House of Commons - Agriculture

Select Committee on Agriculture Eighth Report

III. RESEARCH

16. Assessment of the state of stocks is fundamental to the conservation objectives and management systems of the Common Fisheries Policy. The MAFF Minister for Fisheries, Mr Morley, described it as "the bottom line".[28] Without accurate knowledge of the population of any particular species in any fishing ground at a particular time, it would be impossible to achieve the goal of relative stability and ensure that areas or stocks are not fished out. Equally, it is vital that the assessments made by scientists are seen to be well-founded by responsible fishermen in the light of their own experience or the latter will lose faith in conservation measures which require them to exercise an apparently arbitrary restraint. Fishermen's representatives accepted that research into stocks was "a very difficult science and a very inexact science",[29] supporting the laconic assertion of one fisheries scientist that "to count the number of fish in the sea is quite taxing".[30] Nevertheless, the data collected in this way provide the foundation stone upon which the chief mechanism of the CFP, the quota system, is built.

THE QUOTA SYSTEM

17. In order that stocks are only fished up to safe levels, the European Council of Fisheries Ministers is responsible for setting annual Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for each important species. The TACs are then subdivided into national quotas. The cycle for this annual process is illustrated in the diagram below.

Figure 1

Source: Fisheries Research Services, Information Leaflet - Fish Stocks (2)

At the start of the process is the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), an inter-governmental body with 19 members, including the UK and other European countries. ICES is responsible for collating data on fish stocks collected by scientists in its member states and, through its Advisory Committee on Fishery Management (ACFM), giving advice on the status of around 100 fish and shellfish stocks and on the consequences in the long and short term of various limits on catches.[31] The accuracy of these predictions depends upon the reliability of the original information supplied and ICES "has expressed concern about the quality of catch and effort data from most of the important fisheries in the ICES area".[32] ICES and its working groups do make considerable allowances for gaps in statistics, based upon the many years' experience and expertise of its members. Mr Morley thought the advice given by ICES was "as accurate as it can be within the restraints that they face";[33] and his officials argued that the more important data for policy purposes (trends and overall status) were in any case "more robust" than the admittedly doubtful absolute level of catches.[34] However, it is clear that greater confidence in the data which lead to advice on TACs would be of enormous help in improving the relationship between fishermen, managers and scientists.

18. The catch option table provided by the ACFM, usually in early November for key stocks, is used by the European Commission (EC) to prepare proposals for TACs for the coming year. It receives advice from the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries (STECF) on the economic implications of the ACFM's proposals and from Member States. The final proposals are then put to the Council of Fisheries Ministers in December where agreement is reached, generally after some hard negotiations. Shares of the TACs are then allocated to the individual states according to the relative stability allocation key established in 1983.

19. Industry representatives raised several concerns with us about this system. First, there is a perception that the situation "is complicated by politics".[35] Although the advice given by ICES is based on scientific analysis, the TACs agreed by the Council of Ministers are the result of negotiation and national interest. Mr Morley stressed that although he had no doubt that "there have been some political fixes in the past", Member States were "being more responsible these days about how they fix quotas".[36] He argued that "what we must not do is, under pressure, take more fish from the sea, or boost quotas, simply because it is politically expedient to do so ... we must work within the guidelines of science, otherwise we undermine the whole principle of sustainability".[37] Few would disagree, but the climate of distrust of EU decisions, motives and fairness within large sections of the fishing industry makes it imperative that MAFF works hard to combat political fixes. Wider dissemination in a readily understandable form of advice from ICES might help to address this difficulty. We recommend that the Government encourage ICES to present its advice on TACs in a more generally comprehensible form and to improve its efforts to communicate the advice to the fishing industry.

20. Secondly, the NFFO suggested that socio-economic factors should be brought into the considerations at an earlier stage.[38] At the moment some economic advice is offered by the STECF but "it is left to the Council of Ministers to bring in the socio-economic factors to a large degree".[39] As a result, the recommendations for TACs are made on biological grounds without considering the wider implications of agreeing to those levels. The NFFO Chief Executive, Mr Deas, argued that more economic input at an earlier stage would "reduce the haggling" in the Council and make the decisions "technical rather than political".[40] We believe that it is important that the advice from ICES is demonstrably scientific and that it is not the body best placed to offer objective economic analysis. However, since it is accepted that economic factors should be taken into account in making decisions on allocations, it is clearly preferable that advice on this aspect is published before the recommendations are put to the Council of Ministers. The EC, in collaboration with Member States, should continue to develop methodologies for the inclusion of economic criteria for evaluating biological recommendations for fish stocks. We recommend the formal inclusion of economic analysis of the implications of TACs and national quota allocations at an earlier stage in the annual cycle. However, we caution strongly against the temptation to use economic and social criteria to "invent fish" in the interests of the political convenience either of Ministers or the industry.

