Scottish Executive Consultation on a Separate Quota System in Scotland: Response by the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations

The Proposals

• The overall thrust of the proposals is to establish a separate quota system in Scotland on criteria set by the Scottish Executive itself and then to apply a range of measures that will affect both Scottish and non-Scottish quota holders.
• These measures range from the sensible to the probably illegal.
• Neither the paper, nor the accompanying Impact Assessment, provides anyquantified justification for the proposals.
• “Marine Stewardship” is presented as a vehicle for a more explicit system of rights-based management than currently pertains. Quota would be assigned for five or six year periods and would be subject to important new conditions regarding usage. It is claimed that this will provide greater certainty for fishermen and will encourage them to take a longer term view towards fish stocks.
• Transfer Costs: The Scottish Executive apparently believes that the cost of purchasing quota, rather than reflecting supply and demand, is substantially and artificially inflated by speculators, slipper skippers and the use of dummy licences. It therefore proposes that quotas should be tied as far as possible to “active vessels”. These are defined as vessels which derive over 70% of their income from fishing in any 3 year period. The Scottish Executive apparently believes that by taking out the speculative or rent aspect of quota transfers the industry would be more profitable. Quota holders who do not meet the new criteria would be obliged to relinquish their quota holdings to individuals or enterprises which do. No mention of compensation is made.
• Favour for certain groups: Although the criteria are not spelled out in detail, it is understood that over time the Scottish Executive intends to provide additional quota to certain groups (under 10s, young new entrants and fishing communities)
• Obtain the means to alter the basis of quota allocations in the future: throughout the paper there is an implication that the Scottish Executive reserves the right to re-base the quota system to more accurately reflect current usage and demands.
• Economic Link Requirement: All quota currently attached to vessels deemed to be Scottish, would be tagged as “Scottish Quota.” The nationality criteria applied are that the vessel must be registered in Scotland, must be administered from a Scottish port and must be a member of a Scottish PO (or managed through the Scottish pool). Transfers of quota and licences at UK level would continue but holders of “Scottish quota” would have to meet additional economic link licence conditions over and above those applied at UK level.
• A new internet-based system to monitor and manage Scottish quotas would be introduced
• FQA transfers could take place without the need for a formal licence transfer
• Holding Producer Organisations to Account: There is a commitment to make POs more accountable and more transparent in their operations. Closer monitoring of POs would be part of a strategy to re-assign unused quota to other POs or groups.

The NFFO as a Stakeholder
NFFO member vessels fish in Scottish waters, land fish into Scottish ports, use Scottish ports as a base, are registered in Scottish ports, are members of Scottish producer organisations and are engaged in quota and licence transfers in and out of Scotland on a regular basis. It has therefore, a major stake in the future of the management of Scottish fisheries.

This manifest status as a major stakeholder in Scottish fisheries is not reflected in the access afforded to the NFFO to various Scottish consultative groups up to and including the Scottish Fisheries Council. This state of affairs is relatively new. There has been a progressive erosion of the NFFO’s involvement in the Scottish fisheries consultative system as the Scottish Executive has become more insular, presumably reflecting the political climate or political directions.

Principal Issues and Detailed Proposals

Drivers
Our first remark is that there is a fundamental lack of openness at the heart of the Scottish proposals. The proposals have been presented as an exercise in modernisation; but in fact although the proposals do contain elements of modernisation, at heart, this is a political initiative using fishing as leverage to secure the entirely political objectives of the present minority administration in Edinburgh. If the Scottish Executive succeeds in securing a separate quota system in Scotland it can be presented as having secured “independence” or at least direct political control, over a part of the Scottish economy. If it fails, a useful fight with Westminster has been provoked that can be portrayed as a denial of the legitimate rights of Scots to self-determination. This may be clever politics but it should be seen as such and not presented as a politically neutral exercise in modernisation. Whilst the degree to which political authority is devolved in the UK is a matter that will largely be determined by the ballot box, we do however strenuously object to fishing being used as a political football, not least as it is a major distraction from dealing with much more important issues confronting the industry.

