Fish Conservation (Hansard, 27 February 1992)

§ Mr. Gummer

[pursuant to the reply, 6 February 1992 column 275]Fishing effort in Europe exceeds what the stocks can at present withstand. Some commercially important species are under severe pressure. Significant steps have already been taken at Community and national level, including the technical measures that will take effect later this year. But more than this is needed if our conservation policies are to be fully effective.

My colleagues in the other Fisheries Departments share this concern. We have looked at a wide range of options. It has not been easy to identify the best way forward. Conservationist have concentrated on their fears for the future of the stocks, while the fishing industry has continued to press strongly for a decommissioning grant scheme. The Government have made clear that this could be considered, but only as part of a package that would have to make a definite contribution to the conservation of fish stocks. Our key objective must be to reduce fishing effort if we are to protect the stocks for fishermen today and their children tomorrow.

My right hon. Friends and I therefore now propose to introduce a programme of closely-linked measures. The objective will be to reduce fishing effort over the period up 615W to 1996, to meet a target which we shall need to quantify and agree with the Commission in line with our Community obligation under the 1992–1996 multi-annual guidance programme. An essential feature of our programme will be control over fishing effort, through the introduction of a freeze in 1993 to hold effort at its 1991 level, followed in the years 1994 to 1996 by arrangements to reduce entitlements to days at sea to the extent necessary to achieve the overall target. In assessing the size of these reductions, account will be taken of the impact on fishing effort of the other measures described here.

It is our intention to seek to have effort control arrangements in place for 1993. Once this is done, we can bring forward measures to reduce capacity. There will be a decommissioning scheme to operate over two years, with provision for expenditure of up to £25 million. The scheme will be cash limited and subject to tight controls and will be designed to take out the maximum amount of fishing effort. No decommissioning payments will be committed until measures for controlling and reducing fishing effort are in place.

In the meanwhile, the producer organisations established under Community rules to which many fishermen belong will be encouraged to play a more active part in rationalising the structure of the fleet, and certain changes in rules will be made to facilitate that.

Also, the rules governing transfer of vessel licences will be amended so that the existing amount by which capacity has to be reduced on aggregation will be increased, and a penalty will be applied to other forms of transfer too.

To complement these measures to reduce effort and capacity, restrictive licensing will he extended to vessels 10 metres and below in length so that this sector of the fleet cannot expand further. This change will take effect in 1993 but in principle licences will then be issued only to vessels which are already actively involved in fishing now, My Department is making a separate more detailed announcement on this.

Finally, in relation to effort controls provision will be made for fishermen to trade their days at sea entitlements along with fishing licences. This will help the industry to adjust to effort restrictions through rationalisation.

We have begun discussions with the Commission on ways in which these measures could be accommodated in Community legislation and we shall be consulting the Commission and the industry about the details of this important conservation package. When parliamentary time permits the Government will introduce the primary legislation which will be needed for some elements of this package such as the trading arrangements described above.

My right hon. Friends and I believe that a package on these lines will greatly assist the conservation of fish stocks, and will thus be in the best long-term interest of our fishermen. We look forward to constructive discussion of this package with the industry.