Federations Brief Westminster MPs
The NFFO and Scottish Fishermen’s Federation recently briefed Westminster MPs in preparation for the annual fisheries debate on 1st December.
Although the debate is formally to “take note” of the Fisheries Minister’s views prior to the December Council, the annual Fisheries debate is used as a platform to raise any MPs fisheries issues, whether local, national or international.
The All Party Parliamentary Fisheries Group, chaired by Austin Mitchell MP, provides a convenient way of both briefing MPs and addressing any questions and points that they may have. The meetings are usually joined by Members of the House of Lords and MPs researchers.
The two federations were able to cover a lot of ground during the course of the meeting. Amongst the issues raised and discussed were:
- The impact of the cod recovery plan
- Nephrops TACs
- CFP Reform including decentralisation
- Regionalisation of the CFP
- How to move away from prescriptive management rules towards delegated management
- Cod recovery and effort control
- Means of reducing discards in the whiting fishery
- Celtic Sea cod
- The economic importance of the nephrops fisheries
- An even playing field within Europe
- Regional advisory councils
- Technical conservation rules
- EU Norway negotiations
- The diverse fisheries of the South West
- Marine Conservation Zones
- Mixed fishery issues
This verbal briefing will be followed by briefing notes detailing the federations’ priorities for the December Council and for CFP reform.
BCD Nov 09
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