Unilateral Measures
Unilaterally defining Scottish quota and Scottish licences is at the core of the Scottish proposal. It seems self-evident to us that this cannot be right in law or in terms of natural justice. The UK is the member state to which quotas are granted by the EC and any subdivision should be subject to negotiation between Defra (the UK authority) and the devolved administrations. Although the administration of fisheries is a devolved area under the Scotland Act, defining Scottish quota automatically defines non-Scottish quota; it cannot therefore be right or fair that this is a unilateral decision, especially as proposed Scottish conditions would then be applied to any transfers of quota outside Scotland.

Over and above establishing a separate quota system in Scotland, the day-to-day requirements of managing quota within a single member state of the EU demands close collaboration between devolved administrations that is wholly inconsistent with a unilateral approach. Penalty and compensation arrangements, to take one example, demand an agreed set of arrangements.

As presently framed, the proposals suggest that the Scottish Executive will (after formal consultation on the detail but not the principle of a separate quota system) use coercion to establish its own quota management system. Vessels that meet the criteria of “a Scottish vessel” will be obliged to operate under the new system.

Only those vessels in the “grey zone” which do not meet the nationality criteria will have the option to continue to be managed under the UK system. If the Scottish Executive was confident of widespread industry support for its proposal it could have made these arrangements available for vessels to opt in as their owners so chose. No mention is made of vessels defined as Scottish being provided with scope to remain within the UK quota management system.

Instead, a different approach based on coercion has been chosen. We think that this is wrong in principle and will provoke a range of legal challenges in practice.

Additional Economic Links Requirements
The Scottish Executive proposes additional economic links conditions, based on Scottish nationality criteria and applicable to quota transferred out of Scotland. The extent to which these are consistent with the (limited) economic links permitted in the wake of the European Court judgement on Factortame vs UK Government will be critical. Likewise, the degree to which the proposals are a restraint of UK trade may well be an important factor in the litigious future that we foresee for this part of the proposals.

In any event, we are wholly opposed to additional economic links. As a matter of fact the existing UK economic links requirements serve little purpose other than as a fig leaf to hide the contradiction between national quotas and the EU Treaty obligations on the free movement of labour and capital and the right of establishment.

The title of the consultation and its economic links component suggest concern over the operation of the market in quota and licences. It is not being suggested that the market be abandoned but that its operation be curbed in various ways to meet nationality criteria. It is worth pointing out however (because the consultation paper doesn’t) that Scotland has been a major net beneficiary of quota trading since the introduction of FQAs. There has in particular been a very significant flow of demersal quotas from England to Scotland. If a distinction is to be made between Scottish and non-Scottish quota, a case can be made for applying an internal relative stability and rebasing quotas to reflect “national” shares within the UK at some date before the introduction of FQAs. We are not making that case because it would cause massive disruption throughout the industry.

Nevertheless, simply to state it as an option highlights the paranoia that underpins one of the main drivers of the proposals, and also highlights that the attempt to apply nationality criteria is only taking place when the flow of trade in quota could go the other way.

Devolution
The Scotland Act devolved responsibility for fisheries to the devolved administration in Scotland. The decision to continue to manage quotas and licences collaboratively was a decision taken at the time for sound reasons. What the Scotland Act did not provide for was a unilateral decision, without prior agreement by the other UK administrations and industries, to establish a separate Scottish quota management system on terms decided by the Scottish Executive alone, when those terms impinge directly and indirectly on ‘non-Scottish’ or ‘partially Scottish’ vessels.

We therefore think that the Scottish Executive does not have legal authority to pursue the course it has. It is very significant that the Scottish Executive is not consulting on whether a separate quota system is a good idea but only on the detail of how a separate scheme could be run.

Contradictions
The consultation paper is written in aspirational prose to emphasise stability, protection, stewardship, a shared approach and support for communities. These are attributes of a quota management system that few could disagree with. However, underneath the prose there are evident tensions and contradictions which the consultation paper barely mentions or deliberately underplays.

