Peter outlines the main recommendations of the report, including the opportunity for Waveney to land extra fish and the chance for Lowestoft to regain its crown as the fishing capital of the Southern North Sea.
Peter Aldous (Waveney):
Mr Pritchard, it is a pleasure to serve under your Chairmanship and I also welcome the Minister to his place. He has been very supportive of proposals to revitalise the UK fishing industry and through the Fisheries Bill, which I hope is only temporarily stalled, he has provided a framework for doing this.
My interest is in the East Anglian Coast, running for 208 miles from King’s Lynn in Norfolk to Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, with Lowestoft in Suffolk in my constituency being geographically at its centre.
Lowestoft is historically the fishing capital of the Southern North Sea and hopefully in future, if we make the most of the opportunity that Brexit presents, it will be the regional hub port at the heart of a revived but modern fishing industry, playing a key role in the regeneration of coastal communities.
REAF (the Renaissance of East Anglian Fisheries) is a community-led group which has come together to produce a long-term strategy for fishing in the region.
Work began in 2018 as a result of the joint endeavours of East Suffolk Council, June Mummery, Paul Lines and myself. A partnership was formed between the regional industry, East Suffolk Council, Suffolk County Council, Norfolk County Council, the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, Seafish and Associated British Ports.
Funding was provided by the participating councils, Seafish, and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund via the Marine Maritime Organisation. East Suffolk Council have given invaluable administrative and project management support and have hosted our meetings.
The REAF Report was prepared by its members, with advice from Rodney Anderson and research and analysis from Vivid Economics.
The strategy builds on insights of numerous stakeholders and expert interviews across all industry sub-sectors as well as conversations with regulators and public bodies.
Special thanks is given to all those who have contributed to the project.
B. The Current State of the East Anglian Fishing Industry
There is a long history of fishing along the East Anglian coast. However over the last 40 years its importance to the area has declined significantly and in Lowestoft where it used to underpin the local economy the industry is currently a very pale shadow of its former self.
Across the region the industry covers a diverse range of activities including a shellfish fleet, an inshore fleet catching flat-fish, some offshore demersal and offshore pelagic fleets, processing with some international exports, port and market services and ancillary activities.
The total value reported of the catch of commercial species from the Southern North Sea has varied between £190 million and £260 million in recent years, of which only between 7% and 8% is landed by the UK fleet.
Most fin-fish are currently landed overseas in ports in the Netherlands and France, with shellfish landings taking place off the North and West Norfolk coast and in the Essex estuaries.
A varying but low number of UK registered offshore vessels are operating in the Southern North Sea, but these vessels land only low values into regional ports due to foreign ownership.
Indeed the Lowestoft Producer Organisation land their fish in the Netherlands and not in Lowestoft.
These are specialist modern vessels which represent a substantial investment made possible by access to UK waters under the Common Fisheries Policy and through their purchase of access to UK quotas. They are said to comply with the “Economic Link” mostly by gifting some quota to the UK. However in practise whilst East Anglia sits next to one of the richest fishing fields in Europe, very little local benefit is derived from it.
Some Dutch demersal trawlers have used pulse fishing, which employs electric currents to force fish from the seabed; a technique the European Parliament has voted to ban with effect from January of this year, with 5% of the fleet of the North Sea permitted to continue for scientific purposes until 2021.
Mr Pritchard, at present we have a system which not only brings little economic benefit to the East Anglian fishing industry, but is also extremely environmentally damaging.
C. Findings
The study’s main finding is that the UK’s departure from the CFP provides a remarkable opportunity to bring about a renaissance for East Anglian fisheries. However this will only be achieved if leaving the EU is accompanied by well designed national policy and regulation, which provides the framework for regional strategies such as REAF.
The report concludes that there is the opportunity to increase UK vessel quota catch in the Southern North Sea by seven times its value and UK vessel non-quota catch by 25%, together adding 25 or more vessels to the UK fleet, creating jobs both offshore and onshore.
Up to 13,300 additional tons per year of allowed catch will become available to UK registered vessels in the Southern North Sea, potentially being landed and processed in the UK.
This will come about through a change in the way the fishing opportunity in the North Sea is allocated between countries, moving to a geographic area allocation under the International Law of the Sea, known as Zonal Attachment, replacing the current basis for fish catches, known as the Relative Stability Rule of the Common Fisheries Policy. It is vital that Zonal Attachment and the requirement to land fish in the UK is the basis of any future agreement with the EU. Such a change would allocate the aforementioned seven-fold greater catch of quota stock value to the UK from the southern North Sea, worth approximately £28-34 million at the quayside.
This includes an 8-fold volume increase in sole, a 10-fold increase in herring and an 11-fold increase in plaice.
In addition the “Economic Link” rule, which the UK uses to regulate the activities of vessels fishing UK fish stocks, should be strengthened so as promote the landing of fish in UK ports.
The potential benefits could further increase as fish stocks improve through effective management and the regional fleet becomes more competitive and more efficient. In addition there may be more opportunities to start harvesting crabs further offshore and to expand oyster cultivation.
