Dr. Cecil Beamish:

If the UK leaves in a disorderly Brexit, it will not just affect fisheries. It will cut across all sectors and a variety of issues will be in play. The EU is likely to take some sort of co-ordinated approach across those. In very simple terms, the UK largely exports to the EU what it catches and imports what it eats. We are not terribly different ourselves in many ways. The EU market is very important to the UK and keeping that trade going feeds all the way down to the fishermen. It is not something that can be done in isolation of the position in the market and the EU is quite conscious of that.

There was a question about tariffs. This is not the same as in the agricultural sector, such as with beef, where one would be very dependent on the UK market. Ireland is not terribly dependent on the UK market when it comes to seafood. It is an important market but it does not have the same dominance as it would with beef. The tariffs on fisheries products are also much lower. Tariffs on fishery products apply the other way as well as the UK exports to the EU and it would hit tariff barriers in that respect. We would export to the EU market without that tariff barrier. There are many ways to look at this.

At the high end of tariffs, mackerel and herring would see a rate of 20%. The more common white fish see a rate of approximately 7.5%, so the average is approximately 14%. These are the lower end of some of the tariff ranges when compared with the agrifood side. A processed product attracts higher tariffs and the UK sells quite a bit of processed product into the EU market. The tariff element has not been as dominant in the fisheries discussion as it would have been in the other areas. It is not about the market so much.

The landbridge has been dealt with by other colleagues and the European Commission. Much depends on how the UK deals with the product. Although fish is perishable, it is not the only time-limited agrifood product going through the UK on the landbridge but it is important that the landbridge can work. It is a bigger subject than I can go into here. There was a question about temporary cessation being proportionate but there is no script on this and Brexit is something new. With the proposal before us today, the Commission is creating a legal framework where temporary cessation can be used in circumstances that nobody foresaw when the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF, was being drawn up. If it was not changed by virtue of this proposal, we could not use temporary cessation because a member state was leaving. It is creating the possibility to use it. The question was raised about crew. In the EMFF it is provided that people who have worked more than 120 days during the past two calendar years are eligible under the EMFF for payment.

We are talking about the legal framework to enable this proposal today. The detail has to be drawn up in a scheme.

That can only be done when the exact extent of access, as well as which fisheries have gone through and which fisheries are severely impacted, is clear. Not all fishing is the same. The committee knows that very well. There must also be a proper sense of the likely displacement impact at European level. We are working very hard with the Commission and the eight other impacted member states to draw up a factual assessment of where we think displacement will be felt and what species it will affect. We are preparing fishery science advice on the likely impact of that increase in effort. As I say, if the stock is migratory, increasing the fishing in one particular area may have no long-term biological impact.

All of this is being assessed at the moment. There is no co-ordination mechanism in place to determine the proportionate reduction and how to carry it out. That work is ongoing with the Commission. The fisheries are shared. They are European fisheries. The Minister, Deputy Creed, has been saying that we need a European response. As one member state on our own, we cannot set the rules for the French, Dutch or Spanish fleet fishing in our zone. It is a common policy, so we want a common response.

A question was raised about the funding. The Commission is saying that funding must come from the existing national envelopes. The existing national envelopes have already been allocated to different programmes. We are working to spend our envelopes. We have not envisaged a scheme for tariff cessation. Funding will have to be considered both at Government level and at EU level. That will happen later in the month as we get closer to whatever the reality might be.

Deputy Kenny asked about the quota taken away from British fishermen. We have dealt with that. If the UK leaves permanently, there will still have to be negotiations with the UK on how to manage fisheries. It is just not possible to coexist in 100 shared fisheries without working out arrangements on how to manage them. The national position is that those arrangements should not impact on relative stability. We should keep our shares in them but we would have to agree on certain things. For example, within the Common Fisheries Policy members are all working towards a shared objective of bringing stocks to maximum sustainable yield levels by 2020. Would the UK adopt that target if it left? That would have to be negotiated, because in that case we would be jointly managing those stocks. We would have to agree on the target to which stocks could be managed and then agree on uptakes. There will be fisheries negotiations in some form or other no matter what happens.

We cannot be certain, but we do not envisage new negotiations on tax and quotas in 2019. Insofar as it has made any consistent comments, the UK Government has suggested that it will stick to the tax and quota arrangements of 2019. That only applies for 2019. We will see what happens then.