Common Fisheries Policy

Part of Backbench Business – in the House of Commons at 4:14 pm on 15 March 2012.

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Photo of Eric Ollerenshaw Eric Ollerenshaw Conservative, Lancaster and Fleetwood 4:14, 15 March 2012

I do acknowledge that. However, I am trying to explain how a Fleetwood fisherman who now has to fish part time sees a wealth of different evidence and wonders who pulls the strings on the evidence.

I want to introduce another matter—one which I know will delight the Minister. Once he has dealt with the problems of the common fisheries policy, another issue that we face is that of wind farms and wind farm applications in the Irish sea, and the compensation for fisherman resulting from those developments. We have to deal with the Department of Energy and Climate Change on that matter and on new transmission lines, with the Department for Transport on ferry links, and with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the so-called common fisheries policy. This might sound revolutionary, but perhaps we need a Secretary of State for the Seas to bring those issues together so that fishermen can go to one door and find out what is going on.

I do not want to detain the House any longer. As I have said, I feel as though I am in a different position from other Members. To people in Fleetwood and beyond, this is a test case of whether the coalition Government can deliver. They are enthusiastic about much that the Minister has done. I am grateful to him for the extent to which he goes out to meet fishermen. However, this remains a test case of what is possible. People in Fleetwood hope to see the day when one or two more people can at last take up fishing in what they regard as their waters.