Mr Alistair Carmichael
MP for Orkney and Shetland · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I do not know whether this is something I still need to declare, Mr Speaker, but I visited the Falkland Islands in 2003 as a guest of the Falkland Islands Government. They have never invited me back.”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and also that my wife is a practising veterinary surgeon. What is happening was predictable because it was predicted. The Government were warned by the National Audit Office in June last year that they were unprepared for outbreaks of this sort.”
“The Minister is surely aware that there is no route to net zero that does not go through oil and gas hydrocarbons, and that not exploiting resources on the UK continental shelf leaves us reliant on imports, which also has carbon consequences that must be taken into account.”
“The transition to clean energy could be an opportunity to build a different model that would, to use the First Secretary of State’s own words, end “overly centralised decision making and over-privatisation”.”
“I welcome what the Prime Minister just said about strengthening farming. If he is serious about this, one of the first things he can do is ensure that our farmers do not have to compete with imported food that is produced to lower standards than we expect.”
“Q4. Like others, I have always respected the Prime Minister as somebody who was in politics because he wanted to give service to his country, and he has earned our gratitude for that. In my constituency, those who volunteer as coastguard rescue officers also do so from a wish to give service to their community.”
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“Those young men had made a genuine commitment to the industry and are now at a loss. I really did not know what I could say to give them comfort or optimism. The language they used was interesting. One of them continually described the changes as “cruel”. It is worth reflecting on why he did that. It was not hyperbole. Here was somebody who had given his family and his community a commitment that he would farm for the rest of his days, and suddenly it felt as though he had been cut off at the knees. The Minister will doubtless tell us the number of estates that will, or will not be, affected. Those figures will need rather more robust scrutiny than they have had thus far. However, it is not all about figures; it is also about the psychology and the commitment.”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate all those who delivered their maiden speech tonight, and I look forward to hearing more from them in the years to come. I welcome this debate, which is exceptionally timely and important, and the fact that it is in Government time. I say gently to those on the Treasury Bench that if this is the start of a process of engagement with rural communities, that is welcome, but there has to be a process; this debate alone will not be enough. The truth is that in the countryside, there is a genuine crisis of confidence in communities’ futures, and in the future of farming. That is felt deeply in my constituency. I spent time on Saturday afternoon talking to four farmers in Orkney.”
“If those are the prices on an outer isle of Orkney, I can only assume that one would add a significant margin in Aberdeenshire, and a larger margin in Fife and the Borders. By the time we get to the home counties, goodness only knows what the price would be. The concerns of agricultural and rural communities are genuine and well founded, and they need to be addressed. There is a serious debate to be had here, and I very much hope to be part of it. The Minister is well intentioned and diligent, but he needs to listen more to the people affected by his decisions—and, I am afraid, to listen less to the Treasury.”
“Nobody knows what is around the corner, especially in farming, which, as we know, is one of the most dangerous occupations out there. I have sympathy with the Government wanting to close fairly well reported and documented loopholes, but to do that at the expense of family farms is unjustifiable. The root of the problem, and the issue on which the Minister needs to engage with the Treasury, is that the threshold has been set far too low. When the Budget changes were announced, I went to estate agency websites in Orkney and Shetland, and I found two farms currently on sale in Orkney, both on one of the outer isles—further away, where we would expect land prices to be slightly lower—and both were being sold by the same family. One was for £2 million and the other was for £2.2 million.”
“There are also the measures on furnished holiday lets. Farmers have for decades been encouraged by successive Governments to diversify their business. Many have gone into furnished holiday lets for extra income, but they now find that they are being clobbered again. They are having the rug pulled out from underneath them. The inheritance tax changes have generated the greatest concern. I hear talk of scaremongering, but there has to be better respect than that for those concerned about the changes. I suspect that a lot of the figures that we hear have been affected by inter-vivos transfers between the generations. That is the most obvious way that inheritance tax can be dealt with by an estate or a family, but it leaves families open to difficult conversations and to the law of unintended consequences.”
