HC Deb 22 March 1973 vol 853 cc763-78

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Ernle Money (Ipswich)

Of the books which hold a special place in the affections of the English people, probably a unique one is held by that remarkable work "The Compleat Angler" by Izaak Walton. Perhaps, therefore, it is not altogether inapposite if I begin by quoting to my hon. Friend the Undersecretary of State some words from that remarkable volume: Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet; we seldom take the name of God into our mouths, but it is either to praise him, or pray to him: if others use it vainly in the midst of their recreations, so vainly as if they meant to conjure, I must tell you, it is neither our fault nor our custom; we protest against it. But, pray remember, 1 accuse nobody; for as I would not make a ' watery discourse,' so I would not put too much vinegar into it; nor would I raise the reputation of my own art, by the diminution or ruin of another's. And so much for the prologue to what I mean to say. There is no doubt that ever since the days of Izaak Walton angling has been and remains a major—perhaps the major —performance sport in this country. I refer to the findings of the study commissioned through my hon. Friend's Department in 1970 under the aegis of the Natural Environment Research Council, in the National Angling Survey of that year, as to just how many people are involved. At that time, the estimate was that 2,790,000 people went fishing during the year ended May 1970, that 67 per cent. of those people went coarse fishing and that on that basis it worked out that 10 per cent. of all the households in England and Wales contained at least one angler.

On any showing, as the report rightly concluded, angling must therefore be considered as a major recreation. Over 1 million coarse anglers go fishing at least once a week, constituting almost double —as I regret to say, wearing another hat in this building—an average Saturday's crowd at professional football matches during the football season. Unhappily, I even have to include in that estimate the increasing crowds we have had at Portman Road as a result of the spectacular success of my own team.

There can be no doubt that a great number of regular fishermen—and by that term I adopt the terminology of the report that this means those who fish at least annually—are members of angling groups. Those who are more than regular—in other words, those who go fishing once a week—are probably an even higher proportion than the four in every 10 coarse fishermen who were recorded in the survey in 1970 as being members of a club. It is for those people particularly that I would like to put a number of questions to my hon. Friend this evening, especially because I believe that they constitute a large proportion of the fishermen population of this country including, above all, old-age pensioners and children of school age, many of whom join clubs because it is a cheap and reasonable way to fish.

Prior to 1874 sporting rights were not rateable when severed from occupation of the land over which they were exercised. They were only made rateable specifically by the Rating Act of that year. I believe it is from there that a number of the financial problems which are facing angling clubs at this stage stem, because there is no doubt that the amount of money which is now payable to local authorities by angling clubs is very great. Many of them already have considerable expenditure with regard to the rent of the sites which they occupy, the stocking of fish and the work they do in improving waters and in building up banks. On top of that they have to pay a rate based on the estimate of the rental which they pay for that property, which may come as a very substantial proportion of the expenditure that a club has to face and very often puts up the expenses of a club and, therefore, its subscription over and above what many people can really afford to pay.

I believe that the whole situation with regard to the rating of fisheries and sporting rights in this regard is doubly wrong. It is wrong because it is double taxation of a kind that my hon. Friend knows we in East Anglia particularly dislike since it was from there that the great battle against tithes to a considerable extent originated. It is wrong also for a second reason: that in so many cases local authorities which call for rates give absolutely nothing back in return by way of services.

An attempt was made to mitigate this situation by the General Rate Act 1967 which enabled rating authorities at their discretion to reduce or limit payment of rates charges in respect of any other hereditament which is occupied for the purpose of a club, society or other organisation not established or conducted for profit and is wholly or mainly used for purposes of recreation". At this point one comes to the position that commercial fisheries are exempt, and this is one example of the rates bearing heavily on the amateur fisherman who fishes for fun while favouring the professional who fishes for a living.

