Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Fisheries, HC 489
Wednesday 5 September 2018
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 5 September 2018.
Members present: Neil Parish (Chair); Alan Brown; Sandy Martin; Kerry McCarthy; Sheryll Murray; David Simpson; Angela Smith; Julian Sturdy.
Questions 416 - 528
Witnesses
I: George Eustice MP, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; Anne Freeman, Deputy Director, Domestic Fisheries and Reform; Neil Hornby, Director, Marine and Fisheries, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
This session is a continuation of the meeting of 17 July 2018. The transcript of the previous meeting can be found here.
Witnesses: George Eustice MP, Anne Freeman and Neil Hornby.
Q416 Chair: Good morning. It does not seem like the recess really happened, does it? Thank you for coming back again, having been rudely interrupted in the last session. We appreciate, Minister, your coming back. Just for the record, please introduce yourselves across the panel and then we will kick off straightaway.
Anne Freeman: My name is Anne Freeman. I am Deputy Director for Domestic Fisheries and Reform in Defra.
Neil Hornby: I am Neil Hornby. I am the Director for Marine and Fisheries at Defra.
George Eustice: I am George Eustice, the Fisheries Minister.
Q417 Chair: I thought perhaps you were. If it is all right with you, we will go straight into questions. Has there been any progress in negotiations with the EU about fisheries being a separate strand of our future relationship? There have been rumours that they would like to separate fisheries from the rest of the negotiations. What is your view on that?
George Eustice: Both sides have set out their positions. Ours is crystal clear, both in the Fisheries White Paper and in the Government White Paper on the future economic partnership: that there is a negotiation to be had on fisheries, but that is entirely separate from the negotiations on trade. The two are separate. We seek a free trade agreement and we have set out some proposals for that, and we have set out our approach on fisheries. But fisheries is a dynamic environment: you need to have annual discussions and negotiations on the state of stocks, the state of the science and where those stocks are, so it will always be a separate negotiation, in our view.
The European Parliament published a paper where they set out that they believed that they should be linked; we do not agree with that but that is the opening position that they set out. There has been just one very short meeting as part of the EU negotiations where fisheries was touched on and discussed but it was in very broad terms and did not get into the details of these sorts of issues.
Q418 Chair: There is no doubt, when it comes to the negotiation, that one of the few good cards we have in our hand is fisheries. They at the moment take £600 million worth of fish out of our waters; we take about £100 million worth out of theirs, so they take five or six times as much from us as we do from them. They are going to be looking to try to keep hold of that fish. Are you confident in this negotiation that you are not going to start giving away our future rights? I do not mean you personally, but those doing our negotiations.
George Eustice: The Government have a very clear position, set out in the White Paper on that future economic partnership: that these are separate. We seek a free trade agreement to have access for British lamb, British barley and also obviously fisheries product, and shellfish in particular, to export to the EU. In return, the EU will be seeking access for Irish beef, dairy products from Denmark and France, pork from Denmark and all sorts of other things besides. We do have a trade deficit with the EU. It is in their interests to do that free trade agreement. We do not see any precedent or any need for that to be linked to the fisheries negotiation.
Q419 Chair: Before I bring Sheryll in with a supplementary, there was talk a few months ago that, come March, Europe was going to be quite difficult about trading our fish that is landed back into the EU. I am worried that they are still already looking for the penny and the bun because, in one instance, they want to keep as much access to fish in our waters as they can but, on the other hand, they are already trying to be difficult about trading fish. Is there any truth in that? Where do you think they are on it?
George Eustice: Where we are is that both sides are clear that they want an agreement on a future economic partnership. We all want tariff-free trade and minimal friction at the border. That is a position that both the EU has said it wants and that we want. That ought to be achievable because our starting point is that we are in the single market. There are not really obstacles to putting in place a free trade agreement in the way that there are if you try to do one with a new third country. This is absolutely doable if the will is there to do it.
Q420 Chair: As we stand at the moment, are you confident that after March next year, trading of fish into the EU will not be a problem?
George Eustice: Yes, because I am confident we are going to get that future economic partnership agreed this autumn.
Chair: Well done, George. Let us hope your optimism bears fruit.
Q421 Mrs Murray: Just to be clear, if it is treated as a separate strand, where is the starting position for the allocation of shared stocks? For instance, the White Paper says, “We will be seeking to move away from relative stability”. I know my fishermen and your fishermen from our constituencies would not be happy with that, because 8% of the cod and 10% of the haddock is a totally unacceptable share.
Can you categorically state to me now that after the implementation period, if there is an implementation period, those fishermen will be able to catch more than the existing share that they are able to catch at the moment? Relative stability disadvantaged UK fishermen. Can you categorically state to me today that we will not be adhering to relative stability? Not only is this mentioned in the White Paper but it is also mentioned in the Chequers agreement: “We will be seeking to move away from relative stability”. That is not good enough, Minister. Can you categorically state that UK fishermen will not have to stick to the relative stability keys of 1983 once we have left the common fisheries policy?
George Eustice: Yes. I think the paper is more explicit about that than you give it credit for, in that we published an entire annex setting out what we believe would be a fairer allocation key—that is, one based on zonal attachment, so that in future we see the allocation keys for stocks being based on an assessment of zonal attachment.
Q422 Mrs Murray: I can take the figures shown in Annex C of the White Paper as being a good indication of what UK fishermen will be able to catch immediately after the implementation period, if there is one, or, if there is not one, immediately after 29 March 2019.
George Eustice: That is our destination, but as you will be aware—
Q423 Mrs Murray: How long do you think it is going to take us to get to the destination, Minister?
George Eustice: It will depend on stocks. For some of them you may get there literally straightaway, within a year. Where you have big variance and if we do not have the capacity on some of those stocks, it may take longer.
Q424 Mrs Murray: In area 7, where we get 8% of the cod and 10% of the haddock at the moment and the French get about 70%, it might take longer to move away from that, might it?
George Eustice: Longer than how long?
Q425 Mrs Murray: I have asked you. You have said it may take a while. How long? Fishermen have to plan their businesses, so how long will it take? Are we talking five years? Are we talking 12 months?
George Eustice: The position that we are taking in this current negotiation on the future economic partnership is to establish the legal position, which is clear, set out in UNCLOS, as you are well aware: that we become an independent coastal state, that we control access and manage the resources in our own exclusive economic zone and that we have, through that as well, a duty to co-operate with our neighbours, which we would always do anyway.
Q426 Mrs Murray: They have a duty to co-operate with us through the UN Fish Stocks Agreement.
George Eustice: Absolutely. In future, there will probably be an annual UK-EU bilateral and there will probably become an annual trilateral between the UK, Norway and the EU, and likewise with the Faroes. In those annual negotiations, all of these issues will be settled in a dynamic year-to-year basis.
Q427 Mrs Murray: Over the surplus—is that correct? It is the surplus that our fleet cannot take.
George Eustice: In essence, yes, if zonal attachment is our starting point, which is what we are saying. If zonal attachment is our starting point, then by definition your starting point is that those are stocks that we have. You may then, though, want to trade access to our waters for access to EU waters and to do annual exchanges.
Q428 Mrs Murray: Or Iceland or Norway or any other member states.
George Eustice: Just as we do now. You have annual exchanges of a quota for a stock that we may not use, for instance blue whiting. We trade that with Norway for arctic cod in Norwegian waters, and there are other similar agreements that take place, but this is an annual negotiation. What I do not think Dominic Raab would thank me for is if he ended up in this highly complex negotiation as it is arguing about skates and rays in area 7D and what tonnages there are going to be in future.
Q429 Mrs Murray: Skates and rays in area 7D are very important to my fishermen and your fishermen.
George Eustice: They are very important and it is a very complex area. It needs to be a separate negotiation.
