‘ EUdealisvitalfor fishingindustry’
TRADE: ONE of the region’s Conservative MPs has warned that fisheries on the North Yorkshire coast are dependent on negotiators securing a trade deal with the European Union.
MP Robert Goodwill expressed his concerns over exports from his constituency being subject to delays at the border or to tariffs.
ONE OF the region’s Conservative MPs has warned that fisheries on the North Yorkshire coast are dependent on negotiators securing a trade deal with the European Union.
Scarborough and Whitby MP Robert Goodwill expressed his concerns over exports from his constituency being subject to delays at the border or to tariffs should the UK fail to secure a deal by the end of the year.
And speaking to The Yorkshire Post’s Pod’s Own Country podcast, he claimed the Government’s new Fisheries Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, aims to implement controls on foreign vessels seeking to access UK fishing waters and would benefit North Yorkshire as it would help to maintain fishing stock.
However, he warned that negotiations with the EU, as a separate point, also had to progress well for the region to truly prosper.
Mr Goodwill said: “The cod that you will be served in a fish and chip shop in Yorkshire, possibly or probably will have been caught in Icelandic waters by an Icelandic vessel, shipped down to Grimsby and maybe processed then or put into the market.
“The sort of species that we catch a lot of in the North Sea, a lot of those fish are actually exported to France and Spain.
“And, of course, in my own constituency, Whitby and Scarborough, and Bridlington in particular, a big shellfish port, we have an amazingly productive crab and lobster fishery off the coast.”
He added: “The majority of those are exported to lucrative markets in France or Spain, and they’re exported live in tanks, so you can’t have bureaucracy, you can’t have delays, those lorries need to go straight across the Channel on a boat or through the tunnel and get to markets quickly.
“Even an eight- hour delay can mean dead lobsters in the tanks, which are not marketable.”
Speaking as the Fisheries Bill was debated in the Commons earlier in the week, Mr Goodwill, a former Fisheries Minister, said no- one in the industry had ever welcomed the common fisheries policy, which gives all European fishing fleets equal access to EU waters to create fair competition.
He said: “We can over time get back control of more of the fish because more than half the fish in the North Sea are caught by foreign vessels.”
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said earlier in the week that he was “worried and disappointed” over a lack of concessions and said there would be no agreement if the UK did not budge over fisheries.
But the Prime Minister’s official spokesman accused the EU of refusing to engage with “proposals and documents brought to the table”. The spokesman claimed the EU had insisted that the UK must accept continuing with the fisheries policy and disregard the UK’s status as an “independent coastal state”.
He claimed that there needed to be “more realism from the EU
An eight- hour delay can mean dead lobsters in the tanks. Scarborough and Whitby MP Robert Goodwill said the shellfish are exported live.
on the scale of the change that results from our leaving the EU”.
Informal talks which have been carried out during the past week between Mr Barnier and his UK counterpart David Frost failed to find a breakthrough.
The eighth round of formal negotiations will start in London next week. Both sides want a deal agreed next month to have it in place for the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31.
The Yorkshire Post reported yesterday that Leeds- educated International Trade Secretary Liz Truss had claimed Britain is making “good progress” as it bids to secure trade deals with the USA, Japan and other countries.