Fisheries

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spencer]

I absolutely agree and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. We need to ensure that future generations have access to fish as part of their diet. Fish make up an important part of the diet. Omega 3 is important and people need it as part of a healthy diet. Unless we get this right at this moment, fish stocks will not be available for future generations. That will be a sad indictment of us as politicians and of the decisions that we make.

My final comments are to the general public. Consumers are powerful and retailers listen to consumers. I encourage members of the public to challenge their retailers—supermarkets and fishmongers—to tell them how their fish is caught and harvested and how many discards there are. Several retailers, including Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer, have done some work on making good progress on this front. I hope that we can find a solution.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I would add Waitrose to that list of supermarkets, and I declare an interest because I used to work for it. It sponsored a very good film called “The End of the Line”, and I would like to note the brilliant work done by the person who put that film together in kicking off this discussion, ahead of the Fish Fight campaign, several years ago. Will my hon. Friend join me, and other hon. Members I am sure, in encouraging consumers who feel strongly about this issue, many of whom have written to us, to be part of the solution, albeit a small part? If everyone who has sent us an e-mail about this also changes their fish-buying behaviour and attempts to influence their friends and family to change theirs, they can become a small part of the solution just as much as by urging us to be part of it.

[Mr Spencer]

I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. The Countryside Agency ran a campaign some time ago with the strapline “Eat the View”, which encouraged consumers to think about where their food came from because its production directly affects the world around us. What we look at, what we see and how the world produces food is directly affected by how and where we purchase food. I encourage consumers to hold retailers to account—to challenge them and make sure that they are doing the right thing not only for us but for future generations and future food production in general.