Q430 Mrs Murray: You said they are annual negotiations. Would it be like Norway, where it is an agreement that takes place for, say, five, 10 or 15 years and then we look to renew it? It would not be an annual agreement indefinitely for annual talks indefinitely because the Norway one has a cut-off point, I believe, and then it is looked at again.
George Eustice: We make clear in the White Paper that we are open to doing multi-annual agreements for a number of years; it might be three, four or five years. We have a precedent for that when it comes, for instance, to coastal states agreements on pelagic species.
Q431 Mrs Murray: I think you have misunderstood me. What I asked was about the fact that the Norway agreement with the EU is renewed every 10 years, or something like that, but the negotiations happen annually so it is a multi-year agreement with a cut-off point. Is that how you would envisage this working?
George Eustice: We set out that, yes, we want to seek multi-annual agreements, because there are some advantages to that, in that if you have a multi-annual agreement running for several years—
Q432 Mrs Murray: You have not answered my question. A multi-annual agreement to me is like a multi-annual management plan over three or five years. However, are we talking about an agreement such as Norway has now with the EU, where the agreement to continue negotiations has to be renewed every five, 10 or 15 years, on a yearly basis.
George Eustice: Neil maybe understands the nuance of your question.
Neil Hornby: The answer effectively is yes. The EU has a framework agreement with Norway under which the annual negotiations take place. We would be looking to follow that same model with the EU where we would have a framework agreement with the EU that sets out the overall structure and principles of that.
Q433 Mrs Murray: That would have a cut-off date and then a new framework agreement.
Neil Hornby: As you say, at the moment the Norway one has a nominal review point every few years. It has just been rolled over every time since the 1980s when it was first put in place.
Mrs Murray: Yes, but it still presents an opportunity to change it if necessary.
Chair: That would give fishermen long-term planning.
Q434 Angela Smith: I have a very simple question. Has Defra modelled the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the sustainability of fisheries in UK waters, and the UK fishing industry more generally?
George Eustice: We have done a lot of no-deal planning.
Q435 Angela Smith: I am talking about the impact of a no-deal Brexit; that is not no-deal planning. Have you modelled the impact of a no-deal Brexit?
George Eustice: Modelled what aspect of it?
Angela Smith: On the sustainability of fisheries in UK waters and the UK fishing industry more generally—in other words, on the sustainability of the stocks and the long-term industry, and on the UK industry more generally. It is quite a simple question.
Chair: Also, Minister, naturally trading that fish back into the EU, which is going to be the biggest issue.
Angela Smith: Have you modelled the impact? It is quite a simple question, George.
George Eustice: It depends what you mean by a model but I will do my best to answer.
Q436 Angela Smith: Modelling the impact means, “What is going to be the impact?” Let us put it another way: what is going to be the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the UK fishing industry? Let us put it more simply.
George Eustice: Okay. In a no-deal Brexit, there is no transition agreement, we leave as an independent coastal state next March and we have control of all the fisheries resources in our waters.
Q437 Angela Smith: I know that, but what is going to be the impact of that on the industry?
George Eustice: The impact is that gives fishermen a big increase in their fishing opportunities because we will have control of our own resources.
Q438 Angela Smith: What about fishermen fishing off the coast of France?
George Eustice: There will be annual negotiations just as we have now with Norway and Faroes and others.
Q439 Angela Smith: In a no-deal Brexit, there will be no mechanism for doing that.
George Eustice: There will. We will be re-joining NEAFC, which is the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission.
Q440 Angela Smith: You have done the modelling of an impact. You have modelled an impact clearly if you have thought this through.
George Eustice: Yes, and it is in the White Paper.
Q441 Angela Smith: What is the impact in terms of GDP, the numbers of vessels and any loss of industry? What is the impact?
George Eustice: The industry has nothing to fear from a no-deal Brexit because fishing is one of the key areas where we would gain by having that more rapid control of our waters.
Q442 Angela Smith: Can we have the figures, then, to prove that? You have that view.
George Eustice: Yes, it is in the annex. If you look in the annex to the White Paper, it sets out what zonal attachment means.
Q443 Angela Smith: But that is not in terms of a no-Brexit scenario.
George Eustice: Whether we have a deal or do not have a deal, our view is that we become an independent coastal state.
Q444 Angela Smith: You are saying there is no impact? A no-deal Brexit will have no impact whatsoever on the UK fishing industry?
George Eustice: It would be positive because international law—
Q445 Angela Smith: A positive impact. A no-deal Brexit will have a positive impact on the UK fishing industry.
George Eustice: Leaving the EU is positive for the UK fishing industry, whether there is an agreement or whether there is not an agreement.
Q446 Angela Smith: That is quite staggering. Is Defra going to publish a technical note on fisheries?
George Eustice: We have published—
Neil Hornby: We are.
George Eustice: Yes, we are.
Q447 Chair: In this no-deal Brexit, I can understand quite rightly that if we get our waters back quicker we have a lot more fish and potentially we can catch a lot more fish. That is good news; I accept that. The issue, surely, to look at is whether this fish is then tradable, because a lot of our fish, especially what we catch in the south-west is traded straight over to the continent, so that must also be looked at. Has it?
George Eustice: In the event of tariffs, it is very important to remember that tariffs may have some impact on demand but principally it would be a tax on European consumers buying those British products. It would be a bit like putting VAT on food. Yes, if you put VAT on food it might affect demand for certain things, and if you put tariffs on food you might affect demand for it, but it would be a tax on European consumers.
Q448 Chair: Your view is there is a good demand in Europe for fish and if the Europeans put a tariff on it, then naturally they would put the price of their own fish up at the same time, basically, and to the consumers of the rest of the European Union.
George Eustice: That is right.
Q449 Chair: Therefore, you think it is unlikely that the EU would put a tariff on.
George Eustice: The most likely scenario is that actually we have a free trade agreement that is concluded and that we have a transition period to give people time to prepare for that, but we are obviously having to do thoughts and preparations on what would happen in a no-deal scenario.
Q450 Angela Smith: The second part of my question is to focus on the other very important part of the fishing industry, which is overlooked in this debate: processing. The UK has the biggest fish-processing sector in Europe. Have you modelled the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the processing side of the industry?
George Eustice: I do not know that we have done specific modelling on that, but we are working very, very closely with those processors.
Q451 Angela Smith: It has 18,000 jobs; 4,000 of those are in Grimsby. The people of Grimsby will be very concerned to hear that there is no modelling in terms of how to manage a no-deal Brexit on that port. Some 70% of its fish comes from Iceland.
George Eustice: That is right. It is fish that is imported.
Q452 Angela Smith: It is the biggest fish-processing import in Britain. Sorry, Alan; it apparently is, just. It will have a massive impact on Scottish processing and on the north-east coast, and you have done no modelling.
George Eustice: Our objective, obviously, is to get an early free trade agreement.
Q453 Angela Smith: I am talking about if there is no deal. You must be planning for a no-deal outcome because we heard evidence last November that the impact of a no-deal on the fish-processing sector will be really serious. What work has been done to model the impact? We must know what the impact is.
Neil Hornby: You made the point that most of this fish that comes into those processors comes from outside the EU; it comes from Iceland and it comes from Norway, so it is imported either via the EU or directly to us at the moment. We will have more control over what we do in terms of those imports. It does not relate to our deal with the EU; it is about how we manage that.
Q454 Angela Smith: No, the single market is critical. You know that. It is critical to that importation of fish, the freshness of the fish, no delays at borders and no opening the containers. The moment those containers are opened, the fish starts to deteriorate.
Neil Hornby: That would be under our control.
Q455 Angela Smith: No, it will not. There will be border checks and we will not be able to import that fish under single market arrangements. What we are hearing from you is an assumption. Where is the impact? Where is the evidence? Has that been modelled?
George Eustice: There will not be any problem in terms of importing those goods because we will have agreements with Iceland and Norway and others. Indeed, one of their primary objectives at the moment is to ensure they still have access to the UK market.
Q456 Angela Smith: Norway and Iceland are in the single market.
