That this House has considered visa arrangements for inshore industry fishing crew.
This is a massive issue for myself and all of us here. We have a deep interest in this subject, and we come once again with a request. As the Minister knows, in January this year I had the opportunity to meet him and discuss this issue. I brought along my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and two reps from the fishing organisations in Northern Ireland, because we had some really deep concerns with where we are going and the importance of where we are about. I will outline the case for fishing and visas.
I thank all hon. Members for being here, and the Minister as well. He will know that when I put forward my case, I always try to do it in a constructive fashion and in a way that tries to get to a solution. I try to make everything I do solution focused and solution based; I know that other Members will try to do the same thing, but I want to make that point to start with.
The fishing industry in Northern Ireland supports about 1,400 jobs. It is the single biggest employer in the communities of Ardglass, Kilkeel and Portavogie, in my constituency of Strangford. I represent the fishermen in Ardglass and Kilkeel, even though they are not my constituents; their MP does not attend here because of the parliamentary oath, so they ask me to be their representative on matters through the fish producer organisations. Each of those communities relies on its fishing industry, and their fishing industry relies on access to Northern Ireland’s inshore waters.
My case will be specific to Northern Ireland, unlike the request that I will make—I will tell the Minister my request. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and I spoke this morning, and I think his request will be similar. I also discussed the matter with my friends and colleagues on the Government side before the debate, so I think that we will all ask for the same thing. We are not asking for anything really gigantic, but we are looking for a small, solution-based way forward that we feel may be just what we need to get us over the line.
Why are we in this crisis? Affordable food that is healthy and sustainable is a good thing for all of us. No one has enjoyed seeing the cost of the weekly shop rise, and it is to the benefit of all UK citizens to keep food costs low, but we cannot have everything. If that is to happen, the simple reality we must accept is that it will be harder to entice UK workers into food production. The fishing industry can testify to that, having seen its demographic change towards the increasing employment of foreign workers over the past 30 years.
I have been involved with the fishing sector all my political life, which is quite a long time. I started in 1985 as a councillor, representing the peninsula area where Portavogie is. All that time, my brother was involved in fishing, and many of my friends were as well. Over those 30-odd years, we have seen a greater dependence and reliance on foreign workers.
I anticipate that we will hear the same sort of thing from the Minister that we heard from him in the main Chamber today—namely, that we should be growing local labour. Does the hon. Gentleman hear from his own constituents, as I do, that that labour simply is not there, and that there are reasons why local young people, in particular, are not going into the fishing industry? That is basically because, for decades, they have been told that this is an industry in decline that has no future. We will not turn that perception around overnight when the problem that the boats have is in the here and now.
I thank my friend and colleague for that comment. I agree. I see it in Portavogie, in Ardglass and in Kilkeel. I will give an example: the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation and the Irish Fish Producers Organisation put an advert out—when we were in the EU, by the way—to try to galvanise workers. Some 45 people inquired, five people responded to say that they would be interested in the job, and only one turned up. Whenever they did an advertisement across the whole EU, that was all the interest that there was, so there is an evidential base to prove the case that the right hon. Gentleman refers to.
I see in my constituency that people are not interested. Fishing is a hard job. It is one of the most dangerous jobs: more people are killed in the fishing sector than in many other sectors across the United Kingdom. People are going into other jobs, as it is a hard job. I remember going down into the bowels of one of those fishing boats in Portavogie one day. I said, “And where do you sleep?” The fisherman said, “In that wee place there.” We are born in a foetal position, and that is the way they sleep. It is impossible to know how anybody could ever sleep on a boat that is tossing about in the sea. The point is: it is a hard job.
The hon. Gentleman talks about the cramped living conditions on a fishing boat. When I was at school, I had a job painting fishing boats, so I was aware of the conditions. I have never been out in a fishing boat; if anybody watching this wants to offer me the opportunity, I will gladly take it up. He will have seen the conditions not just for the deck crew, the deck hands and the people we are talking about giving visas to; the skippers and the home-based crew of these vessels are in the same conditions.
