I
am now entering my third year as Fisheries Minister and we are starting the
annual negotiations leading up to the December Fisheries Council where quotas
and fishing opportunities are settled. At the moment much of the focus is
on the agreements we must reach with those countries outside the EU such as
Norway, Iceland and the Faroes. This is particularly important for the
agreements we need to reach for fish like mackerel in the North Sea.
However,
I have also begun preparation work to develop our case for December Council
where most of the agreements relevant to Cornwall are concluded. I want
to make sure that where we have a species where the scientific evidence is
patchy, that we make the best assessment we can with the evidence we have
rather than assume the worst. If you set quotas that do not reflect the
state of a particular stock, then you risk increased discarding.
Next
year is also the year that the discard ban will start to come into effect and
this week I announced our plans to introduce this. This has been an
important reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. It means that the
shameful practice of discarding will be banned, starting with a handful of
species this year and rolling it out to cover all species over the next four
years. Instead, fishermen will be given an uplift to their quota to allow
for the fact they are no longer throwing good fish back, they will be offered
grants to improve the selectivity of their nets and there will be new
flexibilities to make the discard ban work in practice such as flexibilities on
quotas and exemptions for some fish species which will survive if put
back.
Finally,
I also announced this week a plan to give more quota to our smaller inshore
vessels. I made a clear pledge at the last election to rebalance quotas so that
the small "under ten metre" boats received a fairer share of the
national quota and from next January they will.