George Eustice: Not for fisheries. Fisheries are not covered by the single market.
Q457 Angela Smith: No, they are. The common fisheries policy is not covered in Norway and Iceland.
George Eustice: They have a preferential trade agreement on fisheries with the EU, and in future they would have a trade agreement with us on issues such as fisheries.
Q458 Angela Smith: So you have modelled the impact of a no-deal Brexit. We are not getting straight answers here and it is so important. Some 18,000 jobs depend on it.
George Eustice: There will not be any issue in terms of importing fish from Iceland and Norway. We will have control of our trade policy. We would be able to unilaterally set tariffs or set an ATQ, as we do now, exactly where you want it for those fisheries products. That is not dependent on the EU.
Q459 Angela Smith: Are you preparing for that now?
George Eustice: We have done all of that working as part of our contingency planning, yes. Exactly.
Q460 Angela Smith: You are confident that Norway and Iceland will independently be able to import fish under preferential arrangements into the UK, even though they are effectively part of the single market?
George Eustice: That is what they want, yes. Access to the UK market is the most important thing for them to secure, because for fisheries products it is the most important market for them.
Angela Smith: I think, Chair, a written note on this would be really helpful because that is not our understanding, or my understanding, of what is on offer.
George Eustice: There is a separate issue. There is not a concern in terms of importing fish from Iceland or Norway. That is something a future UK Government could unilaterally decide to do. I have met, for instance, the Icelandic ambassador, and in fact having access to the UK market for fisheries products is something that they are very keen to continue to have. The same would be true of Norway because we are a very important market for them.
The issue raised by some processors, and we are completely and acutely aware of—and this is why we are aiming to get this free trade agreement—is that they sometimes then process that fish here and re-export to the EU market. It is the export, not the import, that is the issue.
Q461 Angela Smith: Exactly. What is your modelling? If what you say is true—I absolutely understand the point about exporting—what modelling have you done to measure the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the exportation of processed products in the UK?
George Eustice: It is actually very hard to do because there may be a tariff that is applied but it is not a ban on—
Q462 Angela Smith: You must be modelling a range of scenarios. I am not denying that it is not easy to do, but surely the Department is doing it. That is what you are there for. That is what the civil servants are there for.
George Eustice: I can tell you this—
Q463 Angela Smith: You are not preparing, are you, George? You are not preparing for a no‑deal Brexit.
George Eustice: Yes, of course we are. It has been part of our contingency planning from day 1.
Q464 Angela Smith: You are not giving me any confidence this morning that you are doing that, if I am honest.
George Eustice: We are doing that. As Dominic Raab set out recently, in a no-deal scenario we would be taking unilateral decisions as a country when it comes to autonomous tariff-rate quotas.
Q465 Angela Smith: What will the impact be? What will the impact be on the processing sector? You have not given us an answer this morning on this. What will the impact be on fish processing?
George Eustice: We do not have particular modelling that we have done specifically on this particular industry, but the challenge and the issue that they face is no different than any other sector of the UK economy, which is that they—
Q466 Angela Smith: We have no modelling for any sector of the UK economy then, on that basis.
George Eustice: Basically, as I have said earlier, if the EU put tariffs on these goods it would essentially be a tax on the EU consumers, because ultimately they do have to get their fish from somewhere.
Q467 Angela Smith: That is a specific scenario, but all we need to hear is whether all the various scenarios that could emerge from a no-deal Brexit are being assessed for impact. Are they being assessed?
George Eustice: Yes. As part of our detailed planning, obviously we are doing thinking about the whole issue of tariffs across a range of sectors, in terms of what the impact might be and what our approach might be.
Q468 Angela Smith: When can we look forward to the fruits of this labour? When can we look forward to having the technical information, the technical detail and the analysis of what the impacts of a no-deal Brexit will be on fish processing and on the catching side? When can we look forward to it?
George Eustice: At the moment, we are focused on delivering a deal. I think we can all look forward to getting an agreement later this autumn on a future partnership.
Q469 Angela Smith: When can we look forward? If you are doing the work, George—you have just said the Department is doing the work—when can we look forward to seeing it?
George Eustice: The Department for Exiting the EU obviously holds the ring on a lot of these areas. It co-ordinates all of this. The Government are doing a lot planning and a lot of thinking in these areas, but we have been consistent all along that we are not going to share of publish all of the analysis that we have done, simply because we should not undermine our negotiating position.
Q470 Angela Smith: Okay then. When will you see the documents that measure the impact of a no-deal Brexit? When is the scheduled day that a civil servant presents you, as a Minister, with the document: “Here, Minister—here are the scenarios and here are the potential impacts of a no-deal Brexit”. When do you look forward to seeing those documents?
George Eustice: I have access to all sorts of analysis that has been done over the last year or more in this area. I have regular updates on concerns of particular industries. I have had regular meetings with the fish processing industry.
Q471 Angela Smith: No. When are you looking forward to seeing the documents that your civil servants have produced or that DExEU civil servants have produced for you that will measure the potential impacts of a no-deal Brexit? It is nothing to do with talking to the industry. When do you look forward to seeing those documents? This is the job, is it not? You know that better than me.
George Eustice: Yes. I see many documents on these things. Nothing is withheld from me. It is an issue of how much is right for a Government to publish when you are in the middle of a negotiation.
Q472 Angela Smith: I am moving on from publication. Minister, when are you going to see it? It will reassure people, parliamentarians, to know that civil servants and Ministers are assessing properly potential impacts of a no-deal Brexit, and this morning we are talking about fisheries. When are you going to have the documents?
George Eustice: I have already seen documents and indeed we have already published some documents and given Members access to the Library to see them, which set out in great detail how much fish we import, under what terms it is imported, what preferential trade agreements would need to be rolled forward and, indeed, how it is exported, what percentage of that is exported to the European market and so on and so forth. We have actually published some of that.
Angela Smith: That is background; that is not an impact. Anyway, Chair, I think we will have to leave it there because we are going round in circles.
Q473 Chair: Minister, I accept that you cannot work out what tariffs the EU may or may not put on so therefore that is completely out of your hands. Do you have figures on the amount of fish that may come in from Iceland or Norway that is imported in the EU, processed in the UK and then is exported to the EU, because that might become an issue? Do you have any figures? Perhaps not much fish. I suspect most of the cod we eat in this country, but I do not know; there must be some that we export again, is there?
George Eustice: Yes. We do have some. In fact, I think it was in one of the papers that was published earlier this year. Rather than try to remember the precise figures now, I am more than happy to write to the Committee and set out what we import from which countries and under what tariffs.
Chair: That would be useful. I accept your predicament on the fact that if the tariffs are put in by the EU, they can do that. It is like Trump with steel; he can put it on steel and aluminium but he immediately rises the cost of steel and aluminium across the whole of the US as well as those tariffs on the imports. It does have an effect on their market also so they may not go there, but of course it is completely out of your control.
Q474 Kerry McCarthy: I have three quick points for clarification. I do not need a long answer, but I wanted to check a couple of things. On the technical notices, I was slightly concerned you had to look to your colleague to ask whether there was going to be a technical note on fisheries. As I understand it, just under a third of the notices we are expecting were published at the end of August. I assumed that that meant that the Government was aware of how many notices would be published and what had been asked for. It seems to me that you were not aware of that.
George Eustice: No, I was. I was not aware whether all or some of them or none of them had been published yet, because I know it is being done in a number of—
Q475 Kerry McCarthy: I think you said to him, “Are we going to do a technical note on fisheries?” and he said yes.
George Eustice: No, I was looking to seek guidance on what had been published or not published to date. I am aware there are a number of technical notices on a wide range of issues, including fisheries. I have seen those and I had signed those off earlier.