D. Recommendations
To fully realise this opportunity, the REAF Strategy makes eleven recommendations, which in a minute I shall briefly outline. Mr , they fall into three categories:-
1. Firstly Economic; bringing rewarding and well paid jobs to the East Anglian coast, not just for the catch sector but all along the whole length of the supply chain from the “net to the plate”.
2. Secondly Environmental, promoting sustainable fishing; helping to avoid the over-fishing mistakes of the past so that we leave our fisheries to the next generation in a better state than we inherited them.
3. And thirdly, linked to this second objective Regulatory; putting in place a local bespoke system of management that includes fishermen and which avoids the past mistakes of the CFP which has at times been too centralised and distant.
In brief, Mr Pritchard, the 11 recommendations can be summarised as follows:-
- Introducing a new system of controlling the inshore fleet through hours at sea restrictions and the use of gear
- Requiring the offshore fleet to land its catch in the UK and restricting it from fishing within 12 nautical miles of the coast
- Considering restricting offshore vessels to 500 horsepower and banning beam trawling.
- Investing in a regional hub fishing port in Lowestoft.
- Providing access to finance for the scaling up and automation of the processing sector
- Upgrading the control regime for anglers
- Removing barriers to aquaculture expansion by de-risking developments and improving access to finance
- Setting up an apprenticeship scheme
- Combining the two inshore fisheries and conservation authorities and the Marine Maritime Organisation into a single East Anglia Regional Fisheries Authority.
- Managing fish stocks as a mixed fishery and introducing more effective controls over fishing mortality
- Finally making more use of data to manage potential conflicts between fishermen and other marine activities, such as windfarms and dredging.
E. Asks
Mr Pritchard, the REAF study is very much a “living document”. It is not a piece of academic research, designed to provoke contemplation and debate. It sets out a range of practical recommendations which if implemented can bring significant benefits to local people, local communities and local businesses.
Brexit on its own is not a magic wand that will revitalise our fishing industry, but it gives us the opportunity to start again with a clean sheet of paper; to pursue innovative and radical policies that can bring real benefits to East Anglian coastal communities.
We need to get Brexit done so that we can get on with putting in place strategies such as REAF.
So that East Anglia can get on with this work I would ask the Minister in his summing up to confirm support for the following first steps:-
1. It would be appreciated if the Minister could ask his officials at DEFRA to continue to work with the REAF team, so that a strategy can be agreed for starting work on implementing the Study’s recommendations. This regional approach to fisheries management will help secure the Brexit dividend and REAF provides a blueprint that can be used elsewhere around the UK coast.
2. Seedcorn funding should be provided so that REAF can carry on into its next phase. East Suffolk Council have confirmed that they are prepared to continue to offer support and to host meetings. They will convene a new REAF group and will oversee the preparation of the first year’s programme of work. However they do not have a budget to fund anything more than basis secretarial support.
To take the project forward there is a need for a full-time outreach worker; a liaison officer who will foster, galvanise, encourage, interpret and explain. This person would spend the first six months of their time visiting ports and landing places, working with fishermen, talking to processors and hauliers and generally obtaining background information.
They person will play a crucial role in advising the steering group about the practicalities of what is or is not happening on the ground. They will feed back to the different sectors and will ensure that they continue to be fully supportive of the project. This will mean constantly getting out and about at times that suit the industry and not standard office hours. They will be the lynchpin of the project.
A dedicated project manager and administrative back-up is also required as well as a modest level of specialist consultancy support.
3. Promoting a new approach to managing mixed fisheries by controlling the inshore fleet through hours of sea restrictions. The Minister has indicated the Government will carry out an hours at sea pilot. We would ask that this shold take place in East Anglia.
4. It is important that we put in place an apprenticeship scheme for those wanting to pursue a career in the industry. This will include establishing an apprenticeship training programme for future skippers, funded by the National Apprenticeship Levy, preparing a “Careers in Fishing“ brochure to accompany the scheme and making available finance for graduates from the scheme so as to support them in acquiring a vessel and a licence.
East Coast College in Lowestoft wish to be involved in this scheme and there is a need to forge these proposals into a deliverable project.
5. Lowestoft wants to regain its crown as the capital of the Southern North Sea. This will require a fishing port development study to be prepared working in close collaboration with Associated British Ports, the owners of Lowestoft port.
The scope of the project could include a new fishing unloading quay, berthing and provisioning facilities and the creation of a new fish market.
This would provide the port with a capacity to handle shellfish, inshore vessels and offshore vessels.
6. Post Brexit there is a need for investment in the processing sector, not just in East Anglia but nationally. A scheme needs to be set up into which East Anglian processors can apply. It should mirror the support that Marine Scotland are providing to Scottish processors.
7. Finally we need to start work on forming the new single East Anglia Regional Fisheries Authority. This will provide clear visible signs on the ground of improvements to regulatory operations
F. Conclusion
Mr Pritchard , I suspect I have kept you for too long and I apologise, but I hope that what I have illustrated is that we do have a detailed plan for securing REAF, the Renaissance of East Anglian Fisheries. We now want to get on with delivering it and I look forward to hearing from the Minister that he is supportive of this local ambition and his Department will work with us to secure what is an exciting future.