Struan Stevenson: Further cuts to fishing quotas must be stopped

YOU would be forgiven for thinking that the UK was involved in just one set of important EU negotiations this month.

But as the world digests the implications of last week’s Eurozone crisis summit, Scotland’s beleaguered fishermen turn their attentions to another set of vital talks kicking off tomorrow in Brussels.

Scotland’s whitefish fleet is facing make-or-break decisions as UK and Scottish fisheries ministers join their European counterparts at the latest EU Fisheries Council meeting. Fisheries ministers across Europe must be convinced that further cuts in days at sea, over and above those already proposed by EU scientists under the Cod Recovery Plan, would devastate the Scottish fleet.

These further cuts, suggested by the European Commission, are without justification and a betrayal of Scots fishermen who had previously been incentivised to trial CCTV in exchange for additional days at sea, in a bid to banish discards.

The EC was not slow to praise the success of that pilot, which made it all the more bewildering when it was announced that the extra days given to the fishermen were illegal and would be clawed back in 2012, reducing Scotland’s whitefish fleet to around four days’ fishing per fortnight.

That’s like ordering Tesco or Asda to close for ten days every fortnight and expecting them to survive as a business: an outrage.

The deeply flawed Cod Recovery Plan is meant to protect that species from overfishing by allowing only limited catch quotas of cod in the North Sea. But Scots fishermen have seen 60 per cent of their fleet scrapped because of the restrictions imposed under the plan and EC scientists demand ever stricter restrictions, even though it is far from clear the species is at risk any longer.

There is little doubt that our fishing stocks need protection. Yet the EC has consistently proven that it is unable to gather sufficient data to protect the fish that are most at risk. Instead it regulates first and asks questions later, with livelihoods in our coastal communities suffering.

The Fisheries Council must agree a way that makes it see sense before it is too late.

• Struan Stevenson is a Conservative Euro MP