Q476 Kerry McCarthy: That is helpful, because that was slightly worrying. You talked about the preferential trading agreement. If we look at what happens at 11.00 on 29 March when we leave the EU next year, I understand entirely what you are saying—that if we leave with no deal we can try to replicate a deal with Iceland and Norway, in terms of the PTA—but that will not be in place at 11.00 on 29 March, will it? What happens in that interim period in terms of having equivalent single market arrangements?
George Eustice: One of the options you have on tariffs, if there is not an agreement, is to have tariff rate suspensions; that is where you can basically say that you are not going to apply any tariffs at all. You can have something called ATQs—autonomous tariff rate quotas. Indeed, that is the system that we use predominantly for the fish that we import from countries such as Russia through the Barents Sea, which is a significant amount of fish that we import. You can also have an applied tariff that is lower than the bound tariff.
Q477 Kerry McCarthy: When do you start discussing?
George Eustice: Immediately. You can do that immediately and, indeed, Dominic Raab has already set out that we will seek, through using that unilateral tariff policy, to make sure that we can safeguard continuity. In the short term, what you would probably do if we have not stood up or rolled over those agreements is to simply set an autonomous tariff rate quota. Indeed, in the meantime, as part of our no-deal planning, there is already some dialogue with countries such as Norway and Iceland and indeed every other country in the world where there is a free trade agreement currently through the EU, to ensure that we could roll that over very quickly.
Q478 Kerry McCarthy: I have a final point. You say that, if there were tariffs on our exports to the EU, it would be a tax on EU consumers. Again, I entirely understand that. You can say they would buy at a better price but obviously the price of a product affects the sales of a product. I was, again, slightly concerned that you seemed to think it would just be something that would be a hit where people are buying the product, or they would have to pay more or not buy their fish.
You did not seem to realise that inevitably if you hike the price of something up, the chances are you are going to sell less of it. That is going to have an impact on British fishermen trying to sell to those markets. I think that is partly what Angela was getting at with looking at the modelling. It just worried me slightly that you seemed to think it was just a problem for consumers and not for producers.
George Eustice: No, I recognise that if you put the price of something up there is likely to be an impact on demand and you are likely to displace consumer activity to buy other products on which there are not tariffs. I completely understand that.
The point I was trying to make is that a country, in choosing to put tariffs on food, is also putting a tax on its consumers, so we should not do what we are very good at doing as a country and always look at what the problem is for us. We should recognise that there would be a cost to European consumers were the EU to adopt such a tariff policy.
Q479 Kerry McCarthy: That could help European producers if they end up buying their own fish. From the Government point of view, they are not necessarily going to be alarmed by the fact that their consumers are suddenly going to have to pay. There are some products where there would be a public outcry if suddenly the price of it went up. If you were talking about different types of fish, I think people—
Chair: I think the Spanish would soon get excited if their price of fish went up.
Kerry McCarthy: No, but it is not fish overall, is it? There is choice of different types of fish and the Spanish might well think they want to divert Spanish consumers towards buying more fish that was landed in Spain, rather than British fish. I will leave it there.
George Eustice: They would have to then catch the fish in their own waters. That is the issue on fisheries that they would have.
Chair: In some of the European countries, there is an insatiable desire for fish. Therefore, I think there is going to be that export market for the fish. I am not that concerned about that and I do take your view that the tariff will actually put the price up for European consumers. I am not sure they will want to go there.
Naturally, their fishermen will do better on those species because of our tariff by us, because the price that we get will be less because we have to pay the tariff and they will be getting their price plus the tariff but it will push it up for consumers. I am not sure they will want to go there.
Q480 Alan Brown: I have the same concerns that Angela and Kerry have expressed on this. Minister, you are assuring us that you have prepared for no deal and yet, in your answer to Angela, you are saying modelling is very difficult to do in terms of modelling the impact of a no-deal scenario because of things like tariffs. Surely, if you are preparing for no deal you need to look at that whole range of what the tariffs could mean. You did acknowledge it means a tax on the consumer at the other end so it therefore affects demand. What does that mean for the sector at this end?
Also, we know free movement of goods is going to end. The Government earlier explained that. What does that mean in terms of exporting products such as shellfish and other speciality products that go abroad and have a high market? In-shore fishermen are very worried that their voices are not being heard in terms of the wider mix about quotas, et cetera. What planning has been done for a no-deal scenario and how that affects them? What is happening at ports, because it is not just tariffs you need to look at?
You need to look at the whole customs and movement of goods and what that means. You say it will ideally be easier in the future because we are in the single market, yet the UK Government are determined to leave the single market. That, therefore, is a problem. Have all these issues been looked at in these internal technical notes that you say have been signed off?
George Eustice: The short answer is yes. The reason why we are seeking a free trade agreement is that obviously that would give people that continuity and exporters that clarity that they want. That is why that is our position.
I would simply say this: the fish species that we export most of is salmon, most of it farmed in Scotland. France is one of the largest markets but the US is not far behind. Yes, we export quite a lot of shellfish, particularly scallops, to the European Union—and crabs as well—but we also export a lot shellfish, particular crabs, to markets such as China. We export mackerel to Nigeria. It is not the case that fisheries trade only takes place with the European Union. We actually import and export fish from all around the world.
Q481 Alan Brown: Angela has just reminded me that three-quarters of the UK catch goes to the EU at present. We can talk about China and we can talk about other markets, but three-quarters of the catch goes to the EU. What would be the impact of a no-deal scenario on that three-quarters of the catch, which relies on just-in-time delivery?
George Eustice: It is for precisely that reason that we take a very clear approach. If there was no deal, our approach to tariff policy and to borders would be to unilaterally ensure that trade can flow as easily and as quickly as possible.
Q482 Alan Brown: How can you unilaterally make an arrangement on trade? That is a sheer impossibility, surely.
George Eustice: No, you can unilaterally set your own tariff policy.
Q483 Alan Brown: You cannot unilaterally set customs arrangements with other countries.
George Eustice: For other countries, no, but you can unilaterally set your own customs arrangements and your own border checks policy.
Q484 Alan Brown: Has the impact of that been assessed? What needs to be done to keep that catch moving—the three quarters of catch that goes to the EU?
George Eustice: It is difficult because you are asking us effectively to model whether the EU will have actually competently put in place the border checks that they think they need in a no-deal scenario. We do not know what border checks they would think they need, nor do we know what their state of planning is.
It is very hard for us, of course, to predict whether the European Union would be ready for a no-deal scenario and how they would react to a situation if they were not ready, whether they would adopt a risk-based approach to border checks and surveillance for a period of time or whether they would not. We cannot control that—that is true—but nor can we predict it.
Q485 Alan Brown: Surely the ultimate contingency planning for a no-deal is asking, “What happens if the EU is not ready for a no-deal? What does that mean for the UK?” That is the ultimate contingency planning. If you are saying to Brussels that we are completely ready for a no-deal scenario and we know what a no-deal scenario means, surely you need to prepare for that ultimate contingency?
George Eustice: We are, yes. We are doing that planning. We are thinking about border inspection posts. We have a piece of work that the MMO are doing looking at catch certificates, what the additional workload would be for that, how many more staff we would need and what additional or new IT systems we might need. That work has been going on for a year. On our side, yes, we have been doing all of that contingency planning for a no deal. We understand that the EU is as well.
In terms of this idea that we can predict, you are asking us to predict what its state of readiness might be and how it might respond and react if it was not as ready as it needed to be. That is just something that we cannot actually predict.
Q486 Alan Brown: Therefore, you cannot fully prepare for a no-deal scenario then, because of the unknowns. That is what you are saying. You cannot fully prepare. You cannot be ready for a complete no-deal scenario if the EU is not ready.
George Eustice: We cannot predict with certainty how competent the EU will be at managing a no-deal scenario, no. That is true.
Q487 Chair: In fairness—I am being fair to the Minister this morning; I must be in a very fair mood—if you are trying to negotiate and if the ultimate negotiation is a no-deal because that is on both sides, you cannot then actually say, “We cannot go to a no-deal because we are not sure whether the other side is going to be ready for it and we cannot predict”. We just have to go down that route and they also have to take that risk as well. That is what the whole argument is about at the moment.
