Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome Dr Lynn Gilmore, CEO of Northern Ireland Fish Producers' Organisation (NIFPO), Mr Brian Chambers, CEO of Anglo Northern Ireland Fish Producers Organisation (ANIFPO) and Mr Adam Holland, fisheries sustainability officer at Northern Ireland Fishermen's Federation (NIFF). You are very welcome. The Committee has your papers; thank you for those. I invite you to brief the Committee.

Dr Lynn Gilmore (Northern Ireland Fish Producers' Organisation): Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to the Committee. It is good to see you again. It feels like no time since we met in Portaferry. We will briefly set the scene. As you said, Chair, I am joined by my colleagues Brian and Adam. I will start off, and then they will come in.

We said at the meeting in June that things have never been tougher for the industry, and they have not got any easier since. We continue to struggle with a huge number of issues, including crewing and the cliff edge for skilled worker visas. That is coming in December, and, as it looms ever closer, there are no solutions on the table. Access to Isle of Man waters has not been restored, and we continue to lobby for a bespoke visa to enable our vessels to continue to operate in UK and Isle of Man waters. As well as that, the cost of fuel is a really biting issue at the moment — it is unmanageable. Yesterday, fuel costs were £1·22 a litre. To give you an example of how dependent fishing boats are, one of our members grossed about £12,500 a couple of weeks ago, £7,000 of which was fuel costs. Spatial squeeze continues to bite. Despite a request — we talked to the Committee about this in June — to postpone the consultation on management measures in marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Irish Sea, that consultation went ahead. We developed our own evidence pack for that, which we submitted as part of our response, alongside about 70 other industry responses.

It feels as though a new challenge emerges every week. Just this week, we heard about a new wind farm proposal called MachairWind. That is a proposed offshore wind farm that ScottishPower Renewables is seeking to develop, which will affect fishing in the North Channel — between here and Scotland. Our members feel that a lot of things are being done to them rather than for them or to help them. Each new challenge creates an onus on us to respond. We are small organisations, and we struggle to keep up.

That was to set the scene: it is a really difficult time. I will now get to the Fisheries, Aquaculture and Water Environment Bill. I thank the Committee very much for its thorough examination of the Bill and its consequences. The Committee has received a little briefing paper — I gave Committee members printouts. We do not want to regurgitate what is on those, so I will touch on just the main points. As set out in the paper, we absolutely acknowledge the need to modernise fisheries, but we have concerns about how the Bill in its current form will impact on our members. Part of the problem is that the Bill covers a broad church: fisheries, the water environment and aquaculture. The challenge is to ensure that it is fit for purpose for everyone.

We will highlight three main areas of concern. The first is the clarity and accessibility of the Bill and what it means for our members. We found it challenging to provide feedback on it, primarily because of the need to cross-reference with the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and other existing legislation to understand the intended impact of the changes. There was also uncertainty about which provisions apply to sea fisheries and which apply to inland fisheries. That needs some clarification. We gave a couple of examples in the briefing paper.

There are many examples in the Bill of where the devil is in the detail. Think about the option to have a permit, for example. We feel as though we are almost responding in the future tense, in that we feel that a permit is a good idea, but what that looks like remains to be seen. It is difficult sometimes to respond to such overarching legislation. I would now like to hand over to Brian, who will take you through our second main point of input.

Mr Brian Chambers (Anglo Northern Ireland Fish Producers Organisation): Thanks, Lynn.

The second point in the briefing note is:

We are a wee bit unclear on how certain provisions will apply within the Northern Ireland zone. We are directed to the Marine and Coastal Access Act of England and Wales, which was mentioned. We have put an example in the briefing note. Subsection 276(1) of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 states:

We are a bit unclear about how the fisheries Bill and the enforcement that is contained in that 2009 Act may be exercised in Northern Ireland. We would like a wee bit of clarity on that.

In addition, we raised concern previously and remain concerned about the inclusion in the 2009 Act of the "Power to use reasonable force". It is a strong term. As Lynn says, fishing seems to be under the cosh at the minute, no matter which way we turn. When fishermen see phrases such as "reasonable force", they feel as though there is no reasoning from anybody who deals with fishing at the moment. I can give you one example of that. Recently, Border Force boarded one vessel three times in a period of three months. That is wholly disproportionate. That is a wee bit out of context: I will put into context how fishermen are feeling. Kilkeel Harbour Authority raised concerns that an "illegal immigrant", for want of a better phrase, who had openly admitted that she had travelled from Nigeria and then on a boat across the Channel, was holed up living in Kilkeel fish market. The authority raised concerns purely out of concern for the girl's safety. She was 25 years old and in an environment where there were a lot of men. It has since turned out that she was working locally. Although all the relevant authorities were notified, not one wanted to do anything about it, yet we have Border Force boarding the same vessel three times in three months. Surely, you can see how that is disproportionate,. Then, the guys see the words "reasonable force". Fishing is under a lot of pressure at the minute, and we do not seem to be getting much help.

