Rural Payments Agency: Basic Payment Scheme

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

On the latter point, all farming unions and representatives and agricultural consultants have welcomed the steps we have taken, because they want to ensure that they can get their applications in on time. I discussed the matter with some colleagues from the devolved Administrations at the European Council last week, and I can confirm that they are all relieved that the Commission has extended the deadline.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend reassure farmers in the remote parts of my constituency by confirming that they will get the support they need, whether on paper or through access to online services, to avoid the disaster they faced under the system introduced by the previous Government?

[George Eustice]

As my hon. Friend says, we have acted swiftly to ensure that we can send maps and paper applications to ensure that all farmers can get their applications in on time. We have a network of 50 digital support centres to help farmers with the registration process, because we still want them to register with the online system.

Dairy Industry

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Well done to my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans). My constituency has a large number of dairy farmers, some of whom have positive stories to tell. Others, however, have to contend with the ongoing problem of bovine TB, and the volatility of milk prices may be the final nail in the coffin for them.

I want to take the opportunity to congratulate some dairy farmers who have diversified and become processors. The gold award-winning champion Philip Stansfield formed the Cornish Cheese Company, which the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee visited last year. The story of the young guy who produces Cornish gouda using his father’s cows is an example of a fantastic way of utilising the family milk to help with running costs. Bill Clarke and his wife, from Greymare farm near Lostwithiel, sold their cows in 2001 to concentrate on their processing business. They work only with Cornish farmers, of whom they have 23, all from within a 25-mile radius of their farm. They started from small beginnings, bottling milk from their own herd once the children were in bed. Their sons have now joined the business, which employs more than 100 people.

The story is not the same for all dairy farmers in south-east Cornwall, but it could be. I have recently been visited by a dairy farmer who is really concerned about his future. Having invested in new equipment, he fears that he will be unable to sustain his farm with such very low prices. He is fearful for his future.

I support the conclusions and recommendations of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the recommendations that have been made so well by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley. I want to see a vibrant and thriving dairy industry in south-east Cornwall, with both processors and producers.

[Roger Williams]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

I welcome what the hon. Lady says about the industries in her part of the world. I would say to her that broadband is being taken forward. It is increasingly passing more and more homes in rural areas like my constituency and other rural areas around the country. Labour left us a legacy of an aspiration to do this; we are actually delivering on it and making a difference. We have further to go, but this is making a huge difference to those rural communities.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

T7. The Marine Management Organisation says that it cannot meet me to discuss the disposal site at Rame Head South because of a judicial review. Will the Minister support my call to withdraw the existing licence and apply for a shorter one so that a new site could be investigated, the River Tamar could be dredged and we could care for the marine environment?

[George Eustice]

I understand that lawyers representing both parties in this judicial review are in discussions. I think the hon. Lady will agree that we need to ensure that we can continue to dredge the Tamar, which is a vital to the important port of Devonport. Also, I have always made it clear to her that I am willing to have meetings with residents, with the dredging company and with her to see whether it would be possible to identify an alternative site for the longer term.

Fishing Industry

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the quota cuts continue year on year, the fishing industry in the south-west could be completely wiped out, like the long-distance fishermen for whom he has a history of fighting?

[Austin Mitchell]

I strongly agree with the hon. Lady. That is the danger that I want to avoid. I am inciting the Minister to fight to protect the industry in order to prevent that eventuality, because what happened to the Bristol channel must not be allowed to happen to the rest of the country.

The prospects for the wider industry following the European Council meeting are gloomy indeed. The problems are compounded not just by cuts in the total allowable catches, but by the discard ban, which is to be introduced in two stages. That will be very messy and difficult. I believe that a discard ban is impossible unless every fishing vessel is equipped with closed-circuit television so that catches can be monitored. Alternatively, perhaps we could send unemployed Methodist Ministers to serve as observers on all the vessels—and Church of Scotland Ministers to serve on the Scottish vessels—to give us an honest account of what is going on.

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[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is an absolute honour and privilege to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who has represented fishermen across the UK in this House for, as he said, 38 years. At this time of year, we should remember the wives and families of those fishermen who have lost their lives, and I ask colleagues to join me in paying tribute to them today. I also wish to thank the maritime rescue services, particularly the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the coastguard, and to pay tribute to the work of the Fishermen’s Mission, Seafarers UK and other welfare services that provide for our fishermen. Indeed, I am throwing myself into the sea to raise money for the Fishermen’s Mission on 1 January, so please think of me.

I am pleased to follow the hon. Gentleman and I am so glad that he opened today’s debate. I wish to thank both him and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) for the way in which they have represented fishermen over so many years. Indeed, I have worked with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby for many years, particularly while working on behalf of Save Britain’s Fish, and I still believe today that UK fishermen would be better off out of the disgraceful common fisheries policy—I have often referred to it as the completely foolish policy. I believe that his greatest achievement was to introduce the Fishery Limits (United Kingdom) Amendment Bill. I believe that had it been successful, the fishing industry would not have declined as it has over the past decade.

I now wish to discuss the quota negotiations due to take place in a few days’ time. The European Commission proposals are not good news for fishermen in the south-west—area VII, as ICES referred to it—who will be hardest hit if maximum sustainable yield levels, which is the maximum catch that can be taken from a stock without threatening its future, are achieved by 2015. I urge the Minister to put the case to extend the end date to 2020. Fishermen’s organisations say that such a move would comply with the regulations but lessen the effect of the massive quota reductions, which, if implemented, would be disastrous for the south-west fleet.

Let us look at some of the reductions. The sole quota in particular is to be cut by 60% in area VII d when it was already cut by 18% last year. The haddock quota in areas VII b to k, which affects fishermen in the Minister’s own constituency, is to be cut by 45% when it was cut by 32% last year. Those are just some examples of the cuts.

Another anomaly is the data-limited method of assessment. When the science is not precise, an automatic reduction of 20% is proposed for some stocks. It is a ludicrous method, as the system has been closed since October and yet fishermen are seeing an abundance of skate and ray stock. The proposal to reduce the skate and ray quota by 20% is totally unacceptable, especially when the result is the closure of processing businesses and the loss of jobs.

I am pleased that agreement has now been reached on the 12-mile limit—the past agreement is to remain in place until December 2022. Our territorial waters were agreed in the London convention of 1969 and, according to the spirit of the agreement, access to the 12-mile limit for other nationals with historical rights was always intended to be temporary. Forty years on, we need to see an end to other nations’ access, because those original vessels are probably no longer fishing or even in existence. The six and 12-mile limits should be exclusive for British fishermen, and that would allow our Minister to introduce measures for the conservation of bass without accusations of discriminating against them. Other member states must agree to implement any measures at European level. If they do not, UK fishermen would be penalised while other member states’ fishermen could continue to fish and land bass. Such measures would support both the commercial and the recreational sea angling sectors.

On quota management by the Marine Management Organisation, 30 years ago, fishermen were consulted through area committees on the setting of UK quotas. Over the years, we have seen much of the management responsibility for quotas move to the producer organisations, with the MMO responsible for the under-10 metres and the non-sector vessels. I urge the Minister to demand a review of the MMO’s quota management system, because errors have been made recently, particularly in relation to skate and ray.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

One of the great mistakes of the previous Administration was to put the MMO not down in Plymouth but in the north-east, because we have an enormous amount to add to all of this.

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[Sheryll Murray]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and neighbour across the Tamar that such a move would have created a lot of employment not only in his constituency but in mine, and it would have made use of those wonderful maritime institutions for which Plymouth is famous.

The Minister has a very hard task ahead of him in the forthcoming negotiations. I urge him to negotiate hard for UK fishermen, especially Cornish and south-west fishermen. If he feels that my 30 years of experience with the industry would be of any use, I would happily provide advice or even accompany him to Brussels. The least I can do for an industry that is so close to my heart is to offer it a future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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

I join the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), and not only on his speech. This is the last fisheries debate for both of us, as we are standing down at the next election. He is way ahead of me in terms of years. We have run the fisheries group for a number of years, but he has had 38 years at the coalface. We have not always agreed, and some of his comments today emphasise some of the differences between us, but he has been a stalwart supporter of the fishing industry and of fishermen, and he should be congratulated on that.

I took part in my very first fisheries debate in 1987, the year I was elected. It is interesting to contrast the debates that we used to have in those days with those that we have now. At the time, the main issues included quota and supplies, but there was a much more local aspect to the debate. The common fisheries policy was part of the debate, and illegal “black” fishing was a major issue until fairly recently. The Minister has a much easier time today than he would have had in those days, because it used to be a Government debate. That is a major change for us. We have to fight to get time for this debate.

When the debate was held in Government time, the Minister opened. I cannot remember many Ministers who got away in less than three quarters of an hour, and many spoke for over an hour, because there were many more fishing communities at that time. Sadly, many communities have lost their fishing industry, but the Minister had to deal with biting questions, an example of which has just been provided by the hon. Member for South East Cornwall, from every part of the country. He or—I am trying to remember whether we have ever had a female Fisheries Minister; I do not think we have—

[Sheryll Murray]

We have not, but we have had female Secretaries of State, including the present Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and one of her predecessors.

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[Peter Aldous]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that intervention. I would say that there is certainly room for improvement. The way in which we collect the data needs to be addressed, and I will come to that in a moment.

The work of fishermen still fishing out of Lowestoft in the inshore fleet should be contrasted with that of the seven affiliated vessels of the Lowestoft Fish Producers’ Organisation, which are now controlled by fishing interests based in the Netherlands and in Aberdeen. These large vessels hold fixed quota allocations totalling 79,097 units, but their contribution to the local economy is limited. When they were based in Lowestoft, they helped to sustain the smaller boats. Their departure has partly contributed to the collapse of the port as the capital of fishing in the southern North sea, and has exacerbated still further the decline of the inshore fleet. Across the UK, Dutch-controlled vessels fishing British quota boast a total annual turnover of £48 million, yet only 1% of the fish they catch is landed in the UK.

Article 17 provides the cornerstone for a root and branch reform to address these inequities and to ensure that economic, social and environmental benefits accrue to local communities. The judgment in the High Court in July 2013 in the case that some producer organisations brought against the Secretary of State for carrying out a very modest redistribution of unused quota—the case was dismissed—provides helpful guidance as to how we can move forward. Mr Justice Cranston was sympathetic to the view that fishing quotas and the fixed quota allocation system should always be considered against the backdrop, and based on the principle, that fish are a public resource. This dates back to Magna Carta. He also expressed the opinion that the producer organisations and their members have no proprietary interest in the fishing stock itself and that fixed quota allocations give no right to any specific amount of fishing stock in advance of the annual ministerial decisions on quota that will take place later this month.