As I said, I think what you have to do, Minister—and I am quite reassured this morning—is make sure that on our side we are ready for no deal. I still think the Europeans will want that fish. I know a number of countries across Europe whose appetite for fish is insatiable, especially the Spanish, and that is where a lot of fish goes—not only to France but to Spain. I think they will still want that fish. If their officials think because of playing politics, they are going to stop that fish going in, I am not sure the European consumer is going to be at all happy. I am actually quite convinced on the fishing side of it. It is one of the ace cards we have in our pack. Whether we have many others, I am not quite so certain.
Q488 Mrs Murray: Very quickly, Minister, on 24 January this year, Seafish called for evidence from fish processors so that they could start modelling. Could you confirm that that is to feed in to your Department with the information? That would be very useful.
Secondly, with any modelling, are you looking at the impact on the advantage to the British economy and the Exchequer, because obviously some fish caught in UK waters are caught by other member states at the moment and directly taking back, with no income to the Exchequer and no growth in the economy or contribution to the economy?
If the British boats could catch that quota instead and land it in British ports, they would be paying UK taxes and it would also contribute to the economy. Have you looked at that as well? I think there is a positive story here as well as a negative one. Are we looking at the positives, please?
George Eustice: We are looking at the positives. Indeed, the annex in our Fisheries White Paper sets out our approach on zonal attachment and what that might mean. I have been asked for lots of models today. Have we then modelled the impact on Treasury tax revenues?
Mrs Murray: There could be a massive benefit.
George Eustice: If there is ultimately an increased catching opportunity for the fleet and an increased income, obviously that will feed through to tax revenues. I am not aware that the Treasury has modelled that specific element. There are obviously lots of moving parts to the modelling and assessments that they are doing on Brexit. I am not aware they have done a specific tax model on that opportunity but the opportunity is set out very clearly in the annex.
Chair: There is then an increase in processing and all of these things that go with it. There is a knock-on effect.
Mrs Murray: Absolutely—a domestic supply for the processors rather than importing.
George Eustice: That is right. We also make clear in the White Paper that we are reviewing the so-called economic link so that we could strengthen the requirements on vessels to land their catchments.
Mrs Murray: Thank you. That was going to be one of my supplementaries, but you have answered it already.
Q489 Julian Sturdy: Minister, we have talked a lot already about where we are going to end up and potentially the impact of a no-deal. I really wanted to drill down on the implementation period and what you are doing to safeguard the fishing industry and the processors during the implementation period. How you are planning for that? Obviously there will be quite a lot of uncertainty during this period
George Eustice: The purpose of the implementation period is to give people absolute certainty that in effect nothing will change. As Mrs Murray will know, there are parts of the fleet that would like to see faster change. Not all of them were mad about the idea of an implementation period where effectively things stood still.
What that will mean is that there will be tariff-free trade and no need for border checks, in precisely the same way as it is now. We will continue to abide, during that implementation period, with all of the EU regulations that are there. There will be no need for any changes in the arrangements that are in place for processors, so they will not have to worry for that implementation period.
In terms of safeguards for the catching sector, we have made clear that while, in that period, we are not going to depart from relative stability, so things will not get better for the catching sector, they will not get worse either. It is explicit that the EU will not be able to change those shares during that period.
Finally, there is also a good faith clause as well, which means that if there was sharp practice that undermined the UK’s interests, then we could rely on that good faith clause. Those are quite common in international treaties.
Q490 Julian Sturdy: You are quite confident that will stand over this period.
George Eustice: Yes. Obviously the implementation period will only take effect if there is a withdrawal agreement and if Parliament passes into law the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. Yes, if that happens I am confident that while there will not be improvements for the catching sector during the implementation period, things will not get worse either. There will simply be a rollover of existing arrangements.
Q491 Chair: You have no fear on access to market during the implementation period?
George Eustice: No. It is absolutely clear that the implementation period, to all intents and purposes, means that we continue to exist effectively within a carbon copy of the EU customs union and single market. To all intents and purposes, nothing changes during that implementation period.
Q492 Julian Sturdy: The continual meetings with other member states to discuss future stocks, et cetera, will continue during that implementation period as well.
George Eustice: In the implementation period, we will not formally attend Council but we will participate in all of the working groups and share scientific expertise leading up to that Council. We will have to work out a way where we can ensure that our views and our interests on that science are heard in that final year. It would only be one year. We would be talking about December 2019.
Q493 Julian Sturdy: If there is a potential change to a close season or something like that, then within that period we would still have an opportunity to be involved in that.
George Eustice: We would have an opportunity to influence it through working groups and through our scientists contributing to it. We would not, in December council 2019, have a QMV vote sat around the council table.
Q494 Chair: If there is a year of implementation, we will not be an independent coastal state in that period. Is that so? We become an independent coastal state at the end of that implementation period. Is that how it works?
George Eustice: Strictly speaking, the lawyers would say that we become an independent coastal state from March 2019 anyway but, under the implementation period, we would have a treaty obligation not to exercise that right in any meaningful way until the end of the implementation period.
Q495 Kerry McCarthy: Where does Parliament fit into all of this, in terms of oversight of what happens during the implementation period? The White Paper says the fisheries safeguard will not require domestic legislation so we will not be scrutinising it in that sort of way. Where do we get to have a view?
George Eustice: As the Government set out on a number of occasions, once the negotiations have concluded this autumn, there will be what is called the meaningful vote put to Parliament, and that will be a motion inviting a view from Parliament both on the withdrawal agreement and the future economic partnership heads of terms, a political agreement that is agreed simultaneously.
If that motion passes and Parliament agrees to proceed with that deal, there will then be primary legislation through the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. That will set out all of the detailed clauses that are necessary to give effect to the implementation period. I anticipate that in the usual way, Parliament will show a great interest in each of those clauses.
Q496 Kerry McCarthy: The White Paper says the safeguards on fisheries will not require domestic legislation, so there will not be a need to spell it out in that Bill. Is that right?
George Eustice: Do you mean the good faith clause? The good faith clause I think would be a part of the treaty agreement between the UK and the EU and would not need primary legislation to give it effect. It would effectively be given effect as part of that treaty, rather than needing primary legislation.
Q497 Kerry McCarthy: We have been told that the mechanisms by which we protect British fishing interests will be properly safeguarded in the negotiations, but in terms of what happens at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council and so on, it is not really about what is happening in terms of the withdrawal agreement and the overarching mechanism; it is about specifically what happens in ongoing discussions with the EU about our fishing interests.
George Eustice: Yes. There is one year that this applies to, and that is December 2019. As we make clear, although the implementation period will run to the end of December 2020, the agreement is clear that in early December 2020 the UK will become an independent coastal state and will negotiate in its own right. We are talking about December Council 2019. The reality is that we will not formally have a seat around that council table when those fishing opportunities are decided but it will not be possible for the EU to, for instance, change relative stability shares for that year that would be detrimental to our interests. The argument in a typical December council is really about the science.
The point that we make is our fisheries scientists at Cefas are highly respected and are often the go-to place for the European Commission anyway for some of their technical opinion or approaches to setting certain quotas. We would still be able to play that role and therefore to influence the consensus on what the science is saying about individual stocks. If there were a dispute and it came to an actual qualified majority vote around the council table, we would not have that vote. That vote has never been cast in all the time—five years—that I have done December Councils. There has always been an attempt to gain a consensus. I have never seen the Commission actually have to push it to a vote and flush out opposition in that way.
Q498 Chair: Do you, Minister, foresee a Danish position where I think the Ministers go before and do a negotiation and they then come back to the Danish Parliament and tell them what has been achieved one way or the other? Do you foresee in the future that we will be doing agreements with other countries when we are outside the common fisheries policy and are an independent coastal state? Are you coming back here and telling us what you have achieved? Do you see that as a way forward?
George Eustice: Yes, it will be for us to decide exactly what parliamentary scrutiny and arrangements we want to put in place. You are right: Denmark has a slightly different system where Ministers appear before committees before they go.
Q499 Chair: Yes, the Ministers go before the committees before they go to the negotiation and then they come back afterwards to see what they have actually achieved. I think it is a really good place to put a Minister in. I am not sure you would agree with me.
George Eustice: I always enjoy appearing in front of this Committee. If the Committee felt that such an approach would be useful, if it were me or indeed my successor, I think that such an approach would be useful to ensure you have parliamentary scrutiny on these issues.
Chair: It is certainly worth considering.
George Eustice: Currently what we do is we have the annual fisheries debate that takes place before we go, where all MPs, whether or not they are on the Committee, have that opportunity to take part. I would hope that debate could also happen.
Chair: We should not curtail the debate but the beauty of sitting down before a Select Committee or whoever is we can go in to quite a lot more detail, which we probably cannot do in a parliamentary debate in the same way. We will give that some consideration perhaps. I thought it would be interesting to put that point to you.
Q500 David Simpson: Some of this, Minister, may already have been touched on. Most commercial fish stocks in the UK waters are shared with other states. How can continued co-operation with the EU and other states be achieved to ensure long-term sustainability of stock?
We are talking about co‑operation. I would like you also to touch on the Irish Sea and the Republic of Ireland issue. We have enough problems with the land border, never mind getting into the whole issue of the Irish Sea. Maybe you can give us a wee bit of an update on that as well.
George Eustice: Let us start with Ireland. You will be aware there is a particular problem at the moment with something called the Voisinage agreement. That agreement predates any of us joining the EU. It was an informal convention that really came after Irish independence. It was formalised in an exchange of letters in the 1960s. Due to a ruling by the Irish Supreme Court a couple of years ago, there has been an ongoing issue there. We are clear that we are committed to the principles of that Voisinage agreement that gives Northern Ireland vessels access into the waters of the Irish Republic and vice versa. We are committed to that as a principle, since it dates right back to the 1920s, in terms of its origin, and was formalised in the 1960s.
In terms of wider agreements elsewhere, we already know what happens now with Norway, Iceland and the Faroes. We will re-join the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, which is one of the bodies that host those negotiations. We will also re-join NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation, which deals with some of these issues.
In terms of the current bilateral arrangement there is with the EU and Norway, we would effectively seek to make that probably a trilateral discussion. For the remainder of principally area 7, along the southern North Sea, the Channel and the Irish Sea, we would probably then put in place something akin to an annual bilateral between the UK and the European Commission.
It would then be for the EU to work out how they feed in to the Commission’s negotiating position. In reality, December Council, as we know it now, would probably cease to exist in that form. There would still be a December Council but the EU would need to think about how they wanted their member states to feed in to the EU’s negotiation position, which would then become a UK-EU bilateral.
Q501 David Simpson: Stepping back to the Irish Sea again and the issue with the Republic of Ireland, what happens if we do not get an agreement on that with the Irish Republic or the Government? What does the British Government do in the event of that?
George Eustice: I have written to Michael Creed and Michael Gove. I met Michael Creed in July, just before recess, to highlight our concern that they have not made progress. What has to happen—and they are committed to doing this—is the Irish Government need to pass primary legislation to correct the constitutional anomaly that they have in order to reinstate the agreement.
We are not the only country that has finely balanced, finely tuned parliamentary maths at the moment. It is the same in Irish Republic. For a number of reasons—not just Brexit—they have not yet found the opportunity to bring forward that primary legislation. We have been clear that, while we are willing to abide by the agreement for the time being, obviously if it became clear that they were not going to do that, then we would have to suspend our application of the agreement as well.
Q502 David Simpson: If they cannot get an agreement, how long will the Government wait until they push forward with this? Are we saying, “How long is a piece of string?” because we need to bring it to a conclusion?
George Eustice: We would, but in terms of the issues we have to resolve, we have a number of other, bigger issues within the next few months. Once we have concluded some of these discussions, obviously we would revisit that.
We appreciate that it is not necessarily easy for them to bring forward that legislation but we have also been clear that we would suspend our application of the agreement if it becomes clear that they are not intending to anytime soon. If I am to be blunt, there are enough moving parts and difficulties with these negotiations that we are embarking on at the moment without creating another complication at this point, but we have always been absolutely clear with the Irish Government that we would not indefinitely continue to apply the agreement.
Q503 David Simpson: Can you recognise, Minister, that it is unfair to the fishermen in Northern Ireland whenever an agreement has been there for the Irish Government?
George Eustice: Yes.
Q504 David Simpson: I know they have difficulties. We all have difficulties in Government, no more so than the Assembly, but we still need to bring this to a conclusion. It is unfair and we need to deal with it, and I think the Government need to step up to the mark to deal with the Irish Republic and get them to agree to what was agreed upon.
George Eustice: Yes. We agreed that it is unfair and it clearly could not carry on as things stand. We have taken in good faith the commitment of the Irish Government to correct this anomaly in their constitution through primary legislation but, for the sake of a few months, it is something we can wait on for the time being.
Chair: What you are saying, David, is not too long.
David Simpson: Not too long. That is the point I made about, “How long is a piece of string?” because a few months can go into another few months and you are into next year and it just keeps rolling on.
Chair: We do not want the Irish Government to prevaricate, really, for too long.
David Simpson: Which they are fairly good at, but I will not go there.
Q505 Mrs Murray: Minister, can I ask you on that why the UK did not retaliate when Ireland excluded the 20 Kilkeel vessels from their nought to six-mile limit by excluding vessels from Southern Ireland that fish in the UK part of the nought to six-mile limit with Northern Ireland? Why are we rolling over and allowing Southern Ireland to not abide by the agreement, which they could do on a friendly basis but have chosen not to? Why did you not take retaliatory action immediately? It really seems very unfair on UK fishermen from the port of Kilkeel to be denied access and watch people from Southern Ireland coming into what they consider their waters, British waters, British territorial waters, and being able to fish. I am sorry but there is not any time and it is unfair. I would like to know why the UK did not retaliate when Southern Ireland created, basically, a border.
George Eustice: You have to take account of the fact that it was not the Government of the Irish Republic that took that decision.
Mrs Murray: The Government of the Irish Republic cannot get it through, so there are some Members of the Irish Parliament who are—
Chair: Sheryll, let the Minister reply.
George Eustice: You asked why we did not retaliate. The point I am trying to make is it was not that the Irish Government took this decision to do this. It was the case that the Irish Supreme Court raised a constitutional glitch in the way they felt this exchange of letters had been done and they did not feel it could be relied on. It was an intervention by a court in the Irish Republic that required the Irish Government to take this action, not a decision that the Irish Government took. That is different.
When you have an independent country like that, which has its own judicial procedures and a court takes a view, we have to recognise that puts that Government in a particular position and they have to respond in a particular way. It was really a recognition of the genesis of this problem that meant we did not retaliate at the time, and we have left things for the time being because they have been committed to bringing forward that primary legislation. As I said, I have written to Michael Creed and raised this with him. Michael Gove has met him and raised this with him. That position cannot carry on indefinitely.
Q506 Mrs Murray: How long have those boats been excluded from the waters of southern Ireland to date? When did this start?
George Eustice: It is quite a while. It is probably now about 18 months.
Q507 Mrs Murray: They have had 18 months to get this sorted and they have not. I am sorry, but that is 18 months of fishing that those boats from Kilkeel have been denied, and yet they have had to sit in port and watch vessels from southern Ireland coming in to the nought to six-mile limit and you have done nothing about it. I am sorry but that is totally unacceptable.