21. Thirdly, there was concern over the changes in TACs from year to year. There can be what the Minister described as "quite wild fluctuations between one year and the next"[41] which make it difficult for fishermen to plan ahead, particularly given the lateness of the announcement on the decision. One solution to this problem would be the introduction of rolling multi-annual TACs, or at least as one witness suggested, the setting of maximum and minimum levels.[42] The Minister was sympathetic to the concept of multi-annual TACs, pointing out that it would help move towards longer-term management and reduce discarded fish.[43] However, he believed that the stocks were not at present in sufficiently good shape for them to be set.[44] UK fisheries scientists observed that, although the assessment for some stocks was already undertaken every other year, for more important stocks until such time as the fishing fleet and the size of the resource were in balance, then "in order to make sure that [the stock] does not fall into some low state you are going to have to set a rather lower figure than maybe if you have altered it each year".[45] Predictability could therefore only be obtained at the price of more cautious allowances. The scientists similarly explained that there was a drawback to changing the timing of the start of the TAC year so that fishermen had time to adjust to changes in quota, which was that "the December decision-making reflects the most recent data" and therefore delay in implementation of the advice "is likely to introduce some additional uncertainty into the advice for TAC levels, as the scientists will have to predict that much further ahead".[46] The EC has suggested that it could receive advice in mid-October, a month earlier than at present, but this request is not due to be discussed with ICES until February 2000.[47] We recommend that the Government support the EC's proposals for earlier notification of the recommendations for TACs so that the fishing industry has more time to prepare for changes in quota. In the longer term, we recommend that TACs be set on a multi-annual basis where stocks are not threatened.

22. A further difficulty with the quota system is the setting of TACs for individual species. In mixed fisheries it is almost impossible for a fisherman to avoid catching quantities of species other than those for which he has quota. This leads to illegal landings or to discards by fishermen throwing the untargeted fish back into the sea. To combat this it was suggested to us that TACs should be set on a multi-species basis.[48] Later in this Report, we discuss in detail the practice of discarding and the need for more multi-species modelling to place stock research in a wider context.[49] Here, we note that the STECF examined a proposal for multi-species TACs in 1992 and had "severe reservations about the model".[50] UK scientists believed that it could lead to increased discards and that it would be essential "to ensure that no single population fell below a critical level".[51] This would imply that, as with multi-annual TACs, multi-species TACs would have to be set below the otherwise expected level, which is unlikely to be attractive to fishermen.

The December 1998 decisions and the precautionary approach

23. The Minister described the outcome of the TAC negotiations for 1999 as "a reasonable and responsible balance between the need for conservation and the legitimate short term concerns of the fishing industry and the communities they support".[52] He highlighted the difference between the UK quotas discussed at the start of the negotiation and those eventually agreed, which were some 57,000 tonnes higher in cod equivalent terms, worth approximately £30m to the industry. The industry itself was generally unimpressed, with the NFFO predicting that fishermen would be "something like between £15 and £20 million worse off than we were last year".[53] It welcomed additional haddock quota in the Irish Sea[54] but such successes were completely overshadowed by the introduction of a new factor into the setting of TACs - the precautionary approach.

24. The need to protect stocks against over-fishing has long been recognised. The precautionary approach adds to the traditional means of managing stocks by allowing for the uncertainties over stock predictions in setting precautionary reference points for stocks which, if reached, trigger action designed to prevent stock levels from falling any further. The precautionary reference points are therefore designed "to keep stocks well away from levels at which there is a serious risk of collapse".[55] For the first time this year, the ACFM, which we were told "has taken an international lead in developing the application of the Precautionary Approach",[56] presented its advice to the European Commission in this context. There is little disagreement on the value of such an approach in itself. The Minister expressed his support for the concept,[57] while in written evidence MAFF argued that "sensibly applied, it offers a sound way forward which should enable fish stocks to grow over the longer term in response to more sustainable fishing levels".[58] Environmental groups were unanimous in its support,[59] and even the fishermen's leaders assured us that "we are not against the precautionary approach ... there is a lot of merit in building in some sort of buffer zone so that you do not fish stocks right down to the limit where there is the possibility of stock collapse".[60] Only a few of them complained against the principle, saying that it "is regarded by fishermen like almost being in court, although in this court fishermen seem to be guilty and have to prove themselves innocent".[61] UK scientists listed the advantages in the longer term as greater predictability of advice from ICES given the fixed reference points for stock levels, explicit identification of the consistency of the various options for stocks with the precautionary approach which should encourage fisheries managers to set TACs within precautionary limits, and the chance it offered stocks to recover in order to ensure sustainability of both the stocks and the fishing industry.[62]

25. However, the sudden and unannounced action taken last year in setting TACs in this context brought understandable howls of outrage from the industry in the UK. The Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) claimed that if the recommendations had been fully implemented it would have been "fairly tragic".[63] Other fishermen displayed a lack of faith in the objectivity of the process, claiming that it was introduced because "scientists appear to have no clear idea of the status of most commercial stocks" and that only the UK had accepted the new rules to the detriment of its industry.[64] The primary cause of complaint was the manner of its introduction. The North East of Scotland Fishermen's Organisation said that it had been "sprung on the industry",[65] while the NFFO talked of it being "parachuted in at a very high level at a very late stage in last year's quota negotiations".[66] The NFFO was clear that it had been the decision of the ACFM to introduce the approach without discussion or notice,[67] and it described the ACFM's recommendations as embodying "a very extreme, arbitrary, capricious approach to the precautionary principle" by suggesting an immediate change and more drastic reductions than the industry had expected.[68] As a result, the trust which scientists in the UK had been at pains to build up with the industry took "a severe knock" in the midst of "a public relations disaster".[69]