This discretionary exemption which can come to 50 per cent. of the total rate to be levied is extremely vague, and many clubs do not know whether they will be entitled to it. Perhaps I may quote from a letter received by the Gipping Angling Preservation Society in my constituency last October. It was from the treasurer, who said: Your application for relief was brought before the appropriate committee on 11th September 1972 and after discussion and a proposition that relief should be granted it was decided that no relief should be given. On the committee's report going before the full Council on 29th September 1972 the decision not to grant relief was questioned and the application was again discussed fully, and eventually the decision of the committee was adhered to. From the foregoing you will gather that the application for relief received some support, but the Council as rating authority, has, of course, complete discretion in this matter and decided that the society was not an organisation to which relief should be granted. Against that sort of background, how is an angling club to know where it stands? It is strange that this form of relief, which in some cases could be a life or death matter for certain clubs, is so uncertain and so discretionary that I as a lawyer do not understand what, if any, reasons the local authority was giving for deciding not to grant it in that case.

This is a particularly difficult time for angling clubs because again, for another strange reason, they are faced with a double difficulty in regard to the application of VAT. The taking of game and fish is one of the almost unique cases as far as the majority of sports are concerned where rents on land for sporting facilities are included as subject to VAT. Thus, angling clubs are faced not only with having to pay this arbitrary and only occasionally half-discretionary sporting rate, but also with the effects of the new tax.

Prior to the Local Government Act 1948 the law was applied less strictly, and many of the bodies which now face sharp increases in rate liability on their valuations were looked at reasonably sympathetically by their local authorities. They then suddenly found that the Inland Revenue authorities had to enforce them very strictly indeed. Now they are faced in addition with a revaluation of rates generally, and angling clubs will find themselves having to pay even more.

It is scarcely surprising that that kind of situation has engendered a good deal of anger, and I quote briefly from a report of a meeting of the North-West region of the NFA held in February of this year. The secretary for the region said Why anglers should pay rates at all is beyond my comprehension and pointed out that one local authority subsidises bowls by £25,000 a year—and a very good thing to subsidise, too. He went on to say: I should like to see us all withhold payment of rates. What facilities do local authorities provide for the angler? That is a very fair question, which he went on to answer by saying: They don't even provide toilets in most cases. When one thinks of what is provided by the angling clubs from the point of view of stocking, conservation, anti-pollution, roads, and so on, and then of what they get in return for their rates, one realises that it is very little if anything at all. The speaker at that meeting called for unilateral action by the regions and said: It's up to the North-West to lead a campaign. Rebates are discretionary … I'm saying anglers should not pay rates. We should go as far as withholding rates and I'm willing to take the chance of losing fisheries. The meeting decided that all possible action should be taken to gain exemption from rates on fisheries.

My hon. Friend has on many occasions met representatives of angling clubs. I am convinced that he has sensed the feeling among them, and I would assure him that it is a general feeling throughout the country.

Where one has a sport which gives as much pleasure to as many people as this one does, and where angling clubs provide a large part of this pleasure as they do, I believe that it would be right to have a completely new look at this whole situation of the imposition by local authorities—albeit involuntarily, because apart from discretion regarding rating they have no right to do otherwise—of a sort of modern version of jus prima noctis, a sort of almost feudal power in return for which they give nothing back at all.

As my hon. Friend the Undersecretary is present and is being good enough to reply to the debate, I should like him to turn briefly to a few other subjects concerning angling and angling clubs. Everyone concerned with this subject will be grateful for the anti-pollution action taken in the last few years by my hon. Friend's Department. I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend and his Department. I hope that the Department will continue to fill gaps in the anti-pollution laws where they arise and I hope it may be possible to encourage consultation on this among river authorities, local authorities and angling clubs, particularly with regard to the minimum acceptable flows as denned under the Water Resources Act 1963 and with regard to new conservation laws. I hope also that a good deal will continue to be done by new research into and future legislation on fish diseases.

I should also like to see action to encourage a sensible approach to the filling up of gravel pits. This is something that local authorities could do. If this were to be done it would be a way of giving something back to angling clubs. Full use should also be encouraged as has been done by the Department on water supply reservoirs for angling of the kind best suited to each water.

