1. In 2000 the Association of Sea Fisheries Committees of England and the Sea Fisheries Committees launched ‘1888-2000 and beyond’. This was the first step in a major lobbying campaign to secure improved powers for the Sea Fisheries Committees. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food accepted certain of the points and prepared a ‘handout Bill’. That meant they would find the Parliamentary time not from ‘Government time’ but from that allocated to the opposition parties and backbenchers if one of them wished to bring forward the Bill. The previous Chief Executive of the Association was not able to find an MP to sponsor the Bill.

2. Subsequently, in 2003, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs appointed James Bradley to conduct a Review of Fisheries and Environmental Enforcement. The Association, with the Sea Fisheries Committees, put in two papers in November 2003 and December 2003 and subsequently responded in September 2004 to James Bradley’s Report.

3. The most visible outcome of that report was the creation of the Marine Fisheries Agency of DEFRA on 1 October 2005. This new unit brought together the Sea Fisheries Inspectorate and fishing vessel licensing and management functions previously within DEFRA. The Sea Fisheries Committees continued.

4. Separately the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit had been conducting a study of the fishing industry. Their report ‘Net Benefits’ published in March 2004 said amongst other things that DEFRA should do further work on inshore management. This resulted in the establishment of the English Inshore Fisheries Group (and a separate grouping in Wales). The report from this English Group to the Fisheries Minister in March 2005 broadly recommended the continuation of the Sea Fisheries Committees with their remit extended from 6 – 12 miles and modernised powers and funding arrangements.

5. The Minister announced his acceptance of this on 20 June 2006 though the Committees remit is to remain at 6 miles.

6.ASFC has progressively built and refined its demands in concert with the Sea Fisheries Committees and articulated them in two papers presented to and accepted by the English Inshore Fisheries Group. This paper incorporates the essence of those bids and includes a commentary stemming from my meeting with DEFRA and MFA officials on 11 July 2006. The bids are that new legislation includes powers that could either:

• require the Secretary of State to create any number of inshore management bodies so that the whole of the England (and Wales) Territorial Sea (0-12 miles from baselines) was included within their ambit together with the sea and estuaries behind baselines as well as the land area of each local authority with any sea or estuary coastline; or less satisfactorily,

• permit the Secretary of State to create any number of inshore management bodies upon application.

The Act needs to define the operational area of each inshore management body as extending:

• seawards 12 miles from the point at which baselines are drawn

• shorewards inside baselines to the coast or in estuaries to an agreed point abutting the Environment Agency area of jurisdiction

• inland for the whole of the land area contained within the boundaries of any local authority with a sea or estuarial coastline and including islands.

This arrangement represents an improvement on the 1966 Act in that it is clear that jurisdiction and thus ability to enforce extends inland.

The Act also needs to make plain that the inshore management body’s jurisdiction includes all vessels of whatever nationality working within its district; and that any rules that the bodies make are equally applicable to those vessels.

The Act needs to define the purpose of the inshore management body in the way the 1966 Act does at Section 5.

The Act needs to define the inshore management body’s relationship with the Secretary of State who we now know will continue to sign byelaws into force.

The Act needs to prescribe the membership of the inshore management body. This section will need to address overall numbers and the groups to be represented. These will include local authority representatives, commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, nature conservation interests, and possibly, representatives from DEFRA, Environment Agency and English Nature. It may also be appropriate to describe the operational structure whilst leaving the Secretary of State scope to draw up a detailed scheme.

The legal status of the inshore management body needs to be defined. It might reasonably have corporate status so that it is quite clear that it can own assets. This is an important consideration particularly when advantageous terms on a new build vessel may be available to an owner through lease back or similar arrangements. It also obviates the need for a local authority or government to have to act as guarantor of last resort.

The Act needs to set out the major sources of funding available to the inshore management bodies.

The inshore management bodies require powers to levy a precept on all local authorities with a sea or estuary coastline. There needs to be a complementary duty on all such local authorities to pay that precept.

An obligation needs to be imposed on the Secretary of State to defray the costs of the inshore management bodies when engaged in managing/enforcing national or international obligations. These latter would include:

• enforcing CFP fisheries legislation

• enforcing national fisheries legislation

• managing and enforcing other international obligations including the EC Habitats and Birds Regulations.

The opportunity also needs to be taken to declare that the inshore management bodies can receive funding from the EU or otherwise e.g. as a contribution to the costs of enforcement equipment.

The Act needs to provide that the inshore management bodies can trade on their own account, charge for the provision of services and retain receipts. It needs to make provision for VAT charges and refunds. In addition, if Government decides that access charges are to be imposed on the commercial fleet or on anglers then the Act will need to provide for the inshore management bodies’ role in this.

Provision needs to be made in the Act for Sea Fisheries Committee officers to have powers appropriate to the enforcement of international and domestic fisheries and environmental legislation. In practice these would seem to be British Sea Fisheries Officer powers. In addition, either the powers of a constable as provided by the 1966 Act need to be retained to allow continued enforcement of extant Sea Fisheries Committee byelaws or a considered absorption of those powers into what this papers has assumed will be BSFO powers will need to be provided by the Act.

The Act needs to provide for the Byelaws in force on Royal Assent (or other vesting day) to continue and to be enforced by the existing powers of a constable. It also needs to create a new form of delegated legislation – perhaps similar to that for Road Traffic legislation – so that appropriate localized rules can continue to be made by the new style SFCs.

The final clearance process should be time limited by law.

The new style SFCs will also need a fast track procedure to allow emergency situations to be dealt with in a sensible time frame.

The new style SFCs also need to be able to impose local "effort" control measures.

The offences that can be created within this delegated legislation need to be those current in the majority of fisheries legislation. For example, the offence of "removal from the fishery" derived from the 1966 Act (in fact from its 19^th Century predecessor) needs to give way to "fishing for sale"; "take, retain on board or tranship", "land, transport, store, sell, display, expose or offer for sale" or "possess" as the case demands. The Act also needs to provide for disposal of any fishing gear seized; and to limit the personal liability of officers acting in good faith.

Penalties need to be consistent with those of mainstream fisheries legislation. The current SFC bylaws attract lower penalties that those applied to a similar offence against, for example, a Statutory Instrument, made under the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967. Fishing through, let us say, a closed area is as great an offence to the marine environment whether the prohibition is made by bylaw or Statutory Instrument. The penalty should be identical.

If Government decides to move to administrative penalties for fisheries offences then SFC byelaw offences need to be treated in the same way. It would be invidious for SFC byelaw offences to remain solely on a criminal law footing.

The Sea Fisheries Committees are grantees of Orders under the Sea Fish (Shellfish) Act 1967 and earlier legislation allowing them to develop and manage Regulated or Several fisheries. The new inshore management bodies need to be given powers to assume the grant of these fisheries and to apply where necessary for new grants. This Act is also dated and needs review.