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He understands, as we all do, the practicalities, physical problems, obstructions and difficulties when it comes to fishing. We welcome foreign workers, and we need them. I gave the case of the two positions advertised right across Europe, when we were in the EU, and how many people inquired, how many said that they would take the job, and how many turned up. Foreign workers are now a vital and vibrant part of our fishing culture. They help us to supply the affordable food that every UK shopper wants to see. They do so much for us, but we still cannot offer them the opportunity to come to the UK on a visa that is a good fit for the important work that they do.
We have a problem, but as I said before, I am solution focused, and I believe that we have a solution. I will put it to the Minister and hope that he can give us some flexibility in the process, which we can then take back to our people. The problem is that Northern Ireland’s fishing fleet is penalised simply because of geography. Our position near the Isle of Man and the west coast of Scotland means that Northern Ireland vessels do not have the same easy access to waters outside the 12 miles enjoyed by fishing interests on the east coast of England, for example, or in Scotland. Consequently, our reliance on access to inshore waters means that employing crew on transit visas is no longer an option for fishing vessels in Northern Ireland, which is one of the problems.
We had the opportunity to meet the Minister in January this year, which was a chance to put forward a solution. I can probably add to the solution that we had at the time, because the two fish producers organisations in Northern Ireland, in connection and partnership with other fishing organisations in Scotland and indeed in England, put forward the suggestion that foreign workers could learn the English language before they come here, in a college in Sri Lanka that they are setting up. I will add another angle to that, but that is one of the solutions that the fishing organisations themselves are putting forward. It is practical, and it is costing them. They are not asking the Government for any money in that process; they feel that they can put it forward.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). In his —if I may say so politely—lengthy speech, he has probably covered everything that every one of us will end up asking for. I agree almost 100% with his requests of the Minister and his suggestions for how we can help the fishing sector and turn on their head some of the long-standing and difficult issues for the industry.
Mr Vickers, if you were to come to south Devon—you are of course always welcome—you would be greeted by three extraordinary fishing towns of great variety: Brixham, Salcombe and Dartmouth. Brixham is the most valuable fishing port in England, as we all know— I spend half my time in this place talking about it—but in Dartmouth and Salcombe there is a large contingent of inshore fishermen, whether they are crabbers or day fishermen, who are really impacted by this issue. Indeed, the entire town of Brixham, which I think is now on its third year of record sales—a point that is often overlooked in the mainstream media—is absolutely dependent on visa arrangements. It is my pleasure as their representative to stand up in this place and talk about how we can do more for the fishing sector.
As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, fishing is all too often an afterthought. People do not fully consider the fact that fishing is a massive lever with which we can help to level up in our coastal communities and create good, well-paying, highly skilled jobs that allow our coastal communities to flourish. We need only read Professor Chris Whitty’s report on how to level up in coastal communities to see that there is a huge opportunity for us to do more for our fishing industry, and that starts by changing our attitudes. It also starts by changing our habits; just eating more fish—more seafood—would help us to grow the UK’s domestic market. That is something that a great people in my constituency, such as chef Mitch Tonks, are trying to do. He is leading a campaign to support the fishing sector and to talk about the fishing community and the great sources of food we have on our coastline.
For the sake of argument, let us say that we do manage to train people to the B1 level in order to meet the visa requirements. We have heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the hard, difficult and occasionally dangerous work undertaken on a fishing boat. Is it just possible that people who have achieved the B1 standard of English might then want to take that skill and qualification and do a job that is perhaps more suited to somebody with that level of language skill?
That is quite possible but, again, what is the purpose of this debate? What are we trying to do here? We are trying to shore up support for the fishing community; we are trying to ensure that it continues to thrive. We have come up with a solution, but there is just one small roadblock, and the Minister just needs to move it.
The suggestion regarding the B2 level was well made, but I will just make this point. An organisation called Crew Services operates in the United Kingdom. It has on its books 325 non-UK crew who are working in the UK at the moment. Of them, only six have met the B1 English language requirement. That shows, in a very neat way, the difficulty we have with being able to bring in people in the helpful manner the Minister has brought forward. There are limitations because of what we are asking at the moment; it is going to be very difficult.