There is a need for more information and a better understanding of what is happening in the industry. The fixed quota allocation register first published last December is a welcome step forward, but more information is required on how much quota is held by non-working fisherman, and on quota transactions. The current trading system is complex and opaque. This information will show who benefits from the nation’s fish resources and whether they are providing maximum economic and social benefit to their local communities. This is the first necessary step to the introduction of a new, fairer quota allocation system.

There is also a need to gain a full understanding of the under 10-metre fleet as to what percentage of those licence holders in receipt of monthly catch limits are active and how many may have made no or minimal landings in the past six to 12 months, and if not, why not.

[Sheryll Murray]

On the 10-metre quota, does my hon. Friend agree that the total lack of action and recording over a number of years by the Labour party allowed the sector to expand beyond what the available quota could allow it to stay viable?

[Peter Aldous]

Personally I would not want to be partisan, but mistakes were made during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

There is a need to establish how much of the under 10-metre fleet quota is gifted by the producer organisations and what the effect would be if those so-called gifts were withheld. It is wrong that one sector of the industry is so dependent on another for its very existence. With that information to hand, the Government could put a fairer system in place whereby the inshore fleet has proper representation on advisory councils; skippers of inshore boats obtain an increase in their monthly catch limits and are no longer beholden to the POs or dependent on hand-outs for their very existence; and quota is held by active fishermen who bring real benefit to their local communities, not by foreign vessels that turn out once a year or by inactive fishermen—slipper skippers—who hold quota as an investment and a trading commodity.

Conservative Members are committed to a referendum in 2017 on the UK’s future membership of the EU and a renegotiation of the terms of our membership beforehand. In those negotiations, the reclaiming of our territorial waters in the 6 to 12 nautical mile area should be a priority demand. The current system is unworkable and unfair, and that reclamation would allow the Government to put in place measures that properly protect fish stocks and the marine environment and give priority access to local fishermen who depend on those waters for their survival.

Much has been achieved in the past four and a half years in putting in place policies that will enable the industry to move forward and have a better future. However, the actual delivery is yet to come. It is complicated and a real challenge, but we need to get on with it, as time is very much of the essence. We are very much at the 59th minute of the 23rd hour.

In years gone by in Lowestoft, it was possible to cross the water from one side of the Hamilton dock to the other from boat to boat. Today the dock is virtually empty of fishing boats. However, if we put in place the right system of management, fishing will be able to play an important role in the future not only of Lowestoft, but of many other communities all around these four nations.

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[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. That has been pointed out to me before, when I have made the same argument, and it is true that Norway has an arrangement with the European Union. Nevertheless, if countries maintain their fish stocks—especially with the 50% limit, rather than just the 6-mile and 12-mile limits—and husband and manage them properly around national coasts, they get a concentration of fish stocks in those areas. I must say that if I were a fish and more likely to be caught in one area than in another, I would swim to the area where I was less likely to be caught, but that is just an aside.

The only way to guarantee that countries are responsible when it comes to fishing is to ensure that they manage their own waters and can restrain other countries from fishing in them. That is absolutely basic. As I say, I have made this point on many occasions. I am not an enthusiast for the European Union in general, but if there is one area of the EU that is dafter than any other it is the common fisheries policy.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that that should be one of the areas that the Prime Minister renegotiates back into the control of the UK when he carries out the negotiations in Europe?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Lady, who speaks so well on these matters, has made exactly the point I was about to make. For me, when the Prime Minister—it may be a Labour one—comes back with a new deal, the first thing I will want to see is the abolition of the common fisheries policy. If that is not in the deal, I have to say that I will not vote for the deal because it is so absolutely fundamental. One way to achieve that is to speak in this Chamber, as I do, and I hope that people in the European Union—in the bureaucracy in Brussels—are listening. If they are, they will know that if we get more exercised about these matters over time, we will in the end tell the European Union, if we are not agreed, that we are seeking to withdraw from the CFP unilaterally. I say that here as a warning for the longer term. I am sure that many people would agree with us on these matters.

I think I have made my point. I am not an expert in the sense that my hon. Friends are experts—they have made some very important and more detailed points about what is now happening—but, in the longer term, I believe that the common fisheries policy must be ended and that countries must be made responsible for their own fishing waters, with every vessel monitored and licensed. If foreign fishing vessels want to fish in our waters or our vessels want to fish in those of other countries, they must be individually licensed vessel by vessel, and both what they are fishing and where they land their stocks must be monitored.

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

It has been a great privilege to listen to the speeches of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray). Like the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), I cannot possibly emulate the extraordinary accumulated knowledge of the previous speakers.

On 12 October, as I sat in my office in this place, a bomb was dropped on the northern Devon fishery. The Marine Management Organisation announced that the entire fishery would have to cease fishing for ray. Ray accounts for 60% of the landings in the northern Devon fishery. The fishery supports about 100 fishermen and their boats, and 650 fish processors. The industry is worth about £100 million per year. Local authorities together with local enterprise organisations clubbed together over several years and, some years ago, invested more than £2 million in a new fishing dock and quay so that fish processing could take place in Appledore. But at one stroke of the pen, the livelihoods of those people were wiped out.

Last weekend, Mr Tony Rutherford, the boss of the Bideford Fisheries, came to see me. He is always a cheerful chap, as northern Devon fishermen seem to be, and on this occasion he was looking for a silver lining. It is hard to find one, however, when someone wakes up one morning to the sound of a letter dropping through their letterbox or of an e-mail arriving on their terminal saying that they no longer have a business.

That situation cannot continue. I was shocked. I am a lawyer and I have no sea in my veins—I get seasick in the bath—but the truth is that, when I started to look at the reasons why this extraordinary situation had arisen, I was shocked. For example, I found out that the MMO had traded away more than 100 tonnes of ray earlier this year. Just a few months later, three months before the end of the season, it told my fishermen and the northern Devon fishery that they could not fish for ray.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the MMO seems to lack the expertise for quota management that it used to have? Will he join me in calling on the Minister to ensure that adequate quota management measures are put in place for under-10 metre and non-sector vessels?

[Mr Cox]

Of course I join my hon. Friend in doing so. I was about to say that; she has stolen my thunder.

[Sheryll Murray]

Sorry.

[Mr Cox]

Not at all. My hon. Friend has every right—probably a greater right than me—to make such a point, given her experience.

As I started to look into this question, simply applying such intellect and abilities as I have, I could not believe the absurdity of the system we are operating. I was contacted by several marine experts from Plymouth and the south-west who had worked with the MMO. They did not want to be named—that is perfectly understandable—but they told me their experiences of looking at the data. Frankly, if it had been done by an accountant, the accounts would not be signed off. The quality of the information, the timeliness, or lack of it, of the data processing—none of those things has been done adequately or robustly enough to make any proper statistical judgments about what is swimming in the seas or what quota has been exhausted. We are doing no more than informed guessing, and on the strength of that we are playing with the lives and livelihoods of decent men and women up and down the country.

Northern Devon fishery is a fine fishery that has pioneered conservation for many years. The island of Lundy, as many hon. Members will know, lies in my constituency and within the fishery. For many years the fishermen have agreed to no-take zones, and to allow the area to lie fallow for certain periods of the year. Around the country and the world that fishery has been praised as highly responsible and one that—if any deserve the name—warrants the description “sustainable fishery”.

Ray is abundant in the northern Devon fishery and the Bristol channel. When the stroke of the pen came down, the Cornish fisheries association still had 100 tonnes of its quota left uncaught. How can that be right? How can guessing about over-fishing in one area of England mean that fishermen in the northern Devon fishery—where ray is abundant and makes up 60% of the take, and where people have worked night and day to ensure its sustainability—should find themselves with nothing to catch and literally nothing to put on the table the following week for their families? It is criminal!

As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, we sometimes sit here and say, “It’s too difficult” and move on. However, occasions such as this are opportunities for Members of the House at least to put on record our forlorn and probably vain protest against the bureaucratic juggernaut that seems to be for ever steamrolling over common sense in its absurd and surreal way. If I sound indignant, it is because I have had to see so many fishermen in recent weeks, and I feel profoundly indignant on their behalf. They have no quota for sole or spurdog; they can catch a tiny amount of plaice, and their cod quota could be caught in a single day. How are they supposed to survive?

I believe, as does my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, that the time has come—I am addressing the Minister directly—to examine and review whether the MMO is fit for purpose and how its data processing is conducted. Has the Minister been to its offices and looked at its techniques and methods? Will he get a grip on that organisation, which has lost the trust of the fishing industry from top to bottom? If the information I have received from well-placed and expert sources is correct, something is gravely wrong with the system of examination, data processing and monitoring. I hear stories of data being processed weeks if not months late, and of inadequate or inefficient data processing. Those stories reach the fishermen I represent. If their livelihoods are to be in the hands of those people—a few months ago around 100 tonnes of ray were traded away and now fishermen have been told they cannot catch any more—the Government must be sure on their behalf that the MMO is doing its job properly.

Speaking directly to the Minister, for whom I have great fondness and regard, it is time for us to get a grip on the MMO and go in there, find out what it is doing, and insist on seeing exactly how it is processing the data. We must put experts in there to see whether the MMO will bear up to scrutiny as it should. If we do not do that, the continuing spiralling loss of confidence among the fishermen we represent will continue, and it will be fully justified.

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[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) and I sat on the Backbench Business Committee when we gave permission for the debate. We did exactly the right thing. I think I got into some trouble for voicing my support and he duly told me off.

As hon. Members may know, I represent Plymouth, which has a global reputation for marine science engineering and research. That includes not only the Royal Navy, which is an incredibly important part of that reputation, but the university, which specialises in marine biological research. I recently hosted a reception on the Terrace for the university, which had done a lot of research with Interreg on the importance of marine activity to the industry.

The Plymouth Marine Laboratory is in my constituency. I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to go there to meet some of my great scientists. He kindly came to see Interfish, a big fish producer in my constituency, in the summer, and I would be grateful if he came to meet PML, which has done a significant amount of work on climate change and provided a lot of evidence.

[Sheryll Murray]

My hon. Friend mentions the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. It is doubly useful for hon. Members to visit when they can because the chief International Council for the Exploration of the Sea scientist works there.

[Oliver Colvile]

Because PML is such a good scientific base, as a compromise, there is a minor MMO sub-office. As my hon. Friend may be aware, I am keen for it to come to Plymouth.

