Industrial Fishing (Hansard, 4 December 1986)

§ 7. Mr. Richard Page
asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent steps the Government have taken to control industrial fishing within the EEC.

§ Mr. Gummer
At the end of 1985 we successfully opposed an increase in the by-catch in the Norway pout fishery for the 1985–86 season; during the revision of the technical conservation regulations, which will take effect on 1 January 1987, we obtained further improvements including a total ban on the shredding and processing of fish for industrial purposes on board vessels, and additions to the list of protected species. I believe that we should fight against this kind of industrial fishing.

§ Mr. Page
I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, although I do not think that it will affect the fishing fleet of south-west Hertfordshire. Will the new provisions that were brought in on 6 November have any effect on these industrial fisheries?

§ Mr. Gummer
Indeed, they will. We are fighting such fishing in various ways. We have just made a trilateral agreement with Norway and Sweden, and will stand fast by our determination not to see the sort of industrial fishing that some want. It means that the Commission's inspectors will be able to require inspection and sampling in their presence of the catches of vessels that they have specified. Consequently, they will be able to oversee the discharge of industrial catches from specified vessels. Under this extremely successful common fisheries policy, we shall once again on a Community basis be able to control industrial fishing.

§ Mr. Wallace
I welcome the moves which the Government have made to restore the Norwegian pout fishing by-catch to 10 per cent. Will the Minister take this opportunity to say whether at yesterday's meeting of the Council of Ministers there were any measures agreed that will help to control industrial fishing? Perhaps he will refer to some of the measures that will help the fishing fleet but are not directed to combating industrial fishing?

§ Mr. Gummer
With the measures that we negotiated right through last night we shall be able to help the British fishing industry considerably. I shall be announcing later precisely what these are. On industrial fishing, the great advantage was that for the first time in the Fisheries Council no one even suggested that we should be extending the Danes' right to catch Norwegian pout. That shows how much we have progressed in the past 18 months. I believe that, on that basis, the battle has been won.

§ Mr. Harris
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the position which he has set out today. Does he agree that industrial fishing of all sorts, particularly the dreadful experience that we had of the bulk fishing of mackerel, has brought stocks to a desperate state in the seas around our coast? Will he continue to fight against this exploitation of those stocks?

§ Mr. Gummer
Fish is an extremely valuable food and far too valuable to be used for industrial purposes as some have done in the past. Production for those purposes can take place far more effectively on land. If other means are used for the production of that sort of protein, we should have a fishery that is used for human consumption.

§ Mr. Donald Stewart
I welcome the advance that has been made in reducing the by-catch in pout fishing. Will the Minister remember that there are certain forms of industrial fishing, for fish such as sand-eels and blue whiting, that are not for human consumption, and that that should continue despite his worthy efforts to end the other type of industrial fishing?

§ Mr. Gummer
The right hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that we do not want to stop industrial fishing for species that cannot be used for human consumption. The Government are determined in all the circumstances to lean towards conservation of stocks for human consumption. That is a proper and moral way of using the benefits of the sea.

§ Mr. Skinner
Has the Minister noticed that the Foreign Secretary has found a pretty good answer, in his opinion, to the threat of industrial fishing around the Falklands, and that is the imposition of a 150-mile exclusion zone? If that zone will work there, why do we not introduce such a zone here and tell the other members of the EEC and the rest of them, who we reckon to be our colleagues, that we are taking the action to save the British fishing industry?

§ Mr. Gummer
It is sad that the hon. Gentleman knows so little about fishing, as he would coming from his constituency, that he does not understand that it is because of the EEC common fisheries policy that we are protecting the fish for the whole of Europe. I am proud that we are doing so and that Britain is taking the lead.

§ Mr. Randall
Is the Minister satisfied that all the existing measures on by-catches are sufficient to protect commercial stocks, especially in respect of the Danes?

§ Mr. Gummer
I am not satisfied, and we must continue fighting to ensure that the rules are kept. All the evidence this year shows that there is much more keeping of the rules. The fact that the Danish Minister of Fisheries has been attacked by Danish fishermen for being too tough, and that the Dutch Minister is under great pressure in his House of Commons because he has been so tough on conservation, show how successful our policy is. We in Britain should be proud of it instead of, like the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), always attacking every success that Britain achieves.