HL Deb 18 November 1986 vol 482 cc131-2

2.57. p.m.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the attitude of the other members of the European Community to the fisheries conservation and management zone recently declared around the Falkland Islands.

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, there have been no formal statements by the governments of members of the European Community on the Government's decision to declare a Falkland Islands conservation zone.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, what is the position of the Government about the evidently less than formal declaration which was on the air waves this morning that the Prime Minister of Spain has said he will not recognise the zone, given the fact that Spain has the European Community's biggest fishing fleet and already has a vast share of the multi-million pound fish take from around there?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, I am told that press reports are innacurate and exaggerated. It is in the interests of Spain's important fishing industry to participate in an orderly and controlled fishery.

Lord Tordoff

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can answer the original Question, which is what is the attitude of our friends in the Community, not what forms of statements they made?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, we have been in regular touch with the Commission and our partners. My right honourable and learned friend the Foreign Secretary sent a personal message to his European Community colleagues and to the fisheries Commissioner on 29th October. I think that is probably the answer to the questions of the noble Lord.

Lord Tordoff

My Lords, with all due respect to the noble Lord the Minister, those are the questions that have been asked. We are trying to find out what the answers are.

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, as I said earlier there has been no formal response.

Lord Mackie of Benshie

My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us what the informal responses have been?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware we do not normally discuss the informal communications about which I think the noble Lord is asking.

Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos

My Lords, the Ministers have made plain from the start that their objective is a multilateral fisheries arrangement in the Falklands. Can the noble Lord say whether that still remains the Government's policy? How do they now propose to achieve it?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, yes. As I said earlier in answer to a supplementary question from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the Government would very much prefer a multilateral solution to this problem. Indeed, if such a multilateral solution would emerge we would hasten to reconsider our position about the particular arrangements that we have recently put in place. We shall continue to co-operate with the FAO as they think fit.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, may I ask one more supplementary question which I think even the noble Lord will find well within the original Question. Given that this new fisheries management zone has obvious merits, why did the Government not impose it, first, immediately after the war was over; secondly, immediately world fishing around there had assumed dangerous proportions of many hundreds of thousands of tonnes a year; or, thirdly, after Argentina signed its strange bilateral agreements with the Soviet Union and Bulgaria? Why wait until now?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, once the fishing season is over the pressure is off to make any arrangements of the kind to which the noble Lord referred. At the outset of the last fishing season we were still hopeful that the multilateral approach would have succeeded. Afterwards it became clear that it would not. Therefore, we have now put our unilateral regime in place in time for the next fishing season.

Lord Morris

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister draw some comfort from the certainty that the more the Liberal-SDP Alliance and the party opposite are determined to tinker with the very responsible position which Her Majesty's Government have taken with regard to this issue, the more they will pay for it when the electorate comes to vote?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, I do not think that that is a question on which I need to elaborate.