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Fisheries

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on taking over the most important job in Government. He follows two able and energetic Fisheries Ministers. We have a no-discard policy when it comes to Ministers and fishing—unlike on the Opposition Front Bench. They consulted widely and got to know the industry, as my hon. Friend is doing. I congratulate him. I am disappointed that debate on such an important subject is crammed into a quick gabble in the dying two or three hours of a deadly dull day. Fishing is more important than that. We should have had the debate earlier, because the shape of the settlement that we are debating was determined by the EU-Norway agreement earlier this year, which told us that haddock quotas will be reduced by 15 per cent., whiting by 25 per cent. and herring by 41 per cent. That shows that the advice of the regional advisory councils, on which the common fisheries policy should be based, will be ignored. The position paper from the North Sea regional advisory council complains that"““the Commission proposes to treat stocks where the quality of the assessments is poor””" in a way that the council does not support. We should listen to the RACs. The Norway agreement also tells us that there is to be an increase in the total allowable catch of cod in the North sea. The cod preservation plan is totemic for the EU. We could and should have argued for a bigger increase. Cod stocks grow phenomenally and recover very quickly. The fact that recovery is now well under way would allow us to take a bigger quota. The lower the quota, the greater the discards. We could take a bigger quota and cut down the discards. The Minister has emphasised that fact during his comments on the radio. It might be necessary to do something more on discards. Why cannot we consider the Norwegian arrangements, whereby all fish caught has to be landed and is then sold at a lower price so as not to reward the landing? That gives value to it, and means that it is not wasted, as it is now, by being thrown back into the sea. That has to be our approach to the coming talks. On the east coast, this last year has been a good year, but we face a more difficult year ahead, particularly in Hull. The Norwegian quota for ““others”” was cut by 28 per cent. at the last minute in the talks. Why was that done? It will be a serious blow for Hull. We need to consider much more flexible arrangements during the talks. We need to consider the cod avoidance plans that the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations has proposed, which are very important and a successful way of maintaining other catches while avoiding the cod stocks. We need to look at selective gear. It is of concern that the terminator, important though it is, was developed in Canada—it is used in Canada and New Zealand—and followed the experiments with square mesh panels, of which our Government took little notice and which were financed by the industry. Those experiments pioneered the way for the terminator. We should take up the terminator, but we should have taken up the square mesh panels much earlier. We need real-time closures of the kind that the Scottish industry has pioneered and video recording of catches, as practised in New Zealand, as a tachometer for the industry. All those elements of flexibility need to be introduced into the talks and the common fisheries policy. We should argue against continuing the big blockbuster measures, such as days at sea limitations, decommissioning and others that have led to the current state of affairs, and argue for more selective measures—selective gear, selective catches and selective fishing in some areas. I would also argue for more flexibility in our country. For example, the Under-Secretary could allow a little more flexibility to the under-10 m class of vessel. The tight quota limits that are imposed on those vessels need to be eased. We could also allow the long liners more flexibility. I have corresponded with the Under-Secretary about Grimsby skipper John Hancock's vessels, the Apollo and the Genesis—long liners—which could be kept going by a slight increase in the catch of tusk and ling. That would not be associated with any increase in cod catches, because long lining is conservation-effective. We should therefore be more flexible rather than maintaining a position of absolute inflexibility. We should argue for more flexibility in the common fisheries policy and give more flexibility to our industry, because all the other countries do that when it suits their interests, and we should do the same. Through allowing greater flexibility, the Under-Secretary will enter into closer relationships with the industry, which he wants, and which we, as representatives of the industry, also want. We must work together and try more concertedly to bring scientists and fishermen together. The Under-Secretary must listen to the industry, as Scottish Ministers do. That puts them in a much more powerful position for knowing what the industry wants and getting it in Europe. My hon. Friend's background in social work predisposes him towards working together. In doing that, we will be successful, as he deserves to be.