WHITE FISH INDUSTRY (EXPORTS) (Hansard, 8 May 1957)

§ Captain M. Hewitson (Hull, West)

In view of the lateness of the hour I will speak more briefly than had been my intention. I wish to bring to the attention of the House the position of the white fish industry in relation to the long-distance trawlers. Those trawlers are not subsidised, and those who own them are not asking for any subsidy. To put one of those modern trawlers into the water costs about £ ¼ million; and to keep one at sea costs about £ 250 to £ 260 per day. As the average tour is of 21 to 23 days' duration, it will be seen that they must work at full pressure if they are to show 1138 any profit at all; and the expansion of scientific techniques has made the possibility of bigger catches greater than it was even a few years ago.

We must, therefore, do something with the fish that is caught, but, during the last two or three years we have had a great amount of unsold white fish on the home market. In 1955, we had a surplus of 25,000 tons, of an approximate value of £ 1,200,000: that was edible white fish unsold in the Humber ports alone. In 1956, more than 21,000 tons were left unsold, of a value of £ 1 million. The amount of unsold white fish on the Humber since 1948 has averaged about 16½ thousand tons annually.

What happens to that fish? It goes to the fish meal factories for conversion into animal feeding stuffs, or to the fertiliser factories to be used, eventually, on the countryside. Even so, there are restrictions on the amount of meal and fertiliser made from the fish. We are not allowed to export any of that fish, and it is the export position that I wish to draw to the attention of the House.

We in this country have the largest fishing industry in the whole of Western Europe, yet our exports of white fish are very small indeed. There is a potential market in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. What is happening? Those markets are being supplied mainly by the Scandinavian countries, Iceland, and, to a lesser extent, Holland.

Russia is supplying us with about £ 1 million worth of canned salmon and crab annually, and in the Government's barter agreement under which it is sent it was provided that herring should be supplied against the £ 1 million worth of salmon and crab. In 1955, the herring shortfall was £ 676,000, and in 1956 it was £ 462,500. What is to be the position in 1957? It is in that regard that the industry is asking for Government help.

In 1957, Iceland will export to Russia large quantities of herring, but in addition she will send 32,000 tons of cod fillets, to an approximate value of £ 4 million. This is trade which we in this country could have. I do not say that we could have it all, but we could have a good slice of it if we had that active support which we believe we should have from the Government.

1139 East Germany is another possible market. We find that we get no help there from Her Majesty's Government. and we rather suspect that we are having no help because they think that Western Germany may look upon such trade with an unfavourable eye. But Norway will, in 1957, supply white fish to the extent of 43 million kroners' worth, approximately £ 2¼ million worth. Iceland will supply East Germany with 3 million dollars' worth of fish, that is, approximately £ 1¼ million worth, of which some £ 1 million worth will be white fish. Here is a market which we could usefully have.

Again, to Czechoslovakia we supplied £ 120,000 worth of frozen white fillets in 1955. But what of 1957? Whilst Her Majesty's Government have gone ahead with the proposal to export herring to Czechoslovakia— we have been talking about herring tonight— white fish has been left out altogether. Yet the Czechs are importing 7,000 tons of white fish. valued at about £ 900,000 from Iceland

These things are happening around us. We have the opportunity now to go ahead. If we do not, we may find ourselves in difficulty. With the development of the modern trawler, we have agreements now being made, and working, but the trawlers are not fishing to capacity. We have arrangements made to stop overfishing during the summer months. Approximately 4 per cent. of trawlers are laid off for refits and other reasons, but this is really a method of laying them off so that there shall not be an overloading of the market with fish landings. If only Her Majesty's Government would give help in making the agreements that they are at present busy with, the industry would be grateful. We could use all our capacity.

There is one other matter which I must mention, which is the danger point in any help we may get. Arrangements would have to be made, if we had this extension of the overseas market for white fish, so that the trawler owners, who would probably be running the new association which is being set up, would not have first call on fish landings for the export market; that would be dynamite and would upset the whole position. The idea is that the shortfall in herrings which should go to the Soviet should be made up in white fish. Let us press that. Let us not take "No" from the 1140 Russians; they say "No" too often and get away with it. We should be tough with them and insist that a section of the shortfall should be taken in white fish.

If that were done, we could develop our deep-freezing industry, which would mean more employment. Only in the last two weeks, we have had reports from Hull that the unemployment figures again are creeping up, and we have no hope for them in ordinary industry, unless we establish some trading estate. In the fishing industry, however, we could absorb these people. We need extra filleters, extra men on the dock and in the ice factories and men for the development of ice factories and deep freeze facilities. That would be for the benefit not only of the whole of the North-East Coast, which it would develop, but also the ports on the East Coast, which could do well from that, and it would help the export trade.

