Fishing Industry: Government Support

Debate between Ben Maguire and Andrew George

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing the debate and making a strong case on behalf of his region in Scotland. He focused on the fishing and coastal growth fund, which is £360 million over 12 years, as he understands, so it is spread over a very long period. When one looks at it across the whole UK on an annual basis, it is spread very thinly.

Coastal communities in particular have been left behind following Brexit, as the hon. Member mentioned. In Cornwall, for example, we were entitled to objective 1 aid from the EU. Following Brexit, we were promised equivalent funds from the Treasury to make up for the loss of EU aid; it was equivalent to £100 million a year coming into Cornwall, which is one of the most deprived regions not just in the UK, but in Europe. It is now 2026 and there are no funds at all: over the years, that replacement has simply not happened.

A paltry amount is available through the fisheries and coastal growth fund, but it is being spread around the country and, as the hon. Member rightly says, it is a relatively small fund. It is welcome, of course—one should not decry the Government for making the offer—and I entirely understand that the purpose of the fund is to modernise the fishing industry and the seafood sector, build resilience and support coastal communities. However, I hope that the Minister will ensure that the funds go to those areas that need it most, rather than simply allocating it on a flatline basis across the country, based on the size of the existing fishing industry. Not all communities are doing as well as one another.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on adding to what must be a world record for Westminster Hall debate contributions. I thank him for emphasising the social and cultural as well as economic consequences of the fishing industry in his part of Northern Ireland. I also congratulate the new hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird), who is already proving hyperactive: this is her second debate in Westminster Hall today. She made a very telling contribution that illustrated brilliantly the impact of changes in recent years, the demise of the haddock fishery and its consequences on the community.

On the future of the fishing industry, we must recognise and acknowledge that the best type of fishing policy is one in which politicians do not need to get involved. It is one in which scientists, fishermen and marine conservationists work together in a framework created by politicians in which they can come to an agreement on the future management of stocks. In my early days in Parliament, I was a member of what was then the Agriculture Committee. We visited a number of countries, including Spain and Iceland, where it was quite evident that the relationship between scientists and fishermen was much better established than in this country, where—at that stage, at least—scientists were seen in the industry as some kind of enemy. The presumption, wrongly, was that they were working to shut the commercial fisheries down.

Now those relationships have significantly improved. Recently, in April this year, on the initiative of the fishing industry itself, the Cornwall fisheries science board was established. We need to see a great deal more of those kinds of positive initiatives. We have just had the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum, so it is appropriate that we take a moment to reflect on that, as it has been mentioned on a number of occasions.

As someone who campaigned to remain, I had to acknowledge in the debates we had at the time that the one sector in which one could easily identify potential to thrive and improve in Brexit circumstances was the fishing industry, if there were an opportunity to regain control out to the 12-mile limit.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Andrew George]

Briefly, as I do not want to test Sir Alec’s patience.

[Ben Maguire]

I will be brief. My local fishermen in North Cornwall have been waiting three years for the inshore fisheries and conservation authority and DEFRA to implement a byelaw to restrict vessels above 12 metres in the inshore Cornish waters within 6 nautical miles. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is urgently needed and would do exactly what he has been calling for by restricting those larger vessels and helping to manage the stocks that he is talking about?

Coastguard Volunteers: Remuneration and HMRC Guidance

Debate between Ben Maguire and Andrew George

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andrew George]

I do know my right hon. Friend too well. I also warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird) on an excellent first contribution to a Westminster Hall debate.

The coastguard service is clearly critical to a constituency like mine, with more than 150 miles of coastline across west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. There is a lot of heritage. The National Coastwatch Institution was established in 1994, following the tragic deaths of two local fishermen whose boat sank off the coast of the Lizard peninsula, within sight of the recently closed coastguard station at Bass Point. Although the National Coastwatch Institution provides a vital volunteer service, it does not in any way replace the coastguard.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend and Cornish neighbour for giving way and join him in commending the Cornish coastguard agencies, particularly Boscastle, Bude and Padstow in my constituency. Boscastle had its fair share of disasters in 2024. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are other options, such as statutory retainers, and that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency did not consult on those?