Plymouth also has the Marine Biological Association, which was set up in 1884 by Sir Andrew Huxley, specifically to have the big debate of the day on whether we could overfish waters around our country. This is the first opportunity I have had to express my gratitude to the Government for giving the MBA a royal charter in 2013. It is incredibly proud of that.

During the course of working for the debate, I visited Plymouth Trawlers, an established agency in my constituency based down towards the Barbican. I spoke to Dave Cuthbert, who has a wonderful e-mail address—it starts with “Davethefish”. He said that the coming of the December Council and the proposed cuts in skates and rays of 20% will create a major problem. It is exactly the same problem that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) described so precisely and so well. Dave the Fish said:

“Rays have been cut in quota for the last 3 years based on the fact that it is data deficient and automatically cut by 20%”.

Will the Minister propose that that cut does not go ahead? Dave the Fish says that the Minister will probably say that the automatic cut is recommended by ICES. However, if we are cutting in such a way and no longer taking notice of historical data—I understand that that is in article 17 of the latest common fisheries policy reform—what is the basis for the quota? I do not understand it. We either rely on the data available when the scientists have done their work, or go back to historical data. I have concerns about the historical data, because not all fish behave in the same manner over time.

The Minister will no doubt come back and give the standard reply that Dave the Fish has seen on a couple of letters—the letters state that the Government are “already compliant with their approach to quota allocation”. My friend Dave the Fish found those letters difficult to understand.

Dave the Fish points out that, under the fixed quota allocation, the same suspects have the same quota year on year to maintain stability. Nothing has changed, and large companies are buying every scrap of quota that becomes available. My hon. Friend the Minister may be aware that there are a large amount of boats under 10 metres in my constituency and they are most certainly feeling the effects of that. Indeed, during the course of my visit to the trawler company and the Plymouth fish market—the first electronic market in the whole of the south-west—I was stunned by the level of scepticism from the fishermen and those in the trade. I should be grateful if the Minister would look at how that might work.

I have always been incredibly keen to ensure that we have a significant amount of data before decisions are made on marine conservation areas. Such decisions must be evidence-based. The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) rightly said that support must come not only from scientists but fishermen too. This issue relates to the whole of the fishing industry, and that includes people’s livelihoods. On my visit, I spoke to people about the scallop industry, which I understand is the third-largest part of the fishing industry. They complained that the hand picking of scallops was not subject to the same regulation as commercial operations. It seems to be a bit of a mess.

My hon. Friend the Minister will be delighted to know that I have volunteered—I take on board all the incredibly important safety issues— to go out early in the new year on another fishing boat. I am afraid that the last time I went I was sick seven times. The awful smell of diesel and fish—a rather nasty cocktail—was combined with the boat going backwards and forwards and up and down, while I looked at the horizon. I am afraid to say that the only way I could get any kind of surety back into my being was to go and stand outside and enjoy the whistling rain and the enormous amount of coldness. I am quite fearful about doing this, but I am as determined as I was last time around not to say, “I’m a wimp and I need to go back.”

A daily and salient reminder of the importance of safety in the fishing industry is the wall in the Barbican that is plastered with signs paying tribute to those who have died while fishing at sea. It would be very helpful if the Minister could supply the relevant historic data. I wish him the best of luck in his discussions with our European Council colleagues in the very near future.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be called in this debate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), I do not have a fishing community in my constituency. We have anglers, as opposed to fishermen, on the River Forth.

I want to speak in this debate for two reasons. First, fishing communities need advocates from outside their communities too, no matter how fantastic the contributions have been from hon. Members across the House. We need to re-establish the connection between our fishing industry and fishing communities, and the wider population. Frankly, fish do not come pre-packed in Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose, Lidl and so on—I do not want to get into trouble with anybody for not mentioning a particular supermarket. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminds me that we used to see fish on fishmongers’ slates. That is not necessarily the case nowadays.

Secondly, I have a family interest in fishing that I would like to put on the record. My son is a fisherman. He fishes out of a very small island community that is represented by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who is not in his place today. The community has a significant inshore fishing industry. I echo the comments by the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) that we sometimes forget just how dangerous it can be. It is not a very high-profile industry in the media, but the concern, when seeing spouses or children going out to fish, is real for many families. My son will be mortified that I have mentioned my particular concern in public, but sometimes we have to say these things.

I want to concentrate on the structure of the industry. Before I do so, however, I echo the comments that the hon. Member for South East Cornwall made at the beginning of her speech. We owe a debt of gratitude to the mechanisms that support both the onshore and offshore industries. I listened yesterday to a spokesperson for the Barra lifeboat. I understand from the log I have just read that it was called out yesterday and faced 14 metre waves. It is very difficult for us sitting here today to contemplate what 14 metre waves look like. The volunteers of the RNLI, men and women, deserve our thanks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) alluded to the structure of the industry. There is, without doubt, a major issue relating to the balance of quotas. I recognise that we need large fishing vessels, but we need to remember that the quota system was set in the 1980s, when the overall contribution to landings by small fishing boats was underestimated.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that there is a place for both large and small vessels? Small vessels feed the market with day-caught fresh fish, while the larger vessels spend more days at sea and contribute quantity. There is a place for both.

[Mrs McGuire]

I was coming on to that exact point. Considering the balance in the industry is not about undermining the contribution of one, or ignoring the contribution of the other. The hon. Lady makes a valuable point.

The quotas were set 25 to 30 years ago, and there has been a decreasing allocation for small inshore fishing vessels. The 5,000 small vessels, as the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) highlighted, currently have only 4% of the quota. It is increasingly difficult for inshore fishermen to make their small businesses—for that is what they are—viable, but they are part of the supply chain and they bring money into local communities.

I do not accept everything that Greenpeace says, but it is worth highlighting the article alluded to by the hon. Member for Waveney. A large Dutch ship, the Cornelis Vrolijk, flies a British flag—my understanding is that one can get a British flag by registering and paying £111—and currently takes up an enormous proportion of the UK quota. All of the 34,000-tonne ship’s landings go to Holland. Nothing goes to any UK port. The implications for the local economy, the processing industry and so on cannot be underestimated.

I understand that one of the criteria for registering for a British flag is that an economic link with Britain be demonstrated. Will the Minister explain the economic link between the large vessels that are scooping up—legitimately—their quotas and Britain, which allows those vessels to fly a British flag without landing in Britain? What efforts will he make to rebalance the quota allocation? What engagement has he had with inshore fisherman? Can the UK take that process forward unilaterally or does it have to be part of a wider engagement within the EU?

It has been suggested, and I have seen nothing to the contrary, that the fishing industry will be represented at the Fisheries Council by the 7th Baron De Mauley. As Scottish National Members know, although I agree with their party on some areas, I have difficulties with some of its policies. However, I find it astonishing that this year’s fisheries discussions are not being led by the most experienced Fisheries Minister in Europe, the current Scottish Fisheries Minister. I do not know why that has happened. I do not know why the noble Lord De Mauley has been hauled in—an appropriate phrase, given that we are talking about fishing—to these discussions. Why should fishermen have confidence in somebody with no apparent connection with the fishing industry?

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[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), although I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will resist her suggestion that the Scottish Minister should represent the whole UK. As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) knows, that would certainly be an issue in our part of the world. Under the principle of relative stability, areas south of the Scottish border have had a difficult deal for decades, and it would be remiss of us to present the UK case as if it were primarily a Scottish issue.

[Sheryll Murray]

To clarify, to report back to the House, someone has to be a Member of Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for us to be represented by a Member of the Scottish Parliament, who could not report back to the Chamber, would be quite inappropriate?

[Andrew George]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, although I think this is a bit of a sideshow. Given that the Minister will be representing the UK, I do not know why we have had this rather unnecessary skirmish.

In my short contribution, I do not want to repeat many of the issues that other Members have articulated extremely well; there is much consensus, and I want only to repeat some of the themes. I think we all supported the reforms to the common fisheries policy in 2011 and the principles promoted in those reforms, but the situation now indicates that some of those principles are unravelling to the detriment of the fishing industry. That is the issue I primarily wish to address today.

In my opening remarks, I should also reflect on the enormous contribution that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) has made to fisheries debates over many years. We have agreed on much, but we have disagreed occasionally. Certainly, as I indicated to him the other day, I strongly disagreed when he decided to change his name by deed poll from “Haddock” back to “Mitchell”. It was a great disappointment, but I shall forgive him.

It is also appropriate that we reflect on the risks taken by those who work so hard to put fish on our tables. I engage in these fisheries debates every year, but when I reflect on my earliest days in the House, I remember that when I arrived here in 1997 we lost seven fishermen to the sea: three fishermen died when the Gorah Lass sank in St Ives bay early that year, and when the beam trawler Margaretha Maria went down we lost four members of our local community. If it was not already evident, that brought home to me how much of a risk these men were taking to ply their trade. Safety within the industry has improved, and as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) said, the statistics suggest that we are not losing as many lives in the industry as in the past. Nevertheless, it is an extremely hazardous profession and the risks remain high.

I agree with the sentiment of what the hon. Member for Great Grimsby said about marine conservation zones, but I believe that we should be doing precisely what the Government are doing and rolling out marine conservations zones. I served on the Committee for the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, which introduced MCZs. I encouraged the then Government to adopt the amendments that I was attempting to introduce at that time, which were to the effect that the designation of the marine conservation zones should be based on science alone, but that the conservation plans for the zones should be subject to wider consultation. Unfortunately, it is the other way round in the Act, with consultation taking place before designation, and then no obligation to conduct consultation over the management plans. I am pleased that the Government are now taking note of the views of the industry and other stakeholders in the rolling-out of marine conservation plans and I think that is the right way forward. We must also ensure that the fishing industry is viewed as a major and very significant stakeholder and that we marry the interests of marine ecology with the sustainability of the fishing industry for the future.

I mentioned that I was pleased with the outcome of the common fisheries policy reform because of its emphasis on management for the long term. I and many others have campaigned for many years for more power to go to regional management. The right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) mentioned the issue of a ban on discards, and I expressed my concern about implementation because of the difficulty of distinguishing between intended and unintended overcatch in the fish quota.

