Fishing Industry

James MacCleary Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am an unpaid director of the Newhaven Fishing community interest company. As such, I see at first hand what is happening to our local fishing industry, and I rise to talk specifically about the impact on our town.

In Newhaven, we have a small but long-standing fleet, and our fishing heritage is under threat. We have between 15 and 20 active vessels working out of Newhaven, catching sole, plaice, brill, turbot and other bits and pieces off our Sussex coast. Much of that fish goes elsewhere for processing, to all corners of the UK and beyond, before it ends up coming back to our plates. We are exporting those jobs, increasing emissions and missing the chance to build our local economy and invest in a small part of the Government’s growth agenda. I believe that has to change.

We want our fish processed locally, and jobs created in coastal communities, rather than fish being shipped abroad and coming back again—and sometimes then going back abroad and back here once more. The recent plans to bring processing back to Newhaven are exactly what we should be doing nationwide, but that needs long-term commitment from the Government, if it is to stick.

In the meantime, we are losing our fishing community. The charter boat fleet that historically brought customers to Newhaven’s tackle shops, pubs and restaurants all year around has almost completely disappeared. A constituent of mine runs the last charter company in Newhaven. During recent works at the port, he was forced to relocate temporarily, but was promised that he could return. Now he has been told that he cannot come back, despite Government funding for a new pontoon, supposedly for the fishing fleet. That is the kind of bureaucratic nonsense that puts marginal businesses into receivership and brings generational businesses, like his and many others in our town, to an end, in some cases after decades or even hundreds of years of operation. When we invest in coastal infrastructure, it should support the entire fishing community, including commercial vessels and charter boats that bring economic activity to our towns. Both are vital to a thriving coastal economy.

We have been successful in attracting Government investment to support the local fishing industry in Newhaven, with some £12 million for new landing stages, and for processing and other facilities in the town. My thanks go to Lewes district council and my predecessor, Maria Caulfield, who supported the bid for that funding, which has been essential to giving our fishing industry in Newhaven a chance—just a chance—of surviving and thriving in the future. However, we need to do far more to support our fishing businesses if they are to be sustainable in the long term.

Here is what is really at stake. Without new people entering the industry, small independent businesses will disappear. They will be replaced by massive multinational companies and EU mega-trawlers that disrupt our wildlife, deplete our fish stocks and send their catches to distant markets. In our case, many are flagged to the Netherlands. We will lose local jobs and an industry on which communities like ours depend.

Our local fishing businesses are largely family affairs, with one generation taking on the business from another. It is a tough and sometimes very dangerous job. In November 2020, our community was shocked to wake up to the news that the Joanna C trawler had sunk off Newhaven, tragically taking the lives of two fishermen. It was a reminder of the risks that our fishing boats taking every day in unpredictable seas. I should take a moment to pay tribute to our local Royal National Lifeboat Institution crews, based out of Newhaven, and the volunteers at our local Coastwatch who do incredible work trying to keep our fishermen and other sailors safe.

The Government must acknowledge that support for small fishing businesses to encourage more young people to see fishing as an attractive career choice is essential for the future vibrancy of the industry. There is a real danger that we will continue to fund an industry that simply does not have the people to continue it, and it will end up withering on the vine.

We want a different future for the industry. We need to slash the red tape that is strangling our fishing industry and invest in coastal infrastructure—not just by building pontoons, although that is important for our town, but by ensuring that our infrastructure serves the communities that it is meant to support. We need to give coastal towns the power and resources to develop their fishing economies and attract young workers, working in concert with local schools and colleges to build a skills base for the future, not just for our fishing industry but in many of our deprived coastal communities, where a skills base is lacking. They could take advantage of some of the opportunities being created by investments in our local fishing industry and others.

We must put sustainability at the heart of everything we do. We need to work hand in glove with the fishing industry to look carefully at the impact on marine protected areas and ensure that protections for sustainability do not cause catastrophic harm for the businesses that we seek to support.

We must rebuild depleted fish stocks. In the distance, we can often see massive Dutch trawlers operating off our coast. They hoover fish out of the sea and deplete stocks, meaning that our own fishermen—predominantly line-and-pole fishermen—cannot catch anything when they go out to fish. That is soul-destroying for people who are already in a very challenging industry.

We must ensure that fishing stock negotiations after 2026 get proper democratic scrutiny, as several hon. Members have mentioned. That is because the Conservatives’ Brexit threw our industry into chaos. Unfortunately, the Government let that happen again when they extended fishing rights to the EU for 10 more years—and for what? Nothing but some general commitments to negotiate further down the line.

Newhaven has fished its waters since the 1580s. Some fishing families have worked there for over 200 years; indeed, some of their names are known to pretty much everybody in the town. It is a close-knit community. We have local fish shops, plans for new restaurants and a community that wants to buy local catch, but right now we have a local fleet that is struggling even to stay in business.

My coastal communities are not an afterthought. They are the frontline of our food security, our environmental stewardship and our cultural heritage. We must deliver a fair deal for fishers, with real investment and sustainable practices, working with Government. I would be remiss not to take the opportunity to extend the Minister an invitation to come down to Sussex by the sea and visit our fleet in Newhaven.

Too often, very small fleets like ours can be overlooked in discussions about the fishing industry. In his excellent introductory speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned how fishing is sometimes treated as a homogeneous industry in which all areas are the same. Our small fishing fleet is as worthy of protection as any other, but it can be easily overlooked in wider discussions about the larger industry. I want communities like Newhaven’s to have the power to control their own future, with a thriving fishing industry at its heart.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before the Front-Bench speeches begin, may I extend a warm welcome to the Minister of Education in Ontario, who has been in the Chamber listening to hon. Members’ contributions? I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.