Conservatives launch new fisheries policy

The Conservative have unveiled their plans for the future of the UK fishing industry.

The Tories "Green Paper" is reportedly based on the successful policies adapted by countries such as Canada, the USA, Iceland and Norway.

The proposals include a scheme for national and local management to control of the industry, with national government setting a strategic framework.

The plans set out the restoration of the marine environment and the rebuilding the fishing industry as top priorities, and propose that new local bodies should be responsible for the day-to-day managment of fisheries.

The main principles of the new policy include: a ban on discarding commercial species; providing permanent closed areas for conservation; a ban on industrial fishing; a prohibition of production subsidies; zoning of fisheries; measures to promote profitability over volume; and fair and effective enforcement.

Shadow Fisheries Minister, Owen Patterson, emphasised the need for change, criticising the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and branding it "a biological, environmental, economic and social disaster".

He said: "It forces fishermen to throw back more fish dead into the sea than they land, it has caused substantial degradation of the marine environment and it has destroyed much of the fishing industry, with compulsory scrapping of modern vessels and has devastated fishing communities."

However, Labour's Fisheries Minister, Ben Bradshaw, said the Conservatives' policy was "unworkable" and called it "a crude deception on Britain's hard-pressed fishing communities, which will do nothing to conserve stocks".

Mr Bradshaw said: "The Tories cannot explain how they will leave the CFP, while staying in the EU, when no other member state would approve such a move. The choice for any Tory government would be clear – break international law by renouncing a treaty obligation and face the certainty of massive fines in the European Court of Justice – or follow Labour's lead of working hard to reform the Common Fisheries Policy from within."

(KMcA/SP)