My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the regulations before the Committee today. I declare my interests as a farmer in Cheshire—the River Weaver defines the farm’s boundary on one side—and as a co-owner of a holiday home in south-west Scotland with fishing rights, although I do not personally partake in the catching of little fishes. I know that there have been many expressions of anxiety concerning the Scottish Government’s upheaval of the governance and jurisdiction structure of inland fishing in Scotland, but that is not a subject for debate today.
Nevertheless, as far as these regulations are concerned, it is good to see that co-operation between the Scottish and United Kingdom Parliament is healthy and continuing. As the Minister stated, these regulations replace the current controls on placing fish into inland waters with a new permitting system, requiring all introductions and subsequent keeping of fish to be permitted by the Environment Agency. Transporting fish for introduction must also be permitted. The main objective should be achieved, which is to support the economic value and growth of the angling sector while ensuring adequate risk-based protection for the aquatic environment from risks associated with the use of invasive non-native fish species. Such high-risk species will be given greater scrutiny, while low-risk fish movements will be allowed to take place, as the noble Lord said, much more freely, albeit against the background of full disease control and other measures the Environment Agency will rightly be concerned with. That a permit is not necessarily set in stone for all time but will run until varied is surely the right approach.
Your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee inquired why the department had taken so much time since the public consultation concluded in March 2010 to come forward with these quite modest and uncontroversial regulations. It is interesting that the answer was that the election in 2010 gave rise to the regulations having to be fully evaluated against the new Government’s priorities, and that further delay then flowed from the requirement to reconsult under the water and marine Red Tape Challenge initiative. It is very fortunate that the noble Lord brings these regulations before the Committee today, a mere few months before maybe further inevitable delay as a result of the much anticipated change of Government at the general election next May.
I ask the Minister to provide comfort to the Committee. Is he confident that, following this change in licensing, there are adequate plans in place to deal with any outbreak, emerging disease or damage that could result
from any eventuality in the future? Are there enough resources to remove any introduction from the environment affected and to tackle any problems resultant from illegitimate action or trade? I note that one of the contentions expressed in the consultation was that this new scheme might lead to an increase in illegal activity.
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Can the Minister also confirm that the threshold of 0.4 hectares set for the size of the inland waterway will remove any inclusion of garden or domestic ponds from these regulations? I understand that the Committee may need to look further, in due course, at another regulation covering trade in ornamental species.
I note that in the regulations there is no mention of cost recovery. Indeed, paragraph 53 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that at present there are no charges for the issuing of consents and currently no intention to introduce these charges. Nevertheless, while the size of the cost savings from the introduction of this new scheme is very small, and the costs to business and administrative costs are largely immaterial, can the Minister comment on whether the Environment Agency will necessarily look at cost recovery to every service it provides and how it will assess whether to introduce cost recovery in each instance? Meanwhile, I am happy to support the regulations.