§ Mr. Onslowasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he is taking to conserve salmon stocks in British waters; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. GummerConservation of British salmon stocks has been an active concern of this Government and of the bodies responsible at local level for maintaining and developing salmon fisheries: the water authorities in England and Wales and the district salmon fishery boards in Scotland. These bodies operate a wide range of measures to regulate salmon fisheries in British waters and to promote the conservation and development of salmon stocks. Research and development into salmon and freshwater fisheries currently costs about £4 million a year and a large part of this is devoted to salmon conservation. 343W It is because of our long history of such active concern about salmon stocks and strict regulation of fisheries that we have been able to keep the salmon in our rivers over a period when several other countries have seen their stocks of Atlantic salmon decline drastically.
Nevertheless, the threat presented by illegal fishing is the most serious cause for concern and we devoted a lot of effort to examining the very interesting proposals put forward by the salmon sales group of the former National Water Council for a salmon tagging scheme to tackle the poaching problem. Unfortunately, that proved to present too many difficulties to be viable. We therefore brought forward a proposal to tackle the trade in illegally caught salmon by making it an offence to possess or handle salmon, believing or having reason to suspect that it was illegally taken, and backed this up with a proposal to licence salmon dealers, who would be required to keep suitable records.
Both these proposals are enshrined in the Salmon Bill which is currently before the House, together with other proposals to improve further the regulation and management of salmon fisheries.