There is another subject I should like to raise arising from talks 1 have had in my constituency with sea anglers. There is considerable concern regarding the enforcement of regulatory measures to protect immature sea fish. A great deal needs to be done on a number of these matters, including the examples we have heard mentioned recently regarding inland trawling and the preservation of fish. More needs to be done about increasing the penalties involved. Stricter enforcement is needed so far as the protection of sea angling is concerned, with a greater number of enforcement officers if we are not to have a position of being fished right up to the pebbles on the shore. That applies particularly to young fish.

I hope that so far as both these sides of the sport are concerned—sea anglers and coarse anglers—my hon. Friend will have something to say about the Sports Council and the recommendations of his Department regarding grants for angling clubs.

I should like to close, as I began, with the words of Izaak Walton: upon all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in His providence; and be quiet; and go a-Angling may there be suitable blessings.

8.49 p.m.

Mr. J. D. Concannon (Mansfield)

By the luck of the draw I am able to thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) for bringing this matter to the attention of the House and for quoting Izaak Walton, who came from Derbyshire. There, in the Derwent Valley, there are some marvellous fishing courses. At the turn of the century, and even before then, it was one of the heavy industrial areas, and the mining industry in the Erewash Valley was particularly prevalent.

When talking about the calm and quiet, I think Sir Izaak Walton at that time had in mind particularly the mining villages and the miners. Because of the pressures of their job, the relaxation of fishing from the work of mining is part and parcel of doctors' orders in our area. This is one of the ways in which workers can get away from the terrible industry of working underground into the pleasant, quiet, relaxing mood of fishing.

The hon. Member talked about 3 million fishermen and 10 per cent. of all households. I should imagine that just about every public house and working men's club in my area has a fishing club. The local paper runs columns on fishing and has run and continues to run regular features on the issues the hon. Member has raised tonight. In my area this amounts to particular pressure upon us as Members of Parliament.

I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister the sports councils which are now branching out and looking for other things such as fishing clubs. I know that in Mansfield I am 80 miles from the coast, but there are miners' clubs buying their own boats to go deep fishing. These angling clubs have been relatively disappointed in not acquiring any grants to assist them buy their own boats or getting any other help that might be forthcoming for these ventures.

We are talking about an industry, as the hon. Gentleman said, involving 3 million fishermen. In heavy industrialised areas such as mine the average is predominantly more than the 10 per cent. which has been quoted. All of us at one time or another must have gone along to the local reservoir to get the relaxation, the quietness and the calm of fishing that Sir Izaac Walton talked about.

I thank the hon. Member for raising the subject tonight. I wish to give him the backing and assurance that I am able to give him from my own area.

As I have to remain here as one of the Whips who lock the place, I thought I would go out on a swan song tonight.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrew, West)

I have been having a busman's holiday for the last half hour. I stayed, possibly like some others, because I am waiting for a sleeper at half-past eleven.

I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) raising a question which is peripheral to my own responsibility. The key question with which we have to concern ourselves is how the maximum number of our people are to gain access to a very cheap and useful sport.

This is particularly true of us in Scotland, if I may drift there. Looking at the subject of the Adjournment debate, I observed that it referred to the English and Welsh situation. We in Scotland have a rather different problem. We are never quite clear what is meant south of the border by "coarse fishing". It is rather like the art of coarse rugby because, of course, it is game fishing north of the border involving salmon and trout. The problem is a very different one because, instead of reservoirs, gravel pits and so on, what we have in Scotland is to a very great extent a tyranny by large landowners.

I was born on the banks of the River Helmsdale, but the crofters did not get fishing there because they were not even allowed access to the waters or the banks. It was a question not of riparian rights or ownership but of the hereditary rights to the salmon in the river. It passed a certain point and it became Lord Lovat's it passed another point and it became the Duke of Buccleuch's property. One hoisted one flag and one showed another.

We even have our own definition of land. "Land" includes salmon rights in areas of Scotland. It is not only the rating and public problem but also the private grip that is the great difficulty for us in Scotland.

There is also the question of the cost of fishing in terms of the two or three hundred guineas that may be necessary to fish in a small stretch of one of these rivers. Even then one may not be entitled the keep the salmon when one has caught it, and I am sure Sir Izaak Walton too would have been horrified at the thought that it was not for the pot. There is, therefore, a quite different problem in Scotland.

