Rethink fishing laws (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Rethink fishing laws

3:30pm Monday 23rd February 2009 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus

SIR – Conservative MEPs are fighting plans in Brussels that would threaten Yorkshire sea anglers and see this ancient pastime brought under the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy. The CFP sets quotas for the amount of fish commercial vessels can bring back to the UK. However, this new law would require all recreational fishermen around the Yorkshire coast to register their boats too, and whatever they catch would also be counted against the fisheries quota for the UK.

Not only is this going to make this important sport and tourist industry a bureaucratic nightmare, it will also damage an important tourist activity.

Recreational anglers pump a lot of money into the tourism sector, often in remote, rural areas. During a recession it would be perverse to undermine this activity. We are calling for fundamental root and branch reform of the EU’s fisheries policy, which has been extremely damaging to our fishermen while doing little to preserve fish stocks.

This proposal is entirely the wrong way to go about reform, and we are already mounting a large campaign to make the European Commission think again.

Timothy Kirkhope, MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, Beechwood Farm, Main Street, Scotton, North Yorkshire