HL Deb 06 June 1967 vol 283 cc281-9

3.22 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD WALSTON

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a short and a simple Bill which in another place has received a good welcome on all sides; and I hope that it will receive the same welcome among your Lordships. Your Lordships will recall that it was on March 9 that we last discussed fishing vessel grants. On that occasion we approved a Scheme providing for rates of grant of 35 per cent. for vessels of 80 feet or more in length, and 40 per cent. for smaller vessels. At that time, your Lordships may remember, I said that the Government intended to add a further 5 per cent. to each of these rates, but that before that could be done fresh legislation would be needed because these were the maximum rates that could be paid under existing legislation.

The sole purpose of this Bill is to remove the maximum limits on the rates of grant that may be given for investment paid on or after January 1, 1967, so as to enable these undertakings to be fulfilled. This will at the same time bring the powers that exist to assist investment in fishing vessels into line with those for agriculture and manufacturing industry. If your Lordships approve this Bill we shall then seek your approval to a fresh Scheme providing for the additional 5 per cent. I have mentioned to be given for investment paid for in the calendar years 1967 and 1968. This is the same increase as has already been approved in investment grants for agriculture and for manufacturing industries.

We shall have another opportunity, if your Lordships so wish, to debate the proposed increase, but I am quite certain that your Lordships will agree that the fishing industry deserves and needs this extra assistance. It has served the nation well. The 1966 catch was the highest for ten years, and was achieved in the face of increasing costs and growing competition on the fishing grounds. The need is to stimulate investment in new and in more efficient vessels, so that full advantage can be taken of the improvements in design and equipment that are constantly being made. This is the only way in which efficiency can be maintained and improved; the only way in which the quantity of fish brought into this country can be maintained, and the only way in which price levels can be kept within reasonable bounds. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Walston.)

3.25 p.m.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for explaining to the House the purpose of this Bill. The prospect of increased capital grants for the building of fishing vessels is naturally one which the fishing industry will welcome, especially now, when they are troubled by rising costs and, despite the excellence of last year's record, falling catches. As the noble Lord told us, this Bill, by removing the statutory limit on grants in the 1953 Act, paves the way for the Government to fulfil their undertakings to increase the grants by a further 5 per cent.

I have no doubt that we should welcome the Bill as a short-term measure, and accept the increased burden it throws on the taxpayer, for it will help to maintain a modern fishing fleet, and therefore an adequate supply of fish in our shops. But I suggest to noble Lords that the long-term prospect for the fishing industry is far from reassuring, and if they are successfully to meet the prospect that lies before us Her Majesty's Government will have to think up something more far-reaching and comprehensive than a simple increase in capital grant for new vessels.

All the present evidence shows that each year now the catching power of fishing vessels progressively exceeds the reproductive capacity of fish stocks. This applies not only to the fishing effort of this country, but even more to other European countries, particularly Russia, with its massive fishing fleets, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Germany, France, Spain and so on. All of them are feeling the same position. During the past five years or so this dangerous trend has sharply worsened. The fact is that fisheries in the North Atlantic are already sliding down the same slippery slope which proved fatal to the whale in the Northern Hemisphere and even now threatens the extinction of the whale in the Southern Hemisphere as well.

So we have before us the awful warning of just what modern competitive catching power can do to a species. It really "sets about it", and, finally, extinguishes it. Unless effective measures of conservation are rapidly taken, the deterioration will accelerate as catching capacity is inevitably—just as we are doing—further stepped up in order to get an economic return from depleted fish stocks. To-day, more and more fishing grounds are becoming fished out, and more and more will do so as time goes on. Therefore, action must be taken now to prevent this calamity from happening.

I would pay tribute to the efforts that the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries are now making in giving support, mostly I think at official level and scientific level, to conservation measures. I believe I am right in saying that, even now, the Ministry have representatives at the conference being held in Boston, in the United States, of the International Commission for the North Atlantic. I warmly commend their efforts, but I am now asking Her Majesty's Government to give this matter a much higher priority at ministerial level, so that Great Britain will use her considerable maritime influence, first of all to establish that there is a dangerous depletion of fish stocks relative to increasing catching power; and, secondly, to establish a new international Convention laying down quotas for each member country and an effective system of controls to enforce them.