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[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). This afternoon, in common with others, I want to open my remarks by remembering all those lost at sea in the last year, and in particular by paying my respects to James Noble, the skipper of the Fraserburgh-registered Ocean Way, and crew members Jhunitzo Antonio and Michael PulPul who were all lost off the coast of Northumberland just a few weeks ago. My thoughts are with their families, friends, and the surviving crew members, and all those who have lost loved ones in this most dangerous working environment. In common with others, too, I would like to pay tribute to the men and women of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who voluntarily risk their own lives to save others, to our coastguards, and of course to the Fishermen’s Mission and other welfare organisations that do so much to support our fishing communities.

I would also like to put on record my thanks to the hon. Members for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) for all the work they have done as chair and secretary of the all-party group on fisheries. Even though we have not always agreed, it has been a pleasure working with them on behalf of our fishing and processing sectors, and as they both step down from Parliament next year, I wish them the very best for whatever comes next.

This time last year I highlighted some of the challenges we face in relation to the implementation of the landing obligation. Those problems have not diminished over the last 12 months; they have become more pressing, as the discard ban comes into effect for our pelagic fleet in the next three weeks. The pelagic sector has not had an easy run in recent years. Although we saw some progress in resolving the protracted mackerel dispute with Iceland and Faroe earlier this year, the trade sanctions imposed on the EU by Russia in response to the political situation in Ukraine have hit our pelagic exports disproportionately hard, and I know that the Scottish Government and indeed the UK moved very quickly to help the industry identify and develop new export markets. Although our mackerel saw a 9% fall in value last year, it remains our most valuable stock, and it supports hundreds of onshore jobs in my constituency in addition to those at sea.

Arguably, implementing the landing obligation should be easier for the pelagic fleet than anyone else because of the nature of the stock and the fact that there will not be much by-catch, but I understand that there are still contradictory regulations in force, and these regulatory inconsistencies do not look like they will be ironed out in time for the first phase of the landing obligation on 1 January. I understand that the so called “omnibus process” has been stuck in co-decision-making, and it would be helpful to get an update from the Government on where that has got to today.

Now, we could say that the sky is not going to fall in because the revised regulations are not fully signed and sealed, but I think it sends the wrong signal to our fishermen and undermines the discard ban before it has even got under way. That undermining of confidence is also relevant to the issue I raised with the Minister earlier this morning about enforcement and the lack of a consistent compliance regime that applies to all vessels fishing in our waters. It would be wholly unacceptable for our boats to be working to one set of rules, and third party states fishing in our waters to be subject to another—potentially less stringent—set of rules.

I was pleased to hear from the Minister this morning that some progress was made on this issue at the recent EU-Norway talks, and I hope he will take the opportunity today to spell out the detail and clarify whether it will actually deliver the level playing field that the industry is demanding.

The problems with implementing the landing obligation will get more acute when it is introduced for the demersal fleet in 2016, which is probably the source of the greatest concern. Progress has, I think, been pitifully slow over the last year, and time to develop workable solutions is now running out. It is going to be a whole lot more complicated to implement a discard ban for the whitefish fleet simply because it is a mixed fishery, and our fishermen are working in a context of quota shortages, choke species, lack of flexibility and a system of single species quotas that is simply no longer fit for purpose.

I raised the issue of choke species at the last fisheries debate, and the situation has not really changed. A good example that Peterhead fishermen have raised with me is saithe. They are seeing a lot of it, they do not have much quota for it, and it is low value, with no big market, but it is also quite a big fish, so selective gear is not going to help. What do they do? They cannot land it; they cannot discard it. Will they have to stop fishing for everything else? That would cripple the industry—and very quickly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) has on previous occasions raised similar concerns about dogfish on the west coast of Scotland, with the one difference that there might actually be a market for that. If we are to have any hope of making this landing obligation workable, we absolutely need to move away from single species quotas. We need flexibility between adjoining ICES areas where there is evidence that it is the same stock, and that an appropriate quota is available. After speaking to industry leaders yesterday, I wonder whether we really need to look at some sort of phasing-in, because this process is not currently on track. I will be interested to hear the Government’s perspective on that.

I have focused on the landing obligation because it will present serious challenges to the industry a year from now if we do not get it right. We need to be absolutely clear about the fact that discarding is a symptom of poor fisheries management. It is not the fault of the fishermen, and it needs to end. We are in danger of making parts of our fleet unviable, with untold consequences for our processors, our supply chains, our exports and our fishing-dependent communities, such as those that I represent. Discarding has been caused by poor political decisions, not by fishermen, and it is incumbent on us to find solutions to it that are workable and do not jeopardise people’s livelihoods.

Let me end by saying a little about the December Council, and emphasising to the Minister that there must be no cuts in effort for the Scottish fleet next year. I hope he will assure me that the Government will make that a priority in the negotiations. I am very glad to learn that he will be at the Council meeting; given the severity of the issues affecting the south-west of England, it would be a dereliction of duty if he were not there. However, I fear that the spirit of the 2012 concordat with the Scottish Government has been lost in DEFRA’s revolving doors over the last couple of years, because it is not working as it should. Given that 87% of the United Kingdom’s key stocks are landed in Scotland from Scottish vessels, we ought to recognise that Scotland has an important interest. The Government need to work with their counterparts in Edinburgh—and, indeed, in other parts of the United Kingdom—to make the concordat operate much better than it is operating now.

[Sheryll Murray]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

I will not, because Members behind me who represent big fishing interests are waiting to speak, and the hon. Lady had a fair amount of time in which to do so.

Our fishermen do a difficult and dangerous job in circumstances that are quite challenging enough without our making them worse. We need a workable discard ban, and we need it very quickly. This is the biggest challenge that the Scottish industry is currently facing, and Ministers have an opportunity to step up to it.

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[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess). He has been a Member of this House since 1983, which is a remarkable achievement of longevity, and longevity has been a theme of today’s debate—both the importance of longevity in the fishing industry and the longevity of some of my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), in standing up for the fishing industry. I have not been a Member of this House as long as they have, but I hope I can follow in their footsteps—although I do not have their wisdom and experience—by trying to do my best for the fishing industry in Hartlepool.

The fishing industry in Hartlepool is not a staple industry, as it is in some other constituencies, but, returning to the theme of longevity, it spans over 800 years. Generations of Hartlepool families have eked out a living—and they have often just eked out a living—by farming the seas and wanting to pass on their business to the next generation, but during my time in the House, and well before, that has been made increasingly difficult. It is not getting any easier for my constituents to be part of the fishing industry.

We have had an excellent debate, and I want to single out the contribution of the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Our constituencies share similar characteristics. Hartlepool’s fishing fleet, like his, is now composed almost exclusively of the inshore under-10 metre fleet.

I have asked my fishermen what their main concerns are and what they would like to be highlighted to the House and to the Minister this afternoon, and—as we have heard many times in this debate—they said that the quota levels have been a perennial problem for the under-10 metre fleet for many years. Whiting quota has been cut by about 18% this year, and my fishermen tell me that adverse weather conditions in the North sea have pulled some of the larger boats inshore, putting even further pressure on the small fleet. What will the Minister do to address the points about quotas when he goes to Europe on Monday and Tuesday? Will he call for additional support to be given in respect of The Hague preference?

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that under-10 metre vessels are unique because they cannot migrate from port to port and area to area to gain a living, and because when they can operate is governed by the weather conditions?

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Lady has great wisdom and experience in this matter and makes a very good point, and she is absolutely right. The fishermen in the under-10 metre fleet in my patch will not be able to go further afield. They are tied—quite rightly—to the Hartlepool area and will not go much beyond it.

Discards have been mentioned a number of times. I think the whole House will agree that they are a scandal on economic and ecological grounds. We have all seen the pictures of good, mature, dead cod being thrown back into the sea. That is an absolute disgrace and a reflection of the fact that the rules the fishing industry has to operate under are dysfunctional.

Phil Walsh, a fisherman in my constituency, sent me an article from the ex-editor of Fishing News, Tim Oliver, which quoted an EU fisheries official stating:

“High levels of discarding are a persistent problem in this area, both in the whitefish and the flatfish fisheries. Accordingly, scientific advice calls for significant TAC cuts e.g. for cod and haddock.”

I had to reread that several times. That does not make sense to me or my fishermen constituents. How can it be right that higher discards result in lower quotas? Do increased discards not indicate that stocks, certainly in the North sea, are increasing?

Are discards not a vivid and tragic illustration that the policy on quotas simply is not working? Nobody wants the seas farmed extensively in the short term at the expense of long-term sustainability. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) made that incredibly important point. Generations of Hartlepool fishermen certainly do not want to do that, but I do not see how the current situation is helping the industry. The discard ban is also pushing further consolidation of quotas into the hands of ever fewer and ever larger operators, making it ever more difficult for the under-10 metre fleet to sustain a viable business model.

What are the Government going to do to ensure that they meet the requirements of article 17 of the reformed common fisheries policy, which the hon. Member for Waveney mentioned, and which requires member states to use transparent and objective criteria, including those of an environmental, social and economic nature, when allocating fishing opportunities? Article 17 should move the quota system away from a method based on what was caught before and away from a system that disproportionately favours those who caught the most in the past. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on the Front Bench says from a sedentary position, it should be based on science. My constituents want me to press the Minister on this fundamental matter that greatly affects their livelihoods, so how will his Government implement article 17?

Fishermen in Hartlepool also make a practical point in that the Marine Management Organisation needs to improve its reporting systems to ensure that there is minimal delay in quota managers getting landings data from the ports. My fishermen report that there have sometimes been significant delays caused by poor reporting lines, which have led to the failures to allocate the available quota for the under-10 metre fleet. That, in turn, has meant that fishermen in Hartlepool have not been able to keep their boats at sea fishing throughout the year. The lack of a prompt reporting line has endangered the economic viability and livelihoods of fishermen in Hartlepool, and that cannot be acceptable. This is something that could be changed for the better, and I hope the Minister will act on those concerns.

While the Minister is considering that matter, I hope he will also address a further concern. My constituents would like a great deal more clarity from DEFRA on what quota, including any uplifts, is going to be available under the demersal discard ban. Fishermen are telling me that this lack of information is preventing any sort of longer-term business planning. We need to look at the way in which the common fisheries policy and the annual quota have worked. I have made the point in the House before that the annual quota is detrimental to the long-term sustainability of the industry, causing fishermen to work in a knee-jerk, short-termist way. For many of the fishermen in Hartlepool whose fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and even great-great-grandfathers farmed the North sea, that seems a ridiculous way to ensure that the industry is sustainable over the long term. What will the Minister do to address this matter and move us away from the short-term approach towards a much more long-term, sustainable and ultimately viable industry?

