Despite two years of campaigning to save the UK fishing industry in distant waters, UK Fisheries Ltd’s state-of-the-art vessel Kirkella (pictured), a cod and haddock freezer trawler and part of the fleet UK Distant Waters Fishing, is again tied up in Hull.

UK fisheries still do not have access to Norwegian coastal waters where our crews are expected to be working at this time.

The company said in a statement this week that it provided “A clear and straightforward negotiating roadmap for the government that, without costing taxpayers a dime, would guarantee us a quota of arctic cod in the Norwegian zone, guarantee good jobs for our crews and financial security for their families, and would result in an additional investment of up to £ 100million in the fishing industry in the Humberside area, on top of the £ 120million our owners have already invested there.

“But despite the support of all parties nationally as well as from local politicians in the North East of England, and despite the sheer common sense of the argument that we should subordinate access without rights from customs to our markets to the Norwegians to offering us access to their waters, the government has not yet taken this logical step. The UK continues to give Norway something for nothing, and it is our crews and our industry that are suffering. “

UK Fisheries calls on the UK government:

• Negotiate quotas with third countries which are not lower than those of the British fleet if the country had remained in the EU.

• In Norway, this means accepting at least 16.95,000 tonnes of Arctic cod out of the 25,000 tonnes reserved for third countries by Norway in its economic zone. If the government were ambitious and got the full 25,000 tonnes, it would create a much needed expansion of the UK fleet into distant waters with new jobs and secure an additional £ 60-100million investment in the fleet.

• Now that the UK has admitted in the trade and cooperation agreement that trade and access to fisheries are linked, the UK must deploy its independent market power to secure the best deals with Norway, the UK. Greenland and Iceland for its fishermen.

• If these countries do not allow the UK’s distant water fleet to access their waters, the UK must impose tariffs of 10 to 25 percent on their exports of fish and fishery products to the UK United to compensate for any loss of access to their waters.

Image: By Mowgli786 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https: //commons.wikimedia.org / …

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