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95 Marine and Coastal Access Bill 26 OCTOBER 2009 Marine and Coastal Access Bill 96
[Lords]
[Lords]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman
does not have to move them. It is only if he wishes to
press them at the end of the debate or at the appropriate
time that he will be called upon to move them.
Andrew George: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy
Speaker, for your advice. I did not want to miss the
opportunity and later find out that I should have moved
them at this point. It was a belt and braces approach.
As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for
Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), I am keen to ensure that
there is a common thread—a golden thread—of balance
between social, economic and environmental factors in
the Bill. The Minister keeps coming back to that balance.
That theme should run through the Bill from start to
finish.
Some of the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks and
some of his exchanges with other Labour Members
presupposed that fishing and marine conservation must
necessarily be in conflict, but I do not think that needs
to be the case. I do not know whether he is perhaps
seeking conflict where there need not be any. Part of the
problem in the past has been that the fishing industry
has been seen as something of a macho trade and
marine conservation as rather effeminate and quite
different. However, it is interesting and significant that
over the past 10 to 15 years, the fishing industry and the
environmental movement, for want of a better expression,
have come together. Scientists and fisherman have worked
together to understand each other a great deal more,
help each other and find a way forward that is good for
both marine conservation and sustainable fishing.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: I agree with the hon. Gentleman
on that last point. The fishing industry and conservation
groups have come much closer together, which is why
the fishing industry feels a bit let down by the obsession
with controlling fishing in marine conservation zones.
In response to some of my hon. Friends, I am not
saying that fishing is not about marine conservation. Of
course it is—it is the industry with the most interest in
conservation. However, the patchwork quilts of marine
conservation zones are not an appropriate way of
controlling fishing effort or catches.
Andrew George: That is an important point, but there
is a shared interest in ensuring that there are controls on
activities in certain marine areas. On some occasions
there may be a shared interest in protecting both the
marine environment and the future sustainability of the
fishing industry. I often give the classic case in point of
the Trevose ground, off the north coast of Cornwall
and Devon, which is closed each year in the spawning
season between January and April. That initiative was
driven by the fishing industry, which effectively said,
“Please save us from ourselves. If we do not collectively
agree that we must not plunder the stocks, we won’t
have many stocks in years to come.”Increasingly, fishermen
are engaging much more constructively with marine
conservationists and scientists to find means by which
medium and long-term sustainability goals can be pursued.
Mr. MacNeil: The hon. Gentleman mentions MCZs.
Can he envisage a time when fish are protected from
creatures such as seals, and when some limitation by
whatever method might be put on seal numbers in some
areas?
Andrew George: There will increasingly be an opportunity,
particularly under the IFCAs, to recognise that there is
a balance between the range of predators and the stocks
in any area. That balance may well involve some difficult
questions, and perhaps unpalatable answers, about creatures
that are in too great abundance and are predating upon
vulnerable stocks.
Martin Salter: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on
his bravery in attempting to tackle the matter. Will he
inform the House of his preferred method of culling
seals?
Andrew George: I was encouraged down a route that
was not part of my speech, which I shall return to.
Before I turn to the amendments that I have tabled, I
wish to speak to amendment 17, which I have signed.
I remind the Minister that, in Committee, I urged him
to review the decision to annul the White Herring Fisheries
Act 1771. As a result, we entered into correspondence.
He wrote to me on 8 July, I responded on 31 July and he
wrote again on 4 September, giving further explanations
of the background to annulling the Act.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Doran),
as a lawyer who has obviously studied the Act in great
detail, articulated his arguments far better than I possibly
could. All I say to the Minister is that, quite apart from
the clear technical arguments that the hon. Gentleman
advanced very well, erasing the Act does not pass the
“what harm” test—what harm is there in leaving it in
place? Nor does it pass the “what hurry” test—what is
the hurry to get this done now? The correspondence
that I have had with those in the fishing industry who
are keen to keep the 1771 Act extant suggests that they
believe that elements of that rather ancient-sounding
Act are relevant today. The Minister denies that, but I
say to him that in any case it is doing no harm and there
is no hurry to remove it.
I turn now to the amendments in my name. The
purpose of amendment 18, to clause 124, is to establish
the balance that the Minister has said he wants to
achieve. Subsection 2(e) and (f) state that the regular
report that the MMO will produce must refer to
“the extent to which, in the opinion of the authority, the conservation
objectives stated for each MCZ which it has designated have been
achieved”
and
“any further steps which, in the opinion of the authority, are
required to be taken in relation to any MCZ in order to achieve
the conservation objectives stated for it.”
To balance the conservation objectives with socio-economic
considerations, which are after all to be acknowledged at
the point of designation, it seems appropriate for some
attempt to be made to assess in the report the impact of
policies in MCZs on the socio-economic vitality of the
coastal communities affected. The amendment would dovetail
with the rest of what is proposed for the report by adding
that it must mention
“the extent to which, in the opinion of the authority, the operation
of the MCZs have had an impact upon the marine economy in
general and the commercial and recreational fishing industry in
particular”.
I think that that would be a reasonable amendment. It
would simply establish a balance that the Minister told
the Public Bill Committee that he wishes to achieve, and
that I believe we all wish to achieve. There is an opportunity
for the Minister to accept the amendment.