“I fear that there absolutely is that impact. That is why I gently caution those who frame the issue as a debate between urban and rural communities to think a bit more carefully. There is a strong case to be made for explaining to people in towns why people in the countryside matter to them, their future and the economy, rather than setting this up as a contest between the two. Beyond inheritance tax, other issues in the Budget caused me concern, including the return of changes to the treatment of double cab pick-ups, and the effect of the carbon border adjustment mechanism on fertilisers. We all know what happened to food prices the last time we saw a spike in fertiliser prices. That was not caused by the imposition of a tax, but it does not matter what causes it; the effect will still be felt by families.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government policies on tackling fuel poverty. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. A household in fuel poverty is defined as one that commits more than 10% of its income on energy to maintain a satisfactory heating regime. Fuel poverty includes three elements. The first is the household’s income, from which we compute that 10%; the second is the household’s energy requirements, on which the quality of the housing stock and the availability of cheaper tariffs have an influence; and the third is the fuel prices themselves. It is sobering to think that across the United Kingdom as a whole, no fewer than 6 million households are living in fuel poverty. In Scotland in 2022, some 791,000 households were fuel-poor.”
“It is not difficult to see why fuel poverty is particularly acute in the northern isles. Winters are longer, darker and colder than in other parts of the country. We are off the gas grid. Most of our homes are heated using electricity, oil and sometimes liquefied petroleum gas or solid fuel. Yes, an increasing number of people are able to use photovoltaics and ground or air-source heat pumps, but the bulk of our heating still comes from conventional sources.”
“It will be the first surprise of the day for everyone that the answer is yes. I very much agree that we need that—or if not that, something of the sort. Meaningful action that is fit to meet the needs of the different parts of the United Kingdom is long overdue. While households in fuel poverty are committing more than 10% of their income, households in extreme fuel poverty are committing more than 20% to meet their energy needs and keep their home warm. In Scotland, there were 311,000 such households in 2019. By 2022, the figure had risen to 472,000. This issue is particularly acute for us in the northern isles. In Orkney and Shetland, 31% of households live in fuel poverty; the Scottish average, which is higher than that of the rest of the United Kingdom, is 24%.”
“It would be good if that plan could come as part of a Green or White Paper outlining a strategy. That is what is lacking at the moment: we have a scheme here, a scheme there, an idea of this and an idea of that, but there is no overarching strategy to ensure the best possible delivery. At the beginning of this debate, I gave the stat that 6 million homes across the whole United Kingdom are living in fuel poverty. That is not something that we should be prepared to live with.”
“The two existing vehicles for alleviating fuel poverty—the warm home discount, which reduces bills by £150 a year for those who qualify, and the energy company obligation, which assists people with energy efficiency adaptations, renewable energy adaptations and so on—are both means-tested, which takes us back to the question of cliff edges. Most concerningly of all, those measures are due to end in 2026 unless they are renewed by the Government. The Minister will have an easier conversation with the Treasury if he bears it in mind that the funding for the schemes comes not from the Treasury but from the energy companies. We need to know that there is a plan for the continuation of those schemes or for something that will seek to achieve the same end.”
“There is money that must be spent within a target time, but there is neither the existing labour force nor the skills base to deliver the work, so a whole load of fly-by-night companies are set up that come into our communities from outside, do substandard work, go away and eventually go bankrupt while constituents are left to pick up the pieces. It is obviously for the Treasury to decide how the money will be spent, but looking towards years three, four and five of this Government, can the Minister give me some assurance that there is a view towards a strategy that will use the money that is currently committed, that we will have a clear idea, and that we can start planning now how to use any money that comes in future?”
“That is a sizeable chunk of money, but it is not the £13.2 billion that we were promised. Presumably the remaining £9.8 billion will have to come in years four and five of this Parliament if the Government’s commitment is to be met. I have two problems with that approach. First, it will leave a lot of people in fuel poverty for another three years while they wait for the money to come. Secondly, if the money comes at all, we will be shovelling it into wheelbarrows to get it out over the two years, a situation that always brings the law of unintended consequences into play, as we have seen time and again with energy efficiency measures, renewable energy development and so on.”