A lot has been said about training, and I realise that training is a lengthy process. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) that if he wishes to go out on a vessel, he is welcome at any time to come down to south Devon to do so. I went out two years ago on a trawler for 36 hours—it was probably the last time I did an honest day’s work—and it was incredibly hard work. One of the things explained to me was the skill that goes into it and the dangers that come with it. I would like to say that I was thrown around that vessel by stormy seas, but unfortunately it was as calm as anything. However, for 36 hours, doing two hours on and two hours off, I saw the industry at work, how hard people work and the benefits of the sector.
In that instance, the young people working on the boat had trained locally, in the south-west. They were using local businesses to try to get into the sector, and that was working well. However, we clearly need to do more on this issue, so I would just make the point that, when the visa changes are implemented—that is very welcome —we should also take in hand training opportunities. In my own area of Totnes and south Devon, South Devon College has set up a training school, which is at the Noss on Dart site. It is now launching its own fisher apprenticeship scheme. It has had good attendance so far. There are a few minor niggles at the moment in how that programme is running, but more and more people are getting into it, and we in this place have to encourage them.
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Vickers. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing time for a debate on this important issue.
I represent Orkney and Shetland. Shetland’s local economy is one third fishing-dependent, and that goes through everything. When I say fishing, I am including aquaculture to get to the one third, although a lot of the skills are transferrable in any event. We have the full range: we have small, one-person, inshore boats, right the way through to the largest pelagic trawlers anywhere in Scotland—apart, obviously, from Banff and Buchan, where there are ones that are just as big. I do not think we want to get into a debate about the relative size of the pelagic trawlers; that is not what we are here for.
I have to say that I am just a bit weary with this. We have been going round this course for at least 10 years —possibly more—and we have gone from patch here to fitch there. We have had a reliance on transit visas, which was—bluntly—an abuse of the transit visas system, but it was the only way that fishing boats could get access to the crew they needed. We can absolutely understand why that happened, but it left a lot of people who were coming here as crew vulnerable to a measure of exploitation, and there were stories around the use of transit visas that did no credit to some in the fishing industry. We need a system that actually respects the rights of those who come here and contribute to our industry, and who keep our coastal and island communities growing and thriving, and that respects the rights and entitlements they have as workers in our economy, rather than just pushing them sidewards into the shadows.
The fishing industry has been promised a great deal by some in politics in recent years. Without rehearsing old arguments, it is fair to say that many in the industry feel that the promises made to them have not been honoured or delivered. It is certainly true beyond any measure of doubt that the deal done in 2020 by the former Prime Minister but one, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), did not meet the promises that had been made; indeed, in terms of much of the detail, it was greatly deficient. The trade and co-operation agreement has not delivered the opportunities that were promised, but the industry is nothing if not pragmatic, and it is working towards the renegotiation of that agreement. In the meantime, it would be nice to think that the people who promised the earth but did not deliver at the time would not just keep sticking the boot in while the industry is on the ground.
The right hon. Gentleman is right that the outcome of the TCA did not meet all expectations, but does he agree that our power at the negotiating table as an independent coastal state—this includes Ministers and officials in Scotland who take part in these negotiations—has become stronger and that our catching opportunities have increased? However, if we cannot get the people on the boats to catch the fish or to process them in the processors, that situation could potentially be at risk.
There are constitutional issues that the hon. Gentleman and I are part of the debate on and have been for some years. In microcosm, the danger the fishing industry faces is thinking that the solution to everything is dependent on where decision making is exercised. Personally, I think it is more important to discuss the principles and policies underpinning decisions, rather than where those decisions are made. A bad decision in Brussels is just as bad as a bad decision in London or Edinburgh—that is probably as far as it is sensible to take that. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that we could have the greatest opportunities and the most magnificent quota and total allowable catches imaginable, but that is absolutely no use if the crew cannot be found to put the boats to sea.
