§ 66. Dr. Michael Clarkasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he has taken within the European Economic Community to seek to conserve fish stocks.
§ Mr. GummerWe have attempted to develop and build upon the provisions of the common fisheries policy which were agreed in 1983. Each year we seek to agree total allowable catches and quotas for all the commercially important stocks to avoid quantitative overfishing. In support of these quantitative restrictions there is a raft of technical conservation measures concerning minimum mesh and fish sizes, closed areas and restriction on the use of certain gear.
I am delighted to say that during the first half of our presidency we succeeded in getting the Council of Ministers to agree a complete revision of the technical conservation regulation which represents major improvements in the conservation regime. It is also of paramount importance that these measures are all effectively enforced throughout the Community and, as I reported on 6 November, I was very pleased to have been able to steer the Council of Ministers towards reaching agreement on a regulation designed to strengthen the Community enforcement measures.