“We all need to cross our fingers and hope it lasts until 2025, because it could quite easily fall over at any point. When it does, the string and chewing gum that are keeping it going at the moment will simply no longer be enough. Will the Minister give me an update? Before the election, his predecessor agreed to hold a roundtable. The election intervened, but I am pleased to hear that the roundtable went ahead and that the different players were brought together in the room. It appears to have made some progress, but my constituents would be keen to hear the details. The Government’s manifesto promised a strategy with a warm homes plan, whereby £13.2 billion would be committed to address fuel poverty. The Budget last week allocated £3.4 billion over three years.”
“Access to “total heating with total control” tariffs, which were designed by the former hydro board specifically with communities like mine in the highlands and islands in mind, still provides them with the best and cheapest available source of heating. However, it does not allow them to take advantage of different tariffs when switching or other ways of saving money are available. It requires two meters, one of which has two readings. As smart meters are rolled out, it appears that although they may be smart, they are not smart enough to do something that the old technology did quite easily. There is then the question of the radio teleswitch, which is the delivery mechanism for many tariffs. It is due to be switched off in 2025, as the last of the BBC analogue signal is decommissioned.”
“As we play host to major energy developments—latterly renewables—there is very little or no community benefit for those who host them. Serious attention now needs to be given to the question of an isles tariff. It does not need to be an isles tariff; it could be something that applies across the highlands and islands and in other areas that are particularly badly affected. I am pretty sure that Ofgem will not be keen—as far as I can see, Ofgem is never keen on anything that will actually make a difference—but if it can accept the principle of differential treatment through a social tariff, which is now the subject of a consultation, a geographical tariff should also be given serious consideration. Many of my constituents rely on electric storage heating.”
“What can we do? What tools have we at our disposal? We have the warm home discount and the energy company obligation scheme, to which I will turn in a minute, but I first wish to raise a couple of more specific issues that relate to tackling fuel poverty in communities such as mine. The Minister has already heard me raise the question of an isles tariff; in fact, we met earlier this week to discuss it. Orkney and Shetland has been at the heart of supplying the nation’s energy needs for the past 40 or 50 years, as we have played host to the oil and gas industry. Shetland now has one of the biggest onshore wind farm developments anywhere in the country, but in the shadow of the turbines are some of the greatest and most acute problems with fuel poverty. That is now generating genuine frustration.”
“The situation among the fuel-poor is only likely to get worse, which is where the hon. Member’s point about the winter fuel payment comes in. It is true that the mechanism of pension credit is there to mitigate the worst effects, as I anticipate the Minister will say, but we have known for 20 years that there are problems with all the tax credit schemes and with the variation in uptake across the board. Again, it is a generational thing. Knowing the community that he comes from, the Minister will know that among older people in parts of the country there is still a real stigma attached to a means test. They will always be less likely to apply for something that they could otherwise have been given by right. For those who live in fuel poverty, it now feels as though anything given with one hand is being taken away with the other.”
“In communities such as mine we have older, much less energy-efficient housing stock. Some elements of last week’s Budget may mitigate the worst effects. It did not have the comprehensive strategy that I wanted, but in the interests of fairness we should acknowledge that if the increase in the minimum wage leads to increased household incomes, it will have an impact on some people living in fuel poverty. The retention of the state pension triple lock will also provide some mitigation. To that extent, those things are welcome, but in the context of the wider influences on fuel poverty, they will hardly hit the sides. The energy price cap has now been put up to £1,717, which is an increase of £150, and it seems likely that there will be a further increase come January.”
“I am sad to say that I do agree. I have seen the same thing time after time in houses across my constituency. I have seen people sitting with two, three or four layers on and a blanket over their knees. If there is any heating, it might come from a single bar on an electric fire or something of the sort. With the winter fuel payment, we have to understand that there is a generational difference: the people who were getting that payment were in large part brought up in an age when people did not borrow; they lived within their means. Taking away that money puts them more acutely at risk than people of other ages. When we devise policy, we sometimes have to look at the social and psychological impact as much as at the political and the economic. The hon. Member makes a good point.”