I am very proud to represent in Parliament a town that has had fishing in its blood for more than 800 years. However, thanks to the treacherous nature of the North sea, it is a tough and dangerous living, and because of regulations and the short-term and often contrary approach of European policy, it is being made tougher. I want to see the Hartlepool fishing industry sustained for generations yet to come, but it has been stated loud and clear today that that will be achieved only if the Government recognise the concerns and act to ensure that there will be stock, a viable business model and a livelihood for Hartlepool fishermen for decades to come.

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[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend recall that, when the then Minister under the last regime tried to introduce unilateral restrictions on British bass fishermen, he had to abandon them?

[Dr Wollaston]

Yes, absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point.

We are all calling on the Minister not to penalise sport fishermen. Sport fishing is very important to my constituency because it attracts a large number of tourist visitors. Having a one fish-bag limit is illogical when the vast majority of mortality is a result of pair-trawling carried out by the French. I hope that he will hold his ground on that issue and press for a size limit so that the fish can at least spawn. That is a much more sensible way of trying to turn around the bass fishery.

I also want to mention demersal skates and rays. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) made an extraordinarily eloquent contribution, and I will simply state my support for everything he said rather than repeating it. I will expand on one point, however. I have spoken to fisheries scientists and I understand that one of the problems is that skates and rays are all lumped together as one. We know that some species might be quite rare, but as we have heard from the hon. Member for Hartlepool and others, some are not rare at all and, in my patch, the fishermen just cannot avoid catching them. The situation is completely illogical. Would it not be better to support fisheries scientists to work on board our fishing vessels to assist in clearly differentiating the species by practical means, so that they can be returned to the sea?

The irony is that a total discard ban will have many unintended consequences if it is not imposed in a nuanced way. We know that many skates and rays will survive if returned to the sea. Paradoxically, we would be changing from a system in which fish were discarded at sea and might have survived to one in which they are discarded on land. That is entirely illogical. Will the Minister address that point and assure the House that he will press for a nuanced application of the ban in relation to skates and rays? The measures will have a profound effect on the fishermen in my constituency.

A constant theme of this afternoon’s debate has been the lack of data and the effect that poor data have on our fishing communities. I urge the Minister to look closely at the effect on our plaice fisheries. Plaice have benefited in many ways from some of the sole restrictions, but we need to examine the way in which the quotas are being applied. For example, he will know that in some fisheries the areas D and E are accounted together but recorded separately. May I urge him to support at least the status quo in this and other areas and not a cut, as we need to increase the limits for sole?

We need to take a scientifically led approach, but we cannot do so if further drastic cuts are made to our science base. In the Minister’s discussions, will he insist that funding for our fisheries scientists comes directly from the EU, rather than from local budgets? That would be a very good use of resources. As we move towards landing everything that is caught, the collection of data will become easier, but there will be a considerable delay—an unnecessary one in the case of demersal species. In the meantime we face even more gaps in the data, and if further missing data results in an automatic 20% cut, that is unacceptable. I hope that the Minister will strongly press that point when he goes to the European Council.

Finally, let me deal with the issue of the MMO, as looking at what has happened there provides a heart-sink moment. I can only reinforce the points made so eloquently by so many Members. It is unacceptable that fishermen are paying the price for the incompetence of others; in other sectors that would result in compensation, but it is not resulting in compensation for our industry. We are talking about bankruptcies and the loss of an industry that will not return. What is the Minister going to do to get a grip of the situation and make sure that that does not happen again? The “Have Your Say” panels were heralded by the MMO on 5 November—five weeks ago—but we are still waiting to hear the details. Perhaps he could also set that out in this answer.

Looking further afield, has the Minister seen the article published in PLOS ONE yesterday by Marcus Eriksen and others, which referred to the 5 trillion pieces of plastic now floating on the surface of our seas? It particularly deals with the effect of microplastics—very small particles that attract organic chemicals to their surface and enter the food chain. It is sobering to remember that the great Pacific garbage patch of swirling eddy current is now larger than Texas, and it is just one of many. We have to deal not only with microplastics but with larger plastics, which are so dangerous to cetaceans and turtles. Is that actually going to register on the agenda at some point? Perhaps it is not for the forthcoming Council meeting, but the article is an important publication and I hope the Minister will read it.

I wish the Minister success in the Council negotiations. I heard his predecessor say that the collective noun for fisheries Ministers is “an exhaustion”. It is worth being exhausted and I hope that this Minister will spare no effort in exhaustion on behalf of our fishing communities, many of which I am proud to represent. I wish him well.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I congratulate hon. Members and the members of the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries on securing the debate and on obtaining the support of the Backbench Business Committee for it. I also acknowledge, as a number of other hon. Members have, the commitment to the fisheries debate over many years of the hon. Members for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). Once again, it has been a spirited debate with many questions, and I will try to cover as many of those as I can.

First, it is important to take this opportunity to remember the eight men who lost their lives at sea during the past year in incidents involving five vessels—the Eshcol, the Diamond, the Ronan Orla, the Barnacle 3 and the Ocean Way. The contribution from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North about the importance of improving safety at sea was particularly powerful. We all recognise the difficult and dangerous work that fishermen do to bring food to our tables, and I know that the House will wish to join me in paying tribute to those men and offering sincere condolences to all the families and friends who have suffered loss.

Many important points have been raised in today’s debate, and I shall try to cover as many as I can. This year’s December Fisheries Council will be particularly challenging, with Commission proposals for reductions in the quotas of most stocks, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out. However, I aim to negotiate a fair and balanced package of fishing opportunities for our fishermen. The quotas set should be consistent with our objectives: they should be based on the best available scientific advice; they should aim to achieve maximum sustainable yield where possible; and they should help the industry with the transition to the discard ban.

[Sheryll Murray]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I will carry on, because I want to cover as many of the points that have been raised as possible, including many that she raised.

In the run-up to the December Council, we have already secured successful outcomes in three major international negotiations on fishing opportunities this year. The outcome of the EU-Norway talks last week was particularly encouraging. The agreed increases in quotas—5% for North sea cod and 7% for haddock and plaice—show the benefits of responsible management. Some difficult decisions taken in previous years are now starting to pay dividends for the fishing industry in the North sea.

I am also pleased that the EU secured a three-party north-east Atlantic mackerel agreement last month. That sustainable agreement will bring around £250 million to the UK. The EU also successfully negotiated an agreement with the Faroes this week. The result is a very good one for the UK, providing our fishermen with opportunities to catch a number of species in Faroese waters, including 817 tonnes of cod and haddock and 696 tonnes of saithe.

Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), mentioned crab allocations in the south-west. I can confirm that just today a swap agreement has been secured with Irish producer organisations that will enable our very important crab fishery in the far south-west to remain open until the end of the year.

However, I recognise that there are challenges in other areas, particularly the south-west, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, and I have taken those into account when deciding our negotiating position. Let us be clear that we cannot increase quotas if the science does not support it. I do not believe that to do so would be in the long-term interests of our fishermen; if we fish unsustainably, we simply rob them of their tomorrow. If we want a long-term, viable industry, we must fish sustainably. However, while having science as our guiding principle, we have to ensure that we use the best and most up-to-date science available and take decisions that are right for the fish stocks and right for the fishing fleets that depend on them.

Last Thursday I had a meeting with Commissioner Vella in Brussels to begin the negotiating process for the December Council. I made a number of key points on the science. First, we should use the most recent data available where they are relevant. In the south-west, in particular, there is a lot of evidence of a late recruitment of haddock this summer, which we want to be taken into account in the December Council. Secondly, when it comes to data-limited stocks, we oppose simply having an automatic, precautionary approach. We believe that we should make the best possible judgment with the data we have, rather than having arbitrary cuts, and we have made that point already to the Commission. Thirdly, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby highlighted, it is important to have what we call mixed fisheries analysis. There is no point in dramatically cutting the quota for one species if it is in a mixed fishery, because fishermen cannot avoid it and will therefore end up having to discard it. Finally, we want to ensure that account is taken of the increased use of more selective gears.

I particularly welcome the progress that has been made so far in implementing the reformed common fisheries policy, especially in advancing regional fisheries management. The first part of the discard ban for the pelagic fisheries will come into force on 1 January 2015. That is a significant milestone in the new CFP. The new rules that will implement it were developed not in Brussels, but by regional groups of member states working together. I think that the new regionalised approach, as the hon. Member for St Ives noted, is working well. Rather than having top-down decisions from the Commission that the Council of Ministers must then try to mitigate and argue over, we are getting a multilateral agreement where member states with a shared interest in a fishery work through their differences and then take the solution to the Commission. We will shortly begin the work to prepare for the demersal discard ban in January 2016. The regional groups will meet early next summer to take those discussions forward, and in the next year we will issue a consultation to the industry so that we can take on board its views.

I know that fisheries closures have been a prominent issue this year, particularly in the Bristol channel. As a number of Members have pointed out, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) made a forceful intervention in that regard. The point I would make is that the closures are a last-resort mechanism used to protect the long-term future of the fisheries industry. He asked whether I have raised the matter with the Marine Management Organisation. I can confirm that after he raised it with me a month ago I had a meeting with the MMO to explore exactly what went wrong. It is going to set up a panel, which will include fisheries leaders. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes asked why that had not yet progressed. It has been in transition to a new chief executive, but John Tuckett is now in place. I will take up the issue with him, because I want us to learn lessons.

We must also recognise—I went through a number of these issues with the MMO—that managing quotas is a difficult task. The reality is that last year we had a very bad winter, so fishermen could not get out and catch their quotas. We then had an incredibly good summer, so the under-10 fleet, in particular, managed to catch its quota much more quickly than it normally does. Indeed, this is the first year we have had a problem with skate and ray quotas. In defence of the MMO, had it intervened earlier, that would have restricted the amount of quota that fishermen could fish over the summer. There is a fixed amount of quota, and we could not allow them to overfish it. I am sure that there are fishermen who would have said, “Now you’re making me go out and fish in November and December, but I could have caught the quota in the summer.” These are not easy issues.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon pointed out that the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation still had 100 tonnes of ray quota at the point at which the closure took place and wondered why that was. It turned out, when the figures came through, that 100 tonnes of quota were needed to cover overfishing that had already taken place in other parts of the fleet. He also mentioned a transfer that was agreed by the MMO from a Scottish producer organisation. We will want to look at that, but it has to be said that that was held by a Scottish producer organisation, not one in the west country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) proposed the idea of having compulsory log books for the under-10 fleet, which would obviously improve the speed at which we can get the data, but I am not sure that it would be universally popular with the under-10s. The reason we do not require them to have compulsory electronic log books is that they claim it would be disproportionate to the impact they have.