On the one hand stability for most quota holders means the knowledge that their assets in quota and licence are secure. This is an important issue also for the banks that have lent money for investment in fishing. On the other hand, it is clear that the Scottish Executive has ambitions to redistribute quota to support those parts of the fleet that it deems to be deserving. A central thrust of the consultation paper is about giving the Scottish Executive the authority and control to give effect to these (largely unspecified) ambitions. We simply cannot see why a six year use period with the prospect of centralised redirection of quota to more deserving causes will provide existing quota holders with greater stability than they now enjoy. Such a system would make insecurity endemic and could fairly be represented as the reintroduction of micro-management and a much greater degree of centralised control.

The consultation document skirts over the fact that, except at the margins, this is a zero sum game and to reallocate to one part of the fleet requires reallocation fromanother part of the fleet that has come to believe (and can probably demonstrate in law) that it has a legitimate expectation to that quota. The proposals encourage the belief that existing quota holders and those parts of the fleet that would be quota recipients can both be winners when this is palpably untrue.

Experience has demonstrated that “underutilised quota” is a highly controversial area where different perceptions of uptake, lack of information on fishing patterns and fishing strategies, self-interest, market and micro-management collide.

This also highlights a fundamental inconsistency with potentially damaging consequences at EU level. Is it really possible to put up a coherent and credible defence of relative stability in international negotiations in 2012 whilst applying a use it or lose it approach at home? The underutilisation argument is precisely the one used by Spain to weaken and circumvent the principle of relative stability. These are dangerous waters to blunder into.

Quota Speculation
It is always convenient when driving through a major political initiative such as this to have at least one bête noire. Clearly, widespread speculation in quota would be harmful, as would be the drift of quota into the hands of large corporate groups such as the major supermarkets. But we remain to be convinced that the “slipper skipper” issue is on a scale that would justify the approach proposed. Furthermore, despite their populist appeal, we doubt whether such measures would be resistant to circumvention against a determined purchaser.

One feature of the consultation paper is its almost complete lack of statistical basis. As an example, it is impossible to judge from the consultation paper or the Impact Assessment whether we are seeing the beginnings of large-scale capital penetration or whether the amount of quota held in this way is at the margin and declining. No evidence is presented on which to arrive at a balanced conclusion on whether such draconian moves are necessary or desirable.

We hold no particular brief for fish-selling companies but it is clear that they have played a pivotal role in the development of the fleets and are part of the fabric of the fishing industry. We would anticipate that fish-selling companies’ interests could be damaged by these proposals but again no figures are presented to permit a reasoned conclusion. On the other hand, fish-selling companies which own fishing vessels or shares in fishing vessels would be well placed to attach quota to particular vessels to remain compliant and so one is left asking the question: what would the requirement actually achieve other than requiring the industry to jump through more hoops?

Conclusions
Aspects of the UK quota management system do need modernisation. When it is not motivated by insular and politically driven concerns, the consultation paper does contain some useful ideas worthy of consideration. These, however, would be best accommodated within a UK based regime.

The main issues currently confronting the fishing industry are viability in the face of fuel costs, highly restrictive TACs, effort control and issues of loss of access. The list does not include a UK quota management system that is in fact operating well, albeit in need of some fine tuning. Possibly the biggest issue impacting on quota management, the imbalance between capacity and availability of quota in the under-10 metre fleet, is a serious and difficult problem, largely created by past Government neglect. However, its solution lies with dissolving the line at 10 metres rather than those spelt out or hinted at in the consultation paper.

Overall, it is our view that the UK quota management system has evolved into a set of arrangements essentially fit for purpose. They are broadly understood and accepted by the industry. The introduction of FQAs in 1998 provided a means through which quota could be aligned with capacity without cumbersome and often controversial, bureaucratic, intervention. The Scottish fleet in particular benefited hugely from this arrangement in the intervening decade.

