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Scottish fishermen get new deal over fishing grounds

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Published Date: 19 December 2008
By Geoff Meade
A FISHING deal for the UK today averted the closure of vital west of Scotland prawn fishing grounds, and landed increased catch quotas for North Sea cod, mackerel and plaice.
The result of negotiations in Brussels on next year's EU catch quotas was hailed by UK Fisheries Minister Huw Irranca-Davies as a balanced deal which kept the industry afloat while stepping up conservation efforts and cutting waste.

The talks bega
n yesterday with a European Commission threat to close prawn-fishing grounds which are the lifeblood of many west of Scotland and Northern Ireland fishing communities.

The Commission said action had to be taken to give whitefish stocks a "breathing space".

The only possible alternative – switching to high-tech fishing gear which nets sustainable prawn and anglerfish while releasing other depleted species back into the sea – was reached during intense talks overnight and today.

The deal saves the west of Scotland prawn fleet, but it faces a cutback in overall permitted prawn catches in 2009.

However the reduction is less than the 15% the Commission had demanded.
And, in exchange for firm pledges on improved conservation and an end where possible to the wasteful dumping of quota-busting fish back in the sea, the deal also boosts the overall UK share of main species.

In addition to a 30% increase in North Sea cod quotas – secured before the talks began – the deal offers the UK fleet 32% more mackerel, 13% more North Sea plaice and 8% more monkfish off the Scottish west coast.

Mr Irranca-Davies said: "This is a fair deal overall for the UK, balancing the needs of our fishermen to make a living with the need to protect fish stocks for the future and prevent huge amounts of what they catch having to be thrown back dead into the sea.

"Ports all over Britain will benefit, including Northern Ireland where vital prawn stocks will be safeguarded and we exercised our right to secure extra haddock and whiting for North Sea fishermen.

"I believe the measures agreed today are a significant step towards a more effective Common Fisheries Policy in future, one in which the industry and consumers can have greater confidence.




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  • Last Updated: 19 December 2008 2:44 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Sea fishing industry
 
1

,

19/12/2008 15:04:35
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
2

Brian Hill,

Edinburgh 19/12/2008 15:16:18
Amazing how the London Labour Government's success with fishing quota's has improved dramatically as far as Scotland is concerned since the arrival of the Scottish Government's Richard Lochhead.

So 'Maggie' Salmond, that well known Scottish 'Quisling' will be able to sup his beer with a quiet satisfaction between bouts of working himself into the ground for Scotland's sake, as all good 'quislings' do.
3

Arn av Gothia,

Gothia 19/12/2008 15:23:23
#1 On the past records of Westminster governments regarding the Fishing industry it is a wonder that we have one at all Please note the comments about Edward Heath,at least before writing about something you know nothing about
From the Telegraph
Last week this paper reported that the Tory party has a new fisheries policy. According to their spokesman Bill Wiggin, they are going to end the scandal of "discarding". This reminded me of a morning earlier this year when my telephone rang. It was my old fisherman friend Mick Mahon, calling from his boat as he headed back to port in Newlyn. He was angry. During the night he had caught a large haul of mature haddock, which are currently abundant round the Cornish coast. But since it was a criminal offence under quota rules for him to land more than "50 kilograms" in a month, he had been forced to dump his entire catch dead back into the sea.
Read more from Christopher Booker
After living for 25 years with the ever-increasing lunacies of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), as interpreted and enforced by ever more high-handed British officials, Mick's patience had finally snapped. Like every other fisherman in Britain, nothing enraged him more than the obscenity of the quota rules which force them every year to "discard" hundreds of thousands of tons of saleable fish to feed the seagulls.
He had decided that he would never discard edible fish ever again. He was going to break the law by bringing them to land, then give them away to the local Fishermen's Mission, to pensioners or to anyone who would in return make a contribution to charity. Recently this quixotic policy, which Mick has now been following for several months, earned him a front-page headline in Fishing News. It has so bemused the local inspector, whose officious zeal has made him the most unpopular man in Newlyn, that his only response was to threaten the mission with prosecution for accepting Mick's charitable gifts.
It was appropriate that Mick Maho
4

