Until recently, Newlyn in Cornwall was the largest fishing port left in England. Last week a banner headline over two pages of Fishing News read "Newlyn reels under £188,000 penalties – port's netting fleet decimated". What has left the town stunned, wondering how long its fishing industry can survive, is the latest step in a court case which has left 14 local residents, several in their 70s and 80s, facing heavy fines and the threat of imprisonment, forcing most to sever family links with fishing that go back generations. When the final step comes in May, involving the trawler firm Stevenson's, the town's largest employer, it is feared this could wipe out Newlyn as a fishing port, Nothing better summed up the poignancy of this case than the sight of 82-year old Doreen Hicks weeping in the dock after being given a criminal record, fines and costs of £3,500, on threat of imprisonment, just because she was named as a part-owner of her family's fishing boat. As much as any episode I have come across in 20 years of reporting on the destruction of Britain's fishing industry, this case has shown how there are two different ways of looking at this long-drawn-out tragedy. From one point of view, the facts were clearcut. The 14 defendants, fishermen and their families who happened to have a part-share in six elderly fishing boats, were accused of selling £140,000-worth of hake and other fish back in 2002 which they had illegally mis-recorded as other species because they didn't have the required EU quota. After a six year investigation by officials of the Marine Fisheries Agency (MFA) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the 14 last year pleaded guilty. Having delayed sentencing for nearly a year, with a ban on press reporting of the case, Judge Phillip Wassell, claiming that plenty of hake quota had been available at the time, showed no sympathy for what he called "a deliberate, complex and well-organised series of deceptions". He imposed fines and costs on the defendants totalling £188,000, with prison sentences for non-payment. An MFA spokesman, echoing the judge's claim that plenty of quota was available, exulted at the punishment of this "environmental and financial crime". Also supporting the judge and officials was Charles Clover in The Daily Telegraph who, under the headline "Fishing pirates of Newlyn caught in law's net", described the defendants as "the self-serving fiddlers of Newlyn who conspired to wipe out our marine resources for private gain". Among those facing fines and possible imprisonment were 83-year old Mrs Hicks, Donald Turtle, 82, and his wife Joan, 71, as part-owners of boats skippered by their sons. Judge Wassell conceded they might not have known about the "conspiracy", but they deserved punishment for having "benefited" from the crime. From the fishermen's point of view the story looks rather different. Hake were abundant around Cornwall in 2002, but EU quotas were so tiny that the fishermen could catch their entire month's allowance in a single haul, making it virtually impossible to earn a living. This was why they logged their over-quota catches as different species. Although Judge Wassell claimed that quota had been available, the court had heard no evidence on this (the fishermen themselves were not permitted to speak in their own defence). But the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation, responsible for individual quota allocations, insists that virtually no extra quota was available in 2002. It was so dismayed by the judge's comments that it has asked for a transcript of his judgment. In response to accusations that the men acted solely out of "greed", Mrs Turtle says: "It was need, not greed – most weeks our men come home having earned less than the minimum wage." Ironically, since 2002, the Newlyn fishermen, working with government scientists, have convinced both Defra and Brussels that Cornish hake stocks had been so underestimated that fishing for hake is now "unrestricted". But of those six Newlyn boats, only two are still in full-time fishing. One skipper, John Turtle, now working on a North Sea supply vessel, says: "Defra has broken the back of the Newlyn fleet. I haven't got any fight left in me to return to fishing." Another skipper, Shaun Williams, now working as a lorry driver, says: "I wanted to leave a good industry for my son to join, but that industry is now very, very sick and struggling to survive." The final blow for Newlyn could come in May, when Stevenson's comes up for sentencing, after its records have been trawled through under the Proceeds of Crime Act, designed to seize the assets of terrorists and international drug dealers. Last year this was used by the MFA to wipe out three small fishing businesses in the Thames Estuary, when fishermen were forced to sell boats and homes to pay punitive fines. The quota system being enforced in this ever more draconian fashion is the one which every year forces fishermen to throw countless millions of saleable fish dead back into the sea. Even the EU's fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg, calls it "immoral". But what is even more startling about the disaster created by the Common Fisheries Policy has been the uniquely ruthless zeal with which Britain's officials have set out to enforce its "immoral" rules on our own fishermen – with the enthusiastic support of judges (and even some journalists) who seem quite unable to recognise the human tragedy involved. Another British industry which may soon disappear, thanks to our masters in Brussels, is production of that remarkably useful metal aluminium. Although we rank only 19th in the world production league, our two main plants, in Anglesey and Northumberland, are as efficient as any of their competitors. But aluminium relies heavily on constant supplies of electricity. The Holyhead plant, Wales's largest electricity user, is supplied at a discount price by the nearby Wylfa nuclear power station, state-owned through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authoritty (NDA). If the NDA was privately owned, it says it would be happy to carry on selling power to its largest customer at a discount. But under EU state-aid rules this is now "against the law". So it was announced last week that Holyhead is to close next September, with the loss of 500 jobs. The Northumberland plant at Lynemouth uses its own coal-fired power station to produce even more aluminium than Anglesey. But Brussels has ruled that, because it fails to comply with the EU's Large Combustion Plants directive, it too will have to close, losing 600 more jobs and almost all that remains of our aluminium production. As ever more of British industry disappears, with Lord Mandelson predicting that even the City of London will emerge from the slump much reduced, it seems we shall soon have to live on air. Then, when Brussels discovers that air contains carbon dioxide, calling for yet more regulation, will even that be beyond our reach?How Defra crushed British fishermen
A draconian quota sytem forces fishermen to throw countless millions of saleable fish dead back into the sea, writes Christopher Booker.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
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