Fisheries Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:24 pm on 21 November 2018.

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Photo of Neil Parish Neil Parish Chair, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Chair, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee 3:24, 21 November 2018

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention—he is right. I think that DEFRA is working much more with fishermen, and they will need to work more closely to ensure that the collection of that information happens more quickly. We also need to learn from the monitoring of how fish are caught and what is happening on the fishing boats, because all this is important. There needs to be trust between the fishermen and DEFRA officials, because that is sometimes lacking. There is a great deal that can be positive. I know that the Secretary of State and our fisheries Minister are really driving towards that, and I think we can do it.