My Lords, rather late in the proceedings, I declare an interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership, which has a bearing on some of the areas that we are talking about as we take an interest in marine issues in Cornwall, obviously.
I want to talk not just to Amendment 8 but to Amendments 12 and 13, which are all part of the same issue. This brings us to management plans, which are the Government’s big idea in the Fisheries Bill. I was fairly sceptical about them because of the issue that I am about to go through, but I thank the Minister for the meeting that we had virtually some weeks ago. Also, having spoken at length to Barrie Deas of the NFFO, I am much more comfortable with these in general; indeed, subject to what I will talk about in a moment, I welcome them in general and think they are a good move forward.
The issue, however, as even my one year-old granddaughter just about knows, is that fish swim. The Government may not have noticed this, but fish swim. When it comes to the main species that we fish for, they cross boundaries, be they EEZs or territorial water boundaries. I believe that something like 80% of our stocks—not all the shellfish stocks but most of the demersal and pelagic species—swim enough to cross a boundary at some point during their life cycle. In fact, many of the spawning grounds are in other EEZs, even though we have the bulk of those stocks.
We need to avoid the so-called tragedy of the commons —I am not referring to the parliamentary Commons, of course, although we could have a debate about that, too. The problem of common resource is that no one takes responsibility; everyone wants the benefit but everybody maximises their own position. Moving out of the common fisheries policy into being an independent coastal state, we have that challenge again: how do we make sure that we do not fall into that pit of the tragedy of the commons?
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The answer is that we co-operate with the other administrations—here I am not talking about England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, although that has to happen as well, but about our neighbours, some of which are European Union members, and others such as the Faroe Islands, Norway and Iceland. We have to make sure that we co-ordinate our plans with those countries. If we do not do that, we will fail.
I have been privileged to chair your Lordships’ EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, now the EU Environment Sub-Committee. When I looked through our Brexit: Fisheries report, which came out in the 2016-17 Session, I came across a Barrie Deas quotation. As a witness to the inquiry, he said that:
“The reality is that most of our stocks are shared, so some level of shared management is not only desirable but inevitable.”
I start from the basis that the chief executive of England’s prime trade association for fisheries is saying that co-operation is inevitable in this area. If we recognise that, I cannot for the life of me see why we should not have an emphasis on drawing up management plans with those other independent coastal states, or with the European Union. That should then be recognised in the management plans, and we should act on that basis.
When we went through this concept in Committee, I was, frankly, quite surprised by what I read as a negative reaction to this from the Government Front Bench. It seems to me to be stark staring obvious, as it does to Barrie Deas. The reason for the reaction seems to be that, somehow, this would prejudice our negotiating hand with our neighbours. Personally, I do not see that; this is one area where everybody has something to gain, and, at the same time, where everybody has something to lose if we fail.
My amendments are serious, and they are vital to the health of our industry, as well as of the marine environment. These amendments seek to make sure that full endeavour is given—it will not always be possible; sometimes negotiations do not work—to having co-operative management plans with the other states that share the area in which these fish stocks circulate. If we manage that, I believe that we will have far healthier seas, a far healthier fishing industry, and far healthier coastal communities. On that basis, I beg to move.