European Union (Amendment) Bill

It is delightful to rise after the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has roused the House to a sufficient crescendo of excitement to allow me to introduce my amendments, although they have already been denounced in a rather long speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) before I have had the chance to put my case before the House. It was effectively argued that to come out of the common fisheries policy is to come out of Europe. That is supposed to be what is really behind the amendment, but what nonsense my hon. Friend spoke. I wish to speak to my amendment No. 225, which the cream of the Labour party support. It is designed not to withdraw from Europe, but to add to the exclusions from the treaty of Lisbon, which the Government have decided to accept on common foreign and security policy, the Council's powers on a proposal from the Commission to adopt"““measures on fixing prices, levies, aid and quantitative limitations and on the fixing and allocation of fishing opportunities””." The amendment would remove that provision from the treaty. In other words, the amendment knocks down the basis and the worst parts of the common fisheries policy. Those worst parts are seen in the treaty powers on the fixing and allocation of fishing opportunities. In Europe, of course, they are fixed and allocated by quotas. The North sea and areas around the British coast comprise mixed fisheries where quotas inevitably lead to discards. If a vessel catches a fish that it has no quota for, it simply dumps it back in the sea. It effectively kills it, making no contribution to conservation. It is a ruinous system. The smaller the quotas become, the greater the discards become. It is an automatic process. My amendment would knock out that provision, thus eliminating the discards problem. The amendment would also knock out the power to give aid. Although that power has not given much aid to the fishing industry in this country, it has given massive amounts, financed by our contributions, to countries such as Spain—enabling it to rebuild and re-equip a fleet that is already far too large, and to use it to fish our waters for our stocks and loot the grounds of developing nations—and Morocco, where the Community buys, with our money, quotas for the Spanish fleet to catch, usually smashing up local boats and ruining local stocks in the process. The other powers that the amendment would remove have made the common fisheries policy undoubtedly the worst fisheries policy in the world. I can think of no fisheries policy that is worse than the common fisheries policy, which has decimated stocks all around the British coast, especially in the North sea. It should be struck out. It is amazing how few people want it. I have heard no one support it, apart from the occasional Liberal Democrat. We have just heard one speak in favour of it.