HC Deb 22 October 2003 vol 411 cc574-5W
Mr. Hood

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what the outcome was of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 13 October; what the Government's stance was on the issues discussed, including its voting record; and if she will make a statement; [133016]

(2) what the outcome was of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 13 October; what the Government's stance was on the issues discussed, including its voting record; and if she will make a statement. [133592]

Margaret Beckett

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary represented the United Kingdom at a meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg on 13 October. No Ministers from the Devolved Administrations or Northern Ireland were present.

The main items for substantive discussion were on Fisheries, the most important of which was agreement of a proposal for a regulation on the management of fishing effort in Western Waters. As you know this proposal had been on the table for some time but its adoption had been held up while the Presidency struggled to find a compromise acceptable to as many of the key member states as possible—the UK, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. In the event the compromise adopted was acceptable to ourselves, France and Portugal but was opposed by Spain and Ireland, with Belgium abstaining.

The agreed regulation makes provision for an effort-based regime with member states' effort allocations to be based on fishing activity in the reference period 1998–2002. Management zones are to be based on ICES sea areas. This means there is no separate management zone for the Irish Sea as we wished but the Council and Commission have made a joint statement to the effect that fishing effort in previously restricted areas will be closely monitored. In other respects the final outcome is one that offers the UK significant improvements over the text originally tabled last December. These include, in particular: the exclusion of under 15 metre vessels from the scope of the regime in all areas except in a special biologically sensitive area off the south west coast of Ireland ("the hake box") where it will apply to all vessels over 10 metres; the list of vessels able to fish in Western waters is not restricted to those with a previous history of doing so; except for when entering and exiting the hake box, vessels will no longer have to hail in and out on entry and exit from Western waters zones, so substantially reducing industry's compliance costs; there are arrangements for adjusting member states' effort allocations to let them take their quotas in full or increase fishing activity on non-quota stocks; reduction in the number of fisheries from 5 to 3—demersal, scallops and edible/spider crabs.

The compromise text on the table therefore represented a very good outcome for the United Kingdom with all our major areas of concern being addressed.

There was also a brief presentation by the Commission of proposals to manage fishing in the Mediterranean which the Council will return to at a later date.

On agriculture, there was a brief discussion of the Commission's outline ideas for reform of the cotton and olive oil regimes. Producer member states emphasised the importance of both crops to their farming sectors and the need to maintain a significant level of production-linked aid to ensure continued activity in the sectors. The United Kingdom joined other non-producers in arguing for changes in these regimes to follow closely the pattern of reforms agreed in June for others. In particular, a substantial level of decoupling should be the norm, with the option for more if member states wished to move in that direction.