The Scottish Affairs Committee discussed the impact of Brexit and Covid on the fishing industry today.

Key elements of the the Scottish Affairs Committee Commons Select Committee were discussed on R4 Today:

Scottish Affairs Committee Commons Select Committee met today, 4th February at 11:30. and discussed the impact of Brexit and Covid on the fishing industry. 

The witnesses were:

• Jimmy Buchan, Chief Executive, Scottish Seafood Association
• Elaine Whyte, Executive Secretary, Clyde Fishermen's Association 
• James Withers, Chief Executive, Scotland Food and Drink

Most of the issues and solution discussed and put forward by representatives of the industry apply equally and in good measure to the rest of the UK fishing industry.

Or you can listen to the 90 minute meeting in full here:

The Scottish Affairs Committee scrutinises the expenditure, administration and policies of the Scotland Office, and its associated bodies. The Committee also examines the wider UK Government, to assess policies and legislation that lead to direct impacts on Scotland. It is chaired by Pete Wishart MP. You can follow the Committee on Twitter @CommonsScotAffs

Fleetwood registered Spanish flag of convenience vessel Udra landed at Newlyn.

With a draught of over 5m the Fleetwood registered Spanish Flag of Convenience stern trawler Udra is restricted to a berth on the end of the Mary Williams pier...

to land her 8 day trip...

of boxes that filled the waiting refrigerated transport to the doors...

which will transport her catch back to Spain for sale,
 

£50,0000 fish facility in St Ives will allow fishermen to sell direct to the public

£50,0000 fish facility in St Ives will allow fishermen to sell direct to the public A new fish shop set to be built on the quay in St Ives will enable fishermen to sell direct to the public.

The £50,000 project will also allow them to store bait overnight, thanks to the upgrade of a refrigerated storage area. The facility will be built after securing funding out of the £500,000 allocated to the town as part of the government's Accelerated Towns Fund. Fisherman Nathan de Rozarieux said the project was "really good news".

Nathan de Rozarieux (centre)

Mr de Rozarieux, who is the secretary of the St Ives Fishermen's Association, said the fishing community had engaged with the St Ives Town Deal Board on a wish list of things that would benefit the industry and the Smeaton's Pier project was identified as a priority.

Nathan de Rozarieux said a direct selling counter was "something that had been missing" in the town "It is something that has been missing," he said, adding that selling to the public might start relatively small but could grown into "something quite big". Cornwall Council said it was estimated the project would bring an uplift of £10,000 in direct sales in the first year, with an added £10,000 per year through online sales. It will also mean fewer trips to drive the landed catch to Newlyn, saving an estimated £8,000 per annum.

Sarah Stevens, chairwoman of the St Ives Town Deal Board, said: "I am proud to have supported the fishermen with their plans to sell fish directly from the quay and to improve the facilities. "It will make their lives easier and have a positive impact on the environment."

Alongside Camborne, Penzance and Truro, St Ives was one of the 100 towns selected across England to receive accelerated funding from the UK Government's Town Fund.

Money from the Towns Fund is aimed at "places with proud industrial and economic heritage" but which have not "always benefitted from economic growth in the same way as more prosperous areas", the government has said. St Ives' Smeatons Pier fish landing and selling facility project will be managed by the town's harbourmaster and is due to be completed by 31 March.

NFFO CALLS FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT.

The NFFO has written urgently to fisheries ministers making the case for a further tranche of financial support under the Fisheries Response Fund

NFFO letter to: 

Secretary of State George Eustice MP

Fisheries Minister Victoria Prentis MP

Dear Secretary of State/ Minister

Financial Support

Your department and the Marine Management Organisation can take due credit for successfully pulling together an evidence-based case to the Treasury for the industry package of financial support announced in April.

It is deeply regrettable, but not entirely unforeseen, that I now have to make the case to you for a further tranche of support.

Covid related market disruption, border issues related to the UK’s departure from the EU single market and customs union, and the pre-existing lack of resilience in parts of the fleet due to successive periods of bad weather, all combine to put many fishing businesses in a financially parlous position.

Against this background, we request that you give urgent consideration to a further approach to the Treasury to release tranche funds to keep our sector afloat financially.

The purpose, as with the initial package of support, would be to ensure the survival of fishing businesses faced with fixed costs and reduced income, so that we have an industry when the pandemic recedes, and trading relationships settle down.

I look forward to your early reply.

Barrie Deas

Chief Executive

There's cloud over those 'sunlit uplands' - as live shellfish exports face ‘indefinite’ EU ban.