The appropriate response to this set of circumstances would be measured, balanced, incremental change, on the basis of a clear, costed, analysis, taking the fishing industry’s views and international ramifications into account.
Instead we have:

• a major distraction driven by factors outside the fishing industry at a time that the fishing industry is under extreme pressure
• a proposal to define “Scottish quota” unilaterally, in a way that is almost certainly outside the law but which captures the many benefits that the Scottish fleet have made from quota trading over the last decade
• A protectionist economic link requirement that is probably legally challengeable and seeks to place additional constraints on intra-UK trade in quota
• Moves to increase micro-management of producer organisations and to strengthen a command and control approach to fisheries when there is (admittedly slow and imperfect) movement away from this model at EU level
• A rhetorical commitment to stability whilst undermining the assets on which that stability depends
• Raised expectations of a redistribution of quota to fishing communities, under 10s and new entrants, whilst conspicuously failing to indicate where the quota will come from
• Fears raised about quota speculation and large scale capital penetration without offering a single figure to demonstrate the scale of the problem or the trends
• The reintroduction of a use it or lose it approach which will undermine the market in quota and weaken the UK’s international negotiating position on relative stability

We have made clear that it is completely unacceptable and almost certainly illegal for the Scottish Executive to unilaterally define “Scottish quota.” Clearly this is a matter that will have to be resolved either at a high political level or in the Courts.

The Scottish fishing industry has been denied, in this consultation, an opportunity to comment on the central issue of whether it would prefer to continue with a modernised UK quota management system or move to a Scottish system. Much will presumably depend on the reaction of the Scottish fishing industry to this consultation paper and the moratorium which proceeded it but it seems to us that it is already clear that it is irredeemably divided on the issue.

If, in the face of opposition from significant parts of the Scottish fishing industry, legal challenges and whatever position Defra eventually takes, the Scottish Executive decides to proceed with its proposals, we are in for a torrid time. As there is no question of allowing the Scottish Executive to impose its will unilaterally, we must enter difficult negotiations on the terms of the divorce. We can expect this to be difficult, protracted and painful. As with all compromises no party will be completely satisfied.

Against this background we would urge the Scottish Executive to reconsider.

National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations
August 2008

Fuel Crisis

In recent years the fishing industry has faced more than its fair share of tribulations. It is true to say however, that these have been dwarfed by the scale of the crisis brought about by the dramatic increase in fuel costs. The rise in the world price of oil has had ramifications across the world and across the whole economy. However, as primary producers who, in the main, sell their product through the auction system, fishing vessels are uniquely vulnerable to the rise in fuel costs. Unlike many other industries, we have no scope to pass on higher costs down the supply chain through some kind of surcharge. It is for this reason that fishing vessels across the fleet have face a viability crisis and why fishing industry demonstrations have been seen across Europe this year.

The fuel crisis has meant a period of intense Federation activity in which some other issues have had to take a back seat for the time being. Our main focus of attention in this most difficult of times has been to secure a package of government support that would provide vessel operators with options. For the operators of some types of vessel that are intrinsically incompatible with an era in which fuel costs are over $140 per barrel, this means an option to decommission; for others it means an option to alter their vessels, gear or pattern of fishing to reduce fuel dependency. In responding to commercial pressures vessel owners have already done a great deal to reduce their fuel costs but there comes a point when additional investment is required if further substantial reductions are to be achieved.

In these circumstances the NFFO has argued for a package of support that:

• Recognises the immediate viability crisis facing many fishing vessels
• Provides fishing enterprises, through an enhanced and adapted European Fisheries Fund, with options to adapt to the new economic realities – or to leave the fleet through decommissioning
• Ensures that industry support is provided evenly and equally across the European fleets in a way that does not distort competition and in particular does not leave the UK fleet, or any part of it, at a disadvantage.

Whilst this Federation has been highly critical of the European Commission in the past, and remains critical in many other policy spheres, it has to be recognised that the Commission has reacted with speed, insight and determination to this present crisis. A legislative package was tabled that would:

• Provide an EC wide response to an EC wide problem and avoid the chaos of each member state taking individual initiatives
• allow member states to provide their fleets with emergency support
• provide flexibility within the European Fisheries Fund to reorder national priorities to address the consequences of the fuel crisis, including decommissioning, partial decommissioning and re-engining

Although the EC support package provides the beginnings of a reasonable framework to begin to tackle the fuel crisis, the problem in all of this for us is the degree to which the UK Government will play its part. To date ministers have been highly resistant to providing the kind of short term emergency aid (the so called de minimis) that is being made available in some other member states. Defra appears to be committed to re-prioritising the UK EFF operational plan to make additional funding available to the caching sector but much at this stage remains unclear.