We will move on to Adam for point number 3.

Mr Adam Holland (Northern Ireland Fishermen's Federation): Our third and final point is about the change to the maximum penalties throughout the Bill. Our primary concern is that the maximum penalties are excessive and potentially disproportionate to the offences to which they relate. One example is that section 127 of the Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1966, which relates to the minimum sizes of fish that vessels can land, currently provides a maximum fine of £1,000. The Bill changes that to £50,000, which is a fifty-fold increase. That obviously causes some concern. We understand the rationale for making those changes and aligning with UK jurisdictions. However, we do not believe that that alone justifies that excessive change.

We would like to see a more proportionate system in place whereby fines are determined relative to earnings and the financial circumstances of those who operate in our waters. I will put that in context: at the end of the year, some of our most successful vessels in Northern Ireland take home annual earnings of only around £50,000 — those are our most successful vessels — so that level of fine puts our guys in a serious situation. Given the unique challenges that the Northern Ireland fleet is facing, which Lynn has already set out, we believe that, going forward, the maximum penalties should reflect those circumstances. The penalty system should be scaled and proportionate: penalties should reflect the offence but also the circumstances and financial realities that face Northern Ireland. Of course, it is not yet clear how that would be gone about or how the system would work. It is likely that it will be up to DAERA enforcement to decide that. The increase to maximum penalties has some practical implications whereby fishermen may face prosecution. That comes with potential legal obligations around representation and considerable expense and stress to the operators. We wanted to raise that concern.

Our final point relates to a potential oversight in the Bill. There is no mention of the landing obligation, and it is still not quite clear to us how that landing obligation is taken on board. The landing obligation is, in effect, where our vessels are required to land all sizes of fish in the case of any quota species. It is not yet clear how that will work out. There is a potential conflict between the legal obligations in the Bill and the enforcement provisions. We need a bit of clarification on that before moving to support the Bill. That also relates to the Fisheries Act 2020.

That is everything from us. Thank you for listening.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much, and thank you for the written document. Before we get into specifics, I want to ask you this: can you see some way of addressing your concerns through amendments to the Bill? Would that be possible?

Dr Gilmore: I think that it would, but we need to be clearer on which bits apply to sea fishing. That comes back to the first point, on transparency. We maintain that the fines are excessive for the industry. We understand the need to reform the current levels, but the £50,000 ceiling concerns us.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): On that point, how could it be structured in a way that did not allow larger, more profitable operators to simply absorb the fines? Such operators have a greater turnover, so the impact on them of even £50,000 would not be a deterrent. Do you have a proposal for how to structure the fines proportionately?

Mr Chambers: As Lynn said, our three organisations engaged with DAERA prior to the Bill being introduced. We fed into the Bill. We were in favour of increasing penalties, for the simple reason that there is no deterrent in fisheries. There is a delicate balance to be struck between having a deterrent in place and putting a £50,000 fine on someone who makes only £50,000 in a year. Over the past few years, fines were typically in and around a few hundred pounds, and, to be honest, the culprit just laughed at the courts and left saying, "I'll just catch more illegal fish tomorrow and pay the fine". That is the fact of it. That is bad enough, but there was one serial offender — I will not name anyone — who was caught three times for the same offence, and the fine did not go up. It was obviously no deterrent to them. That is why we are in favour of there being some deterrent, but there needs to be proportionality.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I have one more question, which is on "reasonable force". You explained clearly how operators feel that they are under the cosh. Is your objection to the power itself, or would your concerns be addressed by having clearer statutory obligation, safeguards, operational guidance and accountability over when that power could be used?

Mr Chambers: Everything comes down to interpretation. The fishing industry sees that to be the case at the moment, specifically with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), which is a wee bit different. Different MCA inspectors will interpret the laws differently. That is why those who work in the fishing industry worry when they see something that is vague, such as that provision. They are honest men who are going out to do a hard day's work. When they see the likes of Border Force in huge boats and eight men from each of two dinghies coming to board their boat, yet all the paperwork is correct, they just think, "What's going on here?".