UK shellfish producers are reeling, following reports that EU rules restricting the import of live mussels, oysters and other shellfish are set to continue indefinitely.

European regulations forbid the import of live bivalve molluscs “not fit for consumption” from “third countries” – that is, countries outside the EU single market – unless they are either harvested from the cleanest “Class A” waters or have already been “depurated”, that is cleaned by being left to stand in saltwater tanks, prior to entering the EU.

UK producers previously sent their shellfish for depuration at large processing plants on the Continent, so facilities for depuration in the UK are extremely limited. The rules effectively ban many UK producers from exporting their product to their traditional markets in Europe. UK producers say they had been given assurances by the UK government that the situation was being addressed and that the regulations would be lifted on 21 April. News website Politics Home reported yesterday, however, that an EU official had written to industry representatives in January to confirm that the regulations are to stay in place. 

Fal Oysters are caught and landed live.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Live bivalve molluscs such as oysters, mussels, clams, cockles and scallops can continue to be exported to the EU if they’re harvested from Class A waters or cleaned, or have cleared end product testing in the UK. “We will continue to raise the issue of live bivalve molluscs not ready for human consumption with the EU, to ensure the trade can continue securely.” 

Much of Scotland’s shellfish production comes from waters that meet the criteria for Class A – defined as 80% of sampled shellfish having less than 230 E.coli bacteria per 100g of flesh and the remaining 20% recording less than 700 E.coli per 100g – but almost all of the waters around England and Wales are Class B at best, although this does vary by the seasons. Live exports of bivalves from traditional areas such as Devon and Morecambe Bay are therefore barred from the EU, placing many producers in serious jeopardy.

David Jarrad, Chief Executive of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, said: “the most prolific producing areas are Class B.” He added: “It’s a big problem! There are not the scale of depuration facilities in the UK. If we invested now it would take many months and serious money to construct such tanks, but that wouldn’t solve the issue alone and the product would then have to be promoted to a different market: retail rather than bulk.” 

Jarrad stressed that the industry had raised this issue repeatedly in the run-up to the end of the Brexit transition period. He told Fish Farmer: “We were originally told (by DEFRA in December) that only wild [stock] would be affected, until April 2021 when the Animal Health regulations would change and this would facilitate the resumption of trade. We are now told by the EU that ALL live bivalves… whether they be wild or farmed are affected and cannot be traded.” The ban affects a range of mollusc species including mussels, oysters, clams, razor clams, cockles and scallops. 

DEFRA said: “We are seeking a solution that will enable the trade in undepurated LBMs [live bivalve molluscs] to resume securely. To minimise delays and disruption, it is necessary for exporters to provide accurate information and to understand the requirements for the goods being exported.” The government stresses that exporters should ensure they provide certifying officers with the correct customs codes and descriptions for all goods included in the consignment and suggests that exporters may also wish to check with trading partners whether the relevant EU Member State Border Control Post is able to accept their consignment.

Full story courtesy of the Fish Farmer magazine.

‘Mackerel maternity ward’ Ireland angry at Brexit fishing waters carve-up

 

Ireland’s catch losses in price terms are roughly double those for other EU nations, says Cabinet minister. Irish officials concede it will be tough to put EU partners on the hook for further sacrifices of their own fishing quotas.

DUBLIN — Ireland says its loss of U.K. fishing rights in the Brexit trade deal is disproportionately high and expects EU partners to share more of the burden.

Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, speaking after his first post-deal meeting Monday with EU colleagues in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, said other EU nations that fish in British waters must “urgently” share quota losses currently assigned to Ireland.

The EU and U.K. will soon begin negotiations on setting catch quotas for the rest of 2021, with current rules set to expire at the end of March.

McConalogue says Ireland’s catch losses in price terms are roughly double those envisaged for other EU nations’ fleets operating in British waters. Losses are sharpest for Ireland’s most valuable catch, mackerel.

“A disproportionate burden is being borne by Ireland in relation to the package of fish quotas being transferred from the EU to the U.K. under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Ireland’s concerns have been raised at the highest level,”

McConalogue said after Monday’s online meeting of agriculture and fisheries ministers. McConalogue said he had “strongly expressed my disappointment that the principle of burden sharing within the EU has not been adequately respected.”

Privately, Irish officials concede it will be tough to put EU partners on the hook for further sacrifices of their own quotas.

