European and External Relations Committee, 09 Nov 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Official Report 233KB pdf

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European Union Fisheries Control Agency

Item 3 is on the remit and functions of the EU fisheries control agency. Members have in front of them a committee paper, EU/S2/04/18/3, from Mr Morrison.

This is a holding paper to bring the committee up to speed with where I am. With the help of the clerks and the Scottish Parliament information centre I have written to a number of organisations, which are listed on page 4. Those are by no means the only organisations that I could have written to, but we jointly believe that they represent a geographic spread of fishermen's associations and other relevant organisations. The key issues are identified on page 3. I am hesitant to ask members whether I have omitted an issue of overriding concern, but I would like to hear from them. Given that no one has spoken I will assume that that is fine and that you all agree.

Not so fast, Mr Morrison. You did not have the chairman's eye for that remark.

Can you confirm that it is your intention that we should consider enforcement outside European Union waters, in adjacent waters? I think that the issue is covered by the bullet points, but I want to get confirmation of that. Reference is made to "Norway, Russia etc." Are we talking about EU waters, or will we extend our thoughts to the control of fisheries outside EU waters?

I will take a number of comments, Alasdair, and then I will ask you to close.

I have a query that Alasdair might be able to answer immediately. It seems to me that a lot of equipment and resource will be required. I worry about who will supply that and who will direct its use. Perhaps Alasdair could pick up on that and tell me where it is covered within his future intentions.

I thank Alasdair for the work that he has done to date. It seems to me that it is reasonable to ask SPICe, as is suggested on page 4, to provide a short background paper on some of the key issues.

I note that Alasdair hopes to produce the draft report by 23 November. That is obviously a tight timescale. I give my endorsement to ensuring that support is available to him from SPICe. There is also a new EU legal adviser in the Scottish Parliament; I hope that that will also be of assistance.

On the point about the deadline being 23 November, given our previous conversation, I wonder whether Alasdair could perhaps be given another fortnight to produce the report. The council meeting has been postponed and those issues are popping up all over the place. In light of our having said that we will take only evidence on 23 November, I wonder whether we could put the deadline back. However, I recognise that that is up to the committee.

The point that I am most mindful of in relation to the timescale is that the European Parliament reports to the council meeting. The timetable for the council meeting should not affect that. As there is a parliamentary timetable, my main concern is to ensure that the committee has the opportunity to have an input into the work that Elspeth Attwooll is doing before the deadline, which seems to be 24 November. I suspect that the committee meeting on 23 November is the less stressed of the two, so I would rather that we keep to the original timescale—hard though it will be to draw the work to a conclusion within that period.

The first and third bullet points on the "Key issues identified", on page 3 of the paper, are very much interlinked and are at the centre of the issues that the previous discussions indicated are of concern to the committee. In my view, we must be certain that nothing comes out of the European Union fisheries control agency that undermines the commitments that have been given on the decentralisation of fisheries management through the fisheries advisory councils. It would be unfortunate for there to be growing confidence that more control will be exercised locally by fisheries management councils, only to find that power haemorrhaging to the European Union fisheries control agency. The committee has identified that as the central concern, so it should be the issue on which we should concentrate our thinking.

I agree with where you place the emphasis, convener, with regard to the areas that we are going to look at over the next fortnight or so. I undertake to e-mail colleagues, before a week on Friday, with a rough draft and an update on the tone of the representations that we have had from various organisations. I can get that information to all members by a week on Friday and then report, as originally scheduled, on 23 November, taking in the matters that have been raised by John Home Robertson and Phil Gallie. Sadly, Margaret Ewing's reasonable point has been butted out.