The general problem remains that south of the border this problem must be faced. I promise that with my responsibilities I will look at the rating situation to see how we can give encouragement.

On the aspect of sea fishing, to which the hon. Member referred, the problem has been worsened by all those Members who supported our entry into the Common Market because of the Community's open-beach policy making it difficult for us if we do not get a proper derogation, in 1982. Neither agriculture nor fishery can divorce itself from conservation. It is a question not only of maximising fishing but of securing a conservation policy for future commercial fishing and for the quality of life to make sure that the conservation takes account of the requirements of the man who wants to fish for pleasure and relaxation.

This matters too and we must keep it in mind. For example, deep-sea diving often conflicts with the interests of lobster fishermen. This is where a lot of hard thinking will need to be done. I promise the House that I will look at this to examine the complaints of the sea anglers.

On the rating side I promise also to work more assiduously towards some of the English and Welsh local government rating problems that we have dealt with in a recent Committee stage of legislation to see what can be done about the double taxation problem.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich on raising this subject and on reminding us of the words of Izaak Walton and the problems of access which that gentleman faced in England. I assure the hon. Member that the problem Izaak Walton faced was nothing compared with the problem in Scotland, where there are more waters but where, because of the sheer expense of exclusive fishing, people are deprived of the opportunity of participating in it.

8.56 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) for introducing a Scottish flavour into our deliberations. On the last occasion that we met in Committee he succeeded in quoting Burns and I wondered tonight whether he would be able to trump the Izaak Walton ace of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money), but he did not do so. My hon. Friend charmed us by his quotations from Izaak Walton at the beginning and at the end and I notice that he quoted Izaak Walton as saying that all was "calm and quiet" and there should be not "too much vinegar". He managed to import a little vinegar into his remarks but I do not complain about that.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) reminded us of the very great interest that the mining community has in fishing. My interest in this matter arises for a number of reasons—because of my general national responsibilities, because in my constituency in East Anglia there are many fishermen who fish various streams running into the Great Ouse, because many of my constituents go fishing in the sea and also because I grew up in a mining community in the North. I well remem- ber that miners, working in enclosed circumstances and a dusty environment, welcomed very much the opportunity to fish.

My hon. Friend rightly referred to the national angling survey of 1970 and I confirm that the figures he gave are correct, except that the numbers con-erned are now greater. It may be that there are now over 3 million anglers falling broadly into three categories, the coarse fisherman—or the fisherman of coarse fish—the game fisherman who fishes for trout, sea trout and salmon, and the sea fisherman.

About a third of all anglers belong to a club. In the Midlands and the North a large number of anglers take part regularly in competitions. At the time of the national survey the gross expenditure by anglers on their sport in England and Wales was between £200 million and £250 million a year. An average at that time was between £70 and £90 per fisherman. I gather that today the average expenditure of a fisherman is nearer to £100.

The Government are very much on the side of anglers. We want to encourage this excellent and reposeful sport. We encourage it in several ways. One way is through the Sports Council, which is now an independent Royal Charter body. The second way is through legislation, and in particular through the Water Bill which is now in Committee. The Sports Council pays grants direct to angling clubs for the provision of facilities such as stocking and restocking water with fish and the provision of fishing rights. The amounts of the grants are not large but they are significant. They are paid because the Sports Council does not regard fishing as a local pastime. Generally we look to local sources such as local authorities and others to provide entirely for local amenities.

It is because many anglers—and perhaps most of them—travel some distance away from their local district to fish that the Sports Council has taken the view that applications for grant may be considered as satisfying a larger than local demand. I know that the Chairman of the Sports Council, Dr. Bannister, and the Chairman of the Eastern Sports Council, have a keen interest in the development of water- based recreation. I recently attended in Ipswich a conference arranged by the Eastern Sports Council, which took account of the need to provide more water-based recreation for local people.

