Fisheries

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the latest device from Europe to get their hands on the fish from our seas—I am speaking particularly of Scotland? The internationally tradeable individual transferable quotas will mean the slow buying off of fishing rights for future generations by big industry fishing, which would mean that future generations on the Scottish coast might see fishing happening around the coast but would have no right to go near it. This is one of the most dangerous aspects of the approach, which is new today from the European Union, and it must be resisted by all quarters of this House at all costs.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman. I have the BBC news sheet in my hand, which is headlined, “EU fisheries reform would ‘privatise oceans’.” Things will be handed over, no doubt, to Spanish and French fishermen who will have long-term quotas and who can do what they like outside our control.

This is not about nationalism. It is about every nation being responsible for managing its fisheries. The only way to guarantee that they will be managed properly will be for each nation to know that it has to look after and husband its own stocks and fishing industry. If people know that they can cheat by stealing fish from other countries, possibly not even doing discards, doing secret landings and cheating the system, I have no doubt that they will do it.

Just recently, the British public have shown themselves to be strongly incensed by any kind of cheating. Members of the House, some of whom have suffered the penalties of the law, have known the anger of the British people. I think that the British people can be just as angry about cheating on fishing, and the only way to overcome that is to re-establish national fishing waters for all nations in the European Union and for each nation to manage its own fishing stocks, its own fishing industries and the fishing boats that fish within those waters.

Billions of pounds of fish have been lost to Britain. Being in the common fisheries policy has not only had an economic cost to Britain but has been an environmentally damaging experience. One does not necessarily want to push for a nationalistic view, but the reality is that we have been ripped off by the common fisheries policy and we have a massive balance of trade deficit with the rest of the European Union. I would like to think that the motion could go someway towards helping to redress that balance.

I am doing this not because I am a little Englander, or even a big Englander or a big Britisher. I care about fish stocks, and I care about the fishing industry and about making sure that the marine environment is protected for the long term. The only way to do that is by having countries manage their own fisheries.

European Union Bill

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow a speech by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). I strongly support his amendments and hope they will be divided upon. I shall certainly be voting for them and I hope that many Labour Members will also be supporting him. He has made his position very clear and, even to a non-lawyer such as me, he has made the issues understandable.

The sovereignty of Parliament is something that voters hold very dear. We are not a polity where people mistrust Government, as is the case in many other countries, where people have had experiences that have made them historically mistrust Government. We accept that Parliament decides things on behalf of voters and if they do not like what we do, they can get rid of us individually and collectively and change their Government. One of the reasons why, among other things, I so strongly support the first-past-the-post system is that it means that electors can choose Governments. I do not want to touch on sensitive matters now, but such a system means that Governments are not created by post-election deals between parties. Sorry about that, but there we are.

By and large, people choose their Governments and do not like their judiciary to be interfered with by politicians. The judiciary should be independent and should act on the basis of statutes, which are clear and do not leave too much scope for interpretation by judges, who are human beings and have political views like anyone else. Statutes should be very clear. The hon. Member for Stone is trying to make this bit of statute very clear, so that judges do not have wriggle room or scope for interpretation. Whether judges are Euro-enthusiasts or Eurosceptics, they must act according to a clear statute

We have seen what has happened on the continent of Europe. Let us consider the European Court of Justice, about which I am deeply suspicious because it clearly acts in a political way. It has done so on more than one occasion but, as a trade unionist and a socialist, I was dismayed by its judgments in the Viking Line dispute. It found in favour of the employers, which I thought was a political judgment, not a judicial decision. We want to avoid such a situation occurring in Britain. Lawyers should make decisions on the basis of laws that are decided by Parliament, particularly by this House, and there should not be scope for interpretation. That is, of course, most important in matters involving the European Union, because it is wilfully trying to assert laws over and above us in a supranational way, which many of us deeply resent and are suspicious of.

I have said many times in this House that I want a European Union that is a looser association of independent democratic member states where we come together on matters on which we all mutually agree for mutual benefit, but is not a supranational organisation imposing laws and giving itself powers that we cannot resist.

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

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would be an enthusiast for extending that principle to not only the European Union but the British Union.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I voted for devolution, so one could say that, but I leave it to the hon. Gentleman to pursue that point further. I would prefer to see us remain within the Union, perhaps with devolution, and I remain a Unionist in that sense.