26. The NFFO did suggest that the "scientists themselves were surprised by that turn of events".[70] Dr Horwood, the scientist in charge of stock assessment in England and Wales, accepted this, adding "I have some sympathy with the fishing industry in this matter".[71] He advised us that in fact the recommendations made by the ACFM were "very little different from the advice and the numbers that they would have given under the previous system",[72] and he later supplied a note which indicated that in his opinion the advice would have been the same or similar for all stocks.[73] His "real concern" was that "I do not believe that enough time was given for the industry, in all its width, to have seen it and to have prepared itself for it and I believe that ICES introduced it a little early."[74] We agree with Dr Horwood's assessment. Whilst we endorse the precautionary approach to fisheries management, we believe that much more planning, consultation and forethought should have been put into its implementation by the ACFM. As it is, we deplore the damage done to the relationship between scientists and fishermen by the abrupt introduction of this method and we recommend that the Government ensure that any future changes in the approach, as are inevitable as the system beds down, be made only once they have been fully explained to the industry and its views taken into consideration.

RESEARCH IN THE UK

Organisation

27. Research into fish stocks in the UK is conducted by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), the Scottish Executive's Fisheries Research Services (FRS) and the Agriculture and Environmental Science Division of the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland. CEFAS which serves England and Wales is an executive agency, as is the equivalent body for Scotland, the FRS. In the course of this inquiry, witnesses from CEFAS appeared twice before us and we ourselves visited the FRS Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen. We would like to record our admiration for the expertise, enthusiasm and motivation of those scientists we met. Contributions to marine science in the UK also come from the SFIA (a non-departmental public body which concentrates on economic and technology research), other research organisations and universities.[75]

28. This organisational arrangement suggests a potential for overlap and duplication of research efforts. The Chief Executive of CEFAS assured us that this was not the case. He said that there was "a plethora of mechanisms"[76] for coordination between the laboratories, with committees spanning all three agricultural departments to review the programmes. The FRS and CEFAS performed similar functions to each other but had areas of specialism unique to themselves. Dr Greig-Smith saw what duplication there was as "healthy" in that it allowed the laboratories to review one another's efforts and to take slightly different approaches to the same problem in order to find the best way forward.[77] He also drew our attention to the Fisheries Science Customer Group which meets annually to commission reviews of particular research projects.[78] In addition, Mr Wentworth of MAFF and Professor Alasdair McIntyre, the retired head of the Aberdeen Marine Laboratory, stressed the informal discussions which take place between scientists.[79] Professor McIntyre concluded that "nowadays duplication is minimal",[80] partly because of funding pressures. Speaking for the industry, the NFFO could not identify any areas of overlap and pointed to the work undertaken by both the laboratories and the SFIA on gear technology as a positive development, adding that "just because there are two separate organisations looking at the same broad area does not necessarily mean that there is overlap, although it certainly means that there needs to be a high degree of co-ordination".[81] It appears that the current mechanisms do ensure that there is little unnecessary duplication between the activities of the various research institutions. We believe that with devolution altering the management of some of these programmes it would be wise to review these arrangements to make sure duplication does not occur. We recommend that this be done.

29. Dr Greig-Smith pointed out that the co-ordination of research was not confined to the UK but extended internationally through the work carried out for ICES.[82] Evidently the requirement to supply certain data on stocks to ICES for the TAC-setting process acts as a discipline for the UK research laboratories but Professor McIntyre also highlighted the indirect benefit of ICES in bringing researchers from the member countries together to talk about their work.[83] These contacts encourage the development of collaborative projects and we were impressed by the examples provided by MAFF to "illustrate the large scale national and international collaboration that is a necessary feature of the conduct of fisheries science".[84] These ranged from stock assessment through gear technology to research into the environmental impact of fishing. When we visited the Marine Laboratory in Vigo, we heard Spanish scientists put a similar value on collaborative research and were given a long list of projects undertaken with UK institutions including Government laboratories and universities. Again, we were reassured by this evidence. Given the international concern for the sustainability of stocks and the recognition that the principles of fisheries management extend beyond domestic boundaries, it is vital that scientists work together to improve their knowledge of the sea and to develop the least environmentally damaging methods of catching fish. We are pleased that the UK is playing such a strong role in collaborative research.

28 Q 1066. Back

29 Q 174; see also, Ev. p.39. Back

30 Q 32. Back

31 Ev. p.190, paras 5 and 6. Back

32 Ev. p. 6, para 2.18. Back

33 Q 1082. Back

34 Ev. p. 6, para 2.18. Back

35 Ev. p.247. Back

36 Q 1084. Back

37 Q 1079. Back

38 Q 136. Back

39 Ibid. Back