The worst-case scenario for us is an outcome that leaves us dealing both with the consequences of high fuel costs and the effects of distorted competition resulting from our own Government’s unwillingness to prioritise the fishing industry.

Cod Recovery

Cod recovery has dominated fisheries for the best part of a decade, impacting well beyond those fisheries that have historically targeted cod. The sheer number of measures – closed areas, more selective gear, landing and reporting controls, restrictive TACs, effort control, vessel decommissioning – to name a few, means that is impossible to judge which have worked and which haven’t. The NFFO, through the RACs, successfully called for a review of the EC cod recovery plan and played a central role on the Cod Symposium in March 2007 which drew together fishermen and world class experts to share their experience. Some of the results of that work can be seen in the Commission’s proposal for a revised cod recovery plan to be decided later this year. Whilst there is still a range of concerns (in particular the overreliance on blunt measures like TACs and days at sea restrictions and a propensity to generate rather than minimize discards) there has been movement away from unrealistic targets and there is scope to adapt and improve the plan in the future. Whilst in the North Sea there are strong signs of recovery, these are not yet evident in the Irish Sea or West of Scotland. In the Celtic Sea, which to date has remained outside the cod recovery plan the fishery trends are in a positive direction and the priority is to keep this highly mixed fishery out of the straight jacket of effort control. All this points to the need for the cod rebuilding measures that take are adapted to the local realities rather than being in place for bureaucratic convenience.

Fisheries Science Partnerships

One of the breakthroughs of the last decade has been the establishment of fisheries science partnerships, in which deficiencies and shortcomings in the scientific data have been addressed jointly by the industry and CEFAS scientists. The funding provided by Defra for this important initiative has been pivotal to its success and the announcement that the FSP will continue for another 3 years, reflecting the success of the project, has been greeted with a sense of relief. The FSP model has been emulated elsewhere in the UK and now across Europe and, as the work has generated a number of time-series, the output is increasingly being integrated into the ICES stock assessments. In this way the industry based FSPs can complement and strengthen the more formal stock assessment techniques used by ICES.

Industry Reputation

Over the last 12 months fishing has again been the target of much poorly informed criticism. Attacking fishing seems to have become the first resort of lazy journalism and the industry has been demonised by the kind of environmentalism that desperately needs a demon. In fact, in recent years the industry has made giant strides to meet the higher environmental expectations that society now holds. In 2006, the Federation produced a paper “Sustainability Initiatives in Fishing” that described some of the many initiatives being undertaken by the fishing industry itself to strike the right balance between food security, food safety and minimising the environmental impact of fishing. The paper is already out of date, overtaken by new initiatives such as cod avoidance plans and discard reduction initiatives. The NFFO is constantly engaged in a constructive dialogue with the more responsible environmental bodies such as WWF and Birdlife International and the major players in the supply chain like Marks and Spencer.

Discards

Discards damage the industry’s reputation, are a waste of a scarce resource and can seriously inhibit recovery plans. There are a number of different reasons for discarding both economic and regulatory and these vary over time, place and fishery. The Federation both directly and through RAC advice has played an active role in helping to ensure that the Commission’s discards initiative is both effective and takes account of the realities. Discards are a shared problem and it is important that the Commission and member states also recognize their responsibilities to reduce discards. The Federation’s own initiative for individual vessel cod avoidance plans has been incorporated into EC legislation but as a radical departure from the old, tired, and very blunt formula of restrictive quotas and cuts in days-at-sea, practical implementation has not been supported to the degree it requires. To date it has been another case of a good idea spoiled by poor implementation.

Marine Conservation Zones

Marine conservation zones in various forms are going to be a feature of the marine environment in the future, either as part of the Habitats Directive, EU Marine Strategy or the UK Marine Bill. The degree to which these will be damaging to the industry’s interests by denying access to important fishing grounds will depend on whether the industry’s concerns are taken into account. Our initial experience of the designation of marine protected areas under the Habitats Directive has not been good. As socio-economic impact is explicitly disallowed from the process, the areas designated are much larger than needed to safeguard the protected feature and some of the protected features (like highly mobile sand-banks) are just bizarre. The Federation is adopting a highly active approach to ensure that the enthusiasm for marine parks does not drive fishermen to extinction. Where vessels are of limited range this fear is far from rhetoric.