Arn av Gothia,

Gothia 19/12/2008 15:28:50
Mahon would make a stand against the insanity of discarding. For years he has been a colourful presence on local television programmes, protesting against the CFP and the systematic destruction of Britain's fishing industry. Twenty years ago he wrote to The Times, vividly describing what it was like for Cornish fishermen to have to sit at home watching the lights of French trawlers offshore, catching fish in British waters which Brussels no longer allowed British fishermen to catch.
It was that letter which first alerted me to the scale of the disaster which joining "Europe" had caused for Britain's fishermen, since when I have written more words about it than any other mainstream journalist. The story to which it introduced me began when Edward Heath took us into the Common Market in 1973, at which time we had the richest and best-conserved fishing waters and the largest fishing fleet in Europe.
As I was eventually able to expose, from documents released under the 30-year rule, Brussels was well aware that nothing in the Treaty of Rome authorised a "common fisheries policy". But on a French initiative, the original six member countries laid an ambush for Britain and the other nations seeking to join in 1970, making it a condition of membership that they should hand over their fishing waters as a "common European resource".
Mr Heath was so desperate to join that he made no protest at this illegal demand (although it was enough to prevent Norway joining). Brussels then set about doling out its prize by means of allocating national quotas, and therein lay the seeds of a twofold tragedy. The first was that to befall Britain, which, having contributed 80 per cent of the fish to the pool, was allocated in return only 13 per cent of those fish by value. As a result, over the past few decades our fishing industry has progressively collapsed, with the heart being ripped out of fishing communities from Scotland to Cornwall.
The second inevitable consequence of the quota
5

Arn av Gothia,

Gothia 19/12/2008 15:30:08
of the quota system was that it would create an ecological catastrophe, as fishermen were forced to dump huge quantities of fish which they couldn't avoid catching but for which they didn't have quota. As long ago as 1991 an internal Commission study reported that millions of tons of fish each year were thus being pointlessly destroyed. (I have been writing about it since 1992.) Even the present fisheries commissioner, a Maltese politician who controls the management of fish stocks round Britain' s coasts, has called discarding "immoral". But if the "common resource" is to be divided out between 27 nations, Brussels has found no way to stop it.
Occasionally British politicians also utter little squeaks of protest, as Mr Wiggin was doing last week. But when, in 2005, the Tories adopted as official policy the only serious alternative system of fisheries management anyone has yet devised (drawn up by one of Mr Wiggin's predecessors, Owen Paterson), it was quietly dropped by David Cameron as politically too embarrassing. How Mr Wiggin proposes that his party could end discarding, when the power lies elsewhere, he didn't explain.
One reason why Mick Mahon has been prepared to make his stand against this obscenity is that, after 40 years at sea, he has had enough. Within a few months, he is hoping to decommission or sell his boat and give up the battle.
Since he has done as much as any other fisherman in England to help in exposing this horror story, he deserves our thanks and a quiet retirement. But the crime against nature continues.
6

Darien,

19/12/2008 15:34:43
#1 Rufus: "More great work by the Labour Government."

You mean more great work by the Scottish Government. The difference between Richard Lochhead and Ross Finney is that Finney was told by Westmister what was to be done, whereas Lochhead tells the UK Minister what must be achieved for Scotland's fishing industry.
7

Westfield Bairns,

falkirk 19/12/2008 15:49:34
SNP looking after Scotlands interest again.
8

New Town Resident,

19/12/2008 16:15:51
Time for all SNP supporters to question why the SNP leadership continues to support the EU.

Whats in it for Scottish economy, as opposed to the public sector political classes?
9

pwd,

Borders 19/12/2008 16:39:54
#3

Thank you.
10

Ewan M,

19/12/2008 16:51:43
Darien and Westfield Bairn you should be stand up comedians. You make me laugh!

You could credit the SNP with the fall of communism without even smirking!
11

Scunnert,

19/12/2008 17:07:32
I'm a nationalist and have always advocated leaving the EU. It's an undemocratic trough for the elite and a weight around the neck of the rest of us. Westminster uses it as an excuse to push through unpopular legislation and policies: "It's not our fault - its an EU directive."

The EU is a capitalists dream - they can privatize everything by stealth - Royal Mail, Energy, Water, NHS - there is no end to their avarice - and the EU is there to assist them to achieve their nefarious ends.

Time to dump the EU.
12

Scunnert,

19/12/2008 17:11:17
14 ploughmans lunch

AYE - THAT'S LABOUR.
13

Westfield Bairns,

falkirk 19/12/2008 17:32:13
13
Thanks, i always appreciate some feedback from the Unionist e*se lickers. However facts speak for themselves and at present the SNP are the only game in town for Scotland.
14

Kenny A,

19/12/2008 18:40:44
1 Firefly

Well your comment sums up neatly your wast and all encompansing knowledge of the issue.
15

Jock Tamson,

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba 19/12/2008 18:48:31
Uprawn ma sole.

More trinkets for the natives.
16

Scunnert,

19/12/2008 19:08:05
18 sm753

"the SNP are the only game in town for Scotland."

"What game? Competitive cringing?"

Naw - labour already won that yin.
17

Scunnert,

19/12/2008 19:10:50
20 Jock Tamson

"Uprawn ma sole."