I apologise for occupying the time of the House at this late hour, but I hope the Minister will give some indication that the Department will give all the help that is possible to our white fish industry.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll)

The hon. and gallant Member for Hull, West (Captain Hewitson) was kind enough to indicate to me beforehand the line which he would be taking during this brief debate. I hope that he will be satisfied if I do not try to answer some of the wider points which he has raised relating to the state of the fishing industry as a whole, which would be more properly answered by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and if I for my part confine myself to the heart of his speech: namely, the question of exporting more white fish caught by the British white fish industry, to what we might describe as the Iron Curtain countries, and particularly to the U.S.S.R. It might, therefore, be most helpful to the House if I were to reply to the debate by taking each market in turn and outlining our proposals.

Far and away the most important market is the Soviet Union. Our trade with the U.S.S.R. is on an informal basis because we have no formal trade agreement. 1141 We have, however, been making arrangements each year whereby the United Kingdom has granted import licences for canned crab from the Soviet Union equal to the value of the cured herring for which the Russians have placed a contract with the Herring Industry Board.

The hon. and gallant Member suggested that these imports of crab and salmon were to some extent competitive with fresh white fish. That is a matter for debate, because there is a definite and distinctive taste and demand for tinned crab and salmon which could not be equally well satisfied by fresh white fish. I have been interested to notice the vigorous and able advertising campaign promoted by the white fish industry designed to attract the public to a greater consumption of white fish. I hope that it will succeed.

As the hon. and gallant Gentleman has pointed out, we have run into difficulties in connection with the two-way trade between Russia and ourselves in fish and fish products. I need not burden the House with the full background details at this late hour, but the trouble has been that the last two years' herring contracts have been under-fulfilled. Because of that— I stress particularly what I am now saying, because the hon. and gallant Member asked the Government to do something to help—we are determined this year to try to do something to help the white fish industry. We have decided that white fish exports to the U.S.S.R. should be supported in the same way as herring exports have been supported in the past. We are, therefore, asking the Soviet authorities to balance a definite part of their exports of canned crab to the United Kingdom with imports of white fish from this country. I hope that that will result in a substantial quantity of white fish of British origin entering the U.S.S.R.

Now, perhaps, I might turn to some of the other countries which have been mentioned. In regard to Poland, under our trade agreement last year with Poland we obtained no quota at all for white fish. Under the trade agreement for this year there is a quota of £ 150,000 for fish for what is described in the agreement as fish of all descriptions, of which cured herrings not exceeding £ 30,000 … 1142 That, of course, means that there is a large element of the quota available to white fish, although admittedly no white fish has so far been sold against that quota. The quota has not yet been open for long, so that it would be far too soon to complain to the Poles about their not taking steps to fulfil it. But the quota is there, and we hope that full use will be made of it.

I turn to Czechoslovakia. At the moment, I must admit, we have not been successful in securing a quota for exports of white fish in the trade arrangements with Czechoslovakia. The agreement was made in October, 1956, and covers trade until the end of this year. The present position is that the Czechs have undertaken to purchase up to £ 95,000 of herring, and they have noted our desire for them to accept our white fish. They did, however, say quite definitely that they did not think, at the time when the agreement was negotiated, that there was any market in Czechoslovakia for white fish. We had to accept the position, while reminding them of our desire to export white fish to them. We shall make further efforts to obtain a quota for white fish when we next negotiate with the Czechs. This will be in time for the new trade agreement covering the calendar year 1958.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to Eastern Germany, and he said that there was no hope of help from the Government. That is not really quite the case, as I shall seek to explain. As hon. Members know, Her Majesty's Government do not recognise the East German authorities and we cannot, therefore, enter into trade arrangements with them. The Board of Trade is, however. willing to continue the arrangements under which we shall issue licences for the import of certain less essential East German goods against the export to them of white fish of equivalent value. Those facilities, of which the white fish industry is already aware, are the same as the arrangements which have already been made by the herring industry.

I should like to turn now to the other Iron Curtain countries, Hungary and Bulgaria. Fish exports to those remaining satellite countries are on a small scale. Under the current trade arrangements Hungary, for example, has established a quota for imports of fish cured, frozen or 1143 salted to a value of £ 20,000. Bulgaria has agreed to a quota for herring and white fish to a value of £ 50,000.

I have made considerable references to quotas, and I would make it plain that if, when any of the quotas for Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria have been opened for some time, no purchases have been made against them, we shall of course he ready to take the matter up with the country concerned.

I hope that from what I have said the hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree 1144 that the Government are doing their best to promote the export of white fish in addition to herring to the Soviet Union and to the satellite countries of Eastern Europe. We cannot compel them to take our white fish. We are doing our very best to give what support we can to the understandable desire of the industry to increase its most valuable and important exports.