§ Mr. David PorterTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the discrepancy in the size of the British registered fishing fleet and the figures quoted by the EU Fisheries Commissioner, Emma Bonino, on her recent visit to the United Kingdom. [22253]
§ Mr. BaldryThe figures which the Fisheries Commissioner was reported as using apparently showed a doubling of the UK fleet from 116,000 GRT—gross registered tonnage—in 1986 to 239,000 GRT now.
This is not so. The 1986 figure comes from a statistical series recording only certain significantly active vessels and is not comparable with later figures which give the total registered fleet. Moreover, the supposed figure for current tonnage is wrong and does not come from any published UK source.
Our own figures show that there has in fact been a net reduction in registered tonnage over the last 10 years to the present position of 207,000 GRT.
I have written to Mrs. Bonino drawing her attention to this.