Dr Gilmore: We really want more information on what that means. We are not clear about what "reasonable force" means, and we want to be sure that safeguards are in place and to have practical examples of when that power might be exercised. As Brian said, in many circumstances, fishermen feel intimidated by approaches by Border Force. You can imagine being boarded at sea with a boat carrying eight people in black approaching you. It is intimidating. [Inaudible.]

Dr Gilmore: Yes. We want some reassurance about what "reasonable force" actually means and what safeguards will be in place on its use.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): It is the UK Border Force —

Dr Gilmore: Yes, indeed.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): — so you are at sea and looking at which regulation applies. That brings me to the confusion in the Bill between inland fisheries and sea fisheries provisions. Is there a risk of non-compliance purely due to not understanding the legislation?

Dr Gilmore: We were a bit confused about which parts of the Bill applied to sea fisheries. Part 1, chapter 2, which related, we thought, to inland fisheries, refers to "producer organisations", which we have, so we are confused about that. We are asking for clarification in the drafting there so that it is clear what applies to which part of the industry.

Miss McIlveen: Thank you for your presentation. The title is quite broad — it is simply "Fisheries" in the title — so that might need to be clarified. The Committee has had back-and-forth debates with Departments on titles. You said that you had engagement prior to the Bill, yet there seems to be a lot of confusion throughout. How much consultation did you have with officials?

Mr Chambers: We had a few meetings, and most of them touched on penalties.

Mr Holland: From my side of things, meetings were mostly about the development of the fisheries management plans. That related to concerns that we had with inshore enforcement — the smaller inshore fleet. As Brian said, there have been offences, but the penalties were not proportionate enough to be a deterrent. That is where we initially supported an increase in the fines, but there was no discussion about what the maximum penalty fine would be. Obviously, we do not agree with the maximum penalty in the Bill of up to £50,000. We were supportive of an increase to create a deterrent. That was our main engagement in the process, which was quite informal. There was no extensive engagement.

Dr Gilmore: I cannot comment because it predated my time in post, but the point that you made, Michelle, about it being broad legislation is key. Its breadth is part of the challenge, and the part relating to the scale of the fines needs to be clarified. Landing an undersize crab is not like creating a pollution event that pollutes Lough Neagh. Something needs to be added to the Bill on the scale of the offence and how the fines are then proportionate to that. Our call is for a ceiling for fisheries that is not set at £50,000, which is unaffordable for our industry.

Miss McIlveen: Adam, you said that there was a conflict around the landing obligation and the legal context vis-à-vis enforcement. For the record, will you explain the issues around the landing obligation?

Mr Holland: The landing obligation came into operation in 2018, I believe. It is UK legislation that requires all fishing vessels to land all of their catch if it is a quota species. Previously, they discarded undersize catch because there was no value to it, and they were not allowed to land it: the landing obligation required to land all undersize fish as well. By contrast, in the Bill, there is an offence of keeping undersize fish. That may be clear in other legislation, but, even though it relates to the Bill, it is not made clear in the Bill, so we want clarity on how those two pieces operate together.

That is where the potential conflict could be found. Vessels are required to bring those fish aboard and land them, and the fisheries officers deal with those, obviously, but we do not want there to be an issue. We might have missed it, but we just want to make sure that it is clear. Perhaps it is a discussion that we need to have with DAERA.

Miss McIlveen: Finally, Brian, you mentioned that you feel that the fishing industry does not get the support that it needs. What support does it need? Who needs to step up to give that?

Mr Chambers: The biggest example at the minute is fuel. We have been engaging with DAERA since February on fuel. The Irish Republic is getting subsidies to help with fuel for its fleet. France has been getting help with fuel for its fleet. All those fishermen are competing in the same market and the same area, and we are at a huge disadvantage.

As Lynn said, fuel cost £1·22 a litre this week, and we are competing with other jurisdictions that are at a much greater advantage. In the past two weeks, we have had boats tied up because it is not viable for them to go to sea. If conditions are not right, the men have just made the decision to take the hit, make no money and pay the insurance, which will cost them £1,000 or whatever, but that is a lesser impact than going to sea and having a fuel bill of £7,000. Lynn gave an example of one boat that went to sea last week. The owner was very open, and he came in and told us the figures. It cost £12,500, and £7,000 of that went on fuel. After he paid his insurance, for food and the crew, there was nothing left. That is just one example of the help that we need.