I will move on to some of the other points that were raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I am very sympathetic to the arguments my hon. and learned Friend makes. Indeed, when he raised it with me last week I asked the MMO to redouble its efforts to find additional quota. It has been a very good summer of fishing. We do not normally have this problem with skates and rays. It is something that took everyone by surprise, including producer organisations. However, I am keen that lessons are learned. That is why I will be having discussions with the MMO about how it manages the quota on this particular stock. We will also be looking to ensure that next year his constituents continue to have a quota to fish from 1 January.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend guarantee to the House today that he will do everything he can to seek additional quota in the negotiations next year to ensure that British fisherman can continue to fish for the whole year without this disastrous effect?

[George Eustice]

Yesterday, I was in Belfast for the meeting of a stakeholder group of fishing industry leaders. We discussed the approach to the December Council. The UK always takes a science-based approach. We have to recognise that it is in the long-term interests of the fishing industry that we fish our fisheries sustainably. That said, we will be looking at mixed fisheries analysis to ensure that we achieve maximum sustainable yield where possible next year and everywhere else by 2020.

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[Elizabeth Truss]

This Government have a very good record on the environment. We have seen carbon emissions and air pollution go down and our rivers and water are cleaner. The problem with the hon. Lady’s point is that she does not seem to understand how important food and farming is to the rural economy. Under her Government, she failed to deal with animal diseases and the problems in that industry. The reality is that under this Government, we are seeing production expanding and overseas markets opening, and food and farming is now a much bigger success.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

T3. Handline mackerel is a superb, sustainably caught fish, and many fishermen from my constituency have been struggling to secure a realistic price during the summer. How are the Government helping Cornish mackerel fishermen, and mackerel and herring fishermen throughout the UK, to combat the Russian trade embargo?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

As a Cornishman, I am well aware of the importance of the handlining mackerel industry in Cornwall. We have managed to secure agreement from the Commission to allow us to bank up to 25% of this year’s quota to next year, to remove some mackerel from the market if necessary. We have also been very successful at reopening the market in Nigeria, which has been a particularly important market for many of our mackerel producers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will look into the hon. Gentleman’s campaign. In my previous role as an Education Minister, we introduced the subject of food into the curriculum, both where it comes from and practical cooking, as well as bringing horticulture and agriculture into the design and technology curriculum, precisely to help more children and young people understand where our food comes from and to build the skills they need to work in the food and agriculture industries.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Small-boat fishermen in South East Cornwall and throughout Cornwall are concerned that a discard ban, along with their tiny share of the UK quota from the EU total allowable catch, will affect their economic viability. Does the Minister agree that repatriation of UK waters should have preceded a discard ban? Will he take forward a request to include repatriation of UK waters in future negotiations?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

On the small fleets, I point out to my hon. Friend that we have reallocated some of the unused quota from producer organisations to the under-10 metre fleet. My predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), made considerable progress in reforming the common fisheries policy. We now have far greater regional control, with member states multilaterally deciding the management plans, and flexibility on quotas and a legally binding commitment to sustainability.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

14. Will my hon. Friend meet me and a representative from Cornwall council to work out funding for areas around my constituency that were damaged by floods and in this year’s storms?

[Dan Rogerson]

I will meet Cornwall council tomorrow and we can discuss those issues. I do not know whether my hon. Friend or a member of her staff will be there, but I will be happy to raise any local issues with the council so that we can work through them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

On the latter point, I do not think that that is the case, but the Marine Management Organisation might want to see some evidence that the pots have been damaged or lost. In many cases, the MMO accepts a straightforward statement signed by a fisherman. There is an issue with retrospective payment, as the European Fisheries Fund does not allow for retrospectivity and we have had some discussions with the Commission. We are trying to get a better handle on how many fishermen are affected—we think it may be somewhere between 15 and 20 fishermen—so we are looking into this issue, and I had a meeting with officials on it just yesterday.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Fishermen in my constituency have been affected by the storms and by the dumping of dredged oil in Whitsand bay. Will my hon. Friend inform me of the cost of carrying out a survey on a recently identified alternative more suitable site, and join me in discussions with the dredging company?

[George Eustice]

I am aware that this is a very important issue to my hon. Friend. I visited her constituency and met some of her constituents who had concerns about the dredging. As she will know, the MMO makes licensing decisions of this sort in isolation from Ministers—it is separate. However, I can tell her that I have asked for an assessment of the cost of the environmental impact assessments necessary to designate a new site. I am advised that it would be approximately £130,000. I am, of course, happy to meet her and the chief executive of the dredging company to see whether we can identify a way forward.

Weather Events (South West England)

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on an extremely valuable introduction and on getting this debate on the table. Clearly, for all of us in the south-west, the impact of the storm in the weeks from 3 February onwards was more than significant. Certainly in Dawlish in my constituency, the damage was unprecedented. According to Network Rail, the breach in the sea wall was something the like of which had never been seen before.

Not only Dawlish was damaged—there was significant erosion damage in Dawlish Warren, which depends on tourism for its livelihood. Losing four metres of sand not only reduces the defence mechanisms, but the lack of sand on the beaches impacts on tourism, and there has been a delay in the recharge project to bring the beaches up to standard.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

All along the coast, from Cornwall to my hon. Friend’s constituency, we have seen unprecedented coastal damage that will affect tourist businesses. Does she agree that the message must go out that the south-west is still very much open for business?

[Anne Marie Morris]

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. It is clear to me from the conversations I have had with Network Rail that we will be open for business for Easter. It has been a challenging time, but from everything I have seen—I see the concrete lorries filling that wonderful hole—I am absolutely sure that we will see a successful result.

As for the damage, I will focus on Dawlish, which is where the most significant impact was. It would be wrong not to mention some of the other things that have happened, and the erosion is a part of it. We have also had significant flooding in some of our smaller villages. I have 40 villages in my constituency. I will not name each of them and list the damage that occurred, but Ringmoor and Stokeinteignhead were significantly damaged. However, Dawlish is where the most significant impact of the storm was felt.

Some 56 families had to be evacuated late at night. The police had to knock in windows to get residents out. Countless businesses lost trade and, although that was partly due to sodden buildings, it was also because the train was not running. The cafés that usually got the business from the tourist footfall simply did not do business. The district and county councils were brilliant in all that they did, doing much more than might otherwise have been expected. Volunteers were fantastic. There was a lot of action during the night. Tea was available 24 hours a day, served by a wonderful lady, and the Network Rail team, in their orange jackets, have now become almost iconic in Dawlish. The local community love them to bits and see them as local heroes. They are still giving them cups of tea and pats on the back, and whatever else it takes to keep them going.

During the crisis, First Great Western finally got up to speed and put in place the coaches that were needed, but it is fair to say—I am sure the right hon. Member for Exeter knows this—that there were severe challenges going south from Exeter, and I heard tales of queues of 200 people struggling to find places on coaches.

We need to remember that the impact of everything that has happened was not only physical, but emotional and economic. For my constituency, the impact has been devastating. That coastal railway line has stood the test of time since Brunel built it, although it has breached before. There are some wonderful pictures of previous breaches when passengers got off the train, walked over the rocks and got on another train on the other side. I am not sure we could do that today, but the pictures are interesting.

The coastal railway is an economic lifeline. The loss to the region is—conservatively—£2 million a day. It is crucial that the line is up and running for Easter. As the right hon. Member for Exeter mentioned, the line is particularly crucial in my area, not only because it is an economic lifeline, but because it is a flood defence. It protects 951 properties in Dawlish, Dawlish Warren, Starcross and Cockwood. It is absolutely mission critical for me as the Member of Parliament and for the constituents I represent that the railway line is made better and more resilient, and that it is there for the long term.

We must look seriously at what can be done to support the railway line. I hope the Minister addresses that in his remarks. There is new technology that will allow a secondary wall to be put on the external front, with wave-breaking technologies that will reduce any damage. There is also the potential for a breakwater to be put further out. I believe that has been done in Sidmouth and Plymouth. I see no reason why it should not be considered in Dawlish. Indeed, from conversations I had with Network Rail last year, I understand that it was already under review. However, I thought 2019 was too late and simply not an adequate answer.

The Dawlish station footfall, believe it or not, is 480,564 people per year. That is the 2012 figure, the most recent I could find. Over the past 10 years, the footfall through Dawlish has risen by 81%. The footfall for Teignmouth is 566,528 individuals a year—again, that is the 2012 figure—and that has seen growth of 98%. If we add the footfall in Newton Abbot, the number is similar to that in Exeter St Davids or Plymouth, so this is not a small rural area. It is a significant part of the south-west, with a significant local economy, much of which is driven by tourism, and it is absolutely crucial that the Government support it.

The Government’s help has been very welcome. The resilience review, which I gather the Army will be undertaking in five weeks, will make a big difference. My question is this: if the Army can do it in five weeks, why has it historically taken Governments years? Can we not make the process faster and have a real assessment of what can be done, with some proper open discussion about what money is needed and what money can be spent? Although the Prime Minister has said money is no object in relation to flood damage, given the budget left by the previous Government, there is not a lot of spare cash. However, this is a critical area for spending, and we must future-proof the railway.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. It is great that the Minister responding to this debate knows a great deal about the south-west of England, representing as he does North Cornwall, which is also feeling the impact of the issues that we are grappling with.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this debate, and he made a characteristically passionate speech. However, I say gently to him that his analysis appears to be that everything was great before 2010 and disastrous since 2010. That is not the real world. Other than that, I appreciate the passion and power with which he put forward his argument. He is right to say that we have to do more, both on flood risk management and on upgrading and making our infrastructure more resilient.

The greatest challenge that we in the south-west face is peripherality. People think that, when they get to Bristol, they have arrived in the south-west, but they have not; they are in the south midlands or the west country, not in the south-west. Plymouth is 110 miles from Bristol. I often thought, as I got off the train in days gone by—it seems a long time ago that I got off the train at Plymouth—that I felt sorry for people going on to Penzance in Cornwall, which is another hour and a half on the train. We are a long way from anywhere. Of course, peripherality keeps us beautiful and it is one of the great things that keeps our region from being overwhelmed.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the railway has become more important since Plymouth lost its airport? It is the main link to the south-west and Cornwall now.

[Mr Streeter]

I agree—it is the main link, although the M5 and A38 are pretty good in terms of bringing all the many hundreds of thousands of visitors who will come to us at Easter. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who represents Dawlish so ably, that the south-west is certainly open for business.

