Recreational Sea Bass Fishing
Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Madeleine Moon(10 years ago)
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! What are the Government doing risking Europe’s sea bass for their foolish, unfair, ineffective and fishy decision on sea bass fishing? Members might ask what I am doing here out of my darkened room—it is nothing to do with defence; I do not eat fish; and I am not an angler. Thanks to 40 years of living with an ecologist, however, I know an environmental disaster when I see one.
I have constituents who are sea anglers who came to my surgery and asked me to take an interest in sea bass fishing. Unfortunately for me, I happen to know the former Member for Reading, and when someone knows the former Member for Reading, it is very dangerous to ask him, “What is the issue about sea bass fishing?” because he will tell them.
Mrs Moon
I appreciate the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies)—I should never have done it, but my constituents wanted to know, so I wanted to know, and thus I am here today. I am also a Member who has a coastal resort, in which sea bass fishing was a very popular activity, so I started looking at the facts.
Everywhere I looked, it was very clear that there was an urgent need to rebuild bass stocks—and nobody seems to dispute that. It is the core bottom line. It is an environmental and economic imperative, and everybody will agree on that. We know this because in 2014, the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas recommended an 80% cut in bass mortality across the EU area for 2015, following a rise in bass landings from 772 tonnes to 1,004 tonnes. We were taking more out of the sea than was sustainable. The bass stock in the North Atlantic fishery is 527 tonnes—well below the trigger point of concern for the exploration of the seas, which was set at 8,000 tonnes. Future regenerations of sea bass stocks are now in danger.
UK Steel Industry
Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Madeleine MoonWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mrs Moon
My hon. Friend has stolen my best line. That is exactly where I was going in my speech. The dumping is helping China in the short term to keep a workforce going, but let us be honest: it has a long-term agenda of destabilising not only the British but the European steel industry. We are our own worst enemies, because we are allowing that to happen. It is time we were realistic and said no. There are opportunities that we can take, and there is a simple one: we can say no to the Chinese market economy status. We can say that; we can do that; we can fight for that. I do not understand why we are not doing it.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I referred in my speech to the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, which looked at the scale on which jobs would be lost if we gave pure unilateral market economy status to the Chinese. The work also showed that the impact could be as much as 1% or 2% of GDP across the European Union. If that is not cause for Ministers to go out and argue and play hardball, what is? It is a question of jobs and economic growth—all of that. There is a time when we must stand up. If we agree that the issue is strategically important, we fight for it tooth and nail.
Mrs Moon
What is inspiring today is the fact that we are all here doing that—fighting tooth and nail. I know the Minister. We have worked together on defence matters and have a history of sparring across the Chamber, but we also have a history of working together constructively. I hope we are able to carry that on, because there is an unfairness of status in this situation. China can ignore climate change in a way we cannot. It is not bound by the high cost of energy, because it subsidises its companies in the use of energy. It has quadrupled its output of steel since 2000, so its plan has been quite a long-term one. We must deal with the market distortion and think about how we protect our own industries.
The wonderful Business, Innovation and Skills Committee report points out that over the past four decades production in the UK has fallen behind production in France, Spain, Italy and Germany, and that, in those countries, support within the European rules has protected their critical steelmaking skills and industries, helping them to withstand some of the global competition much more efficiently and effectively than we have in the UK. It is important that we look at the five asks. Those are not the Labour party’s five asks. They are the steel industry’s five asks. The issue is not a party political one. The steel industry says, “Give us these, and we have the opportunity to move forward.”
On business rates I want to raise one issue. I was deeply concerned about this at the statement on Monday. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) and I both raised the issue of assistance in terms of business rates. The Minister replied, saying, in relation to the Welsh Assembly: “They wanted that”—business rates—
“as part of their devolution settlement, of course. There is a good argument that if one gets what one asks for, one has to take the consequences.”—[Official Report, 18 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 1144.]
Well, the Welsh Assembly cannot make the changes to business rates that will bring the exemption for plant, equipment and machinery, which is what we are asking for, and therefore we need the Minister to address that issue and take it forward constructively.
Orphaned Open-cast Mines
Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Madeleine Moon(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on astutely and carefully laying out the case as it is. Most people have run from any liability or responsibility, and it is not right that this now falls on local taxpayers or the Welsh Government. There needs to be a solution. I constructively suggest that she, the people involved and the Minister consider a proposal such as the one suggested by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and others for some sort of levy to address those sites where no bond can be found, where no money has been put aside and that are sitting there presenting a real danger to the local public, as well as being environmental disasters.