§ Mr. SteenTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will give producer organisations an allocation of effort for beam trawlers for the 1999 fishing year; and if he will make a statement on the factors which have given rise to delay. [69865]
576W
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 11 February 1999]: As I explained during the Fisheries debate on 15 December 1998, Official Report, column 829, a first meeting with the industry was held earlier that day on possible modifications to the beam trawl effort allocation arrangements introduced last year. During those discussions the industry raised a number of points with us and asked for certain illustrative figures to be prepared as the basis for further talks. This work involves updating the fleet segmentation and looking at other detailed technical issues. The Producer Organisations concerned understand what is involved and that it is not possible to provide definitive figures at the start of the fishing year. We will convene a further meeting soon.