HC Deb 20 October 1976 vol 917 cc1455-64
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Crosland)

I will, with permission, make a statement about a meeting of the EEC Council of Ministers which I attended on 18th and 19th October. I was accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. A large number of separate items of business were discussed, and I will circulate a statement in the Official Report on them. I wish to report to the House today on the discussion of fisheries questions.

We had a full discussion on two matters of immediate concern to the United Kingdom—the date of the extension of fishing limits of member States to 200 miles, and the opening of negotiations with third countries with which the Community will require agreements on access. We were not aiming on this occasion to discuss the revision of the common fisheries policy.

There was very strong support in the Council for a collective extension of limits on 1st January 1977 and for the early opening of negotiations with third countries—above all, with Iceland. It was, however, argued as against this that final decisions should not be taken until the Council had dealt with certain aspects of the internal Community fisheries regime, especially with the width of the exclusive coastal belt, on which there are, of course, conflicting views.

As a result of this disagreement, it was not possible to take the decisions which we wanted. I made it clear that the opening of negotiations with Iceland was a matter of the greatest importance and urgency and that the proposed timetable, which envisages a first formal meeting early in November, must not be delayed. It was agreed that further work should be done by officials in the next 10 days and that Ministers would revert to the question when they met in The Hague on 29th and 30th October. It is my hope and expectation that we shall then be able to reach an understanding both on the extension of limits on 1st January and on the opening of negotiations with third countries.

Mr. Pym

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Opposition are in agreement with the Government on both objectives—a collective extension of limits on 1st January next and the early opening of negotiations with third countries? We hope that his negotiations will reach a successful conclusion.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the internal fisheries regime of the Community is an interest of overriding importance to Britain and our fishermen? I think that he will accept that the whole House shares a common anxiety on this score with the livelihoods of 23,000 families at risk and tens of thousands of others involved in the fishing industry.

I believe that the whole House is of the opinion that our case for a 50-mile wide exclusive belt is extremely strong. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the new Community fisheries regime must reflect the reality of the predominant interest of our industry in Community waters?

Mr. Crosland

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. I refrain from any over-controversial comment on his latter remarks and, indeed, on the attribution of blame for the situation in which we now find ourselves, which is an extremely interesting question.

Representing a Humberside fishing port, I am well aware of the considerations put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. The present CFP regime is wholly unacceptable to this country. I think that we were the victims—I shall put it as tactfully as I can—of an agreement which was drawn up to suit the original Six, not the present Nine. We are suffering from that agreement. It is our very determined intention, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, to seek a major revision of that agreement.

Mr. Jay

Does my right hon. Friend regard the common fisheries policy as one of the benefits to this country of Common Market entry?

Mr. Crosland

That is a very judicious question. The answer is that there are points to be made on both sides.

Mrs. Renée Short

What are they? No answer.

Mr. Grimond

Britain did not have a 50-mile limit before joining the Common Market. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while there is wide sympathy with the view that we ought to go for a wider limit of 200 miles, if the Irish object on the ground that inshore fisheries would be neglected and they wish to draw attention to the importance of a 50-mile limit for their inshore fisheries, there will be widespread sympathy with their action?

Mr. Crosland

The position of the Irish is perfectly plain. Regarding coastal belts and priority for those with coastal fishing interests, we are completely at one with the Irish Government. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland made this point with great robustness when it was discussed during the last two days. Where we have a differing interest from the Irish is that, unlike them, we have not only an inshore but a distant-water fishing fleet. That makes it vital for us to get a 200-mile limit and to start negotiations with third countries. It was on the second, not the first, point that we were inevitably in disagreement with the Irish Government.

Mr. Powell

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that if the member States of the Community extend their fishing limits to 200 miles before the internal fisheries regime of the Community has been modified in our favour as we require, the other States will be in exclusive possession of EEC rights to the very waters over which we are going to attempt, by negotiation, to obtain exclusive rights for ourselves?

Mr. Crosland

I appreciate that difficulty very well but, nevertheless, if I take the case of Iceland—the most urgent case facing us—the fact is that the present Oslo Agreement with Iceland runs out at the end of November. On 1st December, if no further agreement is reached between the Community and Iceland, we shall have no agreement of any kind with Iceland. I do not say that it is the most urgent long-term priority, but at the moment it is the most urgent priority for this country to get a new agreement with Iceland through the Community. It is for that reason that we have taken up such a strong position in Luxembourg.

Mr. James Johnson

As it was the Conservative Government who put us into this common fisheries policy, may I thank the Secretary of State and his team for their Herculean efforts at Luxembourg, despite the disappointing outcome due, we understand, to the attitude of the Irish delegation? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the EEC does not fully realise the intense depth of feeling shared by the whole industry as well as Members of Parliament on both sides of the House about the revision of the EEC fisheries policy? Many of us are against national catch quotas because of the evasion being practised not merely by our EEC partners but by Communist fleets, particularly off the south-west peninsula. On behalf of the industry, I would ask my right hon. Friend to stand firm on the 50-mile exclusive economic zone, allowing, of course, for licences for those nations which in the past have fished in these waters.