“Standing charges, which vary massively and randomly across the country—from memory, I think the worst area is actually north Wales—are one thing, but just a couple of weeks ago OVO Energy announced that it would start charging its customers £1.50 every time it sends them a paper bill. Is that not just—I say this, Sir Roger, for the purposes of staying on the right side of you—taking the mick?”
“Is EPC not something else that we could reform? The way in which EPC bandings are rated seems to be utterly random and occasionally quite counter-productive.”
“This has been an exceptionally good debate, and I have been encouraged by the degree of consensus. We have to approach a subject such as this with humility and recognise that nobody has ever found the answer to these fairly intractable problems. I did not anticipate that the main point of contention would be where God came from. Of course, as the theologians tell us, God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, so all those who have claimed that He is from their constituency are able to do so quite accurately. A point that I think is beyond any debate is that He is happiest, if not necessarily warmest, when he is in Orkney and Shetland. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Government policies on tackling fuel poverty.”
“I am interested to see that the hon. Gentleman has rediscovered his distributist roots from Glasgow university. There are serious, practical considerations here to be faced before we get to the point that the hon. Gentleman would want to get to, which has significant force. Most skippers in my constituency, and in his, are carrying massive amounts of debt and loans. If we cut the feet out from underneath them in terms of quota reallocation and the rest, the law of unintended consequences could be really severe for the people who have kept that industry going through the lean times.”
“(Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the implications of the Budget for farming communities.”
“In particular, does the figure that 73% of farms will not be affected rely on the inclusion of very small holdings? These changes will have a ripple effect across the whole rural community. Will the Government publish their impact assessment for other rural businesses? Can the Minister also explain why the Treasury has removed the ringfence around farm support to be spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? That ringfence was introduced after the Bew review. If it needed a review to introduce it, how can it just be abolished now out of the blue? The Prime Minister has said in the past, and the Minister has repeated today, that food security is national security. Can the Minister point to one measure in this Budget that makes achieving that aim easier, rather than harder?”
“Agricultural property relief is not a loophole; it has been a deliberate policy of successive Governments for the past 40 years, designed to avoid the sale and break-up of family farms. Is that still a goal to which this Government adhere? As the NFU put it, the Government have seemingly failed to grasp “that family farms are not just small farms, and that just because a farm is a valuable asset it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy.” As the Minister will be aware, some of the figures he has just given the House have been vigorously challenged over the past few days, particularly the assertion that only one in four British farms will be affected. Will the Minister and his Treasury colleagues publish the data behind those figures?”
“I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. I also thank the Minister for his statement, but I fear that it illustrates rather well some of the lack of understanding that has brought us to this point. More than any other industry, farming relies on stability and long-term planning. That is why many people in the industry relied on undertakings given by the Secretary of State when in opposition that the Labour party in government would not change inheritance tax reliefs for farming. Every farming business is capital-rich but revenue-poor. Those businesses also trade in a market that has been more heavily influenced by government intervention than any other.”
“The development of marine renewable energy is getting close to commercial deployment. If we are able to get it across the line, it will bring with it a supply chain that we can build and hold in this country, with a view to exports across the world. That would surely be a great result for any industrial strategy. What will the Government do to ensure that their industrial strategy helps marine renewables reach full commercial deployment?”
“If the Knesset Bill is an indication of how Israel now sees international treaties and international law, there is surely no point in further negotiations on a free trade agreement with Israel? Should we not just end those negotiations now?”
“The Secretary of State is quite right to point to the role of the payment of bonuses and dividends in bringing us to this point, but he must surely acknowledge that that is far from being the whole story. There are a number of business and accounting practices in companies such as Thames Water that have brought us to the stage we are at today. If he is serious about having a water system that is fit for the future, he has to understand properly what has gone on before. Will he therefore confirm that the commission will be properly resourced with the necessary forensic accounting resource, so that those who have been responsible for the most egregious practices in the past and who now seem to be appearing in other water companies around the country will not be allowed to do the same thing there?”
