Fishing

Fishing: pre-Brexit

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The UK fleet has the second-largest total catch (in terms of landed weight) and the second-largest fleet size (in gross tonnage terms) in the EU. However, the UK fishing industry is a relatively small part of the UK economy.

There are two sectors: fishing, which includes aquaculture (mainly salmon and trout) and seafood processing. The seafood processing sector is complex, conducting both primary and secondary processing of fish caught within the UK and imported from elsewhere. For example, significant amounts of European cod are (amazingly) exported to China for primary processing (e.g. filleting) before being re-imported to the UK for secondary processing (e.g. breading).

See Table 8.6 for the key statistics for 2016:

• Fishing accounted for £0.7bn or 0.04% of the UK economy (7% of the GVA of the agriculture and farming sector).
• Fishing employed 12,000 people, less than 0.04% of the UK 2016 workforce of 31.7 million
• Seafood processing employed 18,000 FTEs.
• UK was a net importer with an overall trade deficit of £1.4bn but a trade surplus with EU of £0.1 billion.
  • EU was the major market for UK exports of unprocessed fish (accounting for 67% of UK exports of £1.6 billion in 2016).
  • UK imported £3.1bn of fish (31% from the EU). Non-EU countries such as Norway, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and China supply the vast majority of UK imports.
• UK vessels landed around 400,000 tonnes of fish each year in the UK, and between 200,000 and 300,000 tonnes abroad.

Positive trends in UK fishing

The UK was a leading aquaculture producer within the EU (top by value, second to top by production tonnage in 2015). Norway is a much bigger producer, producing more than the whole of the EU28 – mainly Atlantic salmon and trout. The EU has bilateral agreements with non-EU countries covering access and fishing opportunities. In the North Atlantic, the EU has fisheries agreements with Norway and the Faroe Islands.

As Table 8.7 shows, the fishing industry’s contribution to the economy had increased over the last decade while the landings increased from 2014 onwards, but the fleet became slightly smaller and employed fewer fishermen.

Between 2012 and 2014, 58% of fish and shellfish caught in the UK’s water was landed by fishing boats from other EU countries.  This represented an annual average of about 650,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish. In the same period, UK fishing boats were estimated to have landed an annual average of 90,000 tonnes of fish and shellfish, caught in other EU member states’ waters.

The industry received EU funding for science, enforcement and direct industry support. The UK was allocated €243m under the new European Maritime and Fisheries Fund for the period 2014-2020. In addition, UK research institutes and consultancies were also funded by the European Commission to carry out specific research projects or ongoing work focused on fishing or aquaculture.

Table 8.7: UK fishing statistics	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	Post-TCA —>	2021	2022	2023	2024
GVA: fishing and aquaculture
£ million, current prices	662	670	764	651	896	805		808	826	865	888
CVM index, 2023 =100	98	98	96	89	101	116		97	85	100	105
Landings
By UK vessels
Tonnes (000s)	709	701	727	700	622	634		655	645	719	745
£ million	776	947	988	1,003	987	861		943	1,052	1,105	1,159
Abroad
Tonnes (000s)	293	256	291	271	231	254		260	247	279	269
£ million	223	253	259	262	225	254		247	261	289	299
In UK
Tonnes (000s)	416	446	435	429	391	380		395	398	441	476
£ million	553	693	728	747	774	606		696	791	815	860
Trade
Imports
Tonnes (000s)	680	729	704	674	726	675		670	646	611	633
£ million	2,672	3,069	3,197	3,193	3,474	3,219		3,219	3,658	3,452	3,455
Exports
Tonnes (000s)	442	440	459	448	454	425		349	330	336	380
£ million	1,337	1,638	1,904	1,789	2,014	1,632		1,624	1,728	1,731	1,957
Net imports
Tonnes (000s)	238	289	245	226	272	250		322	316	274	253
£ million	1,335	1,431	1,293	1,404	1,460	1,587		1,595	1,930	1,721	1,498
Workforce/fleet
Fishers	12,107	11,757	11,692	11,961	12,043	11,298		10,724	10,000	Paused	Paused
Fishing fleet – vessels	6,187	6,191	6,148	6,036	5,911	5,783		5,783	5,541	5,418	5,232
Fishing fleet – tonnage	187,371	185,734	187,014	191,178	198,013	203,196		201,719	203,272	199,894	198,959
Tonnage/vessel	30.3	30.0	30.4	31.7	33.5	35.1		34.9	36.7	36.9	38.0
Source: HMG, Marine Management Organisation, UK sea fisheries annual statistics

