will be part of the aftermath of this where we will have consideration. This is work that we need to advance very quickly. I am not in a position to give a precise date—the noble Lord would probably think it unwise if I did so—but this is work that absolutely has to be advanced because, yes, our aspirations for sustainable fisheries apply now and on 1 January and thereafter.

[Lord Teverson]

I will not press the Minister any more on that, but I think all of us, and maybe the industry itself, would have a concern if there was a blank sheet between when we leave the current regulatory regime and when these plans arrive. I will wait for him to write on that.

I look forward to meeting the Minister, along with others, to understand the management plans more. However, I say yet again that the science has to be the best, and I am glad that that is accepted in principle. We have to find a way to integrate co-operation and co-planning with our adjacent coastal states with our fisheries management plans. We just have to do that; we cannot do it any other way. The debate that we have had has still not convinced me how that will happen in a practical way, and that is very much what I will be looking to the Minister to explain to me and others when we meet before Report. At the moment, though, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 35 withdrawn.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and have added my name to it. I know that my noble friend the Minister will say that the amendment is not needed, but I would argue that it is. If there were no changes to the joint fisheries statement, we should be able to understand why that was the case and why everyone had agreed. It would be helpful to have more openness and transparency in that regard.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group which I am sure the Minister will be able to bat away quickly and easily. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on his amendment: it is a problem that I thought we would never have, but he suggests a way to resolve it and I am sure that he would make an excellent independent adviser if it should ever arise.

Clause 3(1) states:

“The fisheries policy authorities may at any time prepare and publish a replacement JFS.”


It comes back to trying to make the rules clearer. Can one of the authorities trigger this, or does there have to be a consensus? I look to the Minister for guidance on what precisely that mechanism is.

I always like simplification in life. While I understand what the Bill is trying to do in requiring two fisheries statements, it would be great to have a combined document so that everybody could understand how the policy looks as a whole. That would be terribly useful to the consumers of the legislation; that is, the industry and all the stakeholders.

I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the department came to six years as a review period. We have American presidential elections every four years, the World Cup is every four years, the Olympics are every four years, and fixed-term Parliaments are every five. Why six? It would be better if it was five. Six years seems a long time in terms of marine ecology and fisheries statements. It should be looked at just a little more regularly.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, we have a relatively simple amendment, Amendment 74, in this group. The Bill requires the fisheries policy authorities to produce periodically a report on the extent to which their policies as set out in the joint fisheries statement have been implemented. Where there is an omission, the Secretary of State is required to intervene.

The amendment would require the Secretary of State, if required to produce a report on the policies omitted from the joint fisheries statement, to consult not only the devolved Administrations but a wider group of representative bodies on the content of the report. It is a straightforward amendment which seeks to fill a gap in the consultation provisions made elsewhere in the Bill. The provision in Schedule 1 does not spell this out in sufficient detail.

On an earlier amendment, the Minister read out a list of representative bodies which the department regularly consults, which of course is welcome, and described it as an “expert advisory group”. However, that is different from a statutory requirement to consult at various stages of policy production and review. I hope that the Minister will concede that our amendment would fill a gap in the consultation proposals. Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I hope that she does not just bat it away.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his amendments. As he said, we need mechanisms to address what happens when things go wrong, and he made a good stab at doing that. He made the useful proposal that an independent review could be sought when conflicts over policies and their application arose. I hope that the Minister agrees that those proposals have some merit. The noble Lord’s other amendments touch on the extent to which representatives of the UK fishing fleet should be consulted. Again, that is important. We agree with the proposal but, as in our amendment, would want any consultation extended to a wider group of stakeholders.

The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, relate to the timescale for the review of joint fisheries statements. He proposed a more meaningful review period of five years rather than six. We agree that there is little logic in the six-year timescale. Given that it is assumed that international negotiations will continue to take place annually, it seems far more practical to review and update the joint fisheries statements in a more timely way in line with changes taking place scientifically and the negotiations with the international community. As he said, five years is consistent also with the parliamentary cycle, so there seems to be not much logic for six and a whole lot more logic for five. I hope that the Minister is able to take that on board.

The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, seeks via his amendments to build more flexibility into the production of joint fisheries statements. He may have a point, although I doubt that there would be many occasions where there would not be some need for a review every five or—if necessary—six years.

At the heart of these amendments is a need for proper statutory consultation, meaningful timeframes, the best advice and flexibility. I hope that the Minister will see the sense in the proposals and perhaps take some on board.

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While we will always seek to consult stakeholders where appropriate in implementing policies set out in the SSFS—or, for that matter, the JFS—a statutory duty to consult on the interim review is disproportionate and would create an unnecessary burden. Instead, we believe that the requirement for a formal consultation, when the statements are fully reviewed at least once every six years, is sufficient. With this explanation, I hope my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I did not understand the Minister’s response on my Amendment 37. I am specifically trying to understand how the joint fisheries statement is triggered. Forgive me, I may have misheard the Minister, but can it be triggered by any one of the authorities or does it have to be unanimously triggered by them? It is not specified, and that obviously makes a big difference to when replacements might be demanded or when they might happen. Clause 3(1) does not say how those are triggered, just that they can be at any time. It is by one, two, three or four of the devolved authorities?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

There was a part of the speech that got cut, which I think may provide some elucidation on this point. The JFS is a joint endeavour; all fisheries policy authorities must work together throughout the drafting processes, publication, and review and replacement of the statements. All authorities must agree to go consultation and to publish. I hope that answers the noble Lord.

[Lord Teverson]

So, to clarify, there has to be unanimous agreement between all authorities for a replacement policy to be a triggered?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I think I had better write to the noble Lord in response to that question.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

17: Clause 1, page 2, line 24, leave out subsection (7)

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I suspect that this amendment will not take up a lot of the Committee’s time. I want to understand what the equal access objective is trying to do and what its implications are. The objective says that

“the location of the fishing boat’s home port, or … any other connection of the fishing boat, or any of its owners, to any place in the United Kingdom”

does not affect their rights. If I read that objective as a local fisher—perhaps in Mevagissey, the nearest port to me, or in a smaller fishery down further west, let alone those along the south coast—I would be concerned that any decision by government to allocate anything at all could be challenged by a larger fleet, or by someone from further round the coast, and could disrupt or exploit a well-managed local fishery. I understand entirely that the last thing we want to do is compartmentalise the United Kingdom in any way, and I think the system works fairly well as it is at the moment. This is the one area where perhaps I would like to keep the status quo, rather than introduce this objective.

My concern is that this makes local fisheries susceptible to challenge when it comes to fishing rights and their ability to look after particular stocks or to get Marine Society accreditation. This is a threat. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister why the Government want to do this and why I should not fear the consequences for the lesser fleets in the United Kingdom. There is also a slight risk that this might encourage further consolidation of the market. We already have market concentration and it concerns me that those are the fleets with the money, capacity and ability to buy or to trade fishing rights, so this is an area of susceptibility.

When I first got involved in fisheries in the 1990s, I used to talk regularly to fishing organisations down in the far south-west. Publicly, there was always a concern about the Spanish fleets. Whenever you put a microphone or camera in front of someone, they were the big threat. If you talked to them otherwise, it was the Scots who came down and took everything out of the water when they had nothing better to do north of the border. I am not for a minute saying that is the case today, but I have a real concern here and I would be very interested to hear from the Minister why I should not be so afraid. I beg to move.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might add a question to this. To understand what the equal access objective is about, one should look at Clause 17 of the Bill. If a Scottish fisheries authority were to grant a licence to a non-UK fishing boat under the new regime, that would be a licence to fish in Scottish waters. Both this current objective and, indeed, the related amendment on the determination of fishing opportunities say that, when a ship is licensed, or when fishing opportunities are allotted, this cannot be done to British boats on the basis of where they come from. If I understand correctly—I put this simply because I am sure the Minister will put us both right when we have presented our questions—the object of the equal access objective is to make sure that, when the administrations put forward their joint fisheries statement, they must do so on the basis that a British fishing boat can go anywhere in British fishing waters. That seems a desirable objective because otherwise we could well end up with not British fishing waters but entirely separate Scottish, Welsh or English fishing waters. I do not regard that as the objective we are seeking, so to that extent, I rather like keeping the equal access objective and I would not see it removed from the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I will avail myself of receiving some information and let everyone in this debate know. Clearly, it is a devolved matter and therefore all three devolved Administrations and the UK Government will make those considerations. That is why I mentioned in particular the English quota management rules. These are matters of responsibility for the devolved Administrations and ourselves in terms of quota. On that basis, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for his question because even if we use the traditional ICES areas, those do not reflect the boundaries between the devolved nations. It is an interesting question.

