My Lords, I am the longest-serving Fisheries Minister. I am therefore very concerned to intervene in this debate.
I have always been surprised by the degree to which people talk about the common fisheries policy as if there were no need for a common policy. The policy may not be the best one that we could have, but the truth is that even after these SIs are passed the idea
that we can take control of what we call “our” waters is just not true. Many of those waters, irrespective of the common fisheries policy, are shared. If you are only 22 miles from France, it is not surprising that many of these waters are shared and you need a common policy. These SIs fly in the face of any sense because we are not going to have a national policy except in the areas where, largely, we have already had one. The noble and right reverend Lord talked about inshore fishermen. We have been able to deal with the inshore fishermen for a very long time, even though many of them blame their situation on the common fisheries policy when it should be blamed on the British Government under various different parties.
A common policy is essential because, first, we have shared fishing grounds and, secondly, we have shared stock. Even if the fish happen to be in our waters at a particular time, as my noble friend Lady McIntosh pointed out, they may well have come from other waters. They do not carry flags. The fact is that unless you have a common policy about fish conservation, you find yourself in a very dangerous position, because one lot of fishermen can say, “Well, I’m not going to conserve if the other lot aren’t”—and of course all fishermen believe that other fishermen are not. Let us be perfectly clear about that point: if you have been Fisheries Minister for as long as I was, you discover that that is the case. I remember a man in my own constituency, in a small fishing village of about seven or eight boats in all, to whom, after a meeting when they were complaining about everything, I said: “I thought you were going to complain about that Belgian trawler”. “Ah”, he said, “them Belgian trawlers I can put up with. It’s Lowestoft men I can’t stand”.
The truth is that there is an ability between different fishing communities to find their neighbours not terribly helpful, so if the Government think they are going to have an easy time, I have to warn my noble friend that they are not. They can no longer blame the common fisheries policy; they will have to accept responsibility. However, they will not have the power because they will not be able to control the stocks; nor will they control the areas in which we have joint arrangements.
Historically, we dealt with that. There were a lot of fish and, if someone got in your way, a marlinspike was no doubt used. We then had a more sensible policy and we are now trying to move ourselves towards some way of relating to our neighbours. The noble and right reverend Lord from the north of Ireland made a very important point about the closeness, the lines and how you organise this. I am unhappy about this statutory instrument because it is another example of us trying to do something which is manifestly worse than what we had before.
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My second major point is that the fishermen have been very widely misled. They think that two things will happen: first, that we will take control of all these fisheries areas and, secondly, that they will have more opportunity to fish. We do not increase the number of fish by leaving the common fisheries policy. What we do is find the much more difficult issue of dealing with the contradictory demands of the fishermen on the one hand and of conservation on the other.
Thirdly, not only have we got ourselves into those two positions but we have removed ourselves from the very important role we played. My noble friend Lady McIntosh referred to my right honourable friend Richard Benyon, who was, in my view, the best Fisheries Minister we have had. That is a proper compliment; I really think he was. He was crucial in ensuring that we improved the conservation policies of the European Union. Our voice has always been for conservation, despite the unhappiness of the fishermen. I used to deal with fishermen who were appalled that one fought for the science. Of course, if we leave the European Union, we will not be in those discussions, so we will not be able to defend our fishing stocks. They are joint stocks; there are no national stocks or national fish. Generally, fish wander where they wish. You either have a common conservation system or a much less effective one. We make it even less effective because there will be no British Fisheries Minister there to argue the case for conservation and ensure that the common policies enhance it.
The fourth issue which seems to arise here is that we produce this policy and these agreements, saying that we will merely put into British law what is already there in European law, and then we face the fishing industry. The problem with that industry is that it touches the heart of very large numbers of people. It is, I think, smaller in size than the British lawnmower industry, but the fact is that we have a range of Ministers trying to satisfy the call of the fishermen in different parts of the country.
I share this view. I dealt with villages all the way down the Suffolk coast, that 70-mile stretch, which had a whole range of small groups of fishermen. I yield to no one in my enthusiasm for the fishing industry. But I also know that the Government have told people how wonderful it will be. I have read the speeches of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defra. If I were a fisherman listening to those speeches, I would think that the land of milk and honey was coming and that there was going to be a most wonderful new circumstance. However, there will not be, because we do not create fish by political disengagement.
What will happen is that my noble friend and her noble neighbour, and the right honourable and honourable Ministers, will now be the centre of all the discontent of fishermen. They will say exactly what they have always said, which is that we have to follow the science. That means that we will have to be tough about conservation. But of course they will no longer have the European Union to blame.
That brings me to my fifth point. It was not just British Ministers who were so important in the European Union, it was British fishery scientists. We have some of the finest fishery scientists in the world. What arrangements are being made for them? How will we see that their advice, on waters that are shared and certainly very similar, will be heard by the European Union as it always was? Will British fishery scientists be excluded from the opportunities they have had up to now, because of our wanton stupidity in leaving the European Union? I see nothing in this SI which refers to that; there probably is no place for it, but I hope my
noble friend will tell me something about Defra’s intention to support our fishery scientists, who are so important. Will it make sure that their voices are heard elsewhere?
My noble friend Lady Byford made some important points which I want to refer to. Of course, this SI has to keep to the simple—simple!—business of translating EU law into British law. In doing that, it once again raises the real issues of discards and trawling the seabed. In all the rhetoric about Brexit and fisheries, I have not seen any new concepts, ideas or intentions about the very serious damage done by trawling the seabed or discarding. We are waiting for the Fisheries Bill but, in what we know about it, I have not seen much evidence of any really innovative or imaginative arrangements on those issues.
Finally, I must say to my noble friend that I very much hope that she will not ask the MMO to take responsibility here. There are some real questions about the efficacy and abilities of the MMO. The truth is that, as a nation, we have not been all that good at fisheries management, even of the areas over which we have had total control. I think my noble friend Lady Byford will agree that, over the last 20 years, we have been very concerned about some of the management issues and the lack of an ear to hear the problems. Like her, I am worried that there is a gap in governance here. We are in a position in which we do not have a Fisheries Bill or an environment Bill, in any real sense. We will have the SI but, unless the House of Commons manages to do something to rescue this whole wretched business, which I pray it will, we will find ourselves outside the European Union with neither of those Bills. Therefore, this SI will stand alone, with all its difficulties and dangers. I hope my noble friend will give us some confidence that we have a plan B for governance, which we would hope to have from those two Bills.
I am sorry to have detained the House for this long, but I have done so because it seems that very large numbers of people in the fisheries industry have been sold a totally false story. They have been told that life will be wholly different, better and much more independent outside the European Union. Actually, it is unlikely that life will change much for them. In so far as it does, it will be worse, because we will no longer have influence over the people with whom we share our stocks and, very often, our fishing grounds. Of course I will support this SI, because we have to have it, but my goodness, what a miserable day for the fisheries industry.