“We must tread gently when raising this issue, given how supportive Europe has been to Ireland on matters of critical importance, particularly in defending the Northern Ireland Protocol,” said a government official, speaking on the condition he was not identified.

“We of course don’t expect France or the Dutch to just hand some of their quotas to us. But we expect a serious hearing,” he said. “We want our European colleagues to take a closer look at the real sums involved and, frankly, the lack of fairness that is apparent.”

According to the Agriculture Department’s forecast of fisheries losses from Brexit, Ireland takes by far the biggest financial hit among the eight EU states that fish U.K. waters.

It says Ireland’s pre-Brexit ability to catch fish in U.K. waters was worth €288 million yearly, based on 2019 Irish market prices. This, it says, will be cut by 15 percent, dealing a €43 million annual loss.

France will suffer a marginally higher value loss of €52 million, the department calculates, but this will represent only an 8 percent loss from France’s previous landing of fish caught in U.K. waters worth €614 million annually.

All other EU members will lose less value from their catch, and only Germany will take a loss similar in proportion to Ireland’s, at 15 percent.

Ireland concedes its calculations, like all matters related to fish, attempt to capture a moving target.

“It is difficult to assign a monetary value to quota reductions as both the TAC [Total Allowable Catch] and the fish prices fluctuate significantly,” its report notes.

Indeed, Ireland’s fishermen argue that the government’s figures grossly understate the true depth of losses. They warn that a quarter of jobs in the sector are at risk, and see the decommissioning of many vessels in Ireland’s 2,000-ship fishing fleet as the only likely outcome unless some of the quota lost from the U.K. can be regained from EU partners.

At stake is an industry employing around 10,000 people directly and 4,000 more in fish-processing factories.

While Ireland is earmarked to receive a quarter of the EU’s €5.4 billion Brexit Adjustment Reserve, it plans to ship only a tenth of that aid to fisheries, given the need to support bigger parts of the economy similarly weakened by Brexit.

And Sean O’Donoghue, chief executive of the most powerful fishermen’s lobby group in Ireland, dismisses the potential of such one-off payments as meaningful compensation for permanent losses of mackerel and prawns.

“It’s just peanuts,” he told lawmakers at a parliamentary committee meeting focused on Irish fishermen’s potential losses from Brexit.

His Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation, based in the northwest port where most of Ireland’s mackerel catch is landed, estimates that the Brexit trade deal means the EU is surrendering fish quotas in British waters worth €188 million annually — and Ireland contributes nearly a quarter of that. This includes a 26 percent cut to its previous quota of mackerel, Ireland’s most lucrative seafood product.

Much of that mackerel previously was caught in Scottish waters, including off the isolated islet of Rockall, 300 km west of Scotland and 425 km northwest of Ireland. The U.K. claims these rich waters for Scotland but Ireland, Iceland and Norway stake competing claims. Marine Scotland ships this month have begun warning Irish fishing vessels away from Rockall.

“What’s perhaps most galling … is that the fish are spawned in Irish waters,” O’Donoghue told lawmakers.

 “While we cannot and do not claim ownership of them, we’re now being discriminated against catching the fish off the coast of Scotland when they are in their prime and at their most valuable,” he said. “In essence, we’re providing the fish for Britain to net. We’re a ‘mackerel maternity ward’ for others to profit from.”

The Agriculture Department’s official analysis finds that Britain’s share of mackerel caught in its waters will rise from 58 percent to 69 percent, while Ireland’s will fall from 21 percent to 16 percent, an annual loss of mackerel worth €27 million.

Patrick Murphy, chief executive of the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation based in Cork, said the Brexit deal similarly reduced Ireland’s take of hake more sharply than for other EU members.

And John Lynch, chairman of the Irish South and East Fish Producers Organisation in Wexford, said its vessels based in the fishing village of Dunmore East were at risk of being shut out of trade in everything from herring to scallops.

Never a dull moment in Newlyn.

Just one of those things, after spending 48 hours at sea the port's new super-beam trawler Enterprise on her maiden voyage was forced to return to port for hydraulic repairs...

which gave the shore staff, under the watchful eye of ex-skipper Graham, a chance to put the landing gear...

through its paces...

and try out the new company fish boxes for use at sea...

during which time her catch was put ashore for auction...

meanwhile the ring-netter Asthore, also with a hydraulic problem had the mammoth task of getting into port with the bulk of her 20 ton catch still in the net...

and alongside the boat before she was able to land the fish ashore, all in a day's work and exemplifying the truly unpredictable nature of fishing.