HC Deb 10 March 1998 vol 308 cc158-9W
Mr. Jack

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food which EU member states have been given credit against their MAGP targets, affecting beam trawlers, for a reduction in the overall beam length. [32184]

Dr. John Cunningham

Footnote 4 to the table in Commission Decision 98/121/EC, approving the new MAGP IV objectives for the fishing fleet of the Netherlands, refers to compensation for a decrease in efficiency resulting from a reduction in beam length. I understand that this reflects the outcome of discussions between the Commission and the Netherlands about the Dutch MAGP III figures. Similar discussions took place about certain aspects of the UK MAGP III figures, which also resulted in adjustments in MAGP IV though these did not cover the question of beam length in our case. I am not aware of any other adjustments relating to beam length for any other Member State.

Mr. Jack

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what will be the position of a fisherman who exhausts his effort allocation before he has caught his quota; and if he will make a statement. [32182]

Dr. John Cunningham

As the Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), has already made clear, the Government's preference is for controls on fishing effort to be managed by the industry itself, along the lines of existing quota management arrangements. Following discussions with industry representatives the available fishing effort in the pelagic and beam trawl segments has accordingly been allocated between the various producers' organisations (POs) and groups concerned. They have been invited to manage their uptake of effort to stay within these allocations on whatever basis they and their members consider appropriate. The Government are not seeking to impose any particular formula for this and are not making any allocations of effort to individual vessels. POs and groups will therefore have the flexibility to respond to local circumstances and, within their allocations, to take account of any special factors affecting particular members.

Mr. Jack

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under what legislative power he will impose effort targets on producer organisations. [32185]

Dr. John Cunningham

The legal obligation to reduce fishing effort by the UK fleet is contained in Commission Decision 98/124/EC which in turn is based on Council Decision 97/413/EC. As with management of catch quotas, the rules under which effort allocations have been made to producers' organizations are administrative and have been drawn up after full consultation with industry representatives. Any action to prevent further fishing by members of a producers' organisation which has exceeded its effort allocation will be taken by a licence variation under Section 4 of the Sea Fish Conservation Act 1967.

Mr. Steen

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the means by which(a) Spain, (b) the Netherlands, (c) France, (d) Denmark and (e) Germany plan to achieve their MAGP IV objectives; if applications have been made to the European Union Commission for each of their schemes; what timespan the Commission has set for the implementation of each of the schemes; and if he will make a statement. [33038]

Mr. Morley

Under the terms of Council Decision 97/413/EC, all maritime Member States had until 30 June 1997 to submit to the European Commission national fishing effort limitation programmes for achieving the objectives fixed in MAGP IV, identifying and quantifying the means by which this is to be done. The Commission then had until 30 November 1997 to discuss these plans in detail with the Member States concerned and subsequently to approve them, with whatever modifications were found to be necessary.

In the event this process was not completed until 16 December 1997 and the resulting series of Commission Decisions was not published in the Official Journal of the European Communities until 12 February 1998. All 13 programmes are contained in volume L39 and all cover the period from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2001.