I thank the Minister for his explanation. I feel reassured by that. If it does not relate to quotas and refers only to vessels steaming around in circles doing nothing at all, who can complain? However, it does not seem to be much of an objective if that is the case. On that basis, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 17 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 19 is trying to deal with the same matter, but it attempts to use the activities of fishing fleets to bring

“social, economic and employment benefits to the United Kingdom or any part”.

In other words, it is intended that the activities of fishing boats should not merely benefit the fisheries, but also the rest of the United Kingdom, and in particular produce social, economic and employment benefits. One can see that this is a bit wider than the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, but it is just a question of what precisely this “national benefit objective” is aiming at.

I think it does not aim at benefiting the fishing industry itself, but at benefiting others through the activities of the fishing industry. Paragraph (b) of my proposed new subsection, which contains a reference to fish and aqua- culture activities, manages to achieve the same sort of thing. In other words, in both cases the activities of the boats and the management of the fleets are supposed to bring these general social, economic and employment benefits to the United Kingdom and parts of it.

The issues in this amendment were brought to my attention by the national authority, or corporation, of the fishing fleets of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Scottish people are somewhat separately represented, and it is not altogether surprising that their attitude is that the Bill is pretty good and perhaps the best thing to do is to leave it alone. It may be that they have ideas about the present situation, and the way in which the Bill is constructed is, from their point of view, very acceptable.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 78, which is in a similar vein around national benefit. It is quite clear, certainly in the south-west, that if all the fishing vessels with British flags actually landed their catch—or a major proportion of it—in their home port, the number of landings in the UK and the viability of those ports would be hugely increased. Of course, we have here the issue of what used to be called “quota hoppers”, around which everything has gone staggeringly quiet during the Brexit negotiations and the formulation of the Bill.

As we know, a little under half of the English—not Scottish—quota is effectively owned by Dutch, Spanish or Icelandic interests. Grimsby, which I think used to be the world’s or Europe’s largest fishing port, now has a very important fish processing industry, but hardly any activity in terms of landings. Most of the quota there is effectively owned by Dutch vessels that land in Holland.

So, we have a question: how do we change that? The Bill does nothing to change this area. In a way, it suits the fishing industry establishment to keep things as they are, because those are the members. Whether vessels are English or foreign-owned, those are the members of the fishing organisations. That is why, in Amendment 78, I have used the scientifically calculated number of 75%, which came out at the end of my spreadsheet, to suggest what proportion of fish should be landed by English-flagged—or British-flagged, depending on how we want to define the devolution thing—vessels. It is a probing amendment, but only in the sense that something needs to be done in this area. Very few other EU member states have allowed the foreign ownership of quota in the way that we have. We decided to do that. We are where we are, but we need to make sure there is a national benefit; I assume that is why this objective is here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I wonder whether this question of landing obligations will need to be resolved in the fisheries negotiations during the coming “passage of arms” with the EU. I believe that there is a good deal of voluntary landing in our ports by foreign fishing vessels at the moment, and one of the reasons for that is the efficiency of the transfer from these ports to the European market. They are able to get their fish stocks to the European market from some ports very quickly—in a way that, if they had to take them back to Spain or southern France, would take much longer and probably be less efficiently organised. I do not know whether it needs compulsion, but compulsion would need to be authorised as part of the future negotiations.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I may intervene on the noble and learned Lord. We should not forget that we are talking about British boats in British waters—it is not about foreign vessels. Sorry, I will sound like Michael Gove or the Prime Minister, but this has nothing to do with the European Union or the Commission: it is purely a British decision, apart from foreign vessels and where they have to land. That is why we have raised the issue.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I can see that, if it is restricted to British vessels, it is perfectly within the powers of this Parliament, but I am not at all clear that it would be right to impose that kind of obligation on British vessels without attempting to encourage foreign vessels to do the same. As I mentioned at Second Reading, something like this is already happening, and in pretty small ports—though they have a large amount of traffic, usually overnight, when refrigerated vehicles go straight to Europe and arrive quickly at their markets, which are pretty hungry for the result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I repeat what I said: work is already being undertaken on this by the Government and the devolved Administrations. It is work in progress, but that is the right route, particularly as these are devolved matters and that is important. The Government want to find ways: although we must and do respect the devolution settlement, there are many respects where we have been seeking to work together and why we are legislating on behalf of all four parts of the United Kingdom on this matter. It is the case that we are acting in concert with the devolved Administrations. We are very mindful that many of these areas are devolved, but we think that in the interests of simplicity and straightforwardness there are many areas where we would like to have a single focus, as it were.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I can be helpful to the Minister, in that the whole area of foreign ownership of British-flagged vessels is an English issue, and I am sure that we can solve it in that way and help the Minister get this into the Bill. It is an English, not a Scottish, problem. That is one thing we can do. The other thing is that, on the under-10 fleet redistribution of quota, of course the big promise of the Government is that the pie is going to increase anyway, so there will be plenty for the under-10 fleet. If the Government’s promises, in terms of taking back control and getting rid of relative stability, is what we manage to achieve, then that should not be a problem.

What I particularly want to do at this stage is to go through a thought experiment with the Minister. Taking the point that it is the Government’s objective, quite rightly, post Brexit to have a much larger pie—because the fish stocks are within our EEZ and we will have this whole idea of zonal attachment—we will have much larger fishing opportunities for the fleet as a whole. So, with that bigger pie, are we going to allow the foreign-owned British companies with British-flagged vessels to take even more quota than they have now, or have the Government got a cunning plan to make sure that this expanded quota stays and resides more with real British fishing fleets? I would be very interested to hear the Government’s answer.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

For tonight, I will say that these are matters under active consideration. We take the point that there is scope for additional quota to benefit coastal communities. I am not in a position to give precise details because this is under active consideration, but the noble Lord has absolutely hit on the point that this is about additional opportunities. The Government are working on and considering how best we fulfil that in a way which benefits coastal communities. That, as with a number of other aspects, is work in hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 125 in my name, also in this group. I also lend my support to the two amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. This is very welcome. I start by being positive about the climate change objective being added to the list of 12—or however many we have now. It is good to see it there. As I stated earlier, there really is no business as usual anymore. Climate change impacts are upon us and we are living through an age of consequences. This will permeate all the discussions around fishing policy that we bring on the back of the Bill. Fishing quotas will change, the availability of fish stocks will change and the resilience of the natural environment will be increasingly affected and diminished, so it is incredibly important that we take this seriously.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, rightly goes to the heart of the definition here. It seems a little lacking in ambition and specificity, as stated in the Bill, which refers to

“the adverse effects of fishing and aquaculture minimised”.

What does “minimised” mean when, really, they should be eliminated? In fact, any economic activity now taking place specifically within the natural environment should not just seek to have zero emissions, it should be seeking to be a positive sink. We will have to use policies and the framework for managing the natural world to ensure that we are not just reducing our outputs, but seeking to enhance the ability of the natural world to absorb carbon dioxide.

