My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for introducing at last the other people who deal with our fish stocks—other national authorities. The fundamental flaw of this Bill is that it seems to ignore the rest of the world, while our fish stocks—most of them, including their spawning grounds—are outside our exclusive economic zone.
Later in the Bill we come to amendments where, I hope, we can strengthen it so that it notes and acts on the real world, where this resource is not exclusive to us.
I welcome the Bill in relation to the scientific side, which, to give the Government their due, is well advanced in terms of using ICES and stock assessments, for example, and I hope that the Minister will tell us about a lot of other things that they are doing with regard to keeping within those international areas. However, we are a member of all sorts of regional fisheries organisations, such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission and various tuna organisations, as well as UNCLOS, as the noble Baroness mentioned. These are basic, fundamental aspirations that we need to exceed to make sure that we have the sustainability that we need.