The practicability of such a scheme has been proved by the Convention established in the Pacific Ocean by the United States of America, Canada and Japan for their halibut fisheries. There they have succeeded in setting up just such a Convention of quotas and enforcing it by means of the United States patrol boats and something similar is done with the International Whaling Commission. My friends in the fishing industry tell me that conservation measures dependent on net mesh control are not effective—they are much too easily evaded; and while I pay tribute to the great efforts put into the raising of the mesh from 110 to 116 millimetres in the North-West areas, I do not think that it will alone be sufficient.

I observe that in another place the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food referred to the Fisheries Review which is now in progress. This is of great importance to the industry, but as it was two and a half years ago that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food started it I hope he will now inject some sense of urgency into its completion. The fact is that the general position of the fishing industry has changed greatly, and for the worse, since the noble Lord, Lord Fleck, published his authoritative Report in 1961, on which the health of the fishing industry is now based. His Report gave excellent advice on the best methods and rates of grant from public funds to the industry—that is to say, measures that are needed to help the domestic economy of the industry—but since then, in recent years, we have seen this serious deterioration in fish stocks in North Atlantic waters; and perhaps one sees it at its worse in the Barents Sea, which has been almost completely fished out by the Russian fleets. But I am told that all the main fisheries—the Newfoundland fisheries, the Labrador fisheries, the Greenland fisheries and the Icelandic fisheries—are now showing similar signs of depletion, and all fishing fleets are being adversely affected as these main fishing grounds show this deteriorating trend. This is a new and serious situation and deserves a completely new study by Her Majesty's Government. I suggest that Her Majesty's Government are not really helping the fishing industry much by increasing the rate of grant for building ships to catch fish which are rapidly disappearing.

There is the further subsidiary point of great practical importance to our fishing fleets in the meantime, and that is the strengthening of the relationship between the fishery scientist at the Fisheries Institute and the commercial fishing companies. Inevitably, with the diminishing stocks of fish available in the North Atlantic fishing grounds it becomes increasingly important that commercial companies should receive the latest and most reliable advice on where to direct their fishing effort from time to time. This is an intensely competitive field, and the fleet that gets there first naturally gets the best result. There is an impression that the liaison between the scientist and the commercial men among our foreign competitors is rather better than it is in this country, with the result that they are rather quicker on the ball—or one might say "on the fish". Our commercial firms have shown interest in this field by at least one of them appointing their own scientific adviser, and I know that the Ministry has encouraged an improved relationship. My point is that this liaison could go a good deal further, with advantage to both sides. This is an interim measure that I am suggesting to help our fishing fleets as long as the present "free for all" lasts; but what I am really asking for is the long-term solution of a new international Conven- tion for fishery conservation in the North Atlantic, with scientifically controlled quotas for each nation.

I have given warning to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, of my intention to raise this point, which I believe to be serious—the problem of conservation, which is directly related to grants to new vessels—in the expectation that he will make one of his characteristically well-informed speeches in reply which will, I hope, tell us that these fishery conservation measures are in mind by Ministers, and that he will urge his right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to start the necessary action on an international scale for which I am now asking, and thereby will give great reassurance, which is needed in the fishing industry to-day. With these rather serious comments, my Lords, I have much pleasure in supporting the Bill.

3.35 p.m.

LORD WALSTON

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, both for raising this important matter and for his customary courtesy in informing me in advance that he was going to do so. The first point I should like to make is to remind your Lordships that this particular Bill is not designed to encourage the building of fresh capacity for fishing vessels but to encourage the replacement of obsolete and obsolescent fishing vessels by more modern ones. It is not designed to promote a larger catch, but rather more efficient and therefore cheaper catches so that the same amount of fish will come on to the market in this country at a lower price. There is no intention in this Bill to promote a still greater race for more and more fish to be caught, in whatever area it may be. So I can assure the noble Lord that we have this point of overfishing very much in mind.