That has to be an aim because we have left it so late. We are about 20 years behind where we should be in reducing emissions on a global level, so the challenge now will be that of eliminating emissions in a decade. Thereafter it will be about soaking out the greenhouse gases that have been emitted. The oceans and the marine environment are a huge component of that, so we should be ambitious. I think that the bare minimum should be to achieve net zero, not simply minimising adverse effects and adapting to climate change.

My third point is about accepting that we may have to implement the precautionary principle, which states that for the period we are in, where there is so much uncertainty, we will be allocating below scientifically determined maximum sustainable yields because of the risk of climate change that overlays everything. We might have to get used to allocating quota on a very precautionary basis because we are entering uncharted waters, if I may be excused the pun.

I turn to my Amendment 125. Amendments that seek consultation always feel a bit redundant in primary legislation, but my point is that, under the powers granted under the Climate Change Act 2008, we have the ability to introduce a policy. Before any activity that causes a net contribution to greenhouse gases, we can simply consult and then use secondary legislation to introduce that policy. If the Government were minded to get going on achieving the net zero target, simply asking for public consultation would be the trigger to introducing secondary legislation to bring in very targeted, market-based policies to encourage investment in low-carbon activities. The Government now have the opportunity to consult on how we can best make this sector carbon neutral and use the powers that already exist to bring in those policies; hence the quest for a public consultation.

It is worth stating that, at the moment, the fishing industry has an effect on climate change in a number of ways. It is not just about how vessels are propelled or the energy choices made by processing plants, it is also about how the degradation of the natural environment can release greenhouse gases. Trawling activities, for example, can disturb the sediment at the bottom of the ocean, which releases otherwise stored carbon. There are plenty of examples and reasons why one would want the sector to take this issue seriously.

This is an opportunity to do something really positive. We must think about the provision of licences to cover the activities that take place in this environment with a positive vision that will create jobs and allow activities to be carried out in the natural world that will help us as we seek to combat climate change. There is no reason why fisheries cannot be part of that process. There are particular types of fish stocks and particular ways of fishing that can lock carbon up while low-impact aquaculture can make a net-positive contribution to our carbon budgets. I hope this is not seen as an imposition; rather, it should be seen as an opportunity.

Again, to finish on a positive note, seeing this objective included is very welcome. I happen to be in the camp of thinking that sustainability is the primary objective, so this climate objective is integral to that. However, we need to see a little more action and commitment to some of the specifics of what making this a primary objective would really mean for how we manage our fisheries. I am glad to have had the opportunity to discuss these amendments.

[Lord Teverson]

I put my name on the amendment and am pleased to welcome it. One message from the climate change committee was that we cannot do decarbonisation and net zero sequentially; we have to do it all at the one time. That must include this industry.

My only word of caution is that fish oil is used as an energy source on some occasions, and could be described as renewable. It is used as biodiesel, like fishmeal. That should be excluded completely. We do not do that in this country, but I have a feeling the Danes have occasionally done it before.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I have the great pleasure of speaking to the amendments standing in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Unfortunately, he is delayed. He had hoped to arrive in time, but I have the pleasure of moving the amendment anyway. Together, the two amendments call for collaborative working on the Bill. While in our earlier discussions we asked whether 10 objectives were plenty, here we are calling for one extra. To a certain extent we will understand if, standing alone, it is not accepted. However, the point behind collaborative working is very important.

Amendment 5 speaks for itself, so I turn to Amendment 26, which itemises the intentions behind this whole idea. The “collaborative objective” is to ensure that

“the fisheries policy authorities receive guidance on fisheries management from the fishing industry, scientists and other relevant stakeholders.”

That engagement has not been as close as it could have been over the years. The amendment would provide the opportunity to establish a proper common base on which these decisions can be made. Proposed new subsection (9B) says that guidance under proposed new subsection (9A)

“must be formally established and shared by a consultative group”—

in other words, there will be a direct link to make sure that it is established and that working together happens. Proposed new subsection (9C) states:

“Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must issue a consultation on the establishment of a consultative group under subsection (9B) or an alternative vehicle for producing guidance under subsection (9A).”


I am very grateful to the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations for its help in putting this amendment together. If my noble friend the Minister cannot accept it, I hope he will look carefully at what is being suggested, which is the need to make sure that we bring together all those who work in the fishing industry to come up with positive suggestions for future sustainability. The consultative group would guide and advise on policy; promote collaboration between central government and the devolved Administrations; allow ongoing dialogue on the viability of the industry; and channel the fishing industry’s knowledge and experience, about which I spoke earlier, into the design and implementation of management measures. This would be hugely helpful.

The consultative group would play a leading role in the use of secondary legislation—as we all know, the Bill will set up systems, but a lot of the detail will come in the secondary legislation—to ensure that we have an agile and responsive approach to future fisheries management. The inclusion of the consultative group of fishery experts would guarantee that sustainability issues are fully considered. It would also play a valuable role in the development and operation of the management plans proposed later in the Bill.

As I said, we might be adding an 11th objective—I still think number one, sustainability, is the most important overall—but it is important that those who work on the sea, those who plan for what is happening, the scientists and the data collected should work together. I have great pleasure in moving the amendment.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I agree that there needs to be far more collaboration. It is the big missing thing in the Bill in many ways. We have a Bill that covers the whole of the United Kingdom. We have devolution in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales but I am concerned that we have no devolution in England despite the fact that the English fishery is diverse—as are those of the other nations—and I have amendments later in the Bill that seek to tackle that in a sensible and not too radical way.

I welcome the spirit of the amendments. They are the basement of what we need but I hope the Minister will take strongly the message that there needs to be consultation and working with not only the industry but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said, the larger stakeholders to make this sector work. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this proposal.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for tabling these amendments, and I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness said.

The noble Baroness raised an important point about consultation, although, as we discussed in the earlier amendments, I am not sure—I think she acknowledged this—that adding it to the list of objectives is the right way to go about it. But the sense of what she is trying to achieve certainly has merit.

A number of the delegated powers in the Bill contain consultation requirements with devolved Ministers and/or representatives of the fishing industry. However, in that respect, the need for consultation is reserved for specific purposes and is envisaged as a one-off, whereas this amendment proposes a more regular and longer-term consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said he thought it was at the basement of the types of consultation we should have but, nevertheless, we agree that there should be more comprehensive regular engagement with relevant stakeholders.

Moving further than the noble Baroness’s amendment, we need to make sure that the different sections of the UK’s fleet—the trawlers and the 10s and so on—are all effectively represented in the process. We need to make sure that the spread of stakeholders is right.

We are not doing very well with this Bill because we keep having to revisit and go back and forth to parts that we have already discussed. We have amendments later in the Bill which deal with the issue of consultation, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has said that he has more detailed proposals with regard to the establishment of advisory boards and so on.

In the mix of all that there is the fundamental issue of consultation, and all these proposals have merit. We will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say on this issue and, when we have dealt with all the amendments we have tabled, we will try to pull together a considered view about the best wording and the best way forward. We would like to get this element of the Bill right and we may well have to come back to it on Report. As I say, we will listen to what the Minister has to say but we may need to pool our ideas to take this issue forward, and we should do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

I promise the Minister that I will not go through a list of even more organisations that should be consulted but Natural England is a key government and Defra body for looking at everything, including take-free zones and so on. Is it involved at all or is that done by the Secretary of State?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

All the organisations that I have referred to are organisations rather than statutory bodies. Clearly, bodies such as Natural England have statutory functions and interests, and obviously are part of the work. The Environment Agency, Natural England and other such bodies would all have an interest in marine areas and so on. As to the part they will play in the expert advisory group—I will try not to mislead your Lordships—clearly all such statutory organisations and bodies would have a locus in this.

As to the initiatives from the industry itself that the UK Government are supporting to manage fisheries, these include, for example, the work of the Scallop Industry Consultation Group and the newly created shellfish industry group. We have also held a call for evidence on how we allocate additional English quota.

