UK Government defends allocation of the Fisheries & Coastal Growth Fund claiming it will make a vibrant, profitable & sustainable industry
Following calls from a “wide range of stakeholders” to devolve the funding, the Government confirmed on 20 October that the fund would be devolved, granting “full discretion over how to allocate funding” to the devolved Governments. This approach, they argued, “enables each devolved Government to design and deliver support in response to the specific needs of their fishing and coastal communities.”
In the House of Lords, Conservative peer Lord Roborough criticised the fund’s distribution, particularly regarding Scotland, arguing that the Brexit deal allows Europe to retain “around 40% of the fishing rights in our exclusive economic zone and territorial waters for a further 12 years,” which he called “poor compensation and unfairly distributed.”
Baroness Hayman of Ullock, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), replied that the funding is being allocated using the Barnett formula, the “normal mechanism used by HM Treasury to determine funding for the devolved Governments.” She added that devolved Governments have “full flexibility to target this funding to best meet the needs of their coastal and fishing communities.”
Liberal Democrat Baroness Grender then pressed the Minister on the impact of Brexit, asking if she agreed that the “botched Brexit deal that the Conservatives negotiated has done great damage to our coastal and fishing communities.” She noted that “fish exporters have been wrapped up in red tape and penalised with extra costs.” Baroness Hayman responded that the Government has secured a deal that “ensures returns for our fishing community, including scrapping red tape and restoring shellfish exports to the UK.” She noted that negotiations on the UK-EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement are “due to start shortly.”
The debate also focused on sustainability. Lord Krebs of the cross-bench peer group raised concerns about stock health, stating the “sad truth is that, according to Oceana UK’s latest report, Deep Decline, over half of the UK fish stocks are being overfished, particularly the top 10 species.” He asked for the Government’s plan to ensure quotas are set on a “sustainable basis.”
Baroness Hayman of Ullock acknowledged that “overfishing has been a real problem” and stated that the government needs to ensure future quotas are sustainable. She expressed hope that “working with the EU more closely will enable this.”
Separately, Baroness McIntosh of Pickering raised the issue of small-scale fishermen, asking if the Coastal Fund would provide “anything for the inshore fishermen, who are now the largest number of fishermen in English waters.” The Minister confirmed that the government is “negotiating with stakeholders” and that inshore fishermen will “clearly” be an important group in those discussions.
The Minister also defended the Government’s overall trade strategy, saying that a key goal of seeking a “better working relationship with the EU” is to increase exports, which “dropped fairly significantly after Brexit.” She stated the Government is “trying to improve our working relationship with the EU in order to continue to support our farmers, our fishers and our businesses more broadly.”
