§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to her answer to the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait) of 7 July,Official Report, column 163, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of (i) the existing enforcement of the common fisheries policy and (ii) the European Commission's present powers to ensure that Community rules are properly implemented; what is her estimate of the scale of cheating and overcatching: and what analysis she 241W has made of the effect on the effectiveness of fisheries policy enforcement of the new regulations coming into effect on 1 January 1994.
§ Mr. JackThe Commission's report on monitoring implementation of the common fisheries policy published in March 1992 identified various weaknesses in the present enforcement of fisheries policy in the EC. I agree with much of the Commission's assessment, and many of our concerns are being addressed by the proposed new control regulation expected to take effect from 1 January 1994. EC catch returns for 1992 show that there were 48 recorded instances of member states overfishing their individual quotas in Community waters but these do not refer to individual breaches of regulations by fishermen.
§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to her answer to the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait) of 7 July,Official Report, column 163, what proportion of surface waters in north European waters are British territorial waters under the Fishery Limits Act 1976; which are the seven main species caught in those British waters; what estimate she has made of the annual British catch in Icelandic waters; and what provision has been made under the common fisheries policy as compensation for the loss of Icelandic fishing by the British fishing industry.
§ Mr. JackThe United Kingdom fishery limits established by the Fishery Limits Act 1976 account for about 20 per cent. of the north Atlantic fishery limits of the 12 EC member states. The seven main species used in 1983 in the calculation of member states' shares—"relative stability"—were cod, haddock, plaice, whiting, saithe, mackerel and redfish or, for some purposes, herring The United Kingdom secured 37 per cent. of the EC quotas for these species, a figure higher than our historical level of catches. Part of the calculation involved assessing the losses for each member state arising from the extension of fisheries jurisdiction by third countries in the 1970s and calculating compensation in fish stocks still available to the Community. The United Kingdom's losses at Iceland were calculated for this purpose at 133,927 tonnes cod equivalent.