Sources:
House of Commons, UK Sea Fisheries Statistics, December 2017
Seafish, 2016 and 2018 Seafood Processing Reports
Seafish, 2017 Provisional UK/EU seafood trade summary, February 2018
Marine Management Organisation, UK sea fisheries annual statistics reports

 

Common Fisheries Policy

The EU has sole competence for the conservation of fishing stocks and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). (For more on competences, see sovereignty and law). The CFP came into being in the 1970s and has been through several updates, the most recent of which took effect on 1 January 2014. The 2014 reform changed the way in which the CFP is managed, giving EU countries greater control at national and regional levels

The objective of the CFP is for fishing to be environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. The impact of fishing on the fragile marine environment is not yet fully understood, so the CFP is cautious and recognises the impact of human activity on all parts of the marine ecosystem. It seeks to make fishing fleets more selective in what they catch, and to phase out the practice of discarding unwanted fish.

The CFP gives all EU fishing fleets equal access to EU waters and fishing grounds (treated as a common EU resource) and allows fishermen to compete fairly. The CFP provides a set of rules for managing EU fishing fleets and for conserving fish stocks. These include:

• Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and quotas for key fish stocks for each EU member to be agreed each December, as well as limits on days at sea (effort) for non-quota stocks;
• Directly applicable fisheries management legislation, including on detailed technical measures (for example, types of fishing equipment that can be used) and control and enforcement.

Each country’s quotas are based on historical catch records dating back to 1973. Member states distribute their share of the quota between fishermen using transparent and objective criteria. Defra allocates the UK quotas, and has allowed the sale of UK quotas to buyers from other EU countries. These sales increase the EU share of UK fish.

Other regulation

The fishing industry is subject to other pieces of EU regulation, for example, environmental rules:

• Habitats Directive provides for member states to create an EU system of protected sites, including in the marine area, and affords protection to certain marine species, such as cetaceans;
• Marine Strategy Framework Directive obligates member states to designate protected areas and requires member states to impose environmental controls to protect those areas; and
• Water Framework Directive requires integrated management of surface water bodies (rivers, lakes, streams, estuaries and coastal waters) and groundwater (water in aquifers) to protect and enhance the environment

Source: Committee for Exiting the EU, Sectoral Report – Fisheries, December 2017

 

Access arrangements

EU member states share access to one another’s’ Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and territorial (inshore) waters. The EEZ is adjacent to the territorial sea (12-mile limit) and extends up to 200 nautical miles from a country’s coast. Where the EEZs of two adjacent countries overlap, a median line is defined equidistant from the two countries’ coastlines to separate their respective EEZs. Figure 8.6 shows the UK EEZ and those of neighbouring coastal states.

The Scottish fishing fleet depends relatively little on non-UK waters, but the English fleet traditionally catches its fish in Irish, French and Norwegian waters.

