The NFFO’s Executive Committee met recently to hammer out the Federation’s policy on the fuel price crisis. The meeting of the Executive comes immediately after the EU has adopted a rescue and restructure plan which makes it easier to access European funding for decommissioning and to assist vessels to reduce their fuel dependency; it also follows the Federation’s AGM at which Minister Jonathan Shaw was challenged to spell out his response to the crisis.
The NFFO Executive has decided to pursue a three strand policy:
High Level Initiative
The Federation is to press No 10 Downing Street to use the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit to develop a rescue and restructure plan for the UK fishing industry. It has become clear that this is the only way to persuade Government to release the necessary funds. The Federations will argue that the fundamentals of the fishing industry are sound, based as it is on a renewable resource for which there is strong demand. This positive picture (which was shared by the 2004 Cabinet Office report Net Benefits) contrasts with the desperate state of the industry in the wake of the unprecedented rise in the cost of fuel. The Cabinet Office, along with the Treasury, should therefore work with the industry in laying the foundations for a profitable and sustainable fishing industry that is compatible with the new economic realities. Critically, the recommendations must also address the support package that would finance the transformations that we recognize that the industry must make.
European Fisheries Fund
The European Fisheries Fund has been made more flexible to deal with the difficulties caused by the fuel crisis. The UK Operational Programme has been amended to take advantage of these flexibilities and £10 million has been transferred from other parts of the UK allocation into measures that would help vessels to deal with the fuel crisis. The key to accessing these funds will be Fleet Adaptation Schemes. Groups of vessels will be defined and vessels within individual schemes will have access to funds under various categories. This will range from decommissioning to re-engining to a range of ways through which fishing vessels can reduce their fuel dependency and therefore costs. The Federation will work closely with DEFRA in defining the fleet adaptation schemes that will be the gateways for this funding.
Short Term Support
The Federation will continue to press the Government for short term support to help vessels survive the immediate crisis. So far this has achieved commitments to meet the cost of electronic logbooks and satellite monitoring equipment and to remove the hated and discriminatory light dues charges. All this is helpful but what would have been very welcome in easier times now looks like too little against the scale for the problem.
For this reason the Federation will continue to press for support measures that could bring vessels immediate relief. The most obvious and significant of these is the de minimis, the financial support that member states are allowed to provide without contravening the EU state aid rules. There are also other things that the Government could do, such as removing fuel duty, which would ease cash flow and the Federation will continue to press for these.