In addition—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, referred to this and we shall have discussions about it—the Bill includes statutory provisions requiring consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of proposals in the joint fisheries statement, any Secretary of State fisheries statement and fisheries management plans. The provision for consultation in these three areas—particularly when we get down to the fisheries management plans, which are about each and every stock—shows the level of ability and the importance of consultation. Its purpose is to get these matters right and to have sustainable fishing.

Given the complexities of fisheries management, the different interests and the different levels at which advice and engagement need to take place—be it at national, administration or local level—a one-size-fits-all body is unlikely to work. Consultation and collaboration will need to flex and adapt as we improve our fisheries management.

In addition, I am advised that, as drafted, the amendment would present some challenges given the devolution settlements. Officials in the UK Government have worked very closely with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations to develop and draft this new set of fisheries objectives. We appreciate the level of engagement that the devolved Administrations have shown in this work. The objectives are truly shared ambitions for our future fisheries management. I am pleased to report that the devolved Administrations already collaborate and consult widely in developing their own future fisheries management policies.

As I say, we will come to discussions on consultation at a later stage but I hope it has been helpful to my noble friend that I have set out in slightly more detail than I might have intended the organisations that are part of the expert advisory group. As we all know, we need to base what we do on scientific advice—and we are seeking the best scientific advice we can.

With those extra words, I hope my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, this is another probing amendment, following on from the discussion I had with my noble friend the Minister in preparing for Committee. Its aim is to tease out from the Government which international fisheries policy authorities they intend to co-operate with.

The back narrative of this is that in paragraph 71 of the political declaration published in October, it is stated, in respect of fishing opportunities, that:

“The parties should cooperate bilaterally and internationally to ensure fishing at sustainable levels, promote resource conservation, and foster a clean, healthy and productive marine environment, noting that the United Kingdom will be an independent coastal state.”


This will be extremely important when, as we see later in the Bill, a fisheries policy authority, when publishing a fisheries management plan, has to have regard to changes in circumstances, one of which could be changes in the UK’s international obligations.

My noble friend has expressed very clearly our desire to maintain our role in UNCLOS—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Presumably we were an independent member of UNCLOS before we joined the European Union. I would like confirmation that our status in that regard has not changed. I know that there is a verbal commitment to our continuing engagement with ICES—the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea—but will we maintain the same level of spending as in the past? I am not clear, either, about which budget this will come from—the Defra budget or another departmental budget. It would be helpful to know that. We took evidence from ICES in connection with our work on the energy and environment sub-committee, and I have visited the ICES headquarters in Copenhagen twice. It is important for us to continue to rely on the excellent research work that it does.

I am not aware whether there will be any change in our status in relation to the Food and Agriculture Organization—particularly the fisheries and agricultural aspects of its work—or what our dependence on it will be, but that is also extremely important. One non-governmental organisation that I presume we have left, now that we are an independent sovereign state, is the European Environment Agency. It is of particular historic interest—I want to place this on record—that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, is a great expert in this field and was a leading environmentalist in the European Commission for a number of years before he was elected to the European Parliament. He is still a highly regarded and internationally respected environmentalist in his own right. Will the Government commit to continuing to work very closely with, and rely on the work of, the European Environment Agency with regard to fisheries but also on other environmental work—particularly agriculture, when the Agriculture Bill comes up? I hope that we can keep the door open to the work of the European Environment Agency.

I would be interested to learn about the nature of our new relationships with international parties such as Norway, Iceland and the Faroes that the Bill sets out, particularly—dare I say—if a fisheries dispute arises. The Government have clearly stated that we will not be subject to any jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but I argue that there is a degree of urgency about fisheries policy—and other policies—since we are now an independent coastal state. Who will arbitrate in the event of any fisheries dispute in our new relationships with Norway, Iceland and the Faroes? More importantly, what will the dispute resolution mechanisms be with regard to any dispute with the other 27 European Union countries? If, for example, France was to follow through with its threat to blockade the continental ports, despite a fisheries agreement being in place, thereby preventing our fisheries products accessing the market—a very real prospect—what would the dispute mechanism be? We need to know. I am not aware what it would be and I seek reassurance on that.

International relations are particularly important because—I place this on record—the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea requires the UK to participate in management based on an agreement on straddling stocks, which means that we would need to negotiate almost everything. With those few introductory remarks, I look forward to clarification on the issues that I have raised this afternoon. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for introducing at last the other people who deal with our fish stocks—other national authorities. The fundamental flaw of this Bill is that it seems to ignore the rest of the world, while our fish stocks—most of them, including their spawning grounds—are outside our exclusive economic zone. Later in the Bill we come to amendments where, I hope, we can strengthen it so that it notes and acts on the real world, where this resource is not exclusive to us.

I welcome the Bill in relation to the scientific side, which, to give the Government their due, is well advanced in terms of using ICES and stock assessments, for example, and I hope that the Minister will tell us about a lot of other things that they are doing with regard to keeping within those international areas. However, we are a member of all sorts of regional fisheries organisations, such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission and various tuna organisations, as well as UNCLOS, as the noble Baroness mentioned. These are basic, fundamental aspirations that we need to exceed to make sure that we have the sustainability that we need.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the thrust behind Amendment 15, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which seeks to add a reference to appropriate international co-operation to the scientific evidence objective—an extension to the debate on a previous grouping. I am sure that we will return to the point about science and international co-operation throughout Committee—and, depending on the Government’s clarifications, perhaps on Report as well.

As your Lordships’ House has observed and debated on numerous occasions in recent years, fisheries management is complicated not only by the fact that fish have no knowledge of, or respect for, the boundaries of national waters, but that each species’ habitat shifts as ocean temperatures and conditions fluctuate—a phenomenon that is likely only to increase with climate change. This was the thrust of the point just made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

The Government are committed under international law to co-operation with neighbouring states. They have indicated that they want annual negotiations with the EU on access to UK waters and quota, although on the premise that a fishing deal has been concluded by 1 July. While commitments to work with neighbouring states exist, such co-operation is important particularly for the gathering and analysis of scientific data. We are lucky to have world-class scientists and conservationists in the UK, but that does not mean that we cannot engage with and learn from others from wherever they come, and with organisations that the UK may also wish to co-operate with long into the future.

I hope therefore that the Minister will be able to offer assurances that his department will engage with international partners as appropriate, not just to agree high-level terms on access but to share science, practical knowledge and best practice, and that this will be included in the Bill.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Fisheries principles
(1) Marine stocks within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone are a resource that belongs to the nation as a whole.(2) Any quotas or other rights to harvest marine stocks whether allocated to vessels, public bodies, or persons natural or corporate remain the property of the nation.(3) No vessel, public body, or person natural or corporate shall have a permanent claim over quota or other rights granted to them by a public authority or authorities.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment makes clear that UK fish stocks belong to the nation and not to private organisations.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it seems that whenever we start a fisheries discussion there is rather a lack of sustainability among our Members. One of the useful things between Second Reading and Committee is that we can reflect on the arguments and the Bill until we get into the discussion of amendments. One thing that struck me very strongly after Second Reading, on looking through the Bill again, is that it has hardly any ambition whatever. The withdrawal Act effectively makes us an independent coastal state, which we will be after the transition period, but, apart from that, all the Bill does is provide an administrative framework to keep the status quo.

I do not think that the status quo is good enough for the fishing industry. For instance, there is no provision for new entrants into the industry, which is important. There is no improvement in sustainability methods for fisheries. In fact, the Bill fudges sustainability even more than when we were in the common fisheries policy. There is no particular help for the small under-10 fleet. Because of that, there is no specific help for coastal communities either.

