HC Deb 17 December 1970 vol 808 cc448-50W
Mr. Wall

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will now make a statement about the future of the White Fish Authority.

Mr. Prior

I undertook to make a statement to the House on the future of the White Fish Authority, but my right hon. Friends and I have necessarily had to look at this question in the wider context of fisheries policy.

Much fisheries legislation is temporary, with only 2 or 3 years to run. This applies to the operating subsidies, to the provision of funds for loans by the Authority or the Herring Industry Board, to grants to the Board and to the grant towards the Authority's research programme. I should have liked to lay new long-term policies before the House at this stage. But changes in policy and in administration will clearly be required if we join the E.E.C.—and here I am thinking not of access to inshore waters, but of the Community's economic and marketing arrangements. We have been concerned therefore not to make any change now if we could see any risk of imposing two successive re-adjustments unnecessarily on our own fishing and fish-using industries.

Some adjustments, however, are unavoidable. We have already announced reduced, but still generous, capital grants for fishing vessels in consequence of the winding up of investment grants for industry generally. As regards the operating subsidy for the deep sea fleet the previous Government made a 3-year scheme which runs till mid-1971 and we must in any case review the question of its operation after that date; and the operating subsidy of the inshore fleet is already subject to annual review.

I turn now to research and development. It is clear that work by the industry in this field ought to go on, but the scale of the effort needed in the national interest is probably beyond its unaided powers. We believe, however, that a review is necessary of the organisation of Government-aided fishery research and development and this my right hon. Friends and I have initiated. It will cover not only the grant-aided work of the Authority and the Board but all other Government-aided fishery research serving the production, processing and distributing sectors of the industry. In the meantime it is clearly right that what is being done in this field, at the joint cost of industry and public funds, should continue.

Present legislation of course gives the Authority and the Board extensive powers of intervention in industry, which go far beyond the research and development and grant and loan functions that we are continuing. We do not intend that the present use of those powers should be extended. If we join the E.E.C. we shall of course need arrangements for organising the market, but this is not a field in which I can at present see the kind of organisation that will be required.

In the circumstances which I have described it would clearly be premature to take far-reaching decisions about the industry before we have completed the review of Government-aided research and development, to which I have referred, and until the E.E.C. aspects are clearer. Meanwhile it is obviously desirable that the existing institutions should carry on giving their support to the fishing industry both with their research and development work and in other ways.

Mr. James Johnson

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, if he will now state his decision regarding the future of the White Fish Authority.

Mr. Prior

I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I have given to the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) earlier today.