[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend is right, and I will come to that in a second. I want to share quotes from some of many CROs who have been in contact we me. One said,

“Many CROs…make considerable personal financial sacrifices in order to respond to incidents. Whilst nobody joins the coastguard for financial gain, the current remuneration helps offset the real costs associated with responding, including loss of earnings, disruption to employment, interrupted family life, loss of sleep and the wider impacts that emergency responses can have.”

Needless to say, many of the CROs in my area are self-employed. Others say that on this occasion the bosses have

“made us all redundant and re-employed us as volunteers.”

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) spoke about using the model of retained firefighters, who are recompensed through a combination of an annual retainer, hourly rates for training and call-outs, and specific disturbance fees. That is a good model for the MCA to look at seriously.

I gave the Minister advance notice of a large number of questions, so I will summarise some of them. What level of consultation was undertaken with CROs prior to this announcement? What alternative options, including models such as the fire service and the RNLI, have been considered? What workforce modelling has been conducted to assess the likely impact on retention and availability? What operational safety assessment has been completed regarding the potential loss of experience, skills and leadership capability? What contingency plans exist if volunteer numbers fall below expected levels? In terms of viability, how has HM Coastguard satisfied itself on public safety? What impact assessment has been undertaken of the resilience of the future of coastguard rescue teams as a category one emergency call-out?

Sewage Discharges: South West

Debate between Ben Maguire and Andrew George

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ben Maguire]

I will lay out some of my suggestions for water company reform shortly, so I will not give away any spoilers just yet.

It is well known that one of the biggest reasons for sewage dumping is that there is not enough capacity in our storm overflow tanks to hold rainwater. To make sufficient capacity, those tanks are routinely emptied and raw sewage is pumped into our waterways. Soon after my election, I was faced with reports of brown water coming out of residents’ taps in St Eval and, in some cases, no water at all. It turned out that the reservoir tank at the nearby Bears Down reservoir had serious cracks in it, and water tankers were deployed to serve the area. The capacity of the tankers was nowhere near sufficient, and a measly compensation of £50 per household was issued after weeks of severe disruption.

Similarly, in Week St Mary, residents complained to me about problems with their water pressure, which have persisted for years. In some cases, the sudden drop in pressure caused scolding from the resulting hot water. It is quite clear that those issues have arisen after decades of under-investment in our water and wastewater infrastructure. We may reasonably ask, “Where has Ofwat, the water regulator, been while all of this has been going on?” Ofwat has seemingly been missing in action, which brings me to the urgent need for a regulation revolution in our water industry.

I welcome the Government’s plan—part of the Water (Special Measures) Bill—to prohibit performance-related pay for senior officials in a year when a water company fails to meet its environmental, consumer or financial standards. I eagerly await how those standards will be more tightly defined. I am more suspicious, however, about the proposal to require each water company to publish an annual plan detailing how it will reduce pollution incidents. Many water companies already do that, and my constituents want to know how those companies with their glossy brochures and ambitious targets will be held to account.

There was a palpable sense of relief among senior executives at South West Water when I met them soon after the details of the Bill were published. On enforcement measures, if the water companies fail to meet improvement targets, Ofwat will be given the power to issue fines. It is questionable whether fines will incentivise firms that are making hundreds of millions of pounds and, again, I look forward to seeing at what level the penalties will be set following the consultation.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Certainly in my own constituency, further west than his own, in west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, there have been 18 discharges around the coast just in the past 10 days. On the proposed changes in the Government consultation, as attractive as the concept of bringing water back into public ownership is—and I strongly support it—the consequences and costs make it rather challenging. The Conservatives set up the companies as risk-free, money-making emporiums. Does he agree that we need to bring in regulation that ensures they are governed in the public interest?

[Ben Maguire]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I will outline some of the measures I will put to the Minister.

I urge the Government to go much further by scrapping Ofwat, which has proven itself to be toothless and missing in action. The Liberal Democrats would replace Ofwat with a much more powerful clean water authority, which could ban bonuses for water company bosses who fail to stop sewage dumping, revoke licences of poorly performing water companies immediately, force water firms to publish the full volume and scale of their sewage dumping, mandate local environmental experts to sit on water company boards, and set legally binding targets on sewage discharges.