WRT fishing
Fish stocks were declining before the Common Fisheries Policy was devised. It was devised to restore fish stocks.
From the tory manifesto 1983
We have successfully negotiated a Common Fishing Agreement that provides British fishermen with the greatest advantages in our waters in the industry's history. For the first time since we joined the Community, we now have effective conservation measures, and can look forward to expanding, rather than declining, stocks of fish.
The UK government allowed the sale of quota to all and sundry without any concern on how it would affect the fishing industry.
A reasonable explanation here:
Start
"Well, currently within the UK distribution we have a situation where 79% of fishers have access to 2% of quota and the five largest quota holders hold more than a third of UK quota. This has come about because the majority of our boats and our small boats are not even covered by quota. Quota applies to bigger boats and also over the past 30 or 40 years it’s become a tradable asset.
Quota, which began as something that reflected fishing history, became something that could be bought and sold. As a result of which a lot of it has been bought up by people who don’t fish at all, the so called ‘slipper skippers’ who never go to sea. This has really left a legacy of unfairness, perceived injustice in the sector. And that can be corrected by the UK government.
It could have been corrected by the UK Government within the EU, leaving the EU doesn’t make any difference really, but it’s a great opportunity to have a rethink.
Plenty of people involved in the fishing industry here will say that actually Europe overcomplicated a complicated situation and the best thing for their industry is to get out, and to have our own policy and our own fishing grounds back.
Well, it really is very complicated. The EU is a fantastic complicator of things, it’s true. * But it also needs to be said that the Common Fisheries Policy has started to have effects. It was a slow burn, but it has started to protect and restore fisheries.* The trouble is the industry has changed, it ceased to be an industry that provides the fish that we consume and it’s become very heavily dependent on exports through just in time delivery chains into Europe and they will inevitably be disrupted by Brexit. It’s hard to see how leaving the EU will solve that problem.
In terms of getting our waters back, well it’s very widely observed fish don’t observe boundaries, fish move, there will inevitably have to be negotiations about who fishes what, where. And in those negotiations it’s also the case that the overriding priority will have to be sustainability.
Therefore there will have to be horse, or fish, trading. The objective will need to be on the one hand to really stick to sustainable yields and on the other hand to protect trade.
Given that, what should be the priority as the UK makes its own fishing policy?
The key things are for the UK to remain within sustainable yields, to protect supply chains into Europe, and also to correct a long standing unfairness which is in how quotas are distributed by the UK government within this country, this never really had anything to do with the EU. To that end, we need to have a rethink about how quota is distributed.
End
www.sustainweb.org/news/jan19_frc_briefing_fishing/