Common Fisheries Policy

Frank Doran Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing the debate and on the good work the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has done. I managed to secure a debate in November through the good offices of the Backbench Business Committee in November and in my capacity as secretary of the all-party group on fisheries. The message we tried to get across in that debate, which came across strongly, was that we are all in this together—it is one area where we are—and pushing in the same direction, and I think that the Committee’s report is an extremely valuable addition to the material we have at our disposal. Like the hon. Lady, I want the Minister to go to the Fisheries Council and make sure that these points are hammered home after he has built alliances and got the votes needed to make Britain’s position secure.

It would be foolish of me to try to mention all the points covered in the Committee’s report. I think that it comprehensively covers my concerns and those of the fishing industry and makes a number of useful comments. We need to continue to make the point about discards. We are all opposed to discards, but there are no easy solutions to the problem. It is a very complex issue, particularly in our mixed fisheries. I know from people in the industry that they felt that in publishing its proposals the Commission handled the problem of discards in a way that was more like issuing a press release to get them out of a spot than it was about providing a strategy. The problem needs an awful lot of careful consideration, clear rules, technical improvements, which are being made all the time, a process of consultation and, crucially, a buy-in from the industry.

The Committee highlighted the weakness of the science. That area needs to be worked on, but that cannot be done by the UK alone. Around 60% of our fish species are not properly recorded, and other nations with an interest in fishing are in an even worse position, so effort is needed at Government level and at Commission level. Overcapacity is an important problem, and there have been many attempts to deal with it over the years, most of which have failed. I was interested in the concept of transferable fishing concessions. The hon. Lady rightly pointed to what we have at the moment, which strikes me as a transferable fishing concession system, because quotas are freely available, which I think causes a number of problems for the industry. I was interested to hear the hon. Lady talk about the impact of transferrable concessions on our coastal communities, because they are being damaged already. When the quota system was introduced, following the Commission’s introduction of total allowable catches, or TACs, a market in transferrable fishing concessions was effectively created in our country.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the problem with transferrable quotas was exacerbated from 1 January 1999, when his—Labour—Minister agreed to introduce fixed-quota allocations? Before that we had a rolling track record, but in 1999 his Minister agreed to fix the track record of every vessel to the historical average between 1993 and 1996. That is where we had the problem.

[Mr Doran]

We have always had a problem with quotas. I agree with the hon. Lady to a certain extent, but all Governments since 1973 have had problems and made mistakes in that area.

We have a system in which quotas are bought and sold, and many are held by individuals and companies that once operated fishing vessels which have since been decommissioned. Quotas are often leased out, and sometimes at eye-watering prices. I shall not cite any because I have not seen the details, but the figures that I have been given are staggering, and that has a perverse effect on the industry, because the lower the TAC in any one year, the higher the quota price, distorting the industry quite seriously.

When we have ever-more expensive fishing vessels, fuel, insurance, labour and other costs as we do now, we have a market in quotas which distorts the industry. I strongly support the point, made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, that the register of who owns quotas should be published. That area is in complete darkness, and the system should be looked at seriously.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that any transferrable quotas should go to those registered boats that are active fishing boats only, not to football clubs or to whoever else seems to have control over quotas?

[Mr Doran]

There are many ways in which we could resolve the problem, but the starting point is to shed a little light on the system and to see what is happening. That is extremely important.

One area that the report does not cover, but which I should like to say a word or two about, is black fishing. I have had brief conservations with the Minister about it, and I have mentioned to him twice now, once on the Floor of the House and once in private, that I want to have a meeting with him and will write to him, and I am in the process of gathering material for our discussion.

We are working on the assumption that the whole issue of black fish is not a problem any more, but I am not sure that that is correct. Everyone in the Chamber will be aware that there have been some serious criminal cases—they were not trials, because everyone pleaded guilty—in the Scottish courts in which a number of fishermen and fish processors have been found guilty of serious offences.

We are talking about tens of millions of pounds, and everyone I know in the fishing industry, no matter at what level they are, knows that the figures that have been quoted, and which were prominent in the individual trials, are just the tip of the iceberg. It was a much more serious issue. I shall not say much more than that, because, although a number of cases been dealt with, one more has still to be dealt with and will be in court later this month.

From the information that we have so far on the way in which the system operated, it is apparent that a very sophisticated process was under way. Skippers falsified their log books as they landed their catches, lying about how much fish was on board. Weighing scales at the factory were rigged. I am told that at a factory at the centre of one case there were two computer systems—one computer, recording a false weight, was visible to the regulators, and the other one was in the loft recording the true weight. There was separate pumping equipment on the quay, with the legitimate fish to be declared sent through one system and the black fish sent through another. I am talking about pelagic fish; I should have emphasised that. Exactly the same thing has been happening in the white fish industry.

The situation has not yet been dealt with, and it might not be, because the trials may have been just for effect, to try to focus on the problem and make sure that it was properly killed. A police officer who made a statement at one of the trials said that there is an assumption that nobody is a victim in these cases except our fish stocks. In fact, there have been a large number of victims, most of whom are in the fish processing industry.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I do not know much about what the hon. Gentleman is talking about as regards white fish, but could there be a difference in the case of the pelagic stocks, given that any black fish in a white fish area could be non-discarded fish that people are planning to land rather than dump?

[Mr Doran]

No. The operation was much more systematic and organised, and on a much bigger scale, than that. This did not happen by accident; it was not by-catch.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the view that there are no victims in these cases. The sustainable mackerel hand-line fishery in Cornwall has one hundredth of the catch of the pelagic quota that is available to the purse seine industry in Scotland, and as a result of over-fishing in Scotland, people are losing quota in Cornwall.

[Mr Doran]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There are victims everywhere, and that is just another example.

Over the past few years, I have been involved in taking a large number of statements from people involved in the industry, and I will read out a selection of their comments. There are no police inquiries relating to this material. One fish processor with many years of experience told me:

“The system would work on a basis that a skipper would telephone the agent and declare his real catch, whilst at sea. If it was 1,000 boxes, the agent may find a buyer for 500 boxes and tell the skipper to fill in the log for 500 boxes after he had landed at the market. Before the market the 500 boxes would be unloaded from the vessel and transported to the buyer’s premises.”

In other words, the boxes would not go through the system. He continued:

“The agent would record the sale at the true value and alter the species if required to show the ‘black’ fish as non-pressurised stock. At the end of the quota year he would advise the skipper on which species to show in his catch records to ensure he retains his quota.”

So it is not just about volume but species. If coley were being landed, it might, in order to retain the quota, be recorded as some other fish—haddock was the most popular—and haddock might be shown as whiting. A fish merchant said:

“The situation with black fish started to get silly and I am aware that on one occasion a local fish merchant had 4000 boxes of fish in his yard—all black fish which had been transported from the boats to his yard. Meanwhile there were only 1900 boxes of fish in the market at Peterhead and about 1400 boxes in the market at Aberdeen.”

This wide-scale corruption of the system is a direct product of the introduction of the CFP and total allowable catch—and, I have to say, of the failure of Government and Government agencies properly to monitor the system. I want to discuss that with the Minister at length when we manage to get our evidence together.

To finish, I repeat that the Select Committee report is extremely important. I hope that the Minister will take note of the points that were made in the debate in November, which I know will be made again today, and the points that have been made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton and her Committee, and take the argument to Brussels.