Access arrangements under the CFP are as follows:

• 0–6 nautical miles:
  • National vessels only unless permitted under voisinage (neighbourhood) agreements between adjacent member states. The UK has two voisinage agreements:
    • Granville Bay which allows French and Jersey vessels mutual access to each other’s territorial waters;
    • UK-Republic of Ireland which allows the Republic of Ireland and UK vessels mutual access to each other’s 0–6 mile limit.
• 6–12 nautical miles:
  • National vessels and vessels from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, have access to specified areas of the UK 6-12 mile zone, for specified species.
  • UK vessels have some reciprocal access to the 6–12 mile zones of France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland. There is no third country access to the UK 6–12 mile zones;
• 12–200 nautical miles:
  • EU waters, shared access between all Member States. Norway and the Faroe Islands are the only third countries to have access to the UK 12–200 mile zone for certain species.
  • Reciprocal access for UK vessels into Norwegian and Faroese waters.

Source: Committee for Exiting the EU, Sectoral Report – Fisheries, December 2017

 

Source: House of Lords European Union Committee, Brexit:Fisheries, December 2016

 

Fishing: expected Brexit impact

The Government announced its intention to introduce a Fisheries Bill in the 2017 Queen’s Speech, which will: “Enable the UK to control access to its waters and set UK fishing quotas once it has left the EU.” 

It was deceptively appealing to think that the UK could simply reassert an exclusive right over the whole of its EEZ. However, trade with the EU was critical for the future of the fishing industry.

The House of Commons briefing paper identified the main issues that the Government needed to address:

• A new mechanism to enable the UK to negotiate and agree annual fishing quotas with the EU and other countries;
• Introduction of a UK fisheries management and enforcement system. This in many respects may mirror the existing arrangements for managing fisheries, albeit with additional resources required;
• Restrictions on EU market access for fishery products (depending on the outcome of negotiations) and less influence in discussions on determining EU market rules for fish;
• Less certainty around public funding of support for fishing communities or environmental sustainability;
• Issues related to possible changes to the protection of the marine environment.

As the Parliamentary Committee on Exiting the EU concluded:

“There is a likelihood that the Government may come under pressure to balance the negotiations over a future fisheries relationship, including quota shares and access arrangements, against the negotiations over trade in fish products with the EU.”

The fishing sector required much more government attention than the size of the sector indicated, given considerations such as:

• Value and growth potential of the marine fishing sector depends on the sustainable use of fish stocks.
• Need to maintain and sustain fish stocks.
• Importance of the sector to coastal communities.
• Complexity of annual/periodic negotiations with the EU and other coastal states to determine fishing opportunities.

Tariff-free access was essential

Separately, the House of Lords took evidence from fishing industry and trade specialists. The vast majority of witnesses agreed that tariff-free access to the Single Market for fish and fish products was essential. Following Brexit, the UK could lose this.

The UK needed to reach agreement with the EU on quotas and access to each other’s waters. It also needed to minimise trade barriers and border delays, secure effective conservation of UK fisheries and avoid conflict at sea with its neighbours. The EU was likely to resist any attempt to reset the well-established basis for quota allocation. As a result, any agreed post-Brexit quotas was likely to be on terms close to the status quo. (However, given climate change and fish migration northwards to cooler waters, the allocations used since the 1970s were likely to be revised).

The UK would have to comply with EU market regulations to export fishery products to the EU. However, post-Brexit UK was likely to have little influence over any new regulations. 

International law

Brexit UK will continue to be subject to international law on fisheries management. These laws require coastal states to cooperate with neighbouring coastal states to manage and sustain fish stocks. They includes the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA).

Under UNCLOS, coastal states have jurisdiction over their EEZs (up to 200 miles offshore or the median line between coastal states). A coastal state has the right to exploit, develop, manage and conserve all the natural resources (including fish) found in the waters of the EEZ, and on the ocean floor and in the subsoil of its continental shelf.

International law requires coastal states to cooperate with other states where stocks straddle two or more EEZs, the EEZ and the high seas, or where the stock is a highly migratory species. This is the case for virtually all stocks fished by the UK.

Source:
Parliament, EU Select Committee, Fisheries and Trade, 2016
House of Commons Library, Brexit: What next for UK fisheries?, Briefing Paper, July 2017