Hansard

Presiding Officer, I sometimes think that we ought to recall Parliament on Christmas day to hold this debate, such is the degree of good will that emanates from all sides of the chamber towards the minister as he sets about these difficult negotiations. I hope that you will not take that advice too seriously.

I have listened carefully to the debate, which as always has been a good one, but it is difficult not to remain deeply concerned about the international situation and the recent international negotiations, because those are the negotiations that really set the quota for stocks of mutual interest.

As has been highlighted vividly, not least by Tavish Scott, we now appear to have reached a stalemate with Norway, Iceland and the Faroes in relation to the north-east Atlantic mackerel. That will mean that total allowable catches for jointly managed stocks will not be set until well into the new year, as the cabinet secretary said in his opening remarks, leaving our fishermen facing yet more uncertainty about their livelihood. It cannot be right, surely, that countries increase their allocations unilaterally year on year and simply refuse to co-operate when it is time to get round the negotiating table. The stalemate has to end, and soon.

On the common fisheries policy itself, the key issue, as other members have said, is surely how the new CFP will actually be implemented. Like everybody else, I am obviously pleased that we have reached an agreement on discards and that the ban is to be phased in gradually, but I am sure that we would all agree that there has to be a commonsense approach to the way in which discards are managed. A total elimination of discards is simply not practical in the very short term. As we have said before on this side of the chamber, simply banning discards is effectively banning the symptom rather than tackling the cause of the problem.

If the discards question is to be solved, a key element must be an increase in TAC, and in that regard we should not underestimate the importance of recognising changing scientific advice. As the North Atlantic Fisheries College Marine Centre in Shetland has recently reported, over the past decade cod stocks in the North Sea have doubled, plaice stocks have trebled and hake stocks have quadrupled, while fishing mortality rates have fallen dramatically year on year.

Although the North Sea is, in some ways, full of fish, the quotas for cod and haddock are now so low that fishermen are sometimes catching their quota within eight weeks and then having to turn to other catches to make a living. The conservation measures put in place by the CFP are therefore in some ways now creating an imbalance in the North Sea. For example, the number of sand eels, to which I think Angus MacDonald referred, has been greatly reduced. There is also displaced effort, which is resulting in too many boats fishing for prawns, for example, while other stocks protected by the cod recovery plan remain plentiful.

The recovery is good news, however, and our fishermen deserve enormous commendation for taking the hard decisions and making the necessary changes to ensure the industry’s viability. Make no mistake: fishermen want nothing more than to make fishing sustainable not just now but for generations to come. They have given up a great deal over the years to bring that about.

We share the cabinet secretary’s concern over ICES’s advice recommending a 9 per cent cut in the North Sea cod quota, particularly when the same advice shows that a 20 per cent increase in the quota would still keep the recovery of the stock on track. I agree that a further cut in quota could lead only to more discarding, given the abundance of cod in our seas. We therefore support the call from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation to secure an increase in the cod quota for 2014, for the simple reason that it can ensure the continuation of sustainable fishing while reducing discards—I think that that is called a win-win situation.

Fishermen also face a 15 per cent cut in North Sea haddock, which is a mainstay of the Scottish fleet, so it still appears that our fishermen are being penalised even though they are the ones taking the necessary steps to help the industry survive.

Time does not allow me to discuss many other issues that the debate has thrown up, so I will finish by merely quoting the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation:

“The reform of the CFP has been a political process and we are stuck with it... ministers ... now have to deliver workable plans that will protect our industry and ensure a sustainable future for fishing.”

Like other members, we on the Conservative side of the chamber wish the cabinet secretary every success as he seeks to do just that.

16:41