TACs and Quotas

Within the CFP system annual decisions on quotas are central to the viability of the fleet in the forthcoming 12 months. It is for this reason that the Federation puts so much effort each year into preparing for the annual quota negotiations. From ensuring, through fishery science partnerships, that the ICES assessments reflect the actual abundance of stocks, to EU Norway negotiations, to the December Council of Ministers, an enormous amount of Federation work goes into the decisions that set the TACs. The Federation’s constituent organisations likewise are heavily involved in scrutinising the science, analysing the EU policy statement, studying the proposals and talking to officials and ministers to ensure that the results are as close to our aspirations as possible. Despite some improvements the annual process remains a difficult and flawed process that can deliver perverse decisions that often require further remedial work in the new year.

Separate Quota System in Scotland

It was always recognised that the true test of devolution would arrive when the administrations in London and Edinburgh were of different complexions. The arrival of a minority, SNP-led, government in Scotland and the decision of that administration to use fishing to further its aim of establishing full Scottish independence, has seriously destabilised the quota management system. Paradoxically, the opening salvo in what is bound to become a bloody affair, a moratorium on the transfer of quota and licences outside Scotland, has primarily hurt the Scottish fleet, as asset values have plummeted and the banks have withdrawn support from a number of projects. The Federation does not expect to have much influence in Scotland over what is a politically driven initiative but has never-the-less pointed out the coercive character of the proposals. If there is to be a separate quota system in Scotland it should be populated by vessels whose owners have actively opted to join. Otherwise vessels should remain within the UK system. Operating two quota management schemes within a single member state was always going to be a recipe for chaos and the critical question is the degree to which any new arrangements are the subject of agreement between the two administrations or whether they can be imposed unilaterally. As any change will have profound implications for the NFFO’s members this issue will remain a major priority.NFFO Services Limited

It is a paradox that the high cost of oil, which is causing such difficulties for the industry, has stimulated offshore exploration and development of marginal fields and this has had a positive effect on the revenue generating potential of the Federation’ commercial wing, NFFO Services Limited. The benefits of this work are distributed as widely as possible, through the allocation of guard-ship work, by subsidising the representative work of the NFFO and through grants totalling £100,000 to member organisations through the NFFO Training Trust Fund.

Salmon

Despite a partial buy-out of licences and a continuation of a twenty year old campaign by anglers to close the commercial net fishery, this remains a viable fishery operated by individuals who are determined to continue salmon fishing. Although overtures have begun for a further buyout, the NFFO will continue to ensure that any arrangements adopted are fair and no undue pressure is placed on any individual who wants to continue. The immediate focus of our Salmon Committee is a carcass tagging scheme, which if implemented would be highly discriminatory.

Seafish

Seafish has funded a full time post within the NFFO during 2007/8. Elizabeth Bourke, an economist and management specialist has proven invaluable in preparing Federation position papers ranging from cod recovery, the European Fisheries Fund, fisheries within food policy, the Marine Bill, discards, effort control and EU co-decision making. The main purpose of the post is to strengthen the evidence base for the Federation’s representations and in this it has been very successful.

Communications

Whilst the Federation has made important progress in initiatives such as regional advisory councils, fisheries science partnerships and greater stakeholder involvement in decision making, there can be a wide gulf between these and similar initiatives and many grass-roots fishermen. The NFFO’s one year, FIFG funded, communications project aimed to find ways of closing that gap. Julia Dennison, a communications expert has worked on new and improved communications channels and Executive Committee member, Alan McCulla, has undertaken a series of well publicised port meetings to determine what fishermen considered is needed. Both parts of the project have been very useful and it is intended to seek additional funding to take the project further. Nothing is more important for the NFFO, and for the future of the industry, to ensure that fishermen’s voices are heard in the corridors of power or wherever key decisions are being made and that is the core idea behind the project.