If our big problem is peripherality, the solution to that is connectivity. This is where our rail link is so important. Yes, superfast broadband is important, as is the M5-A38 link, but as we have just heard, we do not have an airport at Plymouth any longer—there are airports at Newquay and Exeter, but not in Plymouth, which is the engine room of our sub-region—therefore our rail link is extremely important.

I remember a trip to India in 1990s with some Indian business people, just after the monsoon had struck, as it does every year in India. A frustrated Indian businessman said to me, “This is what is holding us back. Every year our physical infrastructure is overwhelmed by the weather and often is swept away and we have to start all over again.” We do not want to be in that position in the far south-west. We must have in place robust infrastructure that underpins our connectivity.

Let me mention the impact on Devon. There was, of course, flooding, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot talked about. By the way, just after the Dawlish breach, iconic pictures, now on the BBC’s “Spotlight” archive, show my hon. Friend raging against the elements, overlooking this breach, almost trying to turn back the storm and doing her utmost for her constituents in fighting for urgent action, which, of course, has followed. Those pictures will live with me for a long time. King Lear has nothing on my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot.

Of course, we have had flooding before, but the battering our coastline took was a new thing this year. In 2012, we had a lot more flooding inland, but it was the coastal attack that was so spectacular this time. There is a worthy scheme to compensate some businesses that have felt the impact of these storms and help has been announced for people in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, but no help has been announced for the people of Torbay or Plymouth. This may be an oversight. Perhaps a civil servant thinks that Devon includes Plymouth and Torbay, which, of course, geographically, it does; but legally it does not. Will my hon. Friend the Minister please look into that to ensure that those businesses on the seafront in Plymouth that were swept away by the storms are compensated in the same way as those along the Cornish or Devon coastline? My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) would make the same point for his constituency if he were here.

[Mr Streeter]

I beg my hon. Friend’s pardon. Of course, that is right. He will no doubt make that point in his speech, which we anticipate.

Although we are talking about weather, the main focus of our attention today is rail resilience. Network Rail has responded quickly and I pay tribute to it. On the very day of the Dawlish breach, it attended a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport, here at Westminster, and it was obvious that it was going to grip the situation. It gave a six-week timetable, which has slightly slipped because of further storms, and is getting on with it. I understand that it has 100 people working 24/7 to fill up this wonderful hole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot described it. Congratulations to Network Rail on such a rapid response. The Secretary of State has also responded quickly, and it was good to see the Prime Minister coming down and taking personal control.

I, too, thank First Great Western. It gets hammered and gets a lot of criticism, but it has responded. Perhaps it took a couple of days, but it has now responded well. The service that it is putting on for many of my constituents is excellent.

[Sheryll Murray]

My hon. Friend might like to know that some constituents visited me yesterday and they were full of praise for First Great Western and asked me to mention it. Does he agree that this is now the trend, rather than people complaining about First Great Western?

[Mr Streeter]

I agree. It provides an increasingly impressive service to the far south-west. There is another debate to be had—it is not a matter for this Minister—about the future of the franchise and how, with only two and a half years to run, the company lacks the ability to invest in upgrading its rolling stock, and so on. That needs to be tackled, but that is for another day.

The real challenge will be not getting the Dawlish breach restored and the trains running again before Easter—I am confident that will happen—but, as my hon. Friend said, the report to the Government on alternative or additional routes that I understand will be made by July. That is when the fun will begin, because there will be myriad views on the right approach. Let me say, first, that I agree that the existing route has to be reinforced and kept open. We should consider alternative routes from Newton Abbot to Exeter that would be faster and straighter, because that would make the link from the far south-west to London much quicker and more acceptable, to business people in particular. That needs to be fully explored. However, I agree that the existing line must be kept open. All we may really need is an additional line to be used in extremis, but which can be used for freight and local traffic. Then if there should be another breach in years to come, traffic can be switched to that alternate route. It would be wise to wait until we see the report, but it will be important for those of us in the west country to try to reach a consensus on the right way forward. I am afraid that at the moment there are probably as many views as there are Members of Parliament in Devon and Cornwall, which is not helpful. We need to try to reach a consensus.

That issue is eclipsed by the far greater issue of funding. I agree with many of my constituents who ask me, “How on earth can you support HS2?” There is already tremendously impressive infrastructure from London to Birmingham and further north, while in the west country we have a Victorian line that is unfortunately looking more and more vulnerable. I have come to the conclusion that it is very difficult to answer that question, except by saying—as I have already said to Ministers—that it will be impossible for me to support the Government on the Second Reading of the hybrid High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill unless there is a firm commitment on the table for a fully funded package for an agreed alternative route. That has to be new money. There is a lot of money in the five-year budget, but a lot of things have to be done with it; it has to be new money. We are probably talking about hundreds of millions of pounds.

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[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I also thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for obtaining this important debate.

I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who said that the Dawlish line needs to be restored. As well as connecting to Cornwall, the line is a great tourist attraction. It is a lovely railway line to travel along. Given that it is 150 years old, it is amazing that it is still there. The line is a remarkable achievement of Brunel, who was such a great engineer. Restoring it is important.

We also have to consider a complementary line that would potentially make it much faster to get from Plymouth and Cornwall up to London. We already have a second line that comes from Exeter up to Waterloo; it runs through my constituency. We have a loop at Axminster, but we need a loop at Honiton, which would help. We also ought to consider twin-tracking the railway all the way down from London to Exeter because that would give us a line to Exeter. Furthermore, we should consider whether we can go across from Exeter towards Okehampton and down to Plymouth. We could try to go across Dartmoor itself, but that might not be easy.

Those things have to be done, and I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who pointed out that billions of pounds are to be spent on HS2. Every time I have been through the Lobby to vote for HS2, I have held my nose for the simple reason that I did not want to support it. If we do not see real and meaningful investment in the west country, it is our duty to speak up and stand up for our constituents, and I believe we will. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) reinforcing that point in a minute.

We have to consider the current structure, but we also have to consider sea defences. After I said in Parliament the other day that we do not have to retreat from the sea, The Daily Telegraph poked fun at me slightly by saying that I am like King Canute. Of course King Canute actually stood in the sea to try to persuade his courtiers that he could not keep back the sea. On the Somerset levels there are now Dutch pumps. The people of the Netherlands do not retreat from the sea for the simple reason that, if they did, they would probably lose between a third and two thirds of their country, and they do not intend to do that.

We have to treat sea defences as an infrastructure project. People can rightly argue, as the Government have, that we inherited a huge £120 billion financial deficit in the day-to-day running of the country, and we are reducing that deficit, but there has never been a better time for investment in capital projects and infrastructure because we will never see lower interest rates. I lived through a period of interest rates of 12% and 15% when I was farming, and those rates were cruel and painful to say the least. We now have much better interest rates, so let us use them to our advantage. We need to protect our coastline.

The A30 and the A303 need to be dualled so that we do not only have the M5. The A30 down from Exeter is a good road, but the A30 that runs on the edge of Dorset into Wiltshire, Somerset and the south of my constituency needs to be dualled. We do not want to be held up entirely by Stonehenge. We have to sort out Stonehenge, but it should not be the sticking point against dualling the rest of the road.

On his visit to the west country, the Prime Minister said that 100% of the need will be provided under the Bellwin agreement. There are potholes all over Devon and Cornwall. The roads are horrendous, and a fortune has been spent on them. The roads have to be put right. I was driving through Seaton the other day, and I nearly drove into a pothole the size of half a car. The pothole was not quite that bad, but it was huge and would cause amazing damage.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Bellwin should be extended to allow local authorities to repair potholes properly, rather than cold-filling potholes only for them to become deeper a couple of weeks down the road?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right about the need for good repairs. The county councils naturally argue that a major repair is much more expensive than just filling a pothole, but she is right that it is a pointless exercise if all the tarmac comes out of the pothole five minutes later. An awful lot of money is available to be spent.

I also welcome the Prime Minister’s pledge of £5,000 grants to help businesses through the floods. Will the Minister give us more detail on how people can claim that money? It is always great when the Government offer money, but people would like to be able to claim and use it.

On the Somerset levels, it has been said that raising the railway line across the moors would cost £200 million. There is one solution to ensure that that railway line does not flood, and that is a sluice at the end of the river Parrett to stop the sea from coming in. At the moment, the sea comes in and drives the fresh water back, and that is what keeps the moors flooded. I cannot guarantee that the sluice would mean that the moors never flooded again, but a tidal sluice on the end of the Parrett, north of Bridgwater, could mean that the depth of water on the moors would not be enough to flood the railway line.

Doing the arithmetic, it would cost £200 million to raise the railway line and that will never happen. I reckon that a sluice across the Parrett would cost some £50 million and if hydroelectric power was put there as well, the project would start to show its worth. It would help farmers, properties and nature conservation. When there is water over the whole Somerset levels for six to eight weeks, there is nothing left when the water recedes. There will not be the lovely flora and fauna or reeds and rushes that everybody wants, because it will all have rotted. Then there is the farmland, what has happened to people’s property and the stock that has had to be moved across the moors. We have to look at the situation seriously.

The other great benefit of having a sluice across the River Parrett is that the water could be penned in during the summer and the area could be made like a mini Norfolk broads. That would bring the benefits of a huge tourist attraction. Devon and Cornwall need a railway line, but we have to cross Somerset to get there, and we need to consider that. I know that the right hon. Member for Exeter does not like dredging and all those things, but they must be part of the armoury. We can hold water in certain places and further upstream, but in the end rivers such as the Parrett and Tone silt up, and without dredging we will not get the water away fast enough.

The management of those waterways has to be much more local, and that is where inland drainage boards can do a lot more. We might need more drainage boards. Will the Minister consider that? We might, dare I say it, have to get people living in houses further up the catchment area to pay a small amount, because their water is flowing down and flooding the lowland areas. There are ways of raising money, which will help. Local management would be so much better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing this debate, which is very appropriate at this time. I thank you, Mr Hood, for calling me.

As we have heard, the south-west has borne the brunt of the weather, and nowhere has that been more impressive than in South Dorset and, in particular, on the island of Portland. It is still there, I am glad to report, but there were moments when people considered abandoning some of the homes, because the sea had risen by some 60 feet, I would guess. If one goes to the Cove House inn—the pub faces the storm—and looks at the sea when it is benign, it is hard to imagine that it can come in through the pub’s top window. The two wonderful landladies, Jackie Breakspear and Amanda Broughton-South, withstood and held firm, despite the best that the sea could throw at them.