Although I am in complete agreement with the general sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, I would not accept the impression he may have given that Her Majesty's Government are complacent about this matter and are taking no action about it whatsoever. As those noble Lords who are interested in those matters will know, there are two International Commissions already in existence with the responsibility for fish conservation. One is the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission and the other is the International Commission for the North-West Atlantic Fisheries. The membership of these two bodies consists of all the countries interested in the fishing of the waters concerned, including the Soviet Union and Poland who are represented on both bodies, and Canada and the United States of America who are represented on the North-West Atlantic Commission. It is through these international bodies that attempts—possibly not entirely satisfactory attempts, but at least some attempts and with some success—are being made to restrict over-fishing and to prevent our valuable fishing grounds in those waters from following the fate that the noble Lord has described in the case of the whales in the Atlantic.

There are two standard ways in which these two International Commissions operate. One is by enlarging the size of mesh so that the smaller fish can get through, which is of some importance, although I grant that it is an easy one to evade and a very difficult one to enforce. But there is little evidence that there is widespread evasion. The second, and more effective, method is by the prohibition of sale in this country and in the other subscribing countries of fishes of below a certain minimum size. That is a far more effective method of restricting the catching of young fish and of potential breeding, fishes. Those are the two ways in which these two Commissions work at the present time. But it is perfectly true that this is not enough and there are more things that should be done, and I am glad to say that Her Majesty's Government are playing a leading part in promoting these new researches, new discussions and new proposals for methods of control.

It can well be understood that these problems are extremely complex, very difficult purely from a technical point of view but also because they involve many different countries and fishermen, who are notoriously extremely independent people and who are resistant to Government interference, even as much as many of your Lordships may be. But, in spite of these difficulties, a measure of agreement has already been reached on arrangements for international enforcement of conservation measures, and I hope that these will become effective some time in 1969—in other words, in two years' time or thereabouts. That is the essential first step towards increased conservation.

There may be, I hope—and this is at the present stage a pious hope, but I think it is something worth pursuing—possibilities of conducting actual research into increasing the growth of fish. Some very small preliminary beginnings are being made under the White Fish Authority to see whether something of this kind can be done, and I believe both as far as we ourselves are concerned nationally and also internationally there is scope here for increasing the stocks, for replenishing the stocks of fish, by the harnessing of existing scientific knowledge, the acquisition of further scientific knowledge and the application of this new knowledge to the actual practical production of more fish in the oceans. I would once more like to thank the noble Lord for raising this extremely important point and assure him that not only are we fully aware of it but we are being very active and taking the lead among the countries involved, both in enforcing the existing regulations and in discussing new and more effective regulations.

VISCOUNT AMORY

My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord will allow me to ask him whether he would pay considerable attention to what my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford said about the importance of the fishery scientists keeping in close touch with the actual fishermen. I think we have every reason to be proud of the quality of our fishery scientists, and they used to have a tradition of going to sea whenever they could so as to maintain close contact. That seems to me excellent, and I hope it will be blessed by the Government. Everything depends on the close relations of mutual confidence between our scientists and the actual fishermen if we are to get the best results from our joint efforts.

LORD BOOTHBY

My Lords, I want to add only two sentences, and I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Walston, to reply. I feel, with him, that the great danger in the future—and this extends over the next ten or twenty years, and I have lived with this industry for a very long time—is over-fishing. That is the thing that has to be guarded against. It is not so bad now. It was very bad with the herrings. It is less bad with the white fish. But the over-fishing of the North Sea over the last fifty years is to a very large extent responsible for the decline of our fishing industry, which I think is a tragedy. If we could get some kind of agreement with foreign countries to restrict fishing and to prevent over-fishing, which is vitally important, it would be the best thing that could possibly be done for the fishing industry. It is not doing so badly now—badly on herrings, but not too badly on anything else—but it could happen all over again. The industry was saved by the war. We had to get the fish and it was difficult to get them, and the fishing industry was revived by the Second World War. But now again we are heading for over-fishing, especially of the North Sea. I beg the noble Lord to keep this matter constantly in mind.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.