Fisheries Bill [HL]

Committee (2nd Day) (Continued)

Debate on whether Clause 6 should stand part of the Bill.

My Lords, I do not propose to debate this at any length. When I tabled my opposition to Clause 6, I had not appreciated that my Amendment 49A, which we debated earlier, would have had the chance to have been debated today.

I am especially grateful that my noble friend the Minister has said that we can have a further discussion on the question of fisheries management plans. That would give me the opportunity to explore many of the issues. Therefore, I do not wish to pursue this, other than to say that I stand by the comments I made earlier that, in terms of stock levels and controlling the biomass, it is not sufficient to look at it purely in terms of sustainability. We need to look at the biomass in terms of maximum sustainable yield. We will have an opportunity to discuss that next time.

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to set out the intentions of the Government in this new provision in the Bill to produce fisheries management plans. We have already discussed various aspects and provisions of the plans, and I take this opportunity to highlight the fact that the requirement to produce these plans was not included in the previous fisheries Bill. Inclusion of this requirement demonstrates the Government’s commitment towards securing sustainable stocks and meeting the manifesto commitment on the matter. Fisheries management plans will help the United Kingdom’s aims to recover and maintain fish stocks to healthy levels, ensure we fish sustainably and offer the flexibility in our management approaches to deal with our complex fisheries.

Clause 6 requires the UK fisheries administrations to produce fisheries management plans as described in the joint fisheries statement and sets out the detail of what these plans must contain. The plans will directly contribute to the fisheries objectives in Clause 1. They will set out the detailed fisheries conservation measures necessary to manage specific fisheries and fish stocks. Each plan will set out the geographic area that it covers, the stock or stocks covered, and how its effectiveness will be monitored and reported.

Where we do not have enough scientific evidence to assess a stock’s MSY, the administration or administrations must include the steps they will take to obtain the scientific evidence required to establish sustainable harvest limits or explain why they do not intend to do so. This might, for instance, be if scientific advice indicates that a suitable proxy measure for assessing a stock’s sustainability can be used instead. For example, such an approach is used for North Sea lemon sole, which is a data-limited stock. A precautionary buffer is applied based on advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

As I said, I am happy not to pursue this matter.

Clause 6 agreed.

Clause 7: Fisheries management plans: power to depart from proposals in JFS

Amendment 59

59: Clause 7, page 7, line 34, leave out “include (in particular)” and insert “are limited to” Member’s explanatory statement This amendment changes the list of changes in circumstances which are capable of being “relevant” from indicative to exhaustive.

My Lords, the amendments in this group are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Grantchester. They are, in the main, probing amendments. They follow on from the earlier group of amendments and concern the scope of powers to amend or depart from proposals in the joint fisheries statement.

As it stands, the Bill allows the fisheries policy authorities to depart from proposals in the joint fisheries statement if there is a change of circumstances. It goes on to say that the changes of circumstances include, but are not limited to, international obligations, actions by a territory outside the UK, scientific evidence, and evidence relating to the social, economic or environmental objectives. Amendments 59 and 72 tighten up that wording so that those are the only reasons for agreeing a change of circumstances, the reason being that quite a wide scope for change is already given in the joint fisheries statement, which is envisaged to be a longer-term planning document rather than one constantly under revision. Therefore, we believe that the original wording is too loose and could allow other, extraneous factors to come into play.

Our Amendment 60, in the name of my noble friend Lord Grantchester, goes one stage further and removes international obligations altogether as a reason for a change of circumstances. Our concern is that the negotiations with the EU 27 and other external coastal fishing areas will be taking place this year and in future years, and those international obligations could be used as a reason to revisit the joint fisheries statement and abandon our commitment to the sustainability and climate change objectives and the other important objectives in Clause 1.

During our debates on the Bill, all noble Lords have been concerned that a good set of objectives in Clause 1 will end up being watered down by the economic pressures of the trade deals and that we will end up back at square one with something not dissimilar to the common fisheries policy, which has, rightly, been discredited. Therefore, we tabled this amendment to explore under what circumstances international obligations might be used as a reason to amend the joint fisheries statement.

My Lords, I very much welcome these amendments and support them. I have put my name to Amendment 62, which is about my genuine concern—I will not go over it again at this time of the evening—that somehow social and economic elements will be used to trump a sustainability issue, even if it is not the will of the present Government or of the Minister. It just makes me uncomfortable, and I would much prefer this whole area to be tighter, as with the other amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which she has explained. It is coming back to this area again of ensuring that we do not prejudice the long term by making life easier politically in the short term.

