19 March 2015
The NFFO recently held a dinner in a London fish restaurant to honour Austin Mitchell MP in recognition and appreciation for his 38 years of steadfast support of the fishing industry in Parliament. He will retire as MP for Great Grimsby at the General Election in May.
Accompanied by his journalist wife, Linda, the meal
reflected the diversity of the fishing industry’s produce and fleets which
Austin has fought for over those many years.
As Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Fisheries
Group, Austin regularly provided a platform within Parliament through which the
fishing industry’s concerns and issues could be raised. A briefing meeting for
the main UK fishing federations immediately prior to the annual fisheries
debate became one of the landmarks in the parliamentary calendar. His bravura
speeches in his own inimitable style, always
expressing the fishing industry’s concerns became one of the high points
of those parliamentary debates.
In a parliamentary landscape not always familiar with the
fishing industry and sometimes prone to irrelevance, Austin’s interventions
always carried weight because he took the trouble to inform himself of the
industry’s views.