Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach. As your Lordships’ House will know, I come from the fishing industry, and I know exactly what he is talking about from having seen it done on my own boats. The problem is that the fish are dead anyway. If we bring them back exactly as he has described, we will know what is happening. My noble friend did not mention, although he could have done, that his proposal is not new; Norway has been doing this for a very long time. It knows exactly what fish are being caught in its waters and exactly who is catching it. Given that we are not allowed to police other countries of the European Union that also have a quota which they are fishing out in the waters around this island, and given that 80 per cent of the fish left in the European Community are fished out of the waters surrounding this island, if we adopted my noble friend’s proposal we would at least have some idea of the amount of fish that is being dumped at sea. There is no reason why science cannot measure that, too. I urge the Minister to consider, if at all possible, Norway’s method of attacking this problem and to support my noble friend’s suggestion.