“I genuinely congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this early opportunity to ventilate the issue. He talks about those who flee persecution, and he is right, but the truth of the matter is that even when Hongkongers are in this country, they are not beyond the reach of the Chinese Communist party. We have seen instances of illegal police stations operated by the Chinese and of persecution on campuses around the country. Does he agree that our responsibility to Hongkongers coming to this country does not end when they arrive at Heathrow? That is simply when it starts.”
“Inheritance tax can be avoided by intra vires transfers, but the way they work can often be arbitrary. They can also have some difficult personal consequences when it comes to the transfer from one generation to the other, as the family interaction can be difficult. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan. I hope that when the Chancellor delivers the Budget next week, if this issue is under the Treasury’s active consideration, we will see the Government’s direction of travel and the overall picture that they want to achieve, rather than just one quick hit, because that could have serious consequences for family farms and rural communities across the country.”
“We have to have that debate, but we cannot effect that in a meaningful way that looks at agricultural spending in the round once the decision has been announced in a Budget. There are many other influences at play. For example, in recent years we have had the reform of agricultural support payments in England and Wales, and that is now coming through in Scotland. For decades, farmers have been told that they have to diversify—diversify, diversify, diversify—so they have renovated farm cottages and turned them into furnished holiday lets, and now they are being told that they are responsible for the housing crisis in the country and are being hit with furnished holiday let reform, which this Government appear to have inherited from the previous one.”
“Lady, in framing this debate, covered APR and BPR, which work in an interlinked way. It also shows the responsibility we in politics have when we set hares running. North of the border, for the last few years we have had an active and often welcome debate about land reform, but one of the consequences of that debate is that many agricultural land owners, instead of moving out and putting in tenants, have moved into grass lets. A lot of the larger landowners’ estates, in particular, have replaced the secure agricultural tenancies for which they had been known for generations with a much less secure system of tenure. As the TFA says, there might be a case for reform. It suggests ways to reward longer tenancies of 10-plus years and more secure tenancies.”
“The Tenant Farmers Association provided a briefing for this debate, which said that it is already seeing consequences among its members: “We are already seeing, first hand, concerns about how Inheritance Tax charges change the way that traditional estates have thought about the management of their agricultural land, and that is before there is any change to the Inheritance Tax regime. Rural estates with significant residential and mineral interests will want to ensure that they have sufficient business activity elsewhere on their estates to be able to qualify for BPR from Inheritance Tax across the whole of their estates. If APR was abolished this will make things hugely much more difficult for farm tenants.” That important point gets right to the heart of the matter. That is why I am pleased that the hon.”
“Of course, any changes in farming will have consequences that spread beyond agricultural businesses. What affects farmers will affect vets, agricultural merchants, local shops and post offices in some of the most economically fragile communities to be found anywhere in the country. My concern has long been—it is not exclusive to this Government—that the Treasury does not quite understand the way the rural economy works. It is a cliché, but true, to say that farming underpins just about everything in rural communities and the rural economy, whether environmentally—through the way in which land is managed, which has consequences for nature—or financially.”
“I understand the reasons for that, which are essentially sound, long-standing and respected by all, but it illustrates the inadequacy of this as a way of effecting meaningful change. Without the ability to have a proper debate involving the Treasury, change will inevitably come in a haphazard and chaotic way, and it will bring with it many unintended consequences that will have an effect on not just farmers but the wider rural community. I should have said right at the start that I have my own interests in agriculture, which are in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I remind the House of those. There may be a case for reform, but this really is not the way to go about it. The hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan was right to say that farming is a capital-rich and revenue-poor industry.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) on securing a very timely debate. She has provided us with what is definitely my favourite euphemism, the “succession event”, and I think we know what that means in most cases. This is a timely debate because we have had a lot of speculation in the media in recent weeks about the possibility of changes coming in the Budget very soon. There is very little that is certain in politics these days, but I am as near certain as anybody can be that, when the Minister comes to reply, he will say that he is not going to tell us anything about the Budget.”
“The Minister reminds us—it is our fault for doing this—that we have focused very much on the family farm as the unit of concern, because that is what concerns most of our constituents. However, a lot of agricultural land is, in fact, owned by bodies such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, of which I am a member. The RSPB is never going to have a succession event, to join the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) in using that expression. The consequence of abolition could be that two farms right next door to each other—one owned by a charity or an institution of that sort, and the other owned by a family—would be left having to farm in very different economic circumstances. Is that really fair?”
