The Government has been warned that its flagship post-Brexit fisheries law is “failing” to deliver on promises of revitalised fish stocks and thriving coastal communities.
MPs, environmentalists, and inshore fishermen argue the Fisheries Act, introduced after the UK left the EU’s fisheries policy, continues to allow overfishing and inadequately distributes quotas to support local communities.
This criticism follows the environmental charity Blue Marine Foundation losing a legal challenge. Courts ruled ministers hold wide discretion in allocating quotas, undermining efforts for stricter sustainable management.
Labour MP and chairman of the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), Toby Perkins, said: “The 2020 Fisheries Act, written by the Conservative government during Brexit, is failing to deliver its promise of ‘world class sustainable management of fisheries’.
“Instead, it is allowing the continued overfishing of stocks: more than 50% of fishing opportunities were allocated above scientific advice this year and every year since Brexit.”
But, he said: “Following scientific advice to allow fish stocks to recover in the short-term will mean a more profitable fishing industry in the medium or long-term.”
Mr Perkins said the case brought by Blue Marine showed the Act was not able to able to hold ministers to account for their decisions.
He said the Joint Fisheries Statement, which sets out the policies to achieve the eight objectives in the legislation, including four focused on sustainability, had to be reviewed by law, to assess whether the Act was meeting those objectives.
“This will be an opportunity to implement sustainable fishing, stop discarding and distribute quota more equitably so that generational family fishers don’t continue to lose out to corporate industrial trawlers,” he said.
Rachel Gilmour, Lib Dem MP for Tiverton and Minehead, said: “There are many inherent flaws within the Fisheries Act 2020 that have undermined the positive parts which should have ensured sustainable fishing into the future and healthy seas.
“If the objectives of the Act had been adhered to in practice, the fishing industry would be in a much healthier state than it is now.”
It comes as many fish stocks around the UK face an increasingly dire situation, with scientists advising a 77% reduction in mackerel catches and a “zero catch” for “Northern Shelf” cod fished from the North Sea, English Channel and west of Scotland.
Zero catches are also advised for Celtic Sea cod, haddock, whiting, herring, Irish Sea cod and North Sea horse mackerel.
But quotas have been repeatedly set above recommended levels by the EU and UK, as sustainable management is set against pressure to provide fishing opportunities for the fleet.
And with no sharing agreement among North East Atlantic fishing nations in place for mackerel, catches have run on average 40% higher than scientific advice every year since 2010.
Charles Clover, co-founder of Blue Marine said: “A child of five could tell you that if you catch too many fish this year you won’t have very many left to catch next year or the year after.
“Yet decisions like those have been taken every year since Brexit and the courts have told us they are entirely lawful under the 2020 Fisheries Act.”
He called for a review of the law to be open, transparent and take evidence on what was going wrong.
Quotas for most commercial species are negotiated between the UK, EU and Norway on an annual basis and allocated to fishing businesses – with a longstanding complaint that Britain’s inshore fleet lost out to industrial scale fishers when quota was first allocated in the 1980s and 1990s.
And while the Fisheries Act says quotas should be distributed with regard to issues such as environmental impact and the contribution of fishing to the local community, and incentivise selective techniques, lower energy use and reduced damage to habitat, there are warnings this is not happening.
Martin Yorwarth, an inshore fisherman who wrote the ska shanty Coast Town as a protest about the decline of fishing towns and is the last of 25 fishermen who once fished from Canvey Island in Essex, describes fisheries management as a “farce”.
He said the industrial UK and European fishing lobby still had too much control and warned: “The Fisheries Act ‘wiggle room’ gives them the ability to fish at unsustainable levels.
“Already this law is outdated and needs repealing and fair fisheries management needs implementing.”
A Defra spokesperson said: “We value the hard work and dedication of all those working in our vital fishing industry.
“We are working together with industry through Fisheries Management Plans to ensure we fish sustainably, alongside investing £360 million in a new Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund so the sector can thrive for generations to come.”
