Leaving the EU: Fishing

[Mr Graham Stringer in the Chair]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fishing and the UK leaving the EU.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I start by welcoming the Minister to his place. It is incredibly welcome that he is an east coast colleague, and so will understand the particular pressures on the fishing industry in that part of the world. I look forward to building a constructive relationship with him over the many years that I know he will be in post. Many Members will use their contributions to talk about the catching aspect of our fishing sector—both around the whole UK and in their local areas—with which they will be more familiar than me. I will focus on the impact of Brexit on the post-catching aspect of the sector.

The fishing sector has been the hallmark of Grimsby for generations, and factories such as Young’s and Seachill are the largest source of employment for people in Grimsby. Traditional Grimsby smoked fish is perhaps the most recognisable symbol of quality in the fish world. If the Minister has not yet had the chance to try some, I urge him to visit my constituency and to come along to Alfred Enderby, which supplies Marco Pierre White’s restaurants, and hopefully then he will understand exactly why it has such an excellent reputation.

However, the fish that feeds those factories and smoking houses no longer lands at the docks in Grimsby, and often not even in the UK. Instead, the fish processed in my constituency arrives at our factories from across northern Europe. The cod and haddock used by companies such as Young’s and Seachill and enjoyed by many in the fish and chip shops up and down the country are caught in the likes of Norway and Iceland. They are then transferred across Europe, usually by lorry, moved on to a container ship and then put back on a lorry, eventually arriving at their destination. Those companies really worry about the effect of Brexit on their sector.

It is right that we talk about the sector as a whole, including processing. The Government document, “Seafood 2040: A strategic framework for England”, looks at the whole sector, from catching the fish all the way through to its ending up on people’s plates. The strategy covers the industry in its entirety, which is why it is relevant for me to raise these issues. Companies such as Young’s and Seachill rely on seamless supply routes to ensure that the fish that they use arrives in as fresh a state as possible. Any delay in the transport of what is a highly perishable good will have a massive impact on both the quantity of spoiled fish and the quality of the end product in our supermarkets.

The hon. Lady mentioned, and is a powerful voice for, processors in her constituency. Could she give us some idea of how much of their supply those processors source from EU member states and how much is sourced from places such as Norway and Iceland, which are clearly third countries to the EU at the moment?

The hon. Lady is absolutely right: we source the majority of our product for processing from Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and so on. However, it is worth noting that those countries have European economic area and European Free Trade Agreement agreements with the EU. Our relationship with the EU will impact on those agreements. There is no way, so far as I can see, that we can supersede their existing relationships with the EU. The hon. Lady is shaking her head vigorously from a sedentary position. I am sure that she will address that point in her own comments when the time comes.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Does she share my concern about a no-deal scenario? The Welsh fish and sea fish sector exports 90% of what it produces, much of it to the EU, and is worth £25 million to Wales. Will she join me in calling on the Department to provide financial support in the event of a no-deal scenario?

The hon. Lady raises an important point, and £25 million is not an insignificant sum to Wales. We saw this morning the release of proposed tariff rates, which I will come on to later. Perhaps the Minister can offer some reassurance on that. Going ahead with no deal will have a dramatic impact on trading as we know and understand it, because all our systems are set up to work within the current framework. It is absolutely imperative that the Minister hears these issues raised by colleagues.

The hon. Lady will doubtless be aware that the tariff guidance published by the Government this morning lists a range of tariffs for imported fish. However, there will of course be zero tariffs between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. First, how workable does she think that scheme will be? Secondly, does she think that it will find favour with processors in her constituency?

Certainly, the information we received this morning presents a range of difficulties, as the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight. The difficulties of potentially having zero tariffs on imports coming from Ireland, through Northern Ireland and into the UK will have a dramatic impact on the whole sector’s trade routes. I think the figure put on tariffs for import was 11.9%. I will ask for further information about that, because obviously we had that information only this morning.

It is quite concerning that that information has only been released today. It would have been preferable for these kind of details to be in the public domain at an earlier stage. All parliamentarians have been considering and voting on issues relating to leaving the EU and we are only now finding out some of these facts. That is not in the best interests of the industry and is certainly not in the best interests of people working in the industry in our constituencies around the country. Grimsby’s fish processing sector needs assurances that, come what may, it can continue to enjoy its current seamless supply route. However, industry leaders in the area currently express deep concern about the lack of clarity over how they expect the sector to operate in what could be a matter of weeks.