In my constituency and others, and I suspect in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, that is the situation many skippers face. If the local labour were available, I have absolutely no doubt that skippers would use it in a heartbeat. Every fisherman I speak to tells me exactly the same thing. They say they want a thriving local industry, and they do not want to rely on people coming in on foreign visas, but they also live in a competitive market. The fishermen in my constituency are competing for people who could be recruited into the offshore oil and gas industry, aquaculture or the deep-sea merchant marine.
Those fishermen have to compete not just with those industries but with decades of teachers, careers advisers and commentators telling people that the fishing industry has no future, that it is in decline and that no one would want to go into it. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the local fleet in Shetland, there are fantastic examples of young skippers taking on big commitments. New boats are coming into the industry, in a genuine and visible commitment to the future of the industry. Those skippers just need a hand up. They are not looking for help—for a subsidy or a grant. They just want to be able to go to sea, to make money to provide for their family and to keep an industry going that is critical to the future of our communities.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate.
It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). I wanted to intervene so many times during his speech, but I did not want to interrupt his flow. He made lots of very good points, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall). We have not heard from the SNP spokesperson yet, but I am sure that we will broadly agree on most of what we say today. We all represent fishing communities, which, as we have heard, are as wild and varied in their needs and demands as the weather conditions they often face.
I thank the Minister and his officials for meeting me earlier this week to discuss this matter in some detail. It was probably one of the longest meetings with a Minister and his officials that I have ever had, but the fact is that we barely scratched the surface, because there is so much nuance in this industry and the devil is very much in the detail.
This is not a binary issue. It is not a question of whether immigration is bad or good. It is not even a question of whether immigration is legal or illegal. Nobody in this Chamber is advocating doing anything that would be against the immigration rules or classed as illegal immigration. It is right that the UK Government take every reasonable step to stop illegal immigration, stop the small boats coming across the English channel, and stop the disgraceful practice of illegal people smugglers putting vulnerable people at risk and taking advantage of them.
We are talking about a different kind of small boat, although sometimes they are not all that small. These fishing boats operate out of some of the most remote, sparsely populated areas, where unemployment rates are often so low as to be effectively zero. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, in a lot of these areas—particularly in Orkney and Shetland, and in Banff and Buchan, which I represent—there is huge competition from other industries. Traditionally, the competition comes from the oil and gas industry, but given the energy transition, the renewable energy sector is rapidly becoming a competitor, too.
Of course, the debate is about the arrangements, but there is also the broader point about where we can reduce bureaucracy. We have skirted around the point about the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and health certificates. There is a series of measures by which we are inadvertently blocking people from getting back into fishing or getting into it. If we introduce the requirement for health certificates, that will have an implication for the visa arrangements of those who come over.
My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point. That impacts the owners of smaller boats more than those of bigger ones, because bigger boats have bigger crews. On a bigger boat, if someone does not receive their health certificate, there are other crew members who can fill the gap. With a one or two-man crew, that becomes more of an issue. My hon. Friend is right to point that out.
Let me return to my point about collaboration between the industry, us elected representatives and the Government. We should take as much advantage as possible of that desire to collaborate and act constructively in partnership and dialogue. As I found in my meeting with the Minister earlier in the week, a face-to-face discussion is so much more productive than just the odd email going back and forth.
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Our vessels are set to see their labour costs rise by up to 40% as they change from employing workers on transit visas to skilled visas—a cost that those in other parts of the country, by virtue of accident or geography, do not have to meet. That creates an unfairness where due to Home Office rules a fisherman fishing in one part of the United Kingdom is forced to pay up to 40% more for his crew than another fishing elsewhere in the UK. Northern Ireland’s fishing industry welcomes the pay protections the skilled visa system brings. Nobody decries that; nobody says, “Don’t do it”—we all accept and understand it. Indeed, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) and I were talking about that in the voting lobby the night before last, because we understand that it is not an issue. The fishing sector is moving towards accepting it.
