Fisheries Bill – Parliament This link will take you to the current state of play with the Fisheries Bill including the reports of debates and videos.
Government recognises public ownership of the right to fish
In a breakthrough moment in the UK Fisheries Bill proceedings, the Government has made a serious announcement on the ownership of the UK fishery, stating that the public, not businesses or industry, owns the right to fish in UK waters.
Charles Clover, executive director of the Blue Marine Foundation, said: “The distribution of quota is long overdue for reform; it was a botched privatisation which is unfair to the majority of fishermen, who fish inshore, and has perverse environmental consequences. Now it must be unpicked.” On Monday, Lord Teverson added an amendment to the Bill stating that the right to fish should be acknowledged to be in public ownership, saying: “if you asked the population and voters of this country who those fish stocks that we now have control over belong to, they would not say the industry, which is 40% owned by foreign companies, but the British people—and they would be right”.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Fisheries (APPG) has recently updated its information on the current progress of the Bill highlighting a number of new developments including sections on discards, national benefit and climate change. Interestingly George Eustice at the Blue Rewilding conference hinted that the Government might look again at the current quota allocations in relation to smaller vessels and making the quota allocation to producer organisations dependent upon their past compliance with regulations (a similar idea to the payment for goods and services now in the agriculture bill).