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Fisheries Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for setting a precedent for us. Parliament is built around precedent and now we have it, which is most useful, and I am most grateful to him, and to the Minister for having changed policy in such a fundamental way on this Bill. I can give the Minister another opportunity to do so, because if any amendment is totally, screamingly obvious, it is this one.

The Bill reads:

“In this Act ‘fisheries management plan’ means a document, prepared and published under this Act, that sets out policies designed to restore one or more stocks of sea fish to, or maintain them at, sustainable levels.”

I am sure the Government do not mean it, but if one sentence of this Bill lacked ambition, this would be it. Surely we are not trying just to get back to where we were—that is, to “restore”—or merely to a “sustainable” level. That level of ambition is about as neutral as it can get. My amendment would not change the intention of the Bill but would have it say

“manage one or more stocks of sea fish to maintain them at, or above, sustainable levels”.

There is no reason why we should not aim, or potentially have as an aim—I shall not say that it has to be the aim; it could still be to “restore” and to get to sustainable levels—to get to above sustainable levels. As the Bill is written, it seems that we are not allowed to go beyond sustainable levels; it prohibits it. It is a straightforward amendment. Let us be more ambitious and allow ourselves to go beyond sustainability. We want, as a result of the Bill, to see success over years— it will take a number of years or a number of stocks—in going well beyond sustainable levels so that, in five or 10 years, we have a much greater harvest that allows a much bigger fishing fleet, a bigger catch and more prosperous coastal communities. I beg to move.