Northern Ireland’s fishing industry does not begrudge paying our international fishermen what they are worth, but it is clearly unfair that those who pay skilled-visa salaries can be undercut by those who do not, simply through accidents of geography. The Home Office will, of course, argue that the skilled visa system meets Northern Ireland’s fishermen’s needs. In some ways, particularly in how it improves the freedoms enjoyed by foreign fishermen when ashore, it is a very positive step forward. The situation is not, however, quite that simple.
The International Labour Organisation’s work in fishing convention, ILO 188, is an important piece of legislation, of which the UK is a signatory. It protects the welfare of fishermen. It rules, for example, that a fisherman must have his repatriation flight paid for at his employer’s expense, and that his employer should provide his food at sea. Northern Ireland’s vessel owners willingly do both those things already—they are happy to.
The legislation, however, is effectively legally mandating benefits in kind that push the cost of employment up in ways that were not considered when skilled visas and their corresponding salary levels were devised. There needs to be a better understanding of that. Other employers who utilise skilled visas do not have to bear those costs, but fishing vessels do. Northern Ireland’s fishermen have asked for the policy to be applied in a fair, considered and even-handed way. We do not ask for anything that is not achievable or possible. That is why I look to the Minister for a better understanding and a positive response.
I ask the Minister and every MP in the Chamber to put themselves in the position of a Northern Ireland skipper for a moment. Imagine being in the southern Irish sea, wanting to access fishing grounds inside 12 miles of the shore but being unable to because there are transit visa crew onboard. Mr Vickers, imagine that you have tried to recruit skilled visa crew members, but those capable of passing the English-language requirement do not yet exist in sufficient numbers to make that option viable. Looking out of the wheelhouse window of the boat as it is tossed about on the sea, you see a French vessel fishing happily in the area that you are not allowed to work in. It niggles a bit when we are part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and our fishermen do not have the same freedoms as those from the rest of Europe.
The French vessel is allowed to work in UK waters because of the Brexit deal. I understand that—I understand how it works and where it will eventually lead to. The French vessel can also carry an international crew on the same transit visas, yet UK law affords it the exemptions that Northern Ireland fishermen are refused. That is a true story; I have not made it up—this is not an example without an evidential base. I suspect, in all honesty, that the Minister accepts that.
Northern Ireland’s fishermen have had to watch EU vessels employ foreign workers in UK territorial waters. They are there without any visa scrutiny whatever, while Northern Ireland fishermen are forced to remain outside those waters. Can the Home Office please put itself in their position, and explain where the morality and the fairness is? For the life of me, I cannot understand it at all. Can the Home Office appreciate the ridiculousness of a situation where it is easier for a British fishing business to employ foreign workers in UK waters if it buys into a French or Irish-registered vessel, rather than one registered in the UK? That anomaly is grossly unfair, and it grieves us all; there is not one Member who represents the fishing sector who does not think that.
It is unfortunate that the Home Secretary denied the request of the Fishermen’s Welfare Alliance; the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan and myself were also talking about the Fishermen’s Welfare Alliance the other night. What it has put forward is a feasible and workable option, and one that should be looked at. The Fishermen’s Welfare Alliance has asked for the full implementation of section 43 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, and for more time.
As transit visa crews are replaced with skilled visa crews in job lots, some fishing boats will now be expected to go to sea with whole crews joining vessels they have never set foot on before, to work as part of teams that have never met each other before. That poses the question of how practical that is. Professional mariners baulk at the very idea of this. They have issues with the safety, practicality and physical working of it. Fishing is already the UK’s most dangerous profession. I said that at the beginning because it is a fact; I am not making it up. It is not the fault of the migrant fisherman that he has not been granted the time to safely integrate with his vessel and crew mates, yet he is the one carrying the risk.
In response to the Fishermen’s Welfare Alliance, the Home Secretary raised concerns about the welfare of fishermen. If welfare is one of her considerations, I ask her not to make an already dangerous job more so. I ask her to reconsider on the grounds of safety, with a short delay to the full implementation of section 43 so that crews on transit visas may be replaced with crew on skilled visas as part of the staggered, safe transition.
