Compensation For Fishermen

EDM number 791 in 1995-96, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 25/04/1996.

That this House, recognising that in 1976 when Her Majesty's Government ordered British fishing boats out of Icelandic waters the then Minister of Fisheries, echoed by his Opposition shadow, promised compensation for fishmen, retraining and resettlement for redundant workers and a decasualisation scheme for the industry, is concerned that two decades later none of these undertakings ever materialised so that the only payment made to those who lost their jobs in the contraction of the distant water industry has been the ex gratia redundancy payments paid to some, but not all, trawlermen after they had forced recognition of the claims through the courts; is shocked that workers in this most dangerous and difficult of jobs should have been treated so differently to miners, car and steel workers and all the others who were compensated for the run-down of their industry; and therefore calls on the Government to do justice to fishermen by ex gratia redundancy payments for all, by an addition to all new decommissioning grants to compensate share fishermen who lose their jobs when vessels are taken out of service and bya full public inquiry into what happened to the scores of millions paid to the fishing vessel owners since 1976 and why so little of it went back into rebuilding the industry and fishing employment and none of it to fishermen who still await proper compensation for their service to Britainand the abrupt loss of their jobs.

This motion has been signed by a total of 30 MPs.