AMENDMENTS OF SEA FISHERIES (SHELLFISH) ACT 1967 (Hansard, 15 November 1968)

§ Mr. Wall

I should like to bring the Committee back from Scotland and rather involved questions of Scots law to England and particularly the West Country.

The Clause includes the phrase fishing for and taking of shell fish 821 This matter was raised on Second Reading by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) when he was discussing the difficulties which have been occurring in the West Country between the Sea Fishery Committees and skin divers. I shall not refer to any possible decision which the Parliamentary Secretary may have to take about byelaws, but I put it to the Committee that there is a difference between professional divers, who use aqualungs and dive for shell fish and for whom perhaps there ought to be some form of licensing system, and the amateur skin diver in whom I have an especial interest as Vice-President of the British Sub-Aqua Club.

I remind the Committee that the Minister has brought in a new code of conduct for amateur divers and I hope that it will be agreed that it has been upheld, certainly by members of the various clubs, and one hopes that observance of the code will spread and that all amateur skin divers will take great care to observe it as being only fair to fishermen.

I want to refer to co-operation between the Sea Fishery Committees and the local fishermen and the skin divers, at any rate, organised skin divers in clubs. In Fishing News of 6th September, referring to the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee, it was reported: The Committee also decided in future skin divers would not be invited to six monthly meetings open to fishermen". This seems to be a retrograde step. I hope that the Minister will agree that the more co-operation that can be obtained between the Sea Fishery Committees, representing as they do the interests of the inshore fishermen, and anglers or skin divers the better for the industry as a whole.

§ Mr. Hoy

I do not want to go too deeply into this problem. The hon. Gentleman and I have had considerable correspondence about it and as a result a code of conduct has been drawn up and there has been an improvement. It would not be right for me to comment at the Box about any decision which may have to be made.

I want to correct a possible misapprehension concerning a matter raised with me by the hon. Member for St. Ives 822 (Mr. Nott). He was apparently under the impression that Clause 16 did not provide additional powers to enforce the minimum size for shell fish which could be taken within United Kingdom territorial limits by foreign fishermen. I want to make it perfectly clear that the Sea-Fishing Industry (Crabs and Lobsters) Order, 1966, prohibits the landing, sale, exposure or offering for sale or the possession for the purposes of sale of any crabs measuring less than four and a half inches across the broadest part of the back, or any lobster measuring less than nine inches from the tip of the beak to the end of the shell of the centre flap of the tail when the lobster is spread as far as possible flat.

We have covered that fairly comprehensively and I hope that that matter will not be raised again.