I said at the beginning that I want to be constructive and give the facts of the case for us in Northern Ireland, but I also want to lay out where I think we can move forward. I am pretty sure that the opinions of everyone else here today are similar. Our Northern Ireland fishing vessel operator can see his colleagues in the North sea targeting the same species, yet, because of a line on a chart, his business has 40% higher labour costs. He sees an EU boat fishing inside the UK’s territorial waters with a transit visa crew, yet his British boat, with the same category of crew, is not allowed there. Even if all his crew had skilled worker visas and he was allowed access to those waters, the French boat would still undercut his labour costs.
This is not about cheap labour, but I want to illustrate that point. Northern Ireland’s fishermen welcome the wage protections that the skilled visas bring. Indeed, that will drive up wages for all our fishermen, local and foreign alike, which is good for the sector because at least it makes it more attractive from a financial wage point of view. For many of Northern Ireland’s boats there is no great disparity in earnings based on whether someone comes come from Kilkeel or Colombo, or Accra or Ardglass, but the same rules should apply to all. The skilled visa system links skills and education in a way that is not always reflected in real life. When we see what is put forward, it is very hard to understand why—I say this with respect to the Minister—he is not reaching out and saying, “Let’s get that in place as soon as we can.”
Most of the international fishermen employed by the UK industry have little by way of formal schooling, but they are expert in their profession. Sometimes people do not have an education, but they have the skills and the ability to work on a boat. That is the frustration that we have here: people who can do the job, but do not have the full grasp of the English language that they need to have. To prevent them from helping our own industry simply because they cannot pass the reading and writing elements of an academic English exam, which reportedly sits somewhere between GCSE and A-level in difficulty, is perhaps contrary to the bigger picture of ensuring our food security.
The Home Secretary has kindly offered a package of help designed to aid the transition to skilled visas. That is welcome, but if I could push that offer of help just a little further, this is the crux of what I would ask for: to recognise that the highly skilled people from around the world who are already part of our fishing communities do not have to have the academic background that enables them to pass B1 level reading and writing. After all, fishing is something we learn in a boat, not in a classroom. Providing that formal academic training to our existing foreign fishermen, who are already working full time, will take months and cost individual fishing businesses tens of thousands in lost revenue because they remain unable to access inshore waters in the interim.
Assumptions are dangerous, and it is simply incorrect to assume that there is, anywhere in the world, a pool of eligible B1-standard fishermen who want to work in the UK. There is not, and that is the nub of the problem. The Home Office is asking the fishing industry to focus its recruitment efforts on a group of people who do not exist. The good news, and there is good news—I always try to bring good news, because that is my nature—is that the Home Office can do something practical to help.
Employers are allowed to pay skilled workers whose jobs are on the shortage occupation list a lower salary than would be the case if the jobs were not in shortage. Perhaps, for shortage occupations, the reading and writing elements of the English test could be reduced by one level from B1. That is my request. It is a practical solution to where we are, and it is a solution that the fishing sector and every MP here will put forward. The fishing sector will work alongside; if a partnership is needed to make this work, the Minister and the Government will have a partnership. The reading and writing could be reduced by one level from B1 for the first year of a person’s stay only; after that, they would be required to pass a B1 exam to remain—which is where we are now —thereby protecting the integrity of the skilled visa system. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan will speak on that shortly and reiterate my point.
That little change could help the fishing industry retain many of the crew it already has by enabling them to successfully make the transition to skilled visas in a matter of weeks—almost right away—thereby minimising the economic cost of losing access to prime inshore grounds and minimising the accidents stemming from the employment of inexperienced and unfamiliar crew. I tell the Minister, with genuine respect, that here we have a solution that can work. Others will repeat that, and they will repeat it because it is right.
Fishing is an irregular occupation. It is unsurprising that it does not fit neatly into any of the current visa options—I understand that. Instead of trying to force square pegs into round holes, perhaps it would be better to begin a dialogue between the fishing industry and the Home Office as to how provision can be made within the framework of the skilled visa system to recognise those irregularities and help to make a better fit. We have put forward a solution, and I am confident that those who speak today will be united, because all of us represent fishermen who want the same thing.
