Potato Marketing Board (Hansard, 7 December 1988)

§ Mr. Redmond
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the overall response to his consultation paper regarding the Potato Marketing Board; and whether he proposes to accept the majority or minority views expressed on the options suggested.

§ Mr. Ryder
The period for the response to the consultation paper on future potato market policy in Great Britain does not expire until 31 December 1988, and there are clearly many replies yet to be received.
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§ Mr. Donald Thompson
The Commission has allocated 100 mecu (£65 million) over a five-year period from 1987 to 1991 under regulation 4028/86 for the buying up (decommissioning) of fishing vessels. The United Kingdom has not implemented this particular measure and at present we have no plans to do so.

§ Mr. Austin Mitchell
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many Spanish-owned vessels are currently on the register of British fishing vessels; what ports they fish from; and in which quota sectors they operate.

§ Mr. Donald Thompson
There are at present approximately 150 fishing vessels on the British register which are believed to be beneficially Spanish owned. Of these 97 are licensed to fish for stocks subject to quotas.
The vessels operate mainly in Western waters (ICES areas VI, Vb, VII and VIII) taking substantial quantities of hake, megrim and anglerfish. They also catch significant quantities of haddock and saithe from areas VII and VIII plus some whiting from area VII (exc VIIa), cod VII (exc VIIa) and VIII and sole VIIfg.
Whilst the majority of the vessels are nominally based in the ports of Milford haven, Plymouth or Fleetwood, the majority of their catches are landed and sold at ports in Northern Spain.

§ Mr. Austin Mitchell
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what reduction of number of fishing vessels and what proportion of the reduction has been secured to date in the multi annual guidance programmes for fishing for(a) the United Kingdom, (b) Denmark, (c) France and (d) Holland.

§ Mr. Donald Thompson
The information requested is only readily available as follows: