S5M-02922 Sea Fisheries and End-year Negotiations

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame): The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-02922, in the name of Fergus Ewing, on sea fisheries and end-year negotiations.

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15:20

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

I have great hopes for today’s debate, and in that spirit I start by congratulating colleagues on the Conservative benches on their candour in their amendment. Not everyone is prepared to acknowledge failures in negotiation. They are shared between the UK Government and perhaps the Scottish Government, but if we acknowledge where we are not succeeding, we have hope of going forward.

Fishermen in Scotland have indeed expressed their disappointment about the blue whiting catch allocation. Seven percentage points have been given away today, just as control over our waters was in 1983, at the end of the 10-year derogation. That leads me to say that we might usefully look at a little of the history that got us to where we are today, so that we do not repeat some of that history.

The original commitment to surrender our fishing rights out to 200 miles came in 1971. In effect, it was entrenched into law when Ted Heath signed the treaty of accession on 22 January 1972. This is the important point: only after that was the treaty published and subject to democratic scrutiny. The most objectionable part of the treaty was that fishing decisions could be made by majority, and sometimes by qualified majority. The issue of opening up the result of negotiations before we get committed to it, so that parliamentarians can look at it, is perhaps one that we will return to in another context at a later point.

The fisheries negotiations that we are talking about today are so unsatisfactory that even landlocked countries in the EU can essentially block our interests. The SNP has recognised all that from the very outset, and that is why we have opposed the common fisheries policy in all its forms from the beginning.

Hopefully, we are going to get to a position of a reasonable consensus in the chamber. In my very first speech here, in June 2001—strictly speaking, it was up the road from here—I quoted words from this Parliament’s European Committee, and they are equally relevant today. I said that we should try to get everyone

“to speak with one voice ... There are tensions that should be buried for the common good.”—[Official Report, European Committee, 30 January 2001; c 946.]

That was the advice from the Parliament’s European Committee in 2001. It is still good advice today and I hope that we are able to do that.

It is worth saying that my colleague Donald Stewart, who was the leader of the SNP in 1982, said of fisherman, on the record, in the Westminster debate that preceded the formation of the common fisheries policy in the current form:

“They have been betrayed. The result will be catastrophe.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 15 July 1982; Vol 27, c 1195.]

We see that that view was shared. Austin Mitchell, another great champion of fishing communities—I should perhaps have said that it was a Labour motion that was being debated—also spoke up in similar terms, as indeed did some but not a majority of Conservatives. Certainly, when the vote came at 7 o’clock at night, the Conservatives voted down a motion that would have given a proper sense of where we were at that point.

We have to grab hold of the fact that fisheries negotiations are not just a matter for those who catch fish. They are also a matter for our processors. In my constituency, processing is a major source of employment for many thousands of people, and people in that industry wait equally anxiously for the outcome of each year’s negotiation. It is no small matter for Peterhead and Fraserburgh, where the contribution from landings was more than £150 million last year. That is nearly £4,000 per head of population—a very substantial sum. However, it equally matters to constituents in the south of Scotland in Eyemouth, and of course to Tavish Scott’s constituents in the furthest north.

In 1997, my political colleague Dr Allan Macartney MEP published a considered proposal for reform of the CFP. We might take notice of a couple of things in it that throw some light on how we got to where we are. One thing that Allan Macartney, who was a linguist, highlighted was that the Spanish act of secession of 1985, which in essence eliminated the UK’s ability to veto results, arose in part because of a difference between the Spanish language and English language versions of the treaty. The Spanish language version missed out the word “solely”, and it was the one that was used when the decisions were made. Tavish Scott is nodding, so I see that he is familiar with that. Sometimes very simple little things can get us into difficulties.

The 1997 paper that Allan Macartney produced could form a useful basis for policy that we might adopt now, although others might take a different view. He said that we needed

“a new framework whereby coastal states with the greatest historical interests in specific fisheries would be able to take the key control and management decisions relating to the fisheries in the waters off their coasts”.

Of course, he was writing to get change in the CFP. It is quite clear that the dynamic in politics and practical affairs is somewhat different today, and therefore a particular opportunity may arise.

I know that other members will talk about choke species, which will continue to be a matter of importance to our communities. Another issue in the current arrangements is that not enough of the fish that are caught in our sector are landed for the benefit of our communities and the processors in our communities. It is not irrational for fishermen to get the highest price that they can—be that in Norway or elsewhere—but we must bear in mind that our quotas were given out at no cost, and if we get new quotas because of new opportunities, we must look at a new way of doing things.

Ultimately, fish is a delicious, healthy thing to eat. Across these islands there is a vast network of fish and chip shops that give us all access to fish. That is what I most enjoy about fishing. This debate is a key opportunity for us to join together and I hope that at 5 o’clock we can agree a common position to the benefit of fishing communities, fishermen, Scotland and the UK as a whole.