Mr. Crosland

I have every reason to be aware, and so has the Secretary of State for Scotland, of the depth of feeling about this matter in the industry. For me it is not only a ministerial but a constituency responsibility. We are gradually making the other members of the Community realise what the depth of this feeling is in this country, although they grossly underestimated it in the early days of the present negotiations. I accept a lot of what my hon. Friend has said about quotas. Clearly, quotas will have some part to play in any new régime, but if they are to have a part to play—which they must—they must be quotas properly enforced and not largely ignored, as are the present ones.

Mr. Speaker

Order. May I make an appeal to the House? I know that a number of hon. Members have important constituency interests in this matter and I shall try to call them. But it will help me if we could have questions which are as concise as possible.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher

Are the Government insisting on a 50-mile exclusive zone for Britain to protect her fishing industry?

Mr. Crosland

We cannot insist in the sense that we would send an army to The Hague in order to impose our will.

Mr. Fletcher

In negotiations.

Mr. Crosland

In the negotiations. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the position set out by my right hon. Friend who is now Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection was for a variable band going up to 50 miles. My right hon. Friend laid down the conditions very clearly and they have been discussed in the House before by hon. Gentlemen who know something about this question. That remains our current full negotiating position.

Mr. Robert Hughes

If the negotiations on the 200-mile limit and on the exclusive zone limits are protracted, will the Government take unilateral action?

Mr. Crosland

I have already made it clear both in the House and in public statements in respect of a 200-mile limit that if the Community does not agree to go ahead collectively on 1st January 1977, we shall go ahead unilaterally.

Sir Frederic Bennett

To summarise the position, I understood from what the Minister said that we were standing firm on up to 50 miles. May I at least get the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that in no circumstances shall we accept 12 miles?

Mr. Crosland

I can conceive no circumstances in which this country—certainly under this Government—will accept 12 miles.

Mr. Sillars

Could it be that a lot of the difficulty arises out of misunderstanding, bearing in mind that in the answer to Question No. 33 this afternoon we were told that the negotiations on this extremely complex matter were being conducted without reference to maps? Am I still right in believing that there is no reference whatever to maps showing the British Government's proposals in relation to the exclusive zone? How can the right hon. Gentleman seriously conduct negotiations on that basis?

Mr. Crosland

What has happened so far in the negotiations about the exclusive coastal belt is that we have made our negotiating position clear. The Commission has put forward certain proposals which are wholly unacceptable to us, but the negotiations between us and the other member States of the Community have not got to the point yet where we are discussing a 50-mile approach, which is the British Government's approach. We are discussing precisely what the mileage should be here and there and in some other places around the coast. I repeat that the negotiations have not got to that point yet. [Interruption.] That has nothing to do with ohing and ahing; it is a fact of life. When we reach a position like that I am sure that we shall need maps to help us.

Mr. Wall

While the action of the Irish Government may be regrettable for the reason that the right hon. Gentleman has given, have they not set a good example by the use of the veto? Would the Secretary of State undertake to veto other Common Market legislation if the British fishing industry does not get an adequate exclusive zone?

Mr. Crosland

There is no sense in which this matter could be subject to the veto, using the word "veto" as a technical term in Community language. What the Irish have done is not to veto in that sense. They have simply refused to agree to a settlement which it is fair to say was acceptable to virtually everyone else in the Community. Whether we shall be in this position at a later stage when we come to coastal belts I do not know. I would think it foolish to speculate about that now.

Mr. Watt

Since half of Britain's fish is landed in Scottish ports by Scottish boats, surely the urgency is not the Icelandic question but the question of the extension of the limits? The Scottish fishermen are adamant that nothing less than 50 miles will do.

Mr. Crosland

I am fully aware of the attitude of the Scottish fishermen and I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. If half the fish is landed by Scottish fisherment and Scottish boats, the other half of the catch is landed by Grimsby fishermen in Grimsby boats.

Mr. Brotherton

In the event of no agreement being reached within the Community by the end of November, will the Foreign Secretary assure the House that we shall reopen negotiations with Iceland ourselves so that we can resolve this most important pressing problem?

Mr. Crosland

Yes. I can absolutely assure the House of that, as I did the Council of Ministers. If there is no Community agreement with Iceland by 1st December, we shall have to seek a bilateral agreement. That is a fact of life.

Mr. Jim Spicer

The right hon. Gentleman has given us an assurance that with or without our partners in the Community we shall go out to 200 miles on 1st January. Can he give any indication how, once we have achieved that point, we shall police it against the marauding fleets from the Eastern Powers?