That is why I tabled this amendment, which goes to the fundamental matter of who fish stocks belong to, because the Bill does nothing to change that. At the moment, we have a situation where half of English stocks are owned by companies that are effectively owned by Iceland, Holland or Spain. In Scotland, a vast majority of the industry is owned by a very small number of people. It is a very efficient operation and I certainly have nothing against that, but we have an industry that has become quite fossilised and significantly foreign owned, with no apparent appetite to change that.

We will come on to a number of those issues as we go through the Bill and the amendments, but we are trying to state the completely obvious: if fish stocks belong to anyone while they are in the UK EEZ, they should belong to the nation. That is simply what the amendment says: they are not the everlasting property of a vessel, an individual, a company or even a public body such as the one we have in Cornwall that buys up quota for the local fishing industry. They do not belong to them for eternity; they belong to the nation.

I do not understand how anybody could argue against this concept, but it is really important, since it is fully in line with the ideals of Brexit, becoming an independent coastal state, and Parliament and the nation having control, that we notice and mark that these fish stocks belong to the nation. That does not mean that there should not be, through the Secretary of State or the devolved authorities, a way that those fish stocks—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord about the fish stocks in the zone belonging to the nation. Presumably that could never have occurred had we remained a member of the European Union. Will he confirm that?

[Lord Teverson]

Absolutely. I agree with that. That is what I am saying. Given the new opportunity that we have, we should take advantage of being an independent coastal state. The Bill does nothing to change the status quo in any way. This is one thing we can do—lay down a marker on the ownership of those stocks. As to how those stocks are distributed, the amendment does not prevent them being leased for a period, rented or allocated without charge. We are trying to make the point that, at the end of the day, these stocks belong to the nation and not to any individual.

Coming back to the point made by the noble Lord, 17 million people voted for Brexit and for taking control of our own resources. They did not vote for—in relation to fishing—a profitable industry keeping all the advantages that it has at the moment. They were thinking more of the smaller fleets and the fact that those fishing stocks should belong to us rather than to individuals and perhaps, if you would like to call them that, to the elite of the fishing industry at the moment. I beg to move.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment. At the beginning of last year, in Committee in the Commons on the earlier incarnation of the Bill, the Minister—who is now Secretary of State—George Eustice MP, said:

“I do not believe we need a statement that fisheries resources are a national asset or public property, because that is self-evidently the case and our common law has always held as much.”—[Official Report, Commons, Fisheries Bill Committee, 13/12/18; col. 285.]


At the time I took that as gospel. I admire his legal confidence—I say that in a “Yes Minister” context—because I am not certain that the legal confidence is supported by all involved in the industry. There is a famous case where Justice Cranston suggested that there was a type of property right attributed to a fixed quota allocation and that owners would probably need to be given in the region of seven years’ notice of the intention to move away from those FQA units as a type of property right. Such a legal hitch—this is important—might hamper the Government’s intention to move away from relative stability to zonal allocation.

The point I am making is that if the Government believe that quota and marine stocks belong to the nation as a whole, it cannot possibly do any harm to make that clear in the Bill right at the start, so there is absolutely no doubt throughout the industry; and, more importantly, that in any future court case, trying to prove the opposite will founder on the rock of this legislation, set out in 2020, at the start of a new fishing era by the express will of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made an interesting and important point. He assumed that this was already the case, but the British courts do not see it that way. The Minister, now Secretary of State, tried to reallocate quotas towards the under 10-metre fleet, but that was disputed within the legal system. There is an underlying assumption here that this is a privatised resource, not a resource of the nation. That is why, to deliver what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, wants, it is important to have an amendment like this in the Bill.

As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out, this makes no difference to the quota allocation in Scotland: the devolved management authorities can make what decisions they want in allocating harvesting rights in those territorial areas. We are saying here that, ultimately, fundamental ownership of those rights is not for keeps, whereas at the moment they can be interpreted that way. I am not suggesting that, as part of this amendment, we should not allow a degree of certainty and ability to invest, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, put it very well, these rights are in trust to the nation.

As to how one interprets “the nation”, I see our fishing stocks as a national resource, not as devolved. Clearly, however, how they are shared out and used is an issue for the devolved authorities. I look forward to the later amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which come back to this subject, but I believe that this is fundamental to the way in which we should view this national resource and how that affects policy decisions as we go through this Bill and make fisheries policy. But, for the moment, I am content to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert—
“( ) the socio-economic objective,”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that socio-economic issues are included in the fisheries objectives.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, as the Minister said, we have here a list of objectives of great importance. I would not disagree with most, but one or two I have an issue with. There is always a danger in having too many objectives: which is the important one that guides regulatory authorities and which guides legislators in drafting subsequent secondary legislation? That is difficult, because it is almost impossible to meet all objectives at the same time. This amendment, and the others in my name—Amendments 6, 10 and 27—are based on my belief that sustainability is the most important objective. I take “sustainability” as here meaning the aquatic biosphere and the health of our fish stocks.

I do not accuse the Government of putting it this way, but the Bill reads to me as having a muddled sustainability objective, because it is prejudiced by the addition of what is almost a socioeconomic objective. A socioeconomic objective is very valid. In fact, one of my amendments in this group states that there should be a socioeconomic objective. The sustainability objective should, however, relate to the marine ecology, fish stocks and the wider marine inhabitants. I therefore suggest that we leave out subsection (2)(b), which states

“the fishing capacity of fleets is such that fleets are economically viable but do not overexploit marine stocks.”

That is a socioeconomic objective and should go under that heading. The sustainability objective has to be the lead objective. There are various ways of sorting out the socioeconomic objectives, including financially, and that is how we should do it.

We need clarity; we need the sustainability objective to be the prime objective, and we need it to be well policed. That is why my Amendment 27 would bring in the office for environmental protection. I would be interested to hear what the Minister says. He may tell me that this is unnecessary, and I could well be persuaded that it is, but it is vital that that office, once founded and operational, has full oversight of the fisheries industry and the protection of our marine environment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, Amendment 7 is in my name. I support many of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. My amendment would change Clause 1(2)(b) simply to state

“the fishing effort does not overexploit marine stocks.”

The Bill states

“the fishing capacity of fleets is such that fleets are economically viable but do not overexploit marine stocks.”

The purpose behind trying to simplify the provision is to make it clear that we cannot have a sustainable long-term fishing effort if we overexploit stocks. That should not need to be said, but we have seen routine overexploitation of stocks as a consequence of how the common fisheries policy is interpreted, with member states then allocating quota to private fishing enterprises.

To state first that fleets should be economically viable and then to qualify it by saying that they should not overexploit marine stocks gives entirely the wrong impression. It implies that we are to continue with the belief, commonly held in Europe, that fishing rights and the economic viability of the fishing industry are the first and foremost concerns. That speaks to short-term political considerations because these are entities that employ people and pay taxes. My amendment tries to correct for that short-termism endemic to political thinking by stating that it is the sustainability of the stock that we should regulate for, not the commercial viability of the entities that exploit it. The latter is entirely what has been wrong with the common fisheries policy since we have been in it. There is an assumption that the exploiters’ rights should come first, with the environment an afterthought. We must turn that around. It is short-termism not just politically but in the context of the changing climate. Nothing from now on is business as usual; everything is shifting. We must put the resilience of our marine resources at the heart of everything we legislate on and at the heart of everything we do today in considering the Bill.

My amendment would simply take away the qualifier; there is no need to qualify this. It is simply logical that we legislate so that we do not overexploit fishing stocks. That is the only purpose of this legislation. Therefore, it must be stated unequivocally in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I will conclude on this, otherwise the “Ah, buts” will lose the force of the sustainability point of this debate. It is clear, I believe—as I always have—that the House and your Lordships need to make a compelling case, which a government Minister will always want to listen to. If a compelling case is made, as I have said previously, my answer will be, “Gosh, I wish we’d thought of that.” I emphasise that the Bill has been considered over a very long time. We have one go at this Bill and there have been a lot of representations. It has gone through a mincer in a way that most other Bills do not. Given our very close connections and our responsibilities, and given that fishing is devolved, we have worked collaboratively and positively with the devolved Administrations. I emphasise to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, that I do not use that as an excuse. It is a statement of fact that we are legislating on behalf of all parts of the kingdom. That is really what I wish to say at this point.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for probably one of the most important debates during this Committee and for all the points made. They were made pretty much in the same direction, even if they did not totally agree on the detail.