We had an MPA consultation, which has just finished. We put a lot of work into a response to that. We are an island nation, and we need to put some credence into food security. A few areas that consideration is being given to closing off are of fundamental importance to the Northern Ireland fleet. We have lost so much ground over the years that it is just phenomenal, and we cannot continue. Those are just two examples. We need the Government to acknowledge that certain grounds have to be left for food security and the issue of fuel.

I almost neglected to mention the other big one, which is visas. Skilled worker visas will be taken off the shortage occupation list on 31 December. We will fall off a cliff edge, because about 70% of the crew on our fleet are foreign nationals, and we need that labour. We are doing a lot of work to try to get locals into the industry, but that is not an overnight fix.

Lynn and I were at the launch of the UK strategy for fishing by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on fisheries, and recommendation 17, which I can forward to you, recognised the urgent need for a bespoke fishing visa. The word "urgent" was included in that paragraph. Fishing does not have time to mess about. What struck me at that APPG was a comment from a young fisherman. He said that, if young fishermen do not see a future, there will be no future. That is where we are at the minute. Fishermen cannot see a future. They are not getting the help or the backing. They feel that their Government do not want them and that it would be a convenience if they were pushed to the side and we were to let wind farms and cables and all that sort of thing in. We really need help.

Miss McIlveen: I remind the Committee that we wrote to the Home Office last week in relation to a bespoke visa. As you know, I have been pushing for a fisheries resilience framework, and we got a response back from the Department, which does not give any comfort. It states that it will start scoping work on that but that:

Given the fact that we have a dedicated division in the Department, I would have thought that it should have understood the challenges and opportunities by now.

Dr Gilmore: We have made those really clear over a number of years. Your question was about what needs to be done. We worked with the all-party parliamentary group on the development of its 'An Action Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable UK Fishing Industry', which Brian mentioned. That is a UK-wide document. It came up with 38 recommendations, the first of which is that the action plan be turned into a strategy. There is a complete lack of a strategic approach, and my comment at the start about our members feeling that things are being done to them rather than for them goes to the heart of the issue. There is no single Department for us to deal with: the engagement environment that we are trying to operate in is complex and diffuse, whether it be engagement with the Home Office on crew, the MCA on safety, DAERA on local matters or the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on UK Government matters. We are trying to operate in a really complicated framework, and what is needed is a strategy to help develop the industry. We need a local strategy; otherwise, as Brian said, we will not have an industry.

Mr Blair: Thanks to the three of you for being here this morning. You have given us pretty good detail, and I apologise if I ask for more than you have: I am more than happy for the information to be presented later, when you have analysed it, with your thoughts and conclusions. You mentioned areas of the Bill that lack clarity when it comes to sea fishing and inland fishing. Do you have any examples of that to present now, or do you need to come back to us — that would be perfectly acceptable — with that information?

Mr Holland: There should be an example in the briefing paper. Off the top of my head, it relates to part 1 of the schedule, on permits, which sets out amendments to section 7A of the 1966 Act. Again, that is just one example. It comes down to clarity: when we read that part of the schedule, it was not clear whether it applied to us. In looking into it, we looked at the 1966 Act. Only a small detail mentioned that it applied to angling. Clarity should be provided not just for us but for our members who are looking into it and for any regular person who reads and tries to understand it. That is one example, but the whole Bill is a bit unclear until it comes to the Part on sea fisheries, which is clear. We understand that, but nothing else in the Bill is very clear. We thought that it would be appropriate to have clarification on that.

Mr Blair: OK. There might be a need to differentiate between provisions that apply to sea fishing and those that do not.

Mr Holland: It could be a simple line. It would not have to be anything terribly complicated.

Mr Blair: OK. I have got that. Thank you.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you very much for your briefing. It has been interesting, and you have laid out really well the supports that need to be put in place.

I will take you back a wee bit to fines. You stated that the increase in the maximum fine from £1,000 to £50,000 is excessive, and you talked about proportionality. Would you like to see a lower upper limit or a range of limits depending on the scale of the offence and the size of the industry operation?

Mr Chambers: A lot of it is to do with interpretation. An upper limit of £50,000 is down to interpretation. It has to be proportionate.

Dr Gilmore: We would like to see both: a lower upper limit and clearer steps in the fines that an offence would attract. The fines should be scaled; I believe that they are already scaled in the current system. The fines in the system go up to £1,000, but, as Brian said earlier, some fisheries offences attract fines that are much smaller than £1,000, which, we feel, do not act as a good deterrent. In answer to your question, we would like to see both: a lower upper limit, with scaled penalties within that.

