Fishery Limits (United Kingdom) Bill [HL]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 9:51 pm on 17 December 2003.

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Photo of Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch Conservative 9:51, 17 December 2003

My Lords, the question which must by now be occurring to any normal person listening to or reading this debate is: "How on earth did we get into this mess?". The answer is, as usual, in our disastrous relationship with the European Union—in that the British people, and even Parliament, were deceived by the Government of the day. Any of your Lordships who wish to understand the whole history of how that has happened over more than 30 years should read a brilliant new book, entitled The Great Deception, written by Mr Christopher Booker and Mr Richard North, published by Continuum Books. It is closely researched and reveals a number of Foreign Office memoranda under the 30-year rule, which show exactly how we were deceived in the late 1960s and early 1970s—and indeed, for many years before that. It is thus essential reading for any noble Lord who wants to understand the history and nature of our present predicament.

As far as the loss of our fisheries is concerned, Messrs Booker and North reveal that on 13th December 1971 Mr Geoffrey Rippon MP, who was negotiating the United Kingdom's access to what was then the Common Market, reported to the House of Commons on the outcome of the final meeting in Brussels which had sealed the fate of one of our most important assets. Mr Rippon claimed that any "outstanding problems" on fisheries had been resolved. He said the Community had been persuaded of the need to protect Britain's vital interests, both by conserving fish stocks and by protecting "the livelihoods of our fishermen". He then claimed:

"it is clear that we retain full jurisdiction of the whole of our coastal waters up to 12 miles".

That was simply not true. First, what he had signed meant that British boats would only have exclusive rights to fish out to six miles, and our control over access between six and 12 miles had been limited. Secondly, that was allowed only under a 10-year derogation which was to expire on 31st December 1982, after which it could only be extended by unanimity. The derogation could thus be ended by a single veto. Thirdly, the United Kingdom had conceded the most important principle of all; namely, the power of Brussels to control our fishing waters right up to our beaches. Even in the six-mile zone our fishermen would still have to comply with Community rules. And when the 200-mile limit was introduced in 1977 at the third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, and was accepted by the EEC, our waters were given away entirely.

No doubt desperate to hide how much the UK had conceded, Mr Rippon told the House of Commons:

"I must emphasise that these are not just transitional arrangements which automatically lapse at the end of a fixed period".

Members of the other place were not able to see the actual wording of the accession treaty until after it was signed, a month later. Only then did it become clear how they had been misled by Mr Heath and his government. So that is a little of the story of how we were deceived into signing up to the common fisheries policy. As I have said, the whole saga is set out in devastating detail in The Great Deception.

It is perhaps just worth repeating what the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, said: that when we joined what is now the European Union we owned some 70 to 75 per cent of the fish which swam in all EC waters. Now we are allowed to land, I think, some 25 per cent of the catch allowed by Brussels; and it is this transition which has caused the devastation to which other noble Lords have referred.

When we use the expression "allowable catch", we see another lunacy of the common fisheries policy. This is that the Martians in Brussels presumably thought that they could practise conservation by limiting the amount of fish landed in port. They do not seem to have realised—probably because they had never been to sea—that when the nets come up, nearly all the fish in them are dead. So all fish beyond the "allowable catch" have to be thrown back dead, as the noble Lady said. The European Commission admitted not so long ago that some 4 million tonnes of dead fish are thus thrown back dead into the sea every year—good for the seabed, no doubt. That is conservation for you, a la Brussels.

I would end these few remarks by saying how much I look forward to hearing what my noble friend on the Front Bench will have to tell us about Conservative Party policy towards the problem we are discussing. During the previous Parliament, my honourable friend Mr Patrick Nicholls, speaking on behalf of the party, said in the other place that our policy was to repatriate our fish, which had been the blindingly obvious thing to do for many years. The very next day, the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, taunted my right honourable friend Mr William Hague, then Leader of the Opposition, that this meant the Conservative Party wanted to leave the European Union altogether. Mr Blair's reasoning appeared to be, and probably still is—perhaps the Minister will tell us when he replies tonight—that because the other EU countries would never agree to us taking back our fish, we would have to break the EU treaty to do so and that would somehow result in our leaving the European Union entirely.

At this suggestion, Mr Hague went into a somewhat undignified reverse and denied that we wanted to leave the European Union. Where that left our policy towards the common fisheries policy has never been made clear. As far as I can see, our policy is to,

"renegotiate the treaties to take back our fish".

But that begs the question, as the Prime Minister indicated: what happens if the others do not agree? And of course they will not—certainly not the Spanish or the Dutch. Do we just accept that we have failed and continue to live with this financial, environmental and ignominious disaster, or do we break the treaty and take our fisheries back anyway? Can either my noble friend on the Front Bench or the Minister explain why that would result in our expulsion from the European Union? I can see that there would be a few uncomfortable cocktail parties for our bureaucrats, diplomats and so on in Brussels, but the British fishing industry could live with that. I can see that there might even be a fine to pay in the Luxembourg so-called "court", but, as your Lordships will be aware, there is no mechanism to make a country actually pay such a fine, as Italy and France have been demonstrating for years. So would the others really force us out when we are such a large contributor in other ways to the whole dismal enterprise? Alas, I fear not, even if that is what many of us want to do anyway.

So I would have thought that this excellent Bill, so ably and courageously promoted by the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, can be supported by all sides of the House.