Margin of Tolerance

Throughout the year the Federation has continued to campaign for the Commission to recognise that compliance with the 8% margin of tolerance, on a consistent basis, is not achievable. The Commission appears now to recognise that there is a problem and has suggested that the issue will be dealt with in a forthcoming review of the Control Regulation. Against this background it is wholly unacceptable that fishermen are continuing to be prosecuted even where it can be demonstrated there can be no intent because the fishing on the species concerned is unrestricted by quota at the time.

Special Advisor

The Federation’s work has again been strengthened immeasurably throughout the year by the contribution of the NFFO’s Special Advisor, Mr Barry Edwards

Windfarms

Our experience of phases 1 and 2 of the development of the UK’s offshore wind-farm programme has not been good. Consultation has been of the cosmetic variety and in the drive to develop renewable sources of energy, the Government and offshore wind developers have ridden roughshod over fishermen’s livelihoods. Some examples of good practice can be found but there is a very telling contrast between the collaborative coexistence between the oil/gas industry and fishermen and the dictatorial winner-takes-all approach that we have seen in the offshore renewable sector. This will be a major issue for the NFFO as Phase III approaches.

Regional Advisory Councils

RACs are now an established part of the landscape and are likely to be so for the foreseeable future. Each has developed its own personality and exhibits its own strengths and specialities. As well as providing regular considered advice to the Commission, RACs have become the main interface between the fishing industry and ICES scientists. The NFFO at an early stage took the decision to work vigorously within the RACs that were in part, established in response to the NFFO’s calls for a regionalisation of the CFP and a platform for stakeholder input. Influence is an intangible and difficult thing to measure but there are signs that Commission thinking has been significantly shaped by the RACs on a number of critical issues. What is clear is that an organisation like the NFFO is more influential with allies than without them and the RACs provide a forum where those alliances can be forged.

Other Issues

The Federation is engaged in a wide range of issues for which there is no room in this brief summary. The Council Regulation on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing, hygiene charges, aggregate dredging and pelagic payback arrangements are a few examples of other areas in which the NFFO has been active over the last 12 months.

Conclusion

The fishing industry faces possibly its greatest challenge. If as seems likely, oil prices remain high, the fleet will have to adapt to the new economic realities. The NFFO’s principal task is to ensure that Government plays a supportive and encouraging role in that transition rather than a disinterested or positively damaging role. The latter would be the case if it stood by to allow those fleets with state support to prosper and recover whilst ours staggered from crisis to crisis into collapse. The fishing industry ought to have a bright future. It is based on a renewable resource; our product is healthy and in demand, most stocks on which we depend are either at or heading in the direction of maximum sustainable yield. The basics of a profitable and sustainable future are in place – if our Government has the will and determination to ensure an orderly rather than a chaotic transition.

Marine Conservation Zones

Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw, was put under intense pressure at the NFFO’s annual general meeting about the complete absence of dialogue on the issue of marine conservation zones, despite their imminent arrival in 2012. The Government’s Marine Bill makes provision for a network of zones in which activities, including fishing, could be restricted or even prohibited. The Government’s statutory advisors on nature conservation, Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservancy Council, are preparing the ground for the conservation zones but no attempt had been made to discuss the issue with the industry’s representative body.

Raising the issue directly with the Minister at the AGM seems to have had some effect. Natural England has been in touch and will present their intentions to a meeting of NFFO representatives in York on 26th September.

Wind-farms

The Federation met the Crown Estate recently to discuss the fishing industry’s disquiet with the process for establishing offshore wind-farms. As the Crown Estate has embarked on the process for designating areas for Phase 3 of the programme of offshore wind-farms the timing of the meeting was critical. Phase 1 wind-farms were expected to generate 1.6 giga-watts of power, Phase 2, 7.2 gigawatts and Phase 3 is anticipated to generate in the region of 25 gigawatts. It will therefore be on a different scale of magnitude to its predecessors and its impact on fishing likely to be equally as large.

The Crown Estate was told that Phases 1 and 2 had failed to put in place the arrangements that would allow a reasonable dialogue on where the wind-farm zones should be sited to minimise the impact on fishing. Equally, although the NFFO had pressed successfully for a liaison group to allow the two sectors to talk to each other the FlOWW Group had failed to live up to expectations.

