MP travels to Brussels to pursue fishing fleet's fight for fairer quota
The fight to secure a fairer share of the fishing quota for the Hastings fleet has made it to Europe.
Hastings MP Michael Foster travelled to Brussels last week to meet with officials in the European Commissions Directorate of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
UK government officials have so far been claming that they are limited by EU rules in the quota allocations which see the under-10-metre class of boats receive just three per cent of the catch.
However, Mr Foster was keen to discover whether those rules were amendable and, more especially, what discretion the UK government has.
"It was a useful meeting", said the MP on returning to Hastings.
"As a consequence I am now demanding a meeting with the secretary of state Hilary Benn and asking that he intervene.
"Since the beginning of the year, local fishermen have been limited to 100 stone of cod each month.
"This is wholly unsustainable and is based on a provisional allocation of 101 tonnes for 2010.
"What I discovered in Brussels was that our allocation had already been increased to 181 tonne, which is a virtual doubling of the original provision and more than last year, but EU governments have not yet approved the settlement that EU officials had brokered with Norway, the other party involved.
"I am therefore asking the British government to unblock the logjam and at least get the fish which Europe has agreed should be made available.
"It is frustrating that we need to go into this sort of detail to get a fair outcome but I am determined that neither the EU nor the UK government would be permitted to take our fishermen's living away through some bureaucratic confusion."
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Weather for Bexhill-on-Sea
Monday 13 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 2 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