I was very grateful for the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—I thought it was fantastic. The sad thing to someone like me is that, apart from relative stability and technical regulations, which are not dealt with in the Bill, we could have done everything else over the last 40 years, but we did not because we just went along and did what was easiest. We did not need to let our quotas go to foreign owners, we could have changed the balance between the large and small fleets completely, and we could have put far more European money into our coastal communities when they did not have enough quotas. We could have done all those things, but we did not. However, the noble Lord was absolutely right: we have here an opportunity to really open our minds. The Minister says, “We’ve gone through all of this before, it’s been looked at before and we’ve talked to all the other sides”, but we have had a break, we are now out of the European Union, we have opened our minds and we have had some really good suggestions on the Bill. We should not be railroaded by past negotiations. Clearly, devolution is key—we do not want to change that settlement in any way—but that cannot prevent our making some changes.

One fundamental thing, on which I disagree completely with the Minister, is that referring to “balance” between socioeconomic issues and sustainability was exactly the argument that Ministers used on the common fisheries policy from the 1980s to about five years ago, when the whole regime changed. Because of that so-called balance, stocks disappeared from the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and were depleted from western waters. If we do not decide to make sustainability a prime objective, that is what we will end up with. The history shows that the politics takes over from the science.

I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Randall, mentioned Newfoundland. I went out to Newfoundland in 1996 at the height of the conflict with the Portuguese and the Spanish. I went out on an aeroplane with the Canadian fisheries department to look at the line of big Atlantic fishing vessels fishing right along the EEZ line. I saw the communities of St John’s in Newfoundland that were unable to fish their own waters because there was nothing left. That was due to the short-term socioeconomic objective taking the place of the sustainability objective. That is exactly what you get and exactly what we must not have in this country, whether in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England. We cannot afford that.

If I was chief executive of a company and somebody gave me eight different objectives and did not rank them, the first thing I would do is ask the chairman to fire the non-executive directors, because it is absolutely impossible to have eight equal objectives in any subject. That is for running a company; if you are running the marine environment of a nation, surely it is far more important.

To come back to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, we absolutely need a socioeconomic objective. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, is absolutely right as well—we will come to the financing part of the Bill. There are amendments to that part to say that we will need to intervene when there is a socioeconomic problem and that we should not be afraid to do so. We should protect those communities in that way. We should not pretend that we are protecting them by letting people go out for fish stocks that are not there and are not sustainable.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. She made her argument very strongly. The same goes for the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the points he made. Although my amendments may not be perfect, I have tried to stick within the Government’s framework by changing around some of the words but using the Government’s own settlement with the devolved authorities. I am absolutely sure that we will come back to this on Report, but at this point I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 4 in my name I shall speak also to Amendment 25, which is grouped with it. I also seek permission to speak to Amendments 47 and 56, which will come up later in Committee but are related to this point, so I hope I can speak to all four in this speech.

The purpose of Amendment 4 is to add a new fisheries objective to the Bill stating that there is a “marine planning objective” in relation to fisheries management. The reason is that there is a real need to integrate fisheries into our wider marine planning processes. The phrase “fisheries exceptionalism” has been used. In essence, what is being got at there is that the way we plan for our use of the marine environment for fisheries is very separate from our wider spatial planning that we use for other activities that occur in the marine environment. Sometimes we forget that, although fishing is a hugely important part of our marine environment, it is certainly not the only economically productive activity that occurs within our seas. It is important that we integrate fisheries into marine planning and that marine planning integrates fisheries into its processes.

Therefore, there is a very clear objective missing from the Bill, which is to accomplish that wider integration in public policy. Many users of the marine environment interact with fisheries, not least the growing and highly profitable energy sector. We are shifting towards greater use of our marine environment for the production of sustainable energy. That has an interesting intersection with fisheries: the offshore wind farms that we are putting into the marine environment can act as no-take zones for vessels over a certain size, and as hatcheries and protected areas that allow fish stocks to return to an area that would otherwise be decimated through overexploitation by large vessels with large gear. There is a real benefit to be gained from integrating fisheries with our spatial planning.

It is not just about reducing fishing effort, although another key part of planning—now in UK law—is the protection of areas of high biodiversity interest or sites of scientific interest in the marine environment. We have a marine planning process that designates marine planning areas, some of which are working well while others need to be better thought-through and planned. It would be much more effective if, when setting these new fishing policies, we think of them as an integral part of our marine planning for conservation.

There are other uses of the marine environment that require planning, including dredging the shipping channels. It is an environment that requires careful management and balance—I agree with that—but not to mention the existing marine plans that are required to be made, and not to integrate them with the fishing objectives, feels like a missed opportunity. I tabled this amendment in the hope that we can have a wider debate about spatial planning and how it relates to fisheries management. It is not a negative proposal: it could bring greater benefits as we think about how we manage our seas. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that we have a good debate. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much welcome marine planning. I should perhaps declare a past interest as a board member of the Marine Management Organisation, which is responsible for marine planning in England. Last week I talked to Gillian Martin, the convenor of the environment committee of the Scottish Parliament, about marine planning. It is happening in Scotland, too.

I am certainly not advocating this as yet another objective—we have too many already—but it is important that the Bill takes account of marine planning and all the work going on in that field. Today our seas are, to put it mildly, used in multiple ways—for trade, renewable energy, undersea carbon capture and storage, and lots of other areas. I am not sure that the Bill even mentions things such as marine conservation zones, which are part of marine plans and, inevitably, part of the management of the fishing regimes. I would like to think that there was a way to refer to marine plans in the Bill, although not quite in this way.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for tabling these amendments. As she said, they relate to the importance of marine planning and the conservation obligations of the fishing sector.

The Marine and Coastal Access Act is an important piece of legislation, passed in the final years of the Labour Government, of which we are very proud. It already requires the UK and devolved Administrations to prepare marine plans. The point made by the noble Baroness was important: new legislation should incorporate the marine plans where they overlap and apply. With this Bill it is sensible to incorporate them into the joint fisheries statements and the fisheries management plans. We should not risk one piece of legislation overriding the obligations of another: the case for integration is well made.

As marine plans have been with us for some time, there is an argument that they should provide the bedrock on which other policies are built and developed. There is little sense in having marine conservation measures in place if certain protections are at risk of being disrupted by fishing activities authorised under the Bill, so the case for integration is strong.

We have raised previously with the Minister the wider challenge of how all Defra Bills integrate; for example, how this Bill will integrate with the Environment Bill. They all need to interlink and create a bigger whole. I am sure that we will be told that a number of the issues that we raise here will be dealt with in the Environment Bill. We need to make sure that everything is in its place and is interlinked. Everything should be developed as a package. The points made by the noble Baroness about the links between this Bill and marine conservation are well made. As with all these things, it is about finding the right wording and the right place in the legislation, but the principle is one that we should adopt.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I should have made another declaration: I am co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. Obviously, being surrounded by sea apart from the Tamar—which is an even more important boundary with our brothers in Devon—Cornwall has a marine interest.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for her amendments. Together, they would require policies made to achieve the fisheries objectives to be consistent with the objectives and policies in relevant marine plans.

I want to take this opportunity to make it clear that the UK Government recognise the importance of marine plans, which enable the increasing and, at times, competing demands for use of the marine area to be balanced and managed in an integrated way—a way that protects the marine environment while supporting sustainable development. Using our marine resources effectively and sustainably has the potential to provide significant benefits for the UK economy and for coastal communities. The economic contribution of marine-related industries to the UK’s GDP in 2015 was estimated at £27 billion, with scope for further growth.

