Council of Fisheries Ministers (Hansard, 6 November 1986)

§ Mr. Gummer

Together with my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. MacKay) the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, I represented the United Kingdom at the meeting of the Council of Fisheries Ministers on 5 November, under the presidency of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

I am delighted to report that the Council, by a qualified majority, reached a common position on a regulation designed to strengthen the arrangements for the enforcement of the common fisheries policy in the Community. This agreement will be formally endorsed when the views of the European Parliament are received.

In addition to a general strengthening of the arrangements for inspection, monitoring and the keeping of records, the regulation has two main features. First, it requires member states to provide the Commission inspectors with such access and means as they need to oversee national inspection and monitoring arrangements. This is a further important step in ensuring that enforcement in all member states is carried out on an 544W effective but evenhanded basis. Secondly, the regulation empowers the Commission, after informing the member states concerned, to close a fishery when the total allowable catch is exhausted and it provides for member states which overfish their quotas to provide compensation to the other member states concerned. This is the first time that agreement has been reached to penalise overfishing and it will obviously strengthen the incentive to observe the quotas. The United Kingdom Government have been giving considerable priority to the strengthening of the control arrangements and we warmly welcome these measures.

The Council also received a progress report on the discussions about the Commission proposals on structures and had a useful and fairly detailed exchange of views. These proposals will be considered further at the next Council meeting on 3 December.