The House will be glad to know that for the first time in any country we shall be requiring the new water authorities, as a statutory duty, to make the best use of their rights for the use of water for sport, recreation, amenity and conservation. Some of their duties are water supply, sewage disposal and the management of rivers. However, for the first time we are requiring them to develop the water space under their control—for example, the rivers, the gravel pits, where appropriate, and the reservoirs—for recreation in the fullest sense of the word.

The Bill provides for the formation of a Water Space Amenity Commission, which will advise the Secretary of State, the National Water Council and the regional water authorities on their recreation and amenity functions. The Commission's job will be to develop national water recreation policies, and angling will be one of the most important of those functions. I know that the angling community regard that as an important step forward. I intend to ensure that the voice of the recreations, including the anglers, will be fully heard in the new structure.

In making appointments to the new regional water authorities, the Government will consult all the recreational interests, including the anglers. Each water authority will have at least one member with knowledge and experience of water recreation. In fact, some will be anglers. The same will apply to the National Water Council and the Water Space Amenity Commission. I give the assurance that we shall take pains to ensure that the interests of the anglers are taken fully into account.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich raised some specific questions in a slightly more vinegary part of his otherwise calm remarks. He mentioned VAT. This is not the occasion for a long debate on VAT. This is in principle a comprehensive tax and it would be wrong for consumer expenditure on leisure activities to be excluded from the scope of a general tax. If we were to exclude recreation, or any particular type of recreation, we should in effect be asking the general body of taxpayers and those who do not participate in that form of recreation to give it a concealed fiscal subsidy. While many special interests could ask for exemption, it would be wrong to say that leisure and recreation should be among those excluded.

Mr. Buchan

The hon. Gentleman says that it is a general tax. So is income tax. A person sending his children to public schools at enormous expense can claim relief. Why cannot relief be given here?

Mr. Griffiths

The hon. Gentleman knows that I could raise debating points just as effectively as he. I do not imagine for one moment that he would suggest that fishermen should be excluded from income tax. VAT is a general tax and I do not see how we can exclude recreation.

The rates problem is much more difficult. My hon. Friend, who knows his law, will recognise that until 1874 the rights of sports, including fishing, were not rateable when severed from the occupation of the land over which they were exercised. These rights were expressly made rateable by the Rating Act 1874. We can, of course, change that Act. The position has been made much more complicated by the derating of agricultural land.

The situation in England and Wales is that sporting rights, including fishing rights, are always rateable when severed from the occupation of the land over which they are exercised. They are rateable when not so severed only when the land is not agricultural. In 1961 the Bledisloe Committee presented its report to Parliament dealing with the regulation of fisheries. It recommended that all fisheries should be rated, irrespective of whether they were appurtenant to agricultural land. In other words, that particular provision recommended that the exemptions at present in existence should be disposed of, making the exempt area very narrow indeed.

I know my hon. Friend would be much opposed to that. Perhaps he will consider that successive Governments have been wise to do nothing about it. He must recognise, however, that a committee which looked into this recommended in exactly the opposite direction from that which he has proposed.

Angling clubs are rateable and therefore they contribute to local authority expenditure. I do not think my hon. Friend would quarrel with that. But he suggested that they got nothing in return. I hope he will recognise that rates, unpleasant as they may be, are not a payment for a particular service. We do not pay rates and expect to get specific things back. They are a tax on the beneficial occupation of land and other assets and their purpose is to help finance the costs of local authority services as a whole.

Let us consider education. A large number of ratepayers will be retired and will make no direct use of the education facilities but no one would doubt that they benefit from them. In the same way, the services provided by a local authority benefit all those who live in the area whether they be fishermen or not. It is only reasonable that the payments made to the local authority, however they arise, should be regarded as contributing to the services and the costs of the local authority as a whole.

Mr. Money

Is this not exactly the argument which has been put forward to Her Majesty's Government by that great man President Makarios of Cyprus with regard to the use of the roads outside the sovereign bases available by permission to the British forces there, and which has been resisted most forcefully by Her Majesty's Government?

Mr. Griffiths

I am not responsible for Cyprus. I can say only that the services provided by a local authority are for everybody in general terms, whether it is education, roads, or anything else, and that the revenues which they obtain from the rating of the beneficial occupation of land must be paid by everybody within that community as a whole. To hypothecate particular rate payments against specific returns is a proposition which I do not think—I was about to say "can hold water", but I am not quite sure that is the right metaphor.

