§ Mr. Stokesasked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the amount of damage being done to the plaice fisheries by the withdrawal of the order limiting the size of the fish to be caught; and whether he is aware that, towards the end of October, 30 tons of immature plaice were landed at Fleetwood and sold for manure; that the same thing is happening at Liverpool and Wallasey; and whether he will reintroduce the size limitation order before further irreparable damage is done to the fisheries?
§ Sir W. WomersleyMy right hon. Friend has been unable to obtain information of any immature plaice sold for manure in the Lancashire area; on the contrary the information is that such immature plaice as have been landed there have been sold for food at good prices. While my right hon. Friend wishes to discourge the deliberate catching of immature fish, I would remind the hon. Member that the reinstatement of the size limitation order would mean a loss for food purposes of such immature fish as are unavoidably caught in certain numbers notwithstanding that nets of regulation size are used. In present circumstances this seems to me to be indefensible, but my right hon. Friend will continue to watch the situation in order to check abuses if they should occur. I am advised that serious damage to the stocks of fish need not be feared, particularly as fishing has been so greatly curtailed by war conditions.