Barry Gardiner

It is a pleasure to speak under you in the Chair, Mr Efford. My thanks and congratulations go to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. I hope that in the coming years, the Government will find time to return the annual fisheries debate to the main Chamber. That was a good convention that the last Government cast aside, almost as quickly as they did their promises to fisherfolk following Brexit. I am sure that many of us would welcome its return. This debate takes place in the season of the annual fisheries negotiations between the UK and the EU, as well as the trilateral negotiations with Norway. Last year, those negotiations resulted in more than half of catch limits being set above the scientifically advised levels, yet both international and UK law require that all stocks should be at sustainable levels. That is despite commitments under international treaties and agreements to end overfishing. We currently have six commercially fished stocks—two cod stocks, two whiting stocks, one herring and a pollack—that are so depleted that the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea is for zero catches. We need to understand just how poorly managed those stocks have been. ICES provides zero catch advice for a stock when it is so depleted that, even without any catch, it will not recover above the biomass limit reference point for spawning stock biomass, below which a stock’s reproductive capacity is compromised and it is considered to have impaired recruitment capacity. In other words, the stock has collapsed. It is important to note that the decline of those stocks was not unpredictable, and nor was it unavoidable. Consistently fishing at too high a level guarantees that stocks will decline; if fishing is high enough, the stock will collapse. [Dr Rupa Huq in the Chair]