Now I will move on to my question, which relates to scallops. Basically, again, we are seeing another nation making domestic rules—the French—and UK fishermen have been attacked for carrying out their legal operations. How much do you think this is going to escalate once we have taken back control of our 200-mile limit, the median line limit? Are you confident that enough checks and balances will be in place through VMS, fisheries protection vessels, the Scottish fisheries protection vessels in some parts and the Royal Navy in others?
Are you confident that we will have everything in place to enforce UK rules on the UK exclusive economic area once we have left the EU? I think I am right in saying that will be 29 March next year because we already enforce the common fisheries policy in the UK exclusive economic area.
George Eustice: Given the context, there is a natural tendency to want to try to link the current dispute over scallop rounds in the Baie de Seine with Brexit and I can understand that is what people will do.
Mrs Murray: It is historical.
George Eustice: As you know, this issue arose I think in 2012. There were some issues here and the respective industries here and in France—the South Western Fish Producers Organisation led the negotiations on the UK industry’s behalf—came to an agreement in 2013 that basically went as follows: the English fleet agreed not to fish in parts of Baie de Seine, so that they would be effectively abiding by the same licence conditions that the French fleet do.
In return, the French fleet transferred some of their unutilised and unneeded effort—I think it was 720,000 kilowatt hours—into the UK fleet. The UK fleet had the opportunity to catch more scallops and apply more days at sea but in return agreed not to go in these areas.
The difficulty is that it is only over 15-metre vessels that are covered by the so-called Western Waters regime and abide by an effort quota, and the French industry started to say that they wanted the under 15-metre vessels to be bound by the agreement. For understandable reasons, the English industry were unable to carry the under-15s with them on that agreement since the under-15s did not need the access and did not benefit from the access to additional effort coming in.
On that basis, that agreement sadly broke down this year but later today we are hosting the industry at Defra. We have officials from the French Government and our own officials, with representatives from both sides of the industry coming together to discuss this again to see if they can get back up an agreement similar to that that has pertained for the previous five years, which is the right outcome on this, if we can get a solution along those lines.
The final thing I will say is that, in terms of enforcement, this is in the French EEZ. It is outside the 12 nautical miles but it is in their waters, so it is their responsibility to enforce and deal with any conflicts and skirmishes of the sort that we saw last week. To be fair, I spoke to Stéphane Travert, my opposite number, last Wednesday. They have acted and been very clear that they have put additional resources into ensuring that they can police this contentious area, to ensure there are no further problems. We have an undertaking from the French Government.
Q508 Chair: You are saying that the French will now enforce the law.
George Eustice: Yes. They have been clear that they will do that. They have increased resources to do that, to be fair to them.
Q509 Mrs Murray: Are you confident they took all action they could have taken at the time of the incident? I ask that, Minister, because I was extremely concerned about some of the pictures that I saw. Throwing flares at another vessel and throwing heavy metal shackles and rocks could have caused considerable harm, not just to the vessel but to the fishing personnel aboard that vessel. Are you confident that the French fisheries protection service took all necessary action that they could to prevent that, because it was not very clear from the videos that we have seen?
George Eustice: It is difficult because obviously we have just seen clips and bits and pieces of footage. I do not want to comment on that particular area as I do not think any of us are in a position to judge that. What I can say is I spoke to my opposite number, Stéphane Travert; he was very clear that he condemned the violence. We both appealed for calm on all sides and he was clear that they were putting additional Gendarmerie and additional resources to ensure they had the capacity there to deal with any further outbreaks.
Q510 Mrs Murray: Are any of those French fishermen being prosecuted?
George Eustice: I am not aware of any prosecutions being brought on that. Clearly there was an altercation there. I am sure that the French authorities will be looking at that and making a judgment about whether or not it is appropriate to take forward prosecutions.
Q511 Chair: Under British law, this is assault, is it not? Once you start actually throwing things at another boat and at people, this would be considered assault, whether you hit them or not. I do not know what the French law is on it but we will expect surely some action. You are a very reasonable man, Minister, but perhaps in this instance you need to be less reasonable with the French, because there has not been much action taken. You are hoping from this meeting today that more action will be taken, are you?
George Eustice: I spoke to my French counterpart immediately after this incident, which occurred on one night. We have not had further incidents since. He gave an undertaking at that point to put additional resources immediately to ensure that they could deal with any subsequent outbreaks.
We all recognise that it is not just the violence there; there are health and safety issues as well, and marine safety issues when you have behaviour of this sort, which the French Government recognise. They also recognise that under international law those boats have a right to be there. We also all recognise that the solution really is to get something similar to the voluntary agreement that stood the test of time in the previous five years back in place.
Q512 Chair: I have a final question on this one. Further out, when we have left the common fisheries policy and we have left the EU, are you confident that we have enough protection vessels and enough resources in place to be able to protect our waters? We are bound to be a little bit concerned, are we not? Even within the common fisheries policy we have had this skirmish. Are we going to be able to maintain control of our waters when we leave? At the moment, we do not have a big resource, do we?
George Eustice: We have been looking at this again. The Marine Management Organisation has been leading a piece of work on our preparation for enforcement for over a year now. The Royal Navy has already announced that it is going to increase the number of patrol vessels it has that can be deployed to fisheries duties. That work is being addressed. We are also looking at the potential to use drone technology to assist with monitoring.
We already make extensive use of vessel monitoring systems and radar sweeps to identify suspicious activity from certain boats. That then means we are able to have an intelligence-led, risk-based approach to policing these issues. It is important to recognise that we already enforce our exclusive economic zone.
Marine Scotland has its own fisheries protection vessels that deal with this and the MMO have commissioned partly the Royal Navy and partly use other resources as well. It is already the case we manage enforcement in our EEZ; it is just that we have to abide by those EU laws in our EEZ, whereas in the future we will be an independent coastal state.
Q513 Chair: So there is preparation being made for extra protection of our fisheries.
George Eustice: Yes.
Q514 Julian Sturdy: Minister, when we leave, do you see that there is going to be any further divergence in close seasons with other member states, as in a widening of those close seasons at all, or moving away from similar close seasons that other member states have? Obviously some of this issue is around a difference in a month, is it not, on the close season? I am not a complete expert on this. When we leave, do you see that there might be a divergence on that at all?
George Eustice: It probably in practice will not make a great deal of difference in that there would be an annual fisheries negotiation between the UK and the EU. As part of those negotiations, yes, it would be quite possible to reach a mutual agreement on technical measures and closures in certain parts of the water as a condition of future access.
In practice, it probably does not make a great deal of difference. The thing that would not be as easy to do is if the EU decided they wanted to unilaterally bring in a technical measure that applied everywhere that a particular country did not agree with. That type of action would be harder.
We have been clear—it is in the White Paper and I have always been clear on it—that we believe in sustainable fishing. Indeed, alongside this industry agreement, around a year ago the French said they would like to work with us on a joint management plan on things like closures. Because we believe in sustainable fishing, we said that we were open to that and they published some ideas and we said we are open to, given the breakdown in particular of this industry agreement, some kind of formal Government-to-Government management plan to formalise these arrangements more.
Q515 Alan Brown: In the last session we had, in reference to the Scots fishing industry, you stated that leaving the CFP is incontrovertibly the right thing commercially to do, which is fine as a comment, but how are you going to ensure the UK’s EEZ manages fish stocks in line with maximum sustainable yield levels?
George Eustice: We are very clear in our White Paper that we are absolutely committed to sustainable fishing. Indeed, within the European Union we have been the leading advocate of science-based sustainable fishing. That will continue.
One of the things we say in our White Paper is that it will be a condition of having any future access to UK waters in those agreements that countries abide by sustainable fishing principles. For instance, we would not tolerate a situation in which the EU was to unilaterally set a quota that disregarded the science. Under such terms, we would not allow access to our waters. We intend to use our position as an advocate of sustainable fishing to ensure that in those future agreements countries do abide by a sustainable limit.
Q516 Alan Brown: You are probably aware that the Scottish Government have stated that in terms of the principle of charging for fish caught in excess of quota they have concerns about that in terms of how viable that will be to prevent overfishing and ensure sustainability. Would you provide a response to that?