Currently, health certificates for fish imports from inside the EU or EFTA are only required for species that carry, or are at risk from, controlled diseases, but they are needed for all fish imported from outside the EU. Fish from EU and EFTA nations do not need to go through border checks when entering the UK. Imposing requirements on markets such as Norway and Iceland to provide health certificates for all the fish they export to us would lead to increased border checks on fish from those countries and could mean damaging delays to the delivery of fresh fish into the country. Will the Minister confirm that it is not the Government’s intention to require all fish from markets such as Norway and Iceland to have health certificates once we leave the EU?

May I congratulate those people in my hon. Friend’s area who have secured some of that money for the ports, however inadequate it is. I point out to the Minister—I understand that this is a Department for Transport and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government matter—that of the £3 million in total that is being given to ports across the country, not a single penny is coming to any port in the north-east of England.

My right hon. Friend raises a serious issue. There must be equitable distribution of funds. If there is a genuine desire to support the industry, the infrastructure and the facilities must be there. To exclude one at the expense of another is not looking to the future. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to respond to my right hon. Friend’s point in his closing comments.

The additional funding is of course welcome; nobody is going to say no to additional funding, but how it will be shared and distributed and where the priorities will lie are still a concern. When it comes to the spending, will it go to the company that runs the dock facilities, which will have all the responsibility of dealing with the customs checks and perhaps an increase in activity? If Dover is unable to cope, perhaps we will see an increase in freight coming up to our port. What will that mean for the fish stocks and for the auction site? Will it get a share of it? That is not clear. I would be interested to know whether the Minister has any thoughts on that, too.

The concerns are clearly not felt by the processing sector alone. According to the UK Seafood Industry Alliance, we export most of what we catch and we import most of what we eat, with 90% of the cod consumed in the UK coming from outside our borders, and species such as nephrops, which are quite unfamiliar to UK dinner tables, being among our most valuable seafood exports. If we leave without reciprocal and favourable trade arrangements with major importers and exporters, we could easily end up in a situation in which fishermen struggle to make vital profits on export species that are extremely valuable in foreign markets, while we see the cod and haddock in our chippies and supermarkets skyrocket in price as tariffs are slapped on our imports.

Customers may not recognise nephrops, but they will certainly know what Whitby scampi or Young’s scampi look like.

Yes. The Minister makes a key point. Perhaps there is less familiarity with some of the other species that we export, and export very valuably, to the EU markets.

Let me return to the point about tariffs, which we touched on. There was the publication this morning that referred to 11.9% on protected lines. That is the most preferred nation rate. It is what, in the event of no deal, we will be trading on. Can the Minister explain that in greater detail? The information came out only this morning. I have gone to various sources, including the Library, to try to get more detail about exactly which species will be affected and how, but perhaps the Minister can put that on the record here today. If he cannot do so, will there be a ministerial written statement to explain the implications of the tariffs and what they mean for the UK sector?

The hon. Lady will accept that the EU would be absolutely barking mad to embark on a tariff war on fishery and fishing products with the United Kingdom, given our dominance of the sea.

We are in a fortunate position, in that the Minister’s predecessor set a very positive tone from the start of the negotiations to leave the EU. I expect that tone to continue under this Minister. He is a very reasonable gentleman, and I expect him to recognise, in the same interest of standing up for the UK fishing sector, that an unnecessarily aggressive approach is not one that he should take. I do not think that there is any desire on either side to start so-called tariff wars. There is a mutually beneficial industry. The common fisheries policy may continue to be a bone of contention, but in more recent years the relationship has improved, and the changes that have been made in the CFP have struck a good balance between the environment and the catching sector. I hope that that will continue, so I hope that the scenario that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) highlights and perhaps foresees does not come to pass. That would not be in anybody’s best interests.

I confess that I am not entirely sure what this means, but the list published by the Government this morning says that

“shrimps of the genus ‘Penaeus’ even smoked or whether in the shell or not—including shrimps in shell cooked by steaming or by boiling in water”

will be subject to a 12% tariff. If that is what we are levying as a tariff on imports, why would the EU not levy something similar on our exports to the EU?

The right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about what would happen in the event of no deal. We know—we will be voting on this very subject later—that it is highly unlikely that there will be a majority for a no-deal outcome. For this sector, we should perhaps, in the course of the debate taking place in the main Chamber, go and make our voices heard and say exactly why that would be an incredibly unhelpful outcome.

Does the hon. Lady share my concern, though, about the withdrawal agreement? The whelk market is worth £6.2 million a year to Wales. It is understood that even if we leave with the withdrawal agreement, there is currently no agreement with South Korea. At the moment, we trade with South Korea under an EU agreement. Processed seafoods, such as whelks, would be subject to a 20% tariff in South Korea if we traded under World Trade Organisation rules.