I say to my hon. Friend that in the future, when the new regional water authorities have placed upon them the statutory duty to develop their water space for amenity purposes, including angling, they will also be able to use their funds arising from the services they provide for those statutory objectives. It may well be—indeed I expect it—that the new regional water authorities will be much better placed to provide, as they judge right, financial support for the development of angling, among other things.

It is also the case that rating authorities have a discretion under Section 40 of the General Rate Act 1967 to reduce or remit rates on hereditaments that are occupied for the purpose of a club not established for profit and wholly or mainly used for purposes of recreation. A club house occupied by an angling club could qualify for discretionary relief.

My hon. Friend referred to the unwillingness of some local authorities to exercise that discretion, but they certainly have it to exercise. Local authorities must be responsible to their local community, and it is open to every angling club and every local elector to complain if they feel that their local authority is not handling the matter in a proper fashion. But this must be a matter for the local authority and cannot be a matter for national government.

I am advised that it is possible—but I cannot establish this on a legal precedent—that as rateable occupiers of fishing rights an angling club may be able to benefit from discretionary charitable relief for those fishing rights provided that the local authority is disposed to give it.

I must deal briefly with my hon. Friend's other points. He talked about sea angling and the protection of immature sea fish saying that he did not want to see the small fish taken away up to the very pebbles on the beach. I am very glad to be able to tell him that the Immature Sea Fish Order 1968 provides a very clear minimum size limitation on the taking of sea fish. I will send him the details, but I think he might like to know that a fisherman—and indeed anybody else—is not allowed either to take display or sell any of the following fish if they are under certain sizes. In the case of cod, they must not be taken if they are under 30 cms; in the case of haddock, it is 27 cms; hake, 30 cms; plaice, 25 cms; sole, 24 cms; whitings, 25 cms; and dabs, 15 cms. I shall be happy to send details to my hon. Friend and I assure him that there is a limit on the immature fish which can be taken.

Mr. Money

I am very sorry to ask my h on. Friend to give way, but I was aware of the existence of the order. The point I was hoping to ask him to deal with was specific.

Mr. Griffiths

If my hon. Friend has any examples of dabs being taken under 15 cms I shall be very glad to have the matter looked into at once, but I recommend him to take out his tape measure because he may have to prove it before a magistrate. However, if there are examples, I will deal with them.

My hon. Friend referred to pollution. We have had one or two problems in East Anglia with oil pollution and other chemical spillages. We had hoped to include 30 clauses in the Water Bill to deal with the pollution of water courses. It has not been possible to do that for lack of parliamentary time, but my right hon. Friend has told the House that we hope, within the lifetime of this Parliament, to bring in further legislation to cover water pollution.

Broadly, we propose that all trade sewage discharges to tidal waters shall be controlled, and that after a transitional period no vessel shall be used on a fresh water stream if it possesses equipment for passing sewage into the stream which is not sealed. Where river authorities are also navigation authorities they will be expected to provide reception facilities for polluting wastes from boats. River authorities will also be required to register boats, the charge for which will include an element designed to meet in whole or in part the anti-pollution facilities I have mentioned. This is necessary because we have so many boats.

We intend to strengthen controls over discharges of trade effluent to the sewers and through the sewers and to make it an offence to cause or permit any polluting matter to enter underground water. The reasons for that are obvious.

We intend to provide for the publication of details of applications for consent to discharge so that riparian owners and others, including fishermen downstream of the discharge, will have the right to apply to the water authority requesting that the consent be revoked or varied if that discharge is thought to be causing damage. I have had many discussions with the national anglers' representatives and the Anglers Co-operative Association, and I am happy to say that they are content with our proposals.

This has been a useful debate. The new Water Bill, which places on all who manage rivers, gravel pits and reservoirs a statutory obligation to develop that water space for recreation and amenity, will bring great benefit to anglers, to whom we all wish the very best of good fortune.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Nine o'clock.