British fishermen would gain a much bigger share of cod, haddock, plaice and other fish caught off the UK coast if we left the EU, according to the fisheries minister.
Ports in which boats lie idle for much of the year could be thriving centres of employment, says George Eustice.
Britain could order French fishermen to stay out of its waters unless France agreed to renegotiate deals over quotas struck in the 1970s, which gave British fishermen a raw deal.
Mr Eustice, who is campaigning to leave the EU, says that the UK fleet is the victim of “historic unfairness” that gives the French up to six times as much quota for key species. He believes that British shoppers would prefer the fish they bought to have been caught by British fishermen.
Last year the UK allocation for cod in the Celtic Sea, an area of the Atlantic off the south coast of Ireland, was 834 tonnes compared with 5,500 tonnes for France.
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For plaice in the Channel, the UK had 1,300 tonnes to France’s 2,600. In the eastern Channel, the UK received 670 tonnes of dover sole and France 1,875 tonnes.
Mr Eustice said that France was probably entitled to slightly more of some stocks than the UK, but nothing like the present disparity. “It probably should be roughly 50-50,” he said.
France had been much more successful at arguing its case when the shares were negotiated.
The quotas were based on what each country’s vessels had caught in the past. “France was very good at saying, ‘We have got all of these landings’.
“Some fishermen feel something funny went on,” he said, adding that the UK may have understated what it was catching.
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In the North Sea, Mr Eustice said that if Britain was outside the EU it would also be able to negotiate a bigger quota of valuable stocks, including mackerel, under a separate negotiating process involving several non-EU countries.
“Norway has a seat at the table, Iceland has a seat at the table, the Faroes have a seat at the table, but, extraordinarily, the UK, the country with the greatest interest in the North Sea, is denied a seat at the table because we are a member of the EU.
“Instead, our technical experts and diplomats are reduced to whispering in the ear of an EU negotiator and hoping they don’t mess it up.”
If Britain left the EU, it would be able to use international law to assert control over waters within 200 miles of its coast or up the median line between it and other countries, Mr Eustice said.
“If push came to shove you would say, ‘We are not giving you access to our waters unless we reach agreement on the reallocation of the share.’
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“The thing that really frustrates fishermen, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, is that they quite often run out of quota and have to tie up their boats but see big French trawlers still fishing in British waters.”
He said that a Britain outside the EU would also be able to argue more strongly for international measures to protect whales, sharks and bluefin tuna.
Stanley Johnson, father of Boris and co-chairman of Environmentalists for Europe, said that the EU had made great progress in reforming the Common Fisheries Policy to help to conserve stocks.
A ban was being phased in on fishermen wasting fish by throwing them back, usually dead, because they are less valuable, too small or the boat has no quota for that species.
He said: “To many people’s surprise, a real and important reform of the CFP is now under way.
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“The economic, social and, above all, environmental gains of this reform (including to the UK) should far exceed any gains that might be achieved through the UK’s withdrawal from the CFP.”
Senior politicians from four parties join forces to set out the environmental benefits of remaining in the EU today. Liz Truss, environment secretary, Ed Miliband, former Labour leader, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, and Ed Davey, former energy secretary, say that the EU helps Britain to protect ocean wildlife, improve air quality and tackle climate change.
Comment: injustice to our trawlermen has changed my mind over Europe
If we take control, we can deliver for our marine environment. I regard myself as pro-European (George Eustice). I like the idea of cooperating with other countries. Indeed for the past 15 years, I had supported the idea of staying in the EU but radically reforming it so that major powers returned to national government and the authority of the European courts could be curtailed.
However, in the event, meaningful reform and renegotiation proved impossible. The sorts of changes I wanted to see were deemed “not negotiable” by diplomats before the prime minister even started. So, I have concluded that the only way to deliver the changes I want to see is to vote to replace our membership of the EU with a new UK-EU partnership, where we would work together on common challenges but no longer accept a pan-European legal system.
If we leave the EU, some things wouldn’t change. The third tranche of Marine Conservation Zones, which are a national initiative, would go ahead as planned. On fisheries, we would still target maximum sustainable yield because if we want a profitable fishery for the future then we must fish sustainably. We would still have a quota system because, while quotas are not perfect, they are the only system that works in a shared fishery with mobile species. We would still strive to eliminate the wasteful practice of discarding dead fish into the sea. Finally, international negotiation will always be crucial to effective fisheries management.
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If we were to vote leave, we would see improvements on many fronts. It would be easier to deliver policy change where change was required. We would be able to take a more assertive role in promoting sustainable fisheries on the world stage because we would no longer be hindered by common EU positions.