We have great potential. After Brexit, we as a fishing sector were confident that we could move forward. I know that the Minister and the Government are committed to that, but we need some practical help with the technicalities of the system to make it happen. I have made the case, and I look forward to others’ contributions.
I come back to the point about changing attitudes, because if we want to attract people into the fishing community, that is not going to be done by handing out visas to foreign workers; we have to change the approach. I welcome the Government’s measure as a temporary measure, because I hope that, in the in-between period, we can put more into training.
On visa arrangements, it is absolutely welcome that the Government have reduced the cost of the visas and reduced the salary threshold, but I come to the point the hon. Member for Strangford made about the B1 English language requirement: if we are trying to fill a gap right now because there are not enough workers in the fishing community, how on earth do we hope to achieve that when the B1 language course is so complicated and, in many instances, lengthy?
I absolutely declare my interest: we now need a Fishing Minister—a dedicated, stand-alone Minister—to be able to do all of this. I am sure that it is within the good sense of this Minister to be able to advocate that to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I congratulate the Government on the two very positive steps they have taken, on the reduction of costs and the reduction of the salary threshold. Will they please look at the language issue again? That is what the industry in my area is calling for.
I will not steal from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan, but can we also look at the processing sector? A large number of businesses in my constituency are exporting around the world. They rely heavily not only on the fishing community but on there being visas to allow people to work in their sector. However, that will undoubtedly come up further on in the debate.
I am very proud to represent the fishing community. We have some small asks that can make things easier and better, and where we can deregulate and make things more efficient. These steps will not cost the Government much, but they will be applauded by the industry. I hope the Minister has heard my speech and that of the hon. Member for Strangford, and can implement our requests.
The history of this issue bears a bit of repeating. We pushed water up the hill for years with the members of the Migration Advisory Committee. We reasoned with them. Eventually we brought them in and beat them up in a Committee Room in the Palace and they accepted that, yes, the job of a deckhand is a skilled occupation. That is how we made the progress that got us to the place where that job could be put on the shortage occupation list.
That brings us to the English language requirement. The concession that has been made is absolutely meaningless if we insist that the crew who are to be employed under it are capable of achieving that level of English language qualification. As I said to the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), people who have that academic ability will probably not be particularly suited to, or want to work in, a fishing boat. For the medium to longer term, it is difficult to see how there is any meaning to that concession whatever. If we were to get the fishing industry to fund training for people to get to that level, I strongly suspect that they would not be there for the longer term. All we would be doing would be training people for jobs that they would not ultimately take up.
At its root, the problem with the English language qualification is a fundamental lack of understanding in the migration system, and in the Home Office in particular, which seems to equate skill with academic ability. That is a particularly dangerous and—dare I say it?—fairly middle-class view of the world. A lot of people have highly skilled occupations, but have never actually achieved a great deal in terms of academic qualifications, because that has not been the direction in which they have wanted to go. I think what they do is perfectly legitimate. I respect what they do, and what fishermen are capable of doing. I sure as goodness would not go and do it, because it is hard, difficult, dangerous work. In the same way that I would hope that they might respect what I can do with my professional background, I respect what they can do with theirs. It does not always come down to what someone has by way of academic qualifications. The hon. Member for Strangford has already said what needs to be done. That tweak is all we really need; the problem for the Minister would then simply go away.
I want to offer two examples of what the situation means for fishing boat crews in my constituency. The first example is a family with two vivier crab boats. Like everyone I will talk about, the family have done everything that every Minister in every Government would ever tell them to do. They have worked hard, they have saved, they have borrowed to invest and they have grown their business to provide for the family. The father tells me that he does the work because he wants to have a business that he can hand on to his eldest son. He tells me, quite candidly, that he no longer knows whether he will be able to do that. He was fishing with fixed gear, within the 12-mile limit, until the day that his ability to do so was withdrawn. The gear is still sitting there, weeks down the line, because he cannot get the crew to go out and shift it.
