Plymouth City Council’s leader says the city’s fishing industry has been “betrayed” by the Brexit deal and is to ask the Government for more financial support.
The recommendation to seek cash until at least April 2022 came from a special scrutiny committee approved by the council’s Labour Cabinet.
Leader Tudor Evans, Labour, said the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement had “betrayed” the fishing industry, which supports about 2,000 jobs in Plymouth.
The committee investigated the impact on the industry of leaving the European Union customs union and single market on January 1, 2021.
Fishers, merchants, processors and consultants told a hearing in February that Brexit and the Covid pandemic had caused the “perfect storm” and had fallen short of promises to take back control of UK waters.
Fishermen said that the post-Brexit trade deal had failed to deliver the increased catch they were hoping for, and still allowed EU boats access to UK waters between six and 12 miles off-shore. Processors said extra costs and paperwork were hitting exports to the EU which account for four-fifths of trade.
Recommendations from the committee approved by the council’s Cabinet set out a series of measures to support local fishing communities and businesses.
They included asking the Government to continue to seek a “fairer share” of the western channel quota of cod, haddock and sole, which are important to the West Country fleet.
Cllr Darren Winter, who chaired the investigation hearing, told the Cabinet that the Government should support fishing businesses and offset any losses resulting from the changes.
The Labour councillor said the industry felt betrayed by the deal and the Government had “spectacularly failed”. He added: “The fishermen were promised everything, they received nothing.”
Cllr Evans said the council had heard evidence from the people who were suffering due to what was described as a “terrible” deal. He said the “abject failure” of the Government was to allow French and Spanish trawlers to fish within sight of the English coast in the western channel.
The Labour leader said ministers were trying to pretend there was a huge uplift in quota, which had not happened. He said people had been lied to, and the Government had “betrayed the fishing community.”
The council leader said the authority would do all it could to support the industry locally at Sutton Harbour. He added: “It is not just the business proposition, it is an assault on the community and a way of life, and it did not have to happen.
“These false promises need to be called out and held to account, and we will do everything we can to make sure that happens too.”
The trade deal for fishing means EU boats will continue to fish in UK waters for some years to come, but UK fishing boats will get a greater share of the fish from UK waters, with a quarter of the EU catch transferred to British boats over five years.
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The change will be phased in up to 2026, and after that there will be annual talks to decide the share of the catch. The UK would have the right to completely exclude EU boats after 2026 but the EU could respond with taxes on exports of British fish to the EU or by denying UK boats access to EU waters.
Prime minister Boris Johnson, announcing the trade deal in December 2020, said it meant the UK’s share of fish in its waters “rising substantially” and the industry would benefit from a £100million modernisation programme.
He said it meant for the first time since 1973 the UK would be “an independent coastal state with full control of our waters with the UK’s share of fish in our waters rising substantially from roughly half today to closer to two-thirds in five and a half years’ time after which there is no theoretical limit beyond those placed by science or conservation on the quantity of our own fish that we can fish in our waters.”
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