The Bill proposes fixed penalties, but those are already in place. We support fixed penalties, because that saves going to court. As I said at the start, however, the devil is in the detail. It remains to be seen how that all works out under the auspices of the Bill. My point was about the difficulty of trying to respond to something that is in the future. The Bill is an overarching piece of legislation, and we are trying to anticipate what it could mean in future, once all the other bits of legislation come in underneath it.

Ms Finnegan: Yes. OK.

Mr Chambers: When one guy is a repeat offender and the scale of the fine does not go up proportionally, that is a huge fault.

Ms Finnegan: Yes, there is a frustration there. The incentive would be that an individual would be fined a certain amount and, if they kept doing it, the fine would go up to a point where there would be an offence of some sort.

Mr Chambers: I will give you an example. A few years ago, DAERA officials caught a guy who was landing lobsters that had been V-notched. If a lobster is carrying eggs, a V-notch is made in its tail. DAERA pays a subsidy to fishermen to encourage them to do that. The fishermen work with Queen's University. That initiative with the fishermen goes back 30 years, and it has been instrumental in the sustainability of lobsters. That guy was not only breaking the rules on landing undersized lobsters, but he was defrauding DAERA, for want of a better phrase. He was V-notching the lobsters, claiming the money from DAERA and then selling them, but he got a fine of only about a couple of hundred pounds. Where is the deterrent there, when you are openly and blatantly committing fraud? It is so galling for fishermen who are doing the right thing.

As Lynn said, you see all the challenges there. Fishermen are buying into sustainability. We sometimes get a bad press, but nobody is more invested in sustainability than fishermen. The fishermen who are V-notching lobsters is a good example of that. They are throwing them back when they could quite easily land them for more money, but they are not. They are choosing to V-notch lobsters in the interests of sustainability for future generations to come. Where one or two bad elements are going against that, there needs to be a deterrent that is proportional. We fed into the consultation that we are in favour of increasing penalties because there seems to be no deterrent.

Ms Finnegan: The way that you have explained that is really useful, because you have shown that there are repeat offenders. I do not know whether this is the right way to explain it, but there seems to be a lack of understanding of the complexities of looking into individual cases, where there is a blanket approach to all offending, regardless of whether or not it is repeat offending.

Currently, the fines go into a consolidated fund. Should the fines be kept and better used to address environmental damage that is caused by the breaking of regulations, rather than go into the consolidated fund?

Mr Chambers: What do you mean by environmental damage?

Ms Finnegan: The fines go into a consolidated fund at the moment. The funds could be better spent on education about the environmental damage that is being caused. There is also the question of enforcement. If that money was spent elsewhere, surely it would address the complexities around what you described earlier.

Dr Gilmore: The money could be used for sustainable fisheries projects. Brian talked about V-notching. If the money was used to support innovation and to support fishermen to become more environmentally friendly, that could really work.

Ms Finnegan: That would be a better incentive. It is something worth thinking about, and it would address your earlier point. Thank you for that.

Lastly, will you give me further details on the landing obligation and your concerns about how it is not captured in the Bill? You probably explained it, but perhaps you would go over it again.

Mr Holland: Yes, we explained it for Michelle, but I am happy to explain it again. The landing obligation is a piece of UK legislation that goes back to 2018. It requires all fishing vessels to land all their catch that is under a quota, whether or not it is undersize. One of the offences under the Bill is the landing of undersize fish, so there is a bit of a conflict. There is a lack of clarity about what is and is not allowed and whether the Bill conflicts with the requirements under the landing obligation. It is not clear in the Bill. There is no mention of the landing obligation in the Bill. Perhaps we have missed it — it may be part of different legislation that we are not aware of — but it needs to be clear, because there is a clear conflict there, at least around that offence in the Bill.

Ms Finnegan: I appreciate your repeating that for my understanding.

Mr Chambers: As Adam said, there is a wee bit of vagueness. It is more about when a fishing vessel is boarded at sea. If that fishing vessel has retained undersize fish, which the fisherman is obliged to do, and gets an over-zealous fisheries officer who detects the fish aboard that boat, it is all about the interpretation. That is the ambiguity that we are looking to have cleared up.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much for explaining that. I am sorry that we had a bit of distraction there.

Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming in. You have given us good evidence. You really outlined the impact of the challenges facing the fishing industry, particularly fuel costs and the issues around skilled migrants. We will take those issues on board collectively. You represented them passionately. Thank you very much for coming in. It was a bit of a journey, but thank you.