Icelandic Fisheries Agreement (Hansard, 19 October 1976)

§ 15. Mr. Brotherton
asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement about compensation to be paid to the fishing industry following the recent agreement with Iceland.

§ 34. Mr. James Johnson
asked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has yet made a decision regarding the amount of compensation to be given to the trawling industry consequent upon the Icelandic Agreement, following his talks with the British Trawler Federation and the Transport and General Workers' Union.

§ Mr. Harold Walker
On 28th June 1976 my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, during the course of his statement on fisheries policy, said that we would discuss with the unions and employers the feasibility of an arrangement for compensating those fishermen whose employment was directly affected by the Oslo agreement. I put suggestions to representatives of the employers and the unions at a meeting in July, but after careful joint consideration of the issues involved they subsequently concluded, reluctantly but unanimously, that it was not practicable to devise a scheme.

§ Mr. Brotherton
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that by far the best thing that he and his colleagues in the Government could do would be to recreate conditions in which our fishermen could go out again and catch fish? Will he bring this matter to the notice of his colleagues in the Government and make things easier for this presently hard-pressed industry?

§ Mr. Walker
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that that is not a question for me.

§ Mr. Johnson
Notwithstanding the arrogant propaganda south of the Humber, will my hon. Friend confirm that both the vessel owners and the men find it difficult to identify those of our fishermen who may be affected by the Icelandic agreement? Would it not be 1107 better if we got on as quickly as possible with decasualisation, so as to give our second-class citizens on the water the same conditions as those of workers on the shop floor?

§ Mr. Walker
In the discussions to which I referred the Government made it clear that they were prepared to assist financially, but for a variety of reasons neither the unions nor the employers thought it was feasible or practicable to undertake a scheme such as the one we were suggesting. Nor could they find any alternatives. Perhaps my hon. Friend will be reassured if I tell him that I have had separate and further meetings with both sides of the industry about introducing a more stable employment pattern in the industry. The employers have expressed a willingness to embark, in their own words, on the road to decasualisation, with a number of reservations and qualifications.