The EU - the plaice where Labour flounder.
18

Shamus,

Glasgow 19/12/2008 19:23:18
20#21#22# It seems that Labour are the only fish in town. Cant imagine Sturgeon getting a deal done. 2# Salmund is only working to burst his own gut judging by his appearance.
19

Jock Tamson,

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba 19/12/2008 19:27:12
23, Shamus. Aye, Labour (Scotland) smells of fish all right.
20

Scunnert,

19/12/2008 19:33:49
23 Shamus,

The sturgeon is a giant among fish while the salmon is king.
21

BorderLineScottish,

19/12/2008 19:41:48
Nats/Unionists
Nats/Unionists
Nats/Unionists
Nats/Unionists

*yawn*

Very good news for the Scottish fishing industries. The dumping of dead fish back into the sea was disgusting, especially when people are starving in the World.
22

Jock Tamson,

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba 19/12/2008 19:54:23
26, BorderLineScottish. What surprises me is that skippers are not in contact with one another trading the fish to be dumped.

Then they can help each other to make up their quotas. Wouldn't surprise me though if a lot of the "dumped" stuff ends up somewhere on the market.

Good for them if they do it.
23

Shamus,

19/12/2008 20:00:58
25# Yes I agree both are obese giants amongst baggy minnies.
24

Scunnert,

19/12/2008 20:08:27
27 sm753, and 29 Shamus

Are you guys related? You display such a lack of wit and uniformity of opinion one has to wonder.

25

Shamus,

Glasgow 19/12/2008 20:42:40
30# We could be related. But do not know. Scotland is such a feral nation now.
26

tommy campbell,

Aberdeen 19/12/2008 20:45:39
Need we say more :- ‘'In 30 years at sea I have never caught a whale, destroyed a dolphin…or dumped nuclear waste, but I have been forced by the EU to dump hundreds of tonnes of edible fish in the name of "euro-conservation"' - George Stephen, Aberdeenshire fisherman, 2000
'I believe [the reformed CFP] will help conserve fish stocks, preserve the marine environment and help the long-term future of the fishing industry…' - Ben Bradshaw, UK Fisheries Minister, 2005
SNP fisheries spokesman Richard Lochhead: "[Scotland's] fisheries minister Ross Finnie has been powerless to stop Scotland being mugged once again at the annual fisheries negotiations.
"Scottish fishing leaders in Brussels are claming that there was a north-south divide in the UK delegation and UK Minister Ben Bradshaw turned his back on Scotland.
"Scotland has over 70 per cent of the UK fishing industry and 25 per cent of EU waters yet no say over the future of our fishing industry, and we have suffered yet again as a consequence.
"It is utter lunacy to provide the Scots fleet with fishing quota but then take away even more of the days needed to catch it."
UK fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw defended the plan.
"The UK was prepared to go further to protect cod, and nobody is more committed to helping its recovery than we are, but in the face of opposition from other countries we accepted a more modest reduction," he said.
"The impact on our fishing fleet will be more than compensated for by big increases in catches allowed for prawns, haddock, mackerel and monkfish - each of which is already more valuable than cod to our fishermen."
27

arc of insolvency,

19/12/2008 21:57:40
#17 if the "SNP are the only game in town" we're f*cked!
28

tommy campbell,

Aberdeen 19/12/2008 22:07:37
Thank you “arc of insolvency” for you’re in depth contribution, to the plight of the Scottish fleet.
29

Arn av Gothia,

Gothia 19/12/2008 22:55:46
When fuel prices went through the roof in May the Scottish government gave 400000 pounds to help Scottish fishermen The Rrench Spanish and Swedish governments also gave support to the industry However nothing came from Westminster as according to Lord Sewell helping fishermen was not appropriate and it should be left to the "market" to sort it out http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7518536.stm
I suppose its just typical of the indifference these clowns have to working people


30

subrosa,

20/12/2008 00:14:31
This work for Scotland is nothing to do with Westminster, it is Richard Lochhead who is leading the case for Scottish fishermen and doing a good job too.

# 34

You may be, but I'm optimistic. Once we get independence we can start making laws which suit Scotland.

What an embarrassment for Gordon Brown to be slagged off by the head of OPEC yesterday (see Coffee Shop blog).
31

Sierra Foothills Scot,

Diamond Springs 20/12/2008 01:05:43
#32 sm753-

"And give thanks for the efforts of Her Britannic Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland."

You seem to have forgotten that Her Britannic Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, besides being the cause of the fisheries industry's near demise, continued until VERY recently to offer virtually no resistance to the EU's continued lunacy.

By the way, are you proud of your gutter-minded contribution at post #27? Thought so.

 

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