Daniel Zeichner

I will certainly look at that. These are relatively early days in the fisheries management plans. A huge amount of work has had to be done quite quickly. We have established a good structure to look to the future—a much better way than in the past. On the quota shares, it is because we are now an independent coastal state that we have the right to negotiate with coastal states in the north-east Atlantic on management measures for mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring. Those are important stocks for the UK that have been overfished in recent years because there are no sharing arrangements in place between the coastal states. We continue to push for comprehensive quota-sharing arrangements that are in the best interests of stock sustainability and of the UK catching and processing sectors. We see the three-way management arrangement with Norway and the Faroes that we signed in June this year as an important stepping stone towards securing a fully comprehensive deal on mackerel. Almost all the speeches touched on the very challenging issue of marine spatial prioritisation. We know that considerable pressure is being put on the fishing sector by all the competing demands in our seas. And we know the seas are going to get busier over the coming decades. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) and the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) both raised those points. We absolutely need to factor in increasing spatial pressures and new activities such as the growth of new types of energy. As a Government, we will very carefully consider the evidence marshalled by the cross-Government marine spatial prioritisation programme for English waters. Lots of work is ongoing on this. I am absolutely determined that we have a full and open debate and dialogue because it is such a complicated issue, and I am very grateful for the constructive engagement we are having with industry representatives. I move on to labour shortages, which, again, were raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and others. We are, of course, aware of the concerns about labour shortages in the sector. Members spoke about the opportunities being there, if only we had the people to do the work—I thought that was very telling. My Department is working with industry to understand what we can do to alleviate those shortages, but they have to be understood in the context of our wider immigration policy objectives. I am sure Members will understand that there is an ongoing dialogue with the Home Office on that. I pledge that we will work closely with industry to understand people’s labour needs—including, of course, what can be done to make the industry more attractive to the domestic labour market, which is an issue that people have worked hard on. The points made on training were really quite uplifting; it was very good to hear about the work being done in Grimsby, for example.