§ 8. Sir D. Robertsonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in locating new fishing grounds in the South Atlantic; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. SoamesAs my hon. Friend knows we set up at the beginning of last year as Advisory Group on Experimental Fishery Work, consisting of representatives of the industry the White Fish Authority and scientific advisers, to advise, among other things, on exploration for new fishing grounds. As a result we have considerably increased the number of research voyages. These have so far been confined to the North Atlantic, but the Advisory Group are now studying the possibilities in the South Atlantic.
§ Sir D. RobertsonDoes not the situation of the fishing industry, whose catch has gone down by over 100,000 metric tons each year since 1959, demand that much quicker action should be taken? This Committee is taking a long time, and it seems to me that the essential work which could be done by the Government sending out exploratory trawler expeditions is not being done, and year after year goes by and nothing happens.
§ Mr. SoamesTo be fair, it is not correct to say that nothing has happened. Voyages have been undertaken recently to the "Farm" area of South West Ireland, to the Dohrn Bank, to East Greenland and to the edge of the Continental Shelf north of Scotland, and there have also been voyages to the East Barents Sea and the south-west coast of Norway. We are doing this in cooperation with the industry, which is represented on this Committee. The Committee and the industry are considering with us the possibility of going further afield into the South Atlantic, but I do not believe that it would be fair to say that at the present time the Government are not making available to the industry the facilities which it thinks should be made available.
§ Sir D. RobertsonIs it not the case that the grounds in the North Atlantic to which the right hon. Gentleman referred are well-known to the industry to be over-fished or too dangerous to fish in because they are uncharted? Further, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that Japan and Russia are producing millions of tons of fish while we are not producing a million, though once we were the greatest fishing nation of the lot? Something really should be done about this matter.
§ Mr. SoamesI do not want to give either my hon. Friend, who very wisely has this very much at heart, or the House the impression that a lot is not being done. We are working in close cooperation with the industry, and it may be that a voyage to the South Atlantic is something which the industry would like to see done in the future, but so far, not unreasonably I think, we have concentrated our research work on those grounds which vessels at present in existence in the fleet could reach.