Accepting the need to do things differently for phase 3, the Crown Estate undertook to:

• Examine an NFFO proposal for a major fishing activity mapping exercise to identify critical fishing areas. The work would require significant external funding and over-sight by a panel including NFFO representatives.
• Put in place arrangements for a meaningful dialogue between the fishing industry and the Crown Estate/ Wind-farm developers on the site of any future wind-farms.

The Federation is still fighting to move the Westermost Rough wind-farm which has been sited on the most productive lobster grounds in the UK. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the weakness of the consultation arrangements. However, the Crown Estate indicated that it could be flexible on its rules and so there remains scope to get the location moved.

Aggregate Dredging

At a recent meeting in London the Federation queried why a project designed to draw up regional seabed information maps failed to have a fishing representative on its steering committee. Regional characterisation plans could be very influential in the future in shaping marine conservation zones as well as licensed dredging areas and it is quite wrong that the information is collected under asymmetrical arrangements. With marine spatial planning just around the corner knowledge of marine activities, including fishing will, to a large degree shape the content of the plans. Defra has undertaken to review the arrangements in light of the Federation’s comments.

The UK is the only country in the European Union to make fishermen pay light dues and the NFFO has campaigned on the issue since they were introduced under the cover of supporting the Decca system in the late 1980s.

The Federation reinvigorated its campaign as the cost of fuel increased, with letters to both Jonathan Shaw the fisheries minister and Jim Fitzpatrick the shipping minister. The reply from the shipping minister was dismissive and little short of insulting but Jonathan Shaw was persuaded both by the economic pressure the fleet is under and the manifest unfairness of the dues to find the money from within the Defra budget.

He announced at the NFFO AGM that the new arrangements would come into force from 1st January.

“This is deeply unsatisfactory” said NFFO Chairman Davey Hill, “If the Government is determined to introduce marine conservation zones the very least it must do is establish a strong dialogue with fishermen over where these areas are sited, how big they are, how the displaced effort is to be dealt with.”

“We know that Natural England and JNCC are doing to identify these sites but it all seems cloaked in secrecy.

“Our AGM performed at least one important function this year and that was to secure the Minister’s solid guarantee that this issue would be more open and transparent than it has been to date. A meeting will now be chaired by the Minister that will open up the process to scrutiny. This is fishermen’s livelihoods that are at stake and the process so far has been disgraceful.”

Skipper
Davey Hill from Kilkeel in Northern Ireland, has taken over the Chair of the National
Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations. He began his two year stint in the hot
seat at a meeting of the NFFO Executive Committee immediately after the
Organisation’s recent AGM.

The
previous chair, Fred Normandale, moves up to become NFFO President.

Davey
Hill was successful skipper of the 22 metre prawn trawler Westerdale
until last year and is taking some time off the sea to take an active role in
the choppy waters of fishing politics.

Davey
Hill said, “I am honoured to be given this opportunity to represent fishermen
right across the country. I recognise that it is a tremendous responsibility
and that many fishermen’s livelihoods depend on the decisions that are made
each year in the corridors of power. That is why I am fully committed to making
my time as NFFO Chairman count.”

“I am
grateful to Fred Normandale and Elizabeth Stevenson and many others around the
NFFO Executive who have offered invaluable support and advice. I am in the
fortunate position of having fished in both the Irish Sea and the North Sea and
bring that experience with me to the post.”

“This is
clearly a very difficult time for the fishing industry and what my experience
tells me is that the industry’s influence is very closely related to the degree
to which we can speak with a united voice. I am committed to ensuring that the
NFFO speaks for all fishermen no matter which part of the coast they fish from,
the size of their vessel or their target species.”

“The oil
price crisis and government support for the industry; the Scottish Executive’s
unilateral proposal for a separate quota system; the imminent arrival of marine
conservation zones and the annual round of TAC and days-at-sea restrictions:
these are all major issues on which I intend the NFFO to be very active”

“I also
want the NFFO to be a very open and accessible organisation and I will be
working to ensure that, through our communications and through initiatives like
Alan McCulla’s port visits that this will happen.”