Daniel Zeichner

I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of a fishing and seafood sector strategy. It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. It is also a pleasure to lead a debate on this important question. Before I begin, I should declare that I served as the independent chair of the process that produced “An Action Plan for a Thriving and Sustainable UK Fishing Industry”, a weighty tome recently published by the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, which is the stimulus for this debate. I pay tribute to the group’s co-chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), for their leadership on that piece of work. I also thank the many fishermen and women and other stakeholders from across the UK who gave evidence to the all-party group’s process. I also pay particular tribute to Mike Cohen and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations for having pursued me on this policy idea for many years, and to Lia ní Aodha and her team, who did so much of the basic research, organising and drafting. I note that it is almost exactly five years ago to the day—somewhat to my overnight surprise—that I found myself in this very Chamber as the shadow Fisheries Minister speaking for the Opposition, a job I hugely enjoyed both in opposition and as a Minister, not least because I met and got to know so many very special people and enjoyed many debates with many familiar friends who are in this Chamber today. I am delighted to see the very wide range of geographical and political representation in the Chamber today. As an island nation, no part of the United Kingdom is more than 70 miles from the sea, yet we sometimes display a rather curious lack of awareness of the sea and, at times, a tendency to undervalue the waters around us and the people and communities who depend upon them. Fishing and seafood are a case in point. They are a comparatively modest line in the national accounts, it is true, but it is a sector whose value is woven into the identity of places such as Brixham, Grimsby, Kilkeel, Milford Haven, Peterhead and Shetland, and whose true value must be measured in the good jobs and vibrant communities it sustains around our coasts and islands, the regional economies that it supports, the nutritious, low-carbon food it puts on plates at home and around the world, and its contribution to national resilience—something we have heard much about in recent times. Since leaving the common fisheries policy, the UK has built an impressive domestic management framework centred on the Fisheries Act 2020, the joint fisheries statement and a suite of fisheries management plans. As an independent coastal state, we have regulatory autonomy and the resources for a thriving industry, including fishing knowledge, productive waters off our coast and a still vibrant and diverse fishing sector. However, during my time as Minister, I was struck by the fact that we do not have a strategy that brings those together and connects fisheries management with the wider decisions on energy, marine space, skills, trade and food that will shape the sector’s future. That gap is felt by those who fish every day as they face rising operating and fuel costs, stocks shifting under climate change, growing competition for space at sea from offshore energy development, the expansion of marine protected areas, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining skilled crews. Many of those pressures are also felt downstream by processes around our coasts.