Fishing recruitment - the big debate! - join the APPG event live online this Wednesday at 1:30pm.

This coming Wednesday, the APPG has recruitment to the industry on its agenda - a huge issue facing the industry.

One aspect, and one that was visited on the industry out of the blue by the MCA, was making it an offence for anyone under the age of 16 to go to sea on a commercial fishing vessel. 

Tom Lambourn handlining with Barry Chivers

Wind the clock back to 2009, the blond youngster in this photo aboard Barry Chiver's punt is a 9year old, Tom Lambourn - Tom is currently skipper of the sardine boat Lyonesse and his own netter/potter, My Lass. Tom started fishing with Barry aged six, with just 6 hooks on his mackerel handline! After taking A levels and getting a university degree - he then returned to Newlyn to fish full time..

12-year old Eric and the crew of the Keriolet

This is the crew of the hake netter, Keriolet taken in '90s on Douarnenez fish market with an 8 ton trip of hake. The boat had been fishing in the Irish Sea, on their way to France to land they picked up the youngster, then aged 12, from Newlyn. Three days after leaving school aged 16 he was on the same boat headed away on his first trip. After seven years of fishing he moved over to working on seismic vessels all over the world and is currently working off Norway.

In the same photo, the St Ives fisherman in the red smock top is now the skipper of a North Sea supply vessel, these are his words:

"I started going on boats as soon as I could walk. I used to go in the winter mackerel catching on the Cornish Queen at about 9 years old. Also on the Castle Wraith with Jack Murt and Boako. Went out summer times on the Trazbar with Barney and Traz. And any boat that I could jump on for a day out. Was down the harbour skiffing with the Paynters from about 8 or 9 skiffing the visitors out to the Cornish Bell and Cornish Queen. First boat I worked on leaving school was the Bev-Van-Dan which was owned by Danny Paynter. Boy Billy (Stevenson) put the money up for that one."

It's 2009 and a 13-year old Tom Mursa is learning the ropes from Stuart McClary, one of St Ive's top handliners.

Here's what Tom has to say:  

I loved working with Stuart McClary and still do from time to time to lend a hand. I’ve come a long way since then. I now own the tripping pleasure boats in st Ives. The likes of Blue Thunder & Blue Lightning RIB Rides and the Seal Island Aquastar tripping boat.

But I will definitely say one thing. I would never been able to do what I do without being involved in the fishing industry as a youngster.

With Stuart I learnt how to handle a boat, how to tie knots and splice ropes. Make up moorings and of course learn the ground for fishing and wildlife.

This is a story that has been told the length and breadth of the UK coastline for centuries - and now wiped out. Who's to say without all those early times spent at sea the career choices of all those youngsters would have been very different?

These youngsters, like so many before them, often started their fishing careers before they had even attended school - fishing is not a job, it is a way of life and many of the skills it takes to be successful, as Tom says, are an intrinsic part of the way of life that is fishing - skils handed down generation after generation in some cases.

Below is the press release announcing the APPG meeting on Wednesday - one that you can sign up to attend online - have your say online by way of comments directy to the hosts via social media links below.

As an island surrounded by some of the most productive seas in the North East Atlantic, fishing has long formed the lifeblood of coastal communities in the UK – offering livelihoods at sea and onshore, contributing to local economies and culture, and providing healthy food for populations. Over the past five decades, the context within which the fishing industry operates has changed dramatically. In response, the industry has worked to evolve and meet sustainability objectives in support of future, thriving fisheries. Social sustainability, alongside ecological sustainability, is a key issue for the sector.

Top of that agenda, recruitment and retention have been cited as major challenges facing the UK fishing industry, as well as the wider seafood sector. Impacting the sector’s sustainability, these issues also have implications for the social resilience of fishing and coastal communities. With a greying fleet, the number of UK fishers has fallen by 1,700 over the past decade. Traditional training and recruitment pathways – from father to son; deckhand to skipper – are broken in many places. Unattractive or unavailable to new-entrants, entry to the sector is costly, training opportunities limited, and opportunities elsewhere seen as more attractive. The issue is felt along the length of the supply chain.

In this context, as with other sectors in the economy, the seafood sector has become increasingly reliant on labour from outside of the UK. However, concerns have arisen about the conditions faced by migrant workers and the risk of exploitation facing those who come to the UK to work. Efforts have been made by industry to address these concerns, and ensure the welfare of crews. At the same time, legislative measures relating to migrant workers have been deemed inappropriate by both industry representatives, and civil society organisations, with problems relating to skilled worker visas, alongside the use of transit visas, highlighted by both. Reputational damage to the industry has a reverberating effect on the industry’s attractiveness to new entrants at home.

With the Employment Rights Bill currently before Parliament and issues surrounding recruitment and retention to the industry set as a backdrop, this event will focus on the challenges surrounding labour facing both the catching and processing sectors. Providing an opportunity for constructive dialogue on these cross-cutting challenges and building on past dialogue, we will hear of recent efforts to address these issues, alongside measures needed from industry, civil society and government to chart a way forward that is attuned to the practicalities of fishing, and at the same time affords adequate rights and protections for all fishers, whilst also ensuring fishing is an attractive career prospect for workers both within and beyond the UK.

Addressing two inter-related issues with implications not only for the sector’s sustainability, but for the social resilience of fishing and coastal communities, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fisheries will host an event this Wednesday on challenges surrounding recruitment and labour facing the UK’s fishing and seafood industry.

Chaired by Melanie Onn MP, the online event, which will run from 1:30pm-3:00pm, will hear from:

• Neil McAleese, Head of Industry Workforce Issues, Seafis
• Juliette Hatchman, Chief Executive, South Western Fish Producers’ Organisation
• Andrew Brown, Director of Sustainability and Public Affairs, Macduff Shellfish
• Chris Williams, Fisheries Section Coordinator, International Transport Workers’ Federation
• Mike Park OBE, Chief Executive, Scottish Whitefish Producers' Association
• Matilda Phillips, The Young Fishermen’s Network and Chris Ranford, The Cornish Fish Producers’ Organisation

Providing an opportunity for constructive dialogue on these cross-cutting issues, as part of the discussion we will hear of recent efforts to address these challenges, and explore measures needed going forwards that are attuned to the practicalities of fishing and working in seafood, whilst also affording adequate rights and protections for those working in the sector, and ensuring the industry’s attractiveness as a career for workers both within and beyond the UK.

View the agenda here.

Contribute to the discussion on Twitter and LinkedIn using #Fishinglivelihoods, or find out more on the APPG on Fisheries website.