Government announces outcome of EU fishing licence applications

Tuesday, 28 September 2021 18:56

The government will publish a list of EU under 12m in length vessels that will be licensed to fish in the UK 6-12 nautical mile zone tomorrow. A Government spokesperson said: "The government has this year issued a large number of licences to EU vessels seeking to fish in our exclusive economic zone (12-200 nautical mile zone) and our territorial sea (6-12 nautical mile zone). Our approach has been reasonable and fully in line with our commitments in the Trade and...Request free trial

The government will publish a list of EU under 12m in length vessels that will be licensed to fish in the UK 6-12 nautical mile zone tomorrow.

A Government spokesperson said:

"The government has this year issued a large number of licences to EU vessels seeking to fish in our exclusive economic zone (12-200 nautical mile zone) and our territorial sea (6-12 nautical mile zone). Our approach has been reasonable and fully in line with our commitments in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).

"As regards the 6-12nm zone, as set out in the TCA, EU vessels must provide evidence of a track record of fishing activity in those waters . We have been considering applications for vessels of under 12 m in length to fish in this zone and, on the basis of the evidence available, we are able to grant licences for 12 of the 47 applications made.

"We continue to work with the Commission and the French authorities and will consider any further evidence provided to support the remaining licence applications."

Almost 1,700 vessels have already been granted licences to fish in the UK 12-200 mile zone and a further 105 licences were issued for vessels to fish in the 6-12m zone where evidence was available to support a track record over the five year reference period.

There were 47 smaller vessels, under 12 metres, where data was less available and where further supporting evidence was requested to support their application to fish in the 6-12 mile zone. Having assessed all available evidence, we have now licensed a further 12 under 12m vessels to fish in the 6-12 nautical mile zone of our territorial sea. The approach we have taken is reasonable and fully in line with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement brought in changes to fishing arrangements between the UK and the EU. The UK is required to grant access to vessels which fished in the relevant parts of the UK’s 6-12nm zone in four out of five years between 2012 and 2016.

The UK requires reasonable evidence to assess applications against the requirements:

Positional data showing fishing activity in our territorial waters.
Data recording catches of any of the permitted species corresponding to the same date or time period as that positional data.

The UK has left the EU and as an independent coastal state is committed to sustainable fisheries management. Defra continues to work with counterparts in the Commission and with French authorities. We welcome any further evidence from the EU, using our published methodology, to assess other existing licensing applications from EU vessels.

Full licensing criteria will be published on the UK Single Issuing Authority’s website on Wednesday (29^th September 2021).

Notes to editors:

To qualify for access to the UK’s 6-12 zone, the TCA stipulates that vessels must have fished in that zone in each of at least four years between 2012 and 2016. So we are requiring evidence of this. This can be evidence of only four days’ fishing over 5 years.
Many vessels are required to have VMS on board, and for these vessels proof that they have fished in the UK’s waters during the required years is straightforward and they have been licensed.
However, as smaller vessels may not be able to provide electronic positional data for at least 4 years of the reference period, we are requiring that they provide electronic positional data for at least 2 years, given that they were fitted with VMS systems in the first part of 2015.
We understand that all the vessels with outstanding applications for access to the UK’s 6-12 were fitted with VMS systems in 2015, the vast majority in April of that year. We have also made use of commercially available AIS data to complement the data provided by the Commission.
Where such electronic positioning data is not available, we have also accepted Valpena survey data evidence (with rectangles 50% or more in UK 6-12nm) for up to two of the four years. Valpena is the French industry survey that shows a vessel’s location on a grid of 3nmx3nm rectangles. We have taken this approach to give these smaller vessels the opportunity to provide reasonable evidence that they fished in the area during the reference period.
This positional evidence has then been cross-checked with landings information from the French Sacrois dataset.
We have purchased commercially available AIS data to bolster our evidence base and give us a better degree of confidence about vessel activity. While Valpena data is useful it is not as accurate as AIS VMS or chartplotter, which is based on a specific latitude/longitude reading. We have also used official sightings data. AIS has given us a better understanding of some vessels’ activities.
Regarding the time it has taken to licence vessels, the majority of vessels were licensed on 31 December 2020 when 1,285 were allowed access into the UK 12-200nm zone, including 638 French vessels. We began to issue licences for vessels to access the UK 6-12nm zone on 29 January with 105 vessels now licensed, 88 of which are French. We only received the list of smaller vessels wanting to access the UK 6-12nm zone in June. Since then we’ve been working at pace to support the French and Commission to provide us with the data we need.