When the Minister responds, perhaps he can explain this point. The waters to be included around Orkney include uninhabited islands such as Rona, Sulisker and Sule Skerry. That takes in waters that, for an inshore fisherman, are about 90 miles from the Orkney mainland. I presume that it was a deliberate decision on the part of the Minister to include Rona, Sulisker and Sule Skerry, so will he explain his reasoning? It does not make any sense to me. The hon. Member for Strangford spoke about safety. When boats are out fishing, they will often dodge into those areas to get a bit of shelter in bad weather. If fishermen cannot take their boats there because they are fishing outside the 12-mile limit, they will be exposed to even greater danger.
That brings us back to one of the fundamental problems, with which we have been dealing for years: fishermen are forced to fish not where the fishing opportunities exist, but where their visa requirements allow them to. That, again, has to be a case of the tail wagging the dog.
The other example I offer is a Shetland fisherman who bought his boat some years ago. The boat and the quota together cost him around £1.4 million. He still owes the bank just south of £700,000—the figure was about £680,000 when I last spoke to him about it. He has always fished with a foreign crew within the 12-mile limit—well, perhaps not always, but certainly in recent times, because he was able to do so. He did so because, that close into shore, he could be certain that he was only catching haddock. If he has to go outside the 12-mile limit, he will be catching a much more mixed fishery—haddock, cod, ling and saithe. He is not allowed to catch cod, ling and saithe, because he only has quota for haddock. Because of the discard rule, he is also not allowed to get rid of them. That is the vicious circle that leaves fishermen having to tie their boats up at the shore.
The basic truth is that if there is no crew, there is no fishing, and if there is no fishing, there is no ability to service the debt. Fishers will doubtless go out of business, and that income will be lost to the community as those families will no longer be able to make money for themselves. If the boats do not go out to sea, no fish will come into the factories to be processed. In that way, the effect of this decision ripples out through every fishing community in this country.
We are asking for a simple tweak to a fairly small piece of legislation that will not make a massive difference to the number of people coming here. The Minister spoke today about the desirability of offering visas to people who come here on a route that might eventually lead to indefinite leave to remain. He knows as well as I do that if that route is taken, there are other opportunities for the English language requirement to be tested and established.
The people who come here to fish in my constituency are not coming to stay, because their families are still at home in the Philippines or Ghana. They come here to fish for six, eight or 10 months at a time, and then they want to go home. Why would they not? That is where their family are. They come here and make good money working in an industry that looks after them and offers them opportunities. It is good for them and good for us. Why can the Home Office not just get out the way and let them do it?
I think we all agree that the system of using transit visas, which technically allow fishermen to enter the country on the basis that they will transit outside a 12 nautical mile limit to work, is not fit for the purposes described today. I have long said that a points-based immigration system, appropriately applied, could replace that system. It is on that basis that I welcome this week’s announcement by the Home Office that share fishermen, trawler skippers and experienced deckhands on large fishing vessels are to be included on the shortage occupation list. Inclusion on the list means that jobs qualify at the 20% lower salary threshold of £20,960 instead of £26,200. However, as has been mentioned, the salaries being paid to those guys are fairly reasonable, and although that measure may help some people start out in the sector, it is not the main obstruction.
Being on the shortage occupation list also means that applicants will pay lower fees of £479 instead of £625 for a three-year visa. That is also welcome. Yet the broader English-language requirements of the skilled worker route will still apply despite the jobs being on the shortage occupation list. It will come as no surprise that, like other hon. Members, I will make that one of my main points.
I welcome the addition of experienced deckhands to the skilled worker route back in 2021. As other hon. Members have said, that followed long discussions between hon. Members such as those of us here representing our constituencies today and the Migration Advisory Committee. I have been doing this for six years; others have been doing it for longer. Through all that, there has been a genuine desire from us as representatives of our coastal communities and from the fishing industry to work constructively and in partnership with Government to come together and find the solutions that we know are there.