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness and indeed the noble Lord for the points they have made. This gives me the opportunity to set out the reasoning behind the ability of fisheries policy authorities to diverge from policies in the joint fisheries statement and from policies in the fisheries management plan, in the narrow circumstances where relevant considerations apply, and to take a different approach for stocks for which it would not be appropriate to gather data to calculate their MSY.

Starting with Amendments 59 and 63, it is clear that fisheries management plans will need to evolve over time to retain their efficacy and feasibility. While the list presented in the clause in question covers some of the major changes that we could predict might take place, other circumstances may bring to light fundamental factors to consider in updating fisheries management plans. This legislation aims to be future-proof and flexible enough to allow dynamic, evidence-based policy-making.

The premise behind this amendment is that the fisheries administrations could use this clause to somehow water down plans. However, it would also hinder their ability to strengthen plans in the light of changing circumstances. It would limit those circumstances under which fisheries administrations might consider amending, revoking or developing new fisheries management plans, or to set out a plan described in a different way from that initially proposed in a joint fisheries statement, to one or more of four exclusive reasons that we believe will severely limit their ability to react to new or emerging issues. Furthermore, preventing fisheries administrations making use of new economic, social or environmental evidence as a trigger to amend or replace fisheries management plans, and by inference informing the development of new fisheries plans, is contrary to the core principle of evidence-based policy-making.

The amendment proposed by the noble Baroness puts the threshold for using evidence at that relating only to “catastrophic events”, which would seem extremely high and to relate, one hopes, to very rare occasions. I have reflected on this and feel that it would mean that fisheries administrations would have to wait to react to events, rather than be proactive and use all new evidence potentially to head off a catastrophic event. I am concerned that the amendment creates an unacceptable risk that our fisheries administrations would be unhelpfully bound by what was foreseen as necessary at the point at which the joint fisheries statement was published, rather than having the flexibility to react to changing circumstances or moving stocks that could result in environmental, economic or social harm that was not yet catastrophic.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for his probing Amendment 60, introduced by the noble Baroness, as it gives me the opportunity to reaffirm that our international obligations are fundamentally important to the United Kingdom and will become even more crucial now that we are an independent coastal state responsible for our actions. The existing clause will ensure that fisheries management plans can evolve with our growing international ambition for the wider environment, as well as fisheries, and be a tool to help us meet our obligations. We need to have the flexibility to make changes to accommodate new international agreements in the future. This amendment would tie us to having fisheries management plans that might be in contravention of our international obligations in the future, which I am sure is not a situation that the noble Lord or any of us would wish to end up in.

I turn to Amendment 62, which seeks clarification as to why the inclusion of the three pillars of sustainable development are a relevant circumstance to trigger changes to fisheries management plans. I have set out in some detail already the importance of being able to respond flexibly to events beyond our control, but I would like to give a little more detail. We have committed to taking an ecosystem approach to fisheries management whereby the impact on humankind, and vice versa, is a fundamental principle for consideration. Social, economic and environmental evidence is central to our implementation of a new, progressive approach to fisheries management. As I have set out, this amendment would curtail responsive, evidence-based policy-making based on using the best available scientific evidence—a commitment made through our scientific evidence objective in Clause 1.

I turn now to Amendments 72 and 73, which aim to narrow the relevant circumstances for authorities to diverge from policies set out in the fisheries management plans, joint fisheries statement and Secretary of State’s fisheries statement. As I have highlighted already, the UK Government believe that there are good reasons for retaining this degree of flexibility, while maintaining the premise, as set out in the clause, that the national fisheries authorities are required to pursue the policies outlined in the relevant fisheries statements or fisheries management plans, as applicable to them. I will not repeat all the detailed arguments made and discussed earlier, but simply note that overly restricting the circumstances in which fisheries administrations may depart from policies could inappropriately limit their ability to react to those new and emerging issues. The safeguards in Clause 10(2) set out that, if there is divergence due to a relevant change in circumstances, the relevant fisheries administration would publish a document describing the decision and the relevant change of circumstances, as well as explaining how the relevant change in circumstances affected that decision.

I have spent a little time on this and used words such as “flexibility”. This is all part of addressing our concern that we need—and our stance is—to be proactive in seeking what we all seek, which is sustainability. Although I agree that the amendments are well intentioned, they could make it more difficult to do all the things we want to do. I hope that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.