Queen’s Speech

My Lords, I am going to speak about something very important which was not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. Recently, Mr Huw Irranca-Davies has been appointed to be the new United Kingdom Fisheries Minister, and we wish him well. He has said that he is going to work for the whole of the United Kingdom. That means working closely with the Scottish Government Fisheries Minister, Richard Lochhead. The Scottish Government are very keen to abolish discarding and are also anxious to have their own quota system. This, unsurprisingly, has not found favour with Defra, and has been put down to party political manoeuvring by the SNP; but I do not think it is. I think that there is a genuine demand for this from the Scottish fishermen, and for good reasons. What I am going to say concerns Mr Irranca-Davies, and I ask the Minister to pass on to him what I am going to say. This is the time of year when the annual battle with the EU about the total allowable catch of cod and other species takes place, and it is rough on a new Fisheries Minister to be appointed at the back end of the year. Last night, the EU increased the total allowable catch of North Sea cod by 30 per cent, which must be good news if only because it should help reduce the cod discards; but at the same time the total allowable catches for haddock and whiting have been reduced by 11 per cent and 15 per cent respectively. I am sure that it is quite obvious to your Lordships that the practice of throwing overboard to die—that is, discarding—fish caught in excess of a quota is not only doing nothing at all to conserve fish stocks but, in a world where millions of people are starving, can only be described as wicked, wicked waste. Fishermen, particularly in Scotland and Cornwall, are very conscious of this and have the strongest objection to having to do it; indeed some have refused to do so. But as long as the system of total allowable catches is in force, the practice of discarding will continue, because white fish do not live in neat blocks of just one species. In a mixed fishery, you may be fishing primarily for, say, haddock, but you cannot avoid fish of other species coming into your nets. You are almost bound to catch some cod, and if you are not allowed to land them because you have already caught your quota, what can you do but throw them away? The Norwegians do not allow discarding. All fish must be landed, and a small price is paid even for undersized fish. I cannot understand why we cannot do that, too. I am told that it is much more difficult in a mixed fishery, but I cannot see why, and I think it is basically because the EU does not want to do anything about it. Last night's talks between Norway and the EU about various aspects of fishing included discards, and the EU has imposed a ban on discarding joint stocks over the minimum landing size. Surely a ban on discards under minimum landing size is what we really need. What does more damage than anything else to cod stocks, or fish stocks of any kind, is the catching of undersized fish; that is to say mainly young fish which have yet to breed and for which there is no market. Preliminary trials have recently taken place, on the Orkney fishing vessel of Mr Tam Harcus, of a type of trawl he has invented, which will reduce the number of small cod caught, while retaining the larger marketable fish and the valuable monkfish and megrim. He used nets made from 160 millimetre mesh, instead of 120 millimetre mesh, with an area of 300 millimetre mesh net at the entrance to the trawl, which allowed many of the smaller fish to escape. This works with that particular mixed fishery, as the ugly great monkfish is in part wide like a flatfish, and the megrim resembles a lemon sole in shape, so that only the smallest can escape through the larger mesh. It does not work, of course, when you are fishing for roundfish such as haddock and whiting, which are smaller than cod. I hope the Norwegians will stand firm about discards, in spite of being accused of righteousness by Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. I ask Mr Irranca-Davies to give the Norwegians all the support he can in future talks, however much the boys in Brussels dislike the idea. Otherwise the only way to reduce catches is by reducing effort, in the shape of days at sea or number of boats, by closing fishing grounds, or by modifications to fishing gear, which is a slightly hit-and-miss method, but has made quite a difference. The fact is that the common fisheries policy does not work for this country and has been a disaster for us. I have twice introduced a Bill to take us out of the common fisheries policy, but in vain. I think Alex Salmond did, too, also in vain. So I hope that Mr Irranca-Davies will try to work with Richard Lochhead to get a better deal from the EU, if it is possible to get anything good from them, and at least try to put an end to the practice of discarding—not just reduce it, but put a real end to it—because it is doing nobody any good.