In England, the East Inshore and East Offshore Marine Plans were published in April 2014 and the South Inshore and South Offshore Marine Plan was published in July 2018. The remaining marine plans for England are out for consultation by the Marine Management Organisation and will be in place by 31 March 2021, delivering the Government’s commitment in the 25-year environment plan.

Marine plans support economic growth in a way that benefits society while respecting the needs of local communities and protecting the marine environment. That is why I understand the importance of the points that the noble Baroness has raised. We believe that what her amendment requires is already provided for. As was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Section 58 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 requires public authorities to have regard to

“the appropriate marine policy documents”—

which could be a marine policy statement or a marine plan—when taking decisions affecting the marine environment. The amendments would therefore duplicate this requirement. I am advised that the requirement is already sufficient to meet what I know are the noble Baroness’s positive intentions.

With that explanation and the assurance that I have been advised that Section 58 covers this point and that the amendment would merely duplicate what is already a legal requirement, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Fishery Protection Squadron

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

As I said in my first reply, co-ordination and collaboration with all the devolved Administrations—indeed, the four fisheries administrations —is absolutely key. Marine Scotland is represented on JMOC. In addition to the three vessels referred to by the noble Earl, it has two aeroplanes for aerial surveillance. The point is that there is collaboration with all four fisheries administrations to ensure that all UK waters are better protected.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that fishing vessels are very sophisticated nowadays? They know when a large, grey naval vessel is about to go over the horizon, so surely, exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, we must put more investment into electronic surveillance—aerial surveillance and satellite surveillance. We must also ensure that all vessels fishing in UK waters are on an equal footing, and that all comply.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

This issue goes back to the very essence of sustainability and the reason why we need to do this. Heightened surveillance is in the long-term interests of the fishing fleets—for all vessels, whether they are foreign and subject to negotiation, or our own. It is about ensuring that sustainable stocks are in our waters and are fished properly. That is why, as I outlined, we have the electronic reporting and data system, the vessel monitoring system and even more innovative technologies to complement what we already have. This issue is really important.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, one thing that I have come to learn about fisheries is that, the more you learn about it, the more you do not understand it. It is absolutely true; if there is one sector where the more you know, the more you do not know, this is it. Following on from that, it is very easy for us, quite rightly, to criticise the common fisheries policy—I have been one of its fundamental critics in the past—but no fisheries policy is perfect. Nowhere in the world can you find a perfect fisheries regime.

The closest I have ever got to seeing one was in New Zealand, which is seen as having one of the most successful systems that works well for producers as well as conservation. It has complete control of its continental shelf, which helps, but strangely enough its industry is totally concentrated. In fact, we would find it completely unacceptable in this country because there are no fishing coves with small boats; it is dominated by large vessels with tradeable quotas that everybody bids for annually or triennially—I cannot remember which. Because of that, those few boats can be controlled very strongly by the authorities, and it is in the interests of the three or four producers not to keep an eye on each other—and the problem, actually, is recreational fisheries, which I am pleased to say come under this Bill.

That model is absolutely inappropriate for the United Kingdom, but we should not forget that we have a very disparate industry here. Some in the industry make a shedload of money in this country. We all think of these sectors—which I know in Cornwall and others will know on the west coast of Scotland, the east coast of England and, I suspect, Northern Ireland—where fisheries are a really hard living. However, the big companies make a lot of money, so we should not think too sentimentally about a large proportion of this industry in terms of money and volume. Good luck to them; I am not against that, but there are certain things which come from that. We think of fisheries in terms of the products we eat for our supper or have with chips, but the shellfish industry is also incredibly important to the UK—going out with pots and all those other things are important as well. It is a very varied industry.

Scotland is very different from England as well. I was slightly surprised by the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, who I think said that the Shetlands lands more fish than the whole of England. I may be wrong, but I think Peterhead is the largest fishing port in the UK by far, followed by Fraserburgh, then Lerwick and Scrabster. However, Newlyn and Brixham are not far behind, certainly compared to Lerwick, but they are very different industries looking at different things.

We on these Benches are looking for four principles in this Bill. The key one is sustainability. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said that that must be defined better, and I accept that entirely. The amendments I have been thinking about do not do so sufficiently, so I look forward to his intervention.

The second principle is looking at how the inshore fleet—particularly the fleets with boats under 10 metres—are dealt with. Exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, ironically it was completely in our power to give that sector as much of our total quota as we wanted. To give George Eustice, the Fisheries Minister, his due, he started to reallocate some of that quota to the under 10 metre or inland fleet over the last couple of years. That is an important area.

Another important issue for these Benches, which I do not think has been mentioned, is transparency. This is a national resource, yet there is little transparency about how quota is divided up and who owns what among the producer organisations. We talk about statistics of foreign-owned British flag vessels, but no one has an exact percentage of what quota they have. Much of this area is not easily understood, and we would like to see a dose of transparency about the industry—this is not to threaten commercial confidences in any way, but we need to understand how a lot of these mechanisms work. There is an incumbency at the moment; it is not necessarily just for the future.

The final principle for us, coming back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said, is that we should never forget that this is a national resource. We are talking about the UK taking back control; this should be a resource that is nationally ours as citizens. We should take care over how it is distributed and looked after.

I will go through a couple of things in the Bill. To come back to something said very well by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the objectives at the beginning of this Bill are seriously muddled. There is the sustainability objective, yet most of that is about a socioeconomic objective. I would not be averse to maybe having a separate socioeconomic objective. The sustainability objective must be the prime objective among all the others. We have confusion with eight, potentially nine, objectives, and that is almost impossible. Organisations such as Ofgem in the energy area have a number of objectives that can become confused. We need to indicate which objectives are the most important and which are not. The sustainability objective needs to stand by itself and the rest should be shifted elsewhere.

The socioeconomic aspect is important, but there are other ways to solve that issue other than going for short-term non-sustainability. We can fund fleets—the EU does that—and there are ways in which we can finance people not to fish, if necessary, to protect our national resource. It would not be perfect, but it is a way in which to do it. There have been decommissioning schemes in the past, and one of the main reasons why all fleets have reduced in size is nothing to do with the common fisheries policy specifically but because we are much more efficient in how we operate our fishing vessels. Of course we are. They innovate with larger vessels, larger nets, bigger engines and all the technology that allows them to fish more intelligently. Therefore, fleet sizes are going to come down. The biggest example of that was when sail was replaced by steam. The whole of the south-west fishing fleet halved in a matter of years. It is around technology.

The objective on equal access also concerns me. It sounds reasonable and means effectively that wherever vessels are registered—in Scotland, Wales, England or at a particular port—they can fish where they want. That is my understanding. My concern is because the industry is highly concentrated and wants to concentrate more. It has large returns and big financial resources. The Bill proposes a method by which quotas can be auctioned, tendered or used, but what is to stop additional concentration and for those vessels to come to other parts of the UK and start to take away other stocks that are relied on by other regions? I can imagine a situation whereby there was an auction for a quota in the south-west and Scottish vessel owners said, “Yes, we will try to buy that up”, but the Government said, “No, we want that for the south-west”. Given the current objective, I would say that that situation would be a matter for judicial review and the Government would lose. I am concerned that having a stated objective would be a potential threat to other regions that the mobility is no good for. However, I am not trying to stop that mobility because, in Plymouth, Scottish vessels are important for a lot of the fish processing. I am just concerned about having equal access as an objective.

Another issue in the Bill is the stock management plans, which, as proposed, are a fiction. As we know, some 80% of our precious stocks swim outside our EEZ, and quite a few of the spawning grounds for those stocks are also outside it. It is therefore impossible to have a credible fisheries plan—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned this—just for one’s own territorial waters. That does not work around the United Kingdom. I should be interested to hear from the Minister what will happen to what has been the relatively successful regional management of the common fisheries policy, with agreements on regimes for the North Sea and the western waters. Will we try to continue those? We must try to make them work first before we go down the route of national plans, which need to be produced as a result of the overall plans in those fishery areas. Otherwise, the national plans cannot work and I do not see that sequence provided for in the Bill.