Before I briefly speak on behalf of the fishermen and the chartered crews, who have suffered badly, I pay tribute to all those who fought heroically, and not just recently. We seem to forget that this fight has been going on since Christmas. As the right hon. Gentleman said, these men and women have been working flat out for weeks, hour after hour, in the most appalling conditions.

I pay tribute to the Environment Agency and the local authorities, which did a wonderful job, but I pay particular tribute to the Royal Engineers. The sea came over the top of Chesil beach and deposited about 16 tonnes of pebbles by the Little Ship pub. The question that every MP dreads asking when we go into these situations is, “Can I help?” The landlady, Lynda Davis, said, “Yes, Richard, you can actually. You can remove 16 tonnes of pebbles.” I had this horrific image of spending the rest of my time before the general election with a bucket and spade trying to clear them.

Using my former-Army nous, I moved across and met a young lieutenant. I said to him, “You have got all this kit. I would be most grateful if you could just pop across to the Little Ship and remove 16 tonnes of pebbles.” I am still not used to being called sir, but he said, “Sir! No problem. We will get that done.” Within two days, 16 tonnes of pebbles had been removed. What was even more astonishing was that that young officer told me that his grandfather used to run the pub. What an extraordinary story!

I must also pay tribute to the volunteers, not least the appropriately named Storm Wallace, who became an overnight star. Yes, her name is Storm Wallace. The young lady went on the internet and within days she had 300 people on a beach clean of Chesil beach. It was very impressive, and we are all back there this Sunday, because the sea dumps all the rubbish on the beach.

The fishing fleet and the charter fleet have suffered gratuitously. The concentration has been to a large extent on people and their homes, and rightly so, as well as on the farmers who have lost acres and acres under the water. The fishing fleet and the charter fleet make their living at sea. I am indebted to Andy Alcock, who is the secretary of the Weymouth and Portland Licensed Fishermen’s and Boatmen’s Association. He has armed me with a lot of the information that I will impart. Mr Alcock is a fisherman himself, with two boats and six employees in the high season. He told me that many of our fishermen in South Dorset—that includes Swanage to the east of my constituency—have been unable to put to sea for 60 days. That is two whole months.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the small boat fishermen do not have the luxury of migrating or working in unusually strong weather? They suffer a lot from the consequences of the storms, and they should get help.

[Richard Drax]

I concur entirely with my hon. Friend. Many of our local fishermen, particularly in constituencies such as ours, are small boat operators, and they simply cannot cope with the enormous seas that we have been facing day after day.

Normally, at this time of year, the milder conditions in Weymouth’s microclimate might allow bass fishing to continue throughout Christmas and even new year. Netting for sole, cod and plaice continues throughout the winter months. On average, a Weymouth fisherman can count on being able to put to sea for three in every 10 days in December, January and February. This winter, since December 14, they have been able to fish for only five days. On other occasions, after spending three and a half hours getting to the fishing grounds, the appalling conditions have forced them to return. The result: no fish and no income.

On a good day, a fisherman might earn between £100 and £150. On a bad day, the take is much lower, and of course on many of the days it is nil. However, it is extremely rare that two entire months should pass without any earnings at all. Inevitably, the consequent loss of earnings has eaten into fishermen’s savings and is causing great difficulties.

The loss and destruction of expensive equipment has made recovering from such a dip in income even more difficult. Static gear such as lobster pots, crab pots, whelk pots and fixed nets have been particularly vulnerable because owners have been unable to reach them. Last week, fishermen were finally able to go out and count their losses. Gary Chard, skipper and owner of the “Gordeano Star”, has spent the six days he has been to sea since December 18 finding and repairing his equipment. He told me that of the 36 strings that he fishes, only 21 have been found. Some have moved more than a mile, and finding them has necessitated huge sweeps of possible locations. Each string is valued at £2,000, making Mr Chard’s equipment losses alone about £30,000.

Mr Alcock told me of another of his members who makes a living by tending 18 strings of lobster pots, using a small 18-foot Plymouth pilot boat in the inshore waters around Weymouth. Following the recent storms, the lobsterman found only five of his strings in place. Two more are stuck under the Lulworth ledges and need a diver to retrieve. The rest have gone. Most will be found, eventually, but that could take months, and it is likely that many of the strings will be wound around other nets and lines. Most will be unusable.

Yet, in the interim, that man must earn a living. Self-employed, the fishermen are not covered by the usual welfare safety nets. Mr Chard told me that British fishermen will soon be an endangered group. He asked whether the Government could consider loan grants, using the valuable fishing licences attached to British registered fishing boats as security—a question I pose to the Minister.

Certainly, I would urge the Minister to look kindly on applications from fishermen to the business hardship funds, which I understand are to be administered by local authorities. However, it is not clear where the money is, who is going to dish it out physically, how someone gets it—do they write or telephone in?—and how much they are going to get. I think I saw in one press release that the average amount would be £2,500, which clearly will not cover the vast costs that the people in the charter and fishing business have incurred. I would be most grateful if the Minister clarified exactly what the situation is.

I know that money is tight, but £10 million is nothing—really nothing—to cover the vast costs that the businesses have incurred. When businesses are allowed to apply for the funds, exactly who will qualify? I can see that farmers will; they have been in all the press releases. The Liberal Democrat leader, having been down to the south-west, issued a press release that included fishermen, which I was relieved to see. I have not seen charter boat crews included, but I assume—perhaps the Minister will confirm this—that they will be, because they have to go out and make a living but have not been able to. Some clarity on that important point would be most appreciated.

Finally, Swanage beach is crucial for our town. The whole of our tourism industry is to a large extent based around the beach, because it attracts hundreds of thousands of people down to a beautiful part of the world. The town council has spent £2 million to recover the beach and prepare it for the summer. Will the Government consider helping us here? That is a vast sum of money, which the town council simply cannot afford, despite the low interest rates. I would be grateful if the Minister imparted some information today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Rogerson]

We need schemes before we can talk about how they will be funded. The £130 million was for flood defences and coastal defences that have been impacted by recent events.

I am happy to respond to the right hon. Member for Exeter and the hon. Member for Brent North with my own views on climate change, which are on the record. I am convinced that we are seeing changes in the weather. As parliamentarians, we have all had such advice. It is difficult to draw direct links as a result of particular events, but we can look at trends and the changes that are happening, the advice from the Met Office in recent weeks about weather patterns over the Atlantic and so on, and what has driven them. That gives us cause for concern and I am personally convinced that there is a man-made element to such events, which is why the Government continue to take forward at international and national level a number of measures to decarbonise the economy and make progress on mitigation, as well as on the adaptation works in which my Department is involved.

Several hon. Members made points about land management. That is crucial, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) that we need to strike the right balance with food security and a thriving farming sector in upland areas and throughout the country. We have heard the concerns of the National Farmers Union. We do not want to hear the message that we should flood the farmland and give up on it. We can undoubtedly make a contribution through land management practices.

I am aware of the project on Exmoor and I know that South West Water is proud of its contribution. The right hon. Member for Exeter was kind enough to mention that the Department had been involved as well. Were the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, here, no doubt she would be talking about the slowing the flow project at Pickering—we have heard a great deal about that—in which the Department has also been involved.

We take seriously the huge potential to do more to retain water through land management, but, on dredging, the Somerset levels is a man-made environment. Those rivers do not function in the same way as many other catchments, because they have been raised above the level of the surrounding land, as well as redirected and rerouted. We are looking at maintenance and I am chairing the action group on the Somerset levels, which the Secretary of State has challenged to come up with the action plan. Some will be long-term issues, but others will be for the short term. We have already announced that dredging will take place this year to deal with this. The point about the barrier for the River Parrett is a good one. The barrier will allow better management for the Tone and the Parrett and that whole catchment. That work is under way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) was passionate in her defence of her constituents. She was right to say that that current rail link is crucial. There is a huge population along the south coast of Devon, so it is important to maintain those rail links. However, I represent North Cornwall, which does not have a single railway station. I am sure that if resilience could bring rail travel closer to my constituents, they and I would welcome it. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon on several of those possible outcomes as part of a resilience solution and I look forward to seeing the work on that.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) for the way in which he gave up his time to take me around affected parts of his constituency. We visited the very pub—the Cove House inn—to which he referred. The points he made about fishing and coastal industries are important. I have had time to visit, with the Deputy Prime Minister, fishermen down at Porthleven in the St Ives constituency and also spent time last week at Padstow with fishermen from my part of the world, particularly those lobster and crab fishermen who have lost so much gear, as my hon. Friend described, or found that their gear, if recovered, is crushed and no longer useable.

The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), is looking at those issues to see what can be done to support such fishermen. In the meantime, the fisheries local action groups—FLAGs—have European fisheries fund money. I have talked to the project in Cornwall and there may be help under existing schemes.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree that FLAGs operate under strict European rules? Replacement of fishing gear would not be included in that funding.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am being tempted into a quite local issue, but the discussions I have had suggest that help may be possible. I also draw attention to the fact that a number of banks have said that they will make interest-free loans to affected businesses. That may be part of the solution to allow people to get back up and running to trade again, not only in fishing, but across a variety of trades.

The Government have set out business recovery schemes, as well as schemes to help people make their homes more resilient. I am working closely with my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government on how people access those funds and we will make further announcements. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is making available an action line that businesses can contact for help and advice on how they take things forward.

This has been a terrible period of weather events throughout the country, from the east coast in early December to, as we have heard today, the south-west. The Government remain committed to spending the money we need on flood defences for the future. We will continue to monitor our response to improve on that. I very much welcome the huge efforts that all the agencies, volunteers and communities made to respond to those events. I know that right hon. and hon. Members will continue to discuss those issues with me over the coming weeks.

Flooding (Somerset)

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes to look in the mirror and reminds himself that his Government left us borrowing £400,000 a minute. I want publicly to praise all those in the fire services: they have supplied specialist vehicles that have been of great succour to those on the levels, and I really admire the work that they have done around the country. The fire services have been key during this very difficult period—over Christmas, the new year and right through January—and I am very grateful to them for the splendid job that they have done.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

May I commend the Secretary of State for his consultation with local people in Somerset? Following the consultation that he—or the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson)—had with Cornwall’s local authority in Westminster a few weeks ago, is there any way that he can report back to us about rebalancing the Bellwin formula, which disadvantages Cornwall county council?

[Mr Paterson]

I have many responsibilities, but the Bellwin scheme is not one of them. I will, however, make sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government heard that point.