My Lords, I am grateful to have this opportunity to speak to Amendment 35A to Clause 27. This is a neat amendment which encapsulates three important points. Paragraph (a) states that quota
“may not be sold … to other persons following the original purchase”.
It should specifically not be sold to non-active fishers and should be
“prioritised for sale to vessels under 10 metres.”
Paragraph (c) has been debated to a large extent under the previous amendment, and the fact that that amendment was carried negates my having to speak to that part of my amendment.
My main concern lies with a practice that has become widespread. I do not think it was ever intended that quotas should be tradable, but it is a bit like the milk quotas. If you give something an economic value, it suddenly becomes of great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, spoke about hedge funds. I was surprised to learn that football clubs had chosen to invest in fish quotas. I cannot think of anything that could possibly be further removed from an active fisherman. I would like to return to active fishermen benefiting. We have discussed how boats under 10 metres do not have access to anything other than shellfish, for which no quota is set, but they would like to have further access. As I say, that point has now been addressed, but I would prefer to see that quotas are not sold under any circumstances to non-active fishers. I should be interested to know the Government’s position—whether they would look favourably in that regard.
More especially, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the fact that this practice of quotas becoming tradable is regrettable. We should revert to the original practice, where those who bought the quotas kept them and did not sell them on. I do not think it is good practice to sell the quotas on and, if we can couple ownership to the use of quota, we will develop more responsible behaviour as to how the quota is exercised. It would be my fervent wish that quota is, in both the shorter and longer term, owned and used by fishermen directly, which gives everyone the opportunity to behave better, not being able to cut and run and sell quota off as surplus to their requirements purely as an economic commodity.
With those few remarks, I hope to gain the support of the Government in this regard for ceasing the practice of tradable quotas and to revert to practices where the quotas are sold to those who use them and, ideally, active fishermen. I do not intend to press this to a vote, but at this stage, I beg to move.