Another issue is data, which has been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. There must be more transparency within producer organisations. They effectively run the business and sort out quota, which has huge value, but they are pretty opaque organisations. There should be a public duty to have much more transparency in their actions, allocations and how they are run. A lot of that is there to some degree already, but it would be a lot healthier for what is a national resource if there was more transparency.

I am delighted that the landing obligation remains in the Bill and that the Government still see it as important. However, as has been said in previous debates and mentioned by a number of Members, if the landing obligation is to remain, we must have remote electronic monitoring. One cannot have non-discarding regimes that work without it. That obviously needs to apply also to foreign vessels that come into our waters. As has been stated by, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, there also must be a way in which we can access the data from foreign vessels that land abroad in order to have joint management.

The Bill is necessary. The marine environment is under pressure. Fisheries must become sustainable, not just in the long term but in the short term—and that is possible. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, who is a valuable member of the committee that looked at this area, was right to say that maximum sustainable yield may not be the right measure and is something that must be looked at. That area gets complicated.

The Bill is needed, but we must put that painting that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talked about into the picture frame before the legislation leaves this House. Understandably, a lot of downstream regulation in terms of technical measures and so on has to be done by secondary legislation. However, we have to get the Bill right. I am not sure about banning foreign landings by UK vessels. I have talked to the industry about that and it takes away part of their commercial ability. Now that we will have the friction of phytosanitary controls on land borders—although they will still be in operation at ports—such a ban would make it even more difficult to keep our markets open in the European Union. It is an interesting concept, however.

The Bill is important. We agree on a number of areas, particularly on the landing obligations and on getting the objectives right, and we very much look forward to Committee.

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard)
Wednesday 29th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I confess to having a roughly 4 acre field for which I get no subsidy whatever, except for an electricity pole for which I get about £200 a year—maybe less than that. I am also a co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership.

I will approach this in a slightly different way. I support this Bill, which is a sort of sticking plaster between now and 12 months’ time. It is quite delicious to me, in a way, to see the Conservative Front Bench going out strongly for state aid for a particular sector—something that normally the Conservative Party would not necessarily associate itself with. I know that this is a money Bill, so we will, quite rightly, not have much influence over it, as it is the other end’s business. We say that perhaps rather glibly as the Bill goes through, but this is big bucks—it is a lot of money. We put state aid into this industry of between £3 billion and £4 billion a year. That is quite a bit of money. In fact, if you look at it per household in the United Kingdom, every household contributes about £120 to the agricultural industry. That is just a little less than the TV licence fee, for instance. I guess that the 1.6 million people who use food banks might find it quite ironic that, on average, as a household they also pay £120 towards the food production sector in this country. That may well be necessary, and I will not argue against it here, but we should be aware of that, because that money can be used for other things as well, and increasingly will be, we are promised, over the next eight years.

I must admit that I am particularly impressed by the noble Lord, Lord Bew, who has somehow managed to persuade the Treasury, almost it seems without any argument, to add about a quarter of a billion pounds to this. That is excellent—perhaps we could find a way to do that with other sectors. I would like to have a masterclass from him afterwards on how he managed to achieve that.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, in his excellent speech, talked about trying to get more certainty in this area. In fact, he mentioned that one good thing about the common agricultural policy, with all its faults, was that there was predictability. However, I should remind the House that, at the moment, the EU Commission is going through a major reform of the common agricultural policy which is in fact so fundamental that it has had to postpone it for one year. That has two strands: one is semi-renationalisation of agricultural policy, and the other is that some 25% of the EU budget, of which agriculture is a major part, will be dedicated to the climate change challenge. Ironically, therefore, even if we had stayed in the European Union, which clearly we will not, some of these issues regarding our agricultural sector would have come anyway, and maybe the Government could have come up with some of the same solutions that they are coming up with now. However, I am concerned that that uncertainty will be extended over some seven years—in fact you have to add this year on as well, so there will be eight years of transition to the next form of final implementation of the new system regarding payments for public good.

Actually, I want to praise Michael Gove as Secretary of State in Defra for changing the agenda here in a forthright, brave and courageous way to make a radical change in how this works. I regret that he will no longer be the custodian of the 25-year environmental plan, of which this effectively is a key part, because there is public expenditure here on a big scale, and a way to do it.

I was quite surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, did not mention that we have a biodiversity crisis in this country at the moment. If you look at the State of Nature 2019 report, which came out at the end of last year, you will see a list of all the species, particularly in rural areas, which are heavily challenged and the numbers of which have decreased since 1970. That is urgent, yet we have an eight-year transition period until we put in a scheme that has some hope of reversing that biodiversity challenge. I say to the Minister that, both on getting more certainty for the sector, as the noble Earl said, and on our environmental challenges, surely we can start to make that transition shorter. We had a debate on the landing obligation for fisheries—the Minister did not answer it, but he was there—and, although that was a European and partly British issue, we know that you tend to wait for deadlines to happen before you get round to doing something about them. I think that eight years is too lazy; it risks leaving those major reforms to the last few years, which to a large degree it already does. So let us bring it forward.

Of course, the real challenge to the sector is not this one. The destabilising factor is not the funding mechanism; it is international trade. Let us be under no misapprehension whatever that, with the United States, with Canada—which has refused to do a rollover deal with the United Kingdom on its EU agreement—with South America and with Australasia, the key asks for those trade deals will be on agricultural entry to the UK market. How that is done is down to how good we are at negotiating as a country with those other nations. I hope and pray that we will be very good at doing that, but the uncertainty about those trade deals, how they will be interpreted and who has power—that power equation—will be unknown for some time.

I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions. As he is probably aware, in the Northern Ireland protocol under the withdrawal agreement, Article 11 states—clearly for once; it is a pretty unclear document otherwise—

“consistent with the arrangements set out in Articles 5 to 10, and in … respect of Union law”—

that is, European Union law—

“this Protocol shall be implemented and applied so as to maintain the necessary conditions for continued North-South cooperation, including in the areas of environment, health, agriculture”.

Under the state aid provision in Article 10, it states:

“The provisions of Union law”—


that is, again, European law—

“listed in Annex 5 to this Protocol shall apply to the United Kingdom, including with regard to measures supporting the production of and trade in agricultural products in Northern Ireland”.

Will this and future state aid to the agricultural sector be constrained by that Northern Ireland protocol?

My other question is this. Previous speakers have mentioned the Rural Payments Agency. The RPA has done a lot better on Pillar 1 payments. We are never confident about it, given its history, but what concerns me is that, as my noble friend Lady Bakewell pointed out very well, the current delay relates to Pillar 2. Effectively, the future support mechanism will be a Pillar 2-type process. How that is managed, enforced and communicated will be very complex. I wonder whether Defra has taken into account how much of the capacity of the RPA will be needed under the future regime.

My last question is this. A fundamental change that has not been mentioned in this debate is that at the moment, under the CAP, the money comes from Brussels a year later, as we heard, to cover the cost of the CAP paid out by the UK Government. That changes. This will now be an integral part of Defra’s budget. Given the fact that it is quite difficult to predict payments, there will be a difference from what has been budgeted for in government expenditure—Defra expenditure in particular—at the end of the year. If it is 10% of £3.5 billion, that is quite a bit of money. Will that be taken off Defra’s budget if it has under-budgeted or, if it goes over, will it be sent straight back to the Treasury? I know that in the past Defra has often suffered from Treasury cuts, and I am concerned that, if it gets its budgeting wrong, other essential services it provides will be prejudiced by the fact that the Treasury will be very unhelpful at the time.