Mr. Crosland

That will obviously be essential. But the whole question of policing and enforcement is extremely complex. We think it would be easier if this were settled on a Community rather than on a national basis. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman details of what the actual policing arrangements will be, how many vessels will be involved and so on, because I still think it highly likely that this will be a collective operation on the part of the Community and not a unilateral operation on our part.

Mr. Brittan

Why are the Government taking an opening negotiating position for an exclusive zone of up to 50 miles when it is the united desire and request of the fishing industry that it should be 50 miles throughout?

Mr. Crosland

For the simple reason that there are some parts of the coast where 50 miles would make no sense whatever because there is no fish between 12 and 50 miles.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing

Was it not rather debonair of the Council of Ministers to set as their priority the date for the 200-mile limit and the issue of third countries when they knew very well that in the debate in the European Parliament last week a clear impression was given that the first subject at the Council of Ministers would be the question of the internal arrangements? Has this matter now been shelved? Is that not saying that the Council of Ministers has not got on with the job of working in our interest? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the resolution was lost by one vote and that the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) and the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) were missing?

Mr. Crosland

I have heard the Council of Ministers described as many things, but never as debonair.

The fact is—I must insist on this—that it is of the highest urgency for the whole of this country not merely to get an agreement with Iceland before 1st December, as we all know, but also to get agreements with the United States, Canada, Norway, the Eastern European countries, and the rest. Therefore, I have no doubts that from the point of view of our national interests we were right to go for the 200-mile limit first, while at the same time maintaining our position fully on exclusive belts.

Mr. Younger

Does the Minister recognise that, rightly or wrongly, the Irish action yesterday has given the impression that the Irish care more about the 50-mile exclusive zone than Britain does? Will he assure the House and the fishing industry that that is not so?

Mr. Crosland

Yes, I assure the House and the fishing industry that that is not so. This was made clear both by myself and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland in the discussions yesterday. We care equally with the Irish about this. The difference, solely, is that we care, but they do not, about agreements with third countries, because we have a distant water fishing fleet and the Irish do not.

Mr. Peter Mills

Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that if he wants an example to reinforce his determination to deal with the problems concerning inshore fishing, he could have no better example than the rape now taking place off the South-West of England where our mackerel stocks are being seriously depleted? Will he redouble his efforts to deal with the problem before it is too late?

Mr. Crosland

I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. I have made the mackerel argument to the Council, more than once by now, and I pointed out yesterday, for example, that the Russian catch of mackerel off our South-West Coast has risen in the last five years from about 6,000 tons a year to very nearly 300,000 tons a year. I use that as one of the most dramatic and vivid illustrations that I can give of how critical to us are these coastal waters.

Mr. Ronald Bell

Will the Secretary of State confirm that under the common fisheries policy as it now stands we shall have no exclusive zone and the other members of the Community will be entitled to fish right up to our shores, and that this arrangement can be changed only by unanimity in the Council of Ministers and that, to that extent, there is a reversed veto? What will the right hon. Gentleman do if he does not procure unanimity in the Council of Ministers or a modification of the common fisheries policy?

Mr. Crosland

I have no intention of announcing in advance to my partners what I would propose to do in those circumstances.

Following is the Secretary of State's statement about the meeting of the Council of Ministers: Before the Council itself began, Foreign Ministers met briefly to discuss matters falling within the framework of European political co-operation. I am glad to say that our partners in the European Community felt able to give full support to Her Majesty's Government's policy on Rhodesia and, in particular, the decision to convene a conference. The text of the statement on Rhodesia issued by the Foreign Ministers of the Nine has been placed in the Library. In addition to fisheries, on which I have reported separately to the House, discussion in the Council included aspects of the design to be adopted for the uniform passport and, briefly, the draft Council regulation on regulatory inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency of the civil nuclear industries of the Euratom member States. Current questions in the field of the Community's external relations were also discussed. The Council agreed on the response the Community should make on the two major trade issues raised by the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries at the first meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council held under the Lomé Convention in July. On aid to non-associates, the Council agreed that the 20 million units of account inscribed in the Community's budget by the Assembly should be committed during this year subject to certain conditions. The Council also agreed in principle on a provision to be entered in the 1977 budget on aid to non-associates. Further progress was made towards agreement that the Community's external financial commitments should fall on the Community's budget rather than directly on the national budgets of member States. The Council emphasised the importance of the Community's relations with Yugoslavia and discussed measures for improving co-operation between the EEC and that country. The Council also agreed to the release of funds to Yugoslavia under an EIB loan. The Council discussed the draft letter to the UNCTAD Secretary-General on the common fund and the stage so far reached in the CIEC. There was agreement on the importance of a satisfactory conclusion to the conference, and of close Community co-ordination to facilitate this, A separate short EEC-Greece ministerial meeting was held and the procedure for the Greek accession negotiations was agreed. A commercial co-operation agreement with Bangladesh was signed, similar to those which the Community has already concluded with India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.