UK Parliament / Open data

Environment Bill

My Lords, I just want to make a couple of quick points in support of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I completely agree with her.

According to Greenpeace, supertrawlers spent 5,590 hours fishing in UK protected waters. I had a meeting, by chance, with Minister Prentis from the other place about four weeks ago. She was on her way to Brixham, and she said that about 80% of our fishing fleet’s catches were as a result of bottom trawling. Bottom trawling is effectively like bulldozing your house every time you have lost your car keys. It is an absolute travesty for the seabed, and I do not see any reference at the moment to curbing and taming this industry. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, these are simultaneous ecosystems that come together, and what happens with fish farming, especially in the north of England, is putting incredible quantities of pollutants into our waters for the sake of cheap fish. It is sold to the consumer on the grounds of being healthy, but the salmon that are reared in this way are unhealthy, unhappy and covered in sea lice.

Finally, in terms of policies not adding up, will the Government agree to stop giving out new oil and gas leases with the North Sea in mind? How is that going to fit with our marine protection commitments at COP? I hope the Minister will answer those three questions.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
813 c1565 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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