“I thank the Minister, as this sector offers massive economic and strategic opportunities for the United Kingdom. The development of the Shetland spaceport at SaxaVord is now significantly ahead of the field, so getting that project across the line will bring benefits to other projects across the United Kingdom. Will the Minister meet me and the developers of SaxaVord in Shetland to discuss what the Government can do, directly or indirectly, to help?”
“Dr Huq, there is a great deal more I could say about this subject—and I hope we will return to it—but just remember this: whatever the question is, the answer is to get yourself to Orkney and Shetland.”
“The reason there is such support for the oil and gas industry in Orkney and Shetland is that for the last few decades it has been a tremendous source of community benefit for us. If there is an energy generation source, or whatever it is, in a community and the community sees the benefit of it—in a direct financial sense of money going into a trust or just in the availability and reliability of good-quality, high-skilled, well-paid jobs—people will be much more accepting. When, as is the case at the moment, we see Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks turning on the Viking wind farm in Shetland and being paid £2 million in August alone not to generate any electricity, that is where we see a disconnect.”
“Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) says about poor people in all communities, and she is correct, but the truth is that the further north we go, the more we are likely to find people enduring poor housing standards with long, dark, cold winters. That has an impact and it is felt most acutely in Orkney and Shetland. The second thing I want people to understand is that when we talk about needing to find a template for making these things work, in Orkney and Shetland we have already done that. We have done it since the mid-1970s on our relationship to our oil and gas industry, which we have hosted. We have the two largest onshore terminals for oil and gas in western Europe—now coming perhaps into the autumn, if not quite to the end, of their existence.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) for securing this debate. Once the Backbench Business Committee is up and running, this is a subject that deserves longer and more careful scrutiny. Speaking from the perspective of Orkney and Shetland, I will keep things simple. Time is short and simple is what I do best. There are two things that I want people to understand about Orkney and Shetland. First, we have the highest level of fuel poverty of any community in the country. I hear what the hon.”
“I can hardly imagine the sense of loss that she must be feeling. To Moira and the rest of Alex’s family I send my condolences and those of my party as we mourn the passing of Alex Salmond—a man whose like we may never see again.”
“At that time, we all had to be experts in the spawning stock biomass of North sea cod, and Alex, with his natural head for figures, could sometimes leave everyone in the room breathless as he interrogated the so-called experts about the statistical basis of what they were proposing to do. The survival of a Scottish whitefish industry today is in no small part a result of his efforts then. It was also in that first Parliament that I met and got to know Alex’s wife Moira. I do not think it is speaking ill to say that Alex could divide a room; Moira, on the other hand, is someone about whom I have never heard anyone say a bad word. She has always been unfailingly warm and friendly. Her devotion to Alex was total and obvious to me from the first moment I met her. So it is to Moira Salmond today that my thoughts turn.”
“Further to those points of order, Mr Speaker. Alex Salmond was not just a parliamentary colleague of mine; for a number of years, when we lived in Aberdeenshire, he was also my own Member of Parliament. I confess that I never actually voted for him, but that did allow me to see, and hear from all those who dealt with him in the north-east of Scotland, that he was genuinely a byword for energy and commitment in representing the interests of his Banff and Buchan constituents. It was not until I was elected here in 2001 that I got to know Alex personally. He and I both represented constituencies heavily dependent on the fishing industry, which was then facing an existential crisis, as cod stocks in the North sea collapsed.”
“7. What discussions she has had with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency on maritime safety breaches which occur outside UK territorial waters but within the exclusive economic zone.”
“If we continue to see this as a matter of legality, nothing will ever change, and certainly not in any decent timeframe. We have to focus on what we can do practically to end the sort of attacks that trawlers from Shetland, such as the Alison Kay and Defiant, have been subject to in recent years. Will the Minister look at the experience of authorities in Ireland, who have managed to tackle the reckless conduct of trawlers like the Pesorsa Dos and keep their fishermen safe?”