George Eustice: In the White Paper, we have set out a particular policy idea we are keen to explore and pilot in relation to the discard ban. This would be for England in the Bill. We have set out a particular proposal that you might have something akin to the super levy that there used to be on dairy quotas.
If somebody goes over their quota, you would effectively allow them to land it but put a levy or a charge on that that meant that it had no value to the fisherman. You would therefore prevent the need for fishermen to discard while having a very powerful disincentive to stop them targeting fish for which they did not have a quota.
Q517 Chair: The levy would be as much as the value of the fish, basically.
George Eustice: Effectively. That is in a nutshell what we are suggesting. We are all wrestling at the moment with how we make the discard ban work in practice as well as in theory. There are a number of short-term fixes we have to agree through the tax and quota regulations this December.
We are looking at putting some species on the prohibited list and looking at the issue of zero tax, because if you have a zero tax for a species you are not allowed to land it nor to discard it. You cannot do anything with it. That is clearly an anomaly that needs to be dealt with. There are particular challenges with choke species that we are trying to address within the current framework but we have actually floated this as a possible idea that we should be considering in the future.
Q518 Alan Brown: To throw it back historically, in terms of joining the EC at the time, it was a Conservative Government that stated that Scottish fishermen were expendable when looking at things in the bigger round. Along came the CFP, which the UK signed up to.
Last year, Niels Wichmann, who is the head of the Danish fisheries association, stated, “Britain has never ever challenged the quota shares we have used every year in the annual negotiations”. While it is fine to highlight deficiencies of the CFP and all the rest of it, is this not the UK Government finally trying to rectify some historical wrongs?
George Eustice: There is a difficulty; it is a common problem with European policies, and it is this: if you have a situation as we do now, where relative stability is essentially very unfair to the UK fleet and where we do not get a fair share of the fish in our waters, the only way you can change that is to get a qualified majority vote within the European Union to get change.
The only countries that will support you to get a qualified majority vote are other countries who also want your fish. We are stuck, effectively, through a qualified majority voting system, because we are the ones that are providing all the currency and other countries’ benefit. You are not able to change those relative stability shares—
Alan Brown: It is not because of past decisions by the UK Government.
Q519 Chair: When we leave we will be able to put this right, surely.
George Eustice: When we leave we can put it right. You have to cut that Gordian knot and leave the European Union and end the supremacy of EU law in order to be able to do that and become an independent coastal state.
Q520 Alan Brown: It is these historical issues that have caused the current predicament.
George Eustice: It is but the quotas did not exist when we first joined the EU; they came in later. The reference period that was chosen to set the quotas was a period in the 1970s when we were famously catching most of our fish in Icelandic waters, and it was very much British luck that just as we got excluded from Icelandic waters, countries that had been fishing our waters and enjoyed access to our waters then had that right locked in through the common fisheries policy. The timing was very unfortunate. I was not around in that period. My own view is that the decision to join the European Union was a mistake for our country. We are now putting that mistake right.
Q521 Mrs Murray: You mentioned choke species. Please can I urge you to look at doing something with those fishermen that are going to be affected during the implementation period because they fish in a mixed fishery and they start to perhaps be tied up because the uplift given to them is not enough to basically allow them to continue their operations?
Could you please be very clear for me and the rest of the Committee that any over-quota fish that does not get discarded over your system, yes, it will be sold for the value of the fish but the fishermen would recover any operational costs for bringing that fish ashore, so he would get a contribution to his extra fuel, his extra diesel and that sort of thing from the sale of that over-quota fish. Fishermen are not going to bring it in if it is going to cost them money.
George Eustice: We have not got to working out the precise details but the purpose of that sort of system that we have set out as something we are interested in exploring is to create a powerful financial disincentive for fishermen—
Q522 Mrs Murray: It should not cost them money because they will throw it over the side.
George Eustice: At the moment, they would technically legally be forced to tie up their vessels and would not be able to go to sea at all. That is the issue we are trying to address through this particular proposal.
Chair: Can you take Sheryll’s point into consideration because it is a good one?
Q523 Mrs Murray: Yes, absolutely. Especially during the implementation period, it is absolutely essential that fishermen are able to continue.
George Eustice: I completely understand. Before we leave the European Union, there are issues like choke species that are important. I have met, for instance, Paul Treblicock earlier this summer to discuss this issue. I had a meeting with Commissioner Vella at the end of June to start floating some of our initial thinking on how some of these issues could be addressed in December council. We are very conscious of the issue.
Q524 Chair: Minister, I know you have to go but just before you go, what is the current timetable for the Fisheries Bill and can we get pre-legislative scrutiny? The Agriculture Bill is now being put back, by the sounds of it. Where is the fishing Bill? I do not see why, if it is a little way away, we cannot get some pre-scrutiny of it?
George Eustice: I am always happy to appear before the Committee and have done twice on the White Paper. I suspect that to do formal pre-legislative scrutiny on these Bills, which are mission critical to delivering Brexit, will be problematic. The rough timing is we are now studying the responses that we have had. We would anticipate we will definitely introduce the Fisheries Bill in this session.
Q525 Chair: Is that before May or April?
George Eustice: In this session, so before May I think it will be. My working assumption at the moment is that we will probably introduce it at the end of this calendar year or early in the new year. That timing could be affected by how the negotiations go more generally in the next couple of months.
Q526 Chair: What I would like to do is write to you formally and for you to come back formally with a system. If it is not pre-legislative scrutiny, what can we do to scrutinise the Bill more than we are at the moment. We are open to negotiation but I do think we want more than what we are getting at the moment, okay? We will, after this meeting, send a letter to you formally asking for that. If you could give that due consideration with your Department, with your officials, with the Bill team and everything and see what we can get, would you be happy to do that?
George Eustice: I would be happy to do that. It may be that we could share key parts of the overall framework and structure of the Bill, what powers it will be seeking to deliver and how, so stopping short of being able to formally go through all of the individual clauses but being able to talk about some of the generalities.
Chair: Yes. If we could drill down on the principles of where you actually want to take it and how it is likely to be delivered, I think that would be very useful. Perhaps we enter a negotiation not only with the EU but with you, Minister, about the amount of scrutiny that we get of the Bill. I can only apologise to Sandy because he has not asked a question but I do realise, Minister, you have to go; is that right?
George Eustice: I think so, yes.
Chair: Your officials behind you are doing their nut.
Q527 Sandy Martin: The main point was that if we adhere to the Chequers statement to maintain a common rulebook for goods, including agri-food, and if that means that we have to act as a rule taker, how are we going to make sure that the European Union does not use that as an opportunity for further disadvantaging British fishermen during that implementation period?
George Eustice: It would not apply in the implementation period.
Q528 Sandy Martin: We would still be a rule taker during the implementation period, so we would not be able to vote on anything and we would not be able to influence any decisions that were taken during that implementation period, would we?
George Eustice: That is true. There are two separate things. There is the implementation period where, to all intents and purposes, we will continue to abide by something akin to a carbon copy of EU membership for that short duration. The issue of the common rulebook is a slightly separate one. That is linked to the future economic partnership.
We are clear that although that applies to agri-foods, we are talking about the types of issues that would be subject to a border check. It might relate to issues such as food safety or maximum residue limits on certain agricultural products. It could extend to technical things such as labelling requirements, but it is issues of that order rather than wider policy. It would not affect our ability to put in place, for instance, our own technical measures or our own independent fisheries policy.
Chair: There are about three or four other questions on our list, so we will let you have them in writing, if you could get answers to us, please. We appreciate you give generously of your time. Like I said, I can see your officials behind you more clearly than you can, and they are very keen that you leave, so you have been generous. If you can be quite generous with regards to our scrutiny of the Bill we will let you go, on that proviso.
George Eustice: I will come back again.
Chair: Thank you, Minister.