Speeches by Eagle.

“I have, yes. I have done a little bit of that myself, albeit not in Brixham, just a bit further down the coast. I do not disagree with you at all. It is really important, from a policy point of view, but also from a ministerial point of view, to go and listen to the people on the ground and see precisely the issues tha…”

“Of course. How long will it take me to get up there? You will be the expert.”

“Is it still up there? The octopus haven’t got there yet?”

“First, I hope that Bridlington will be aware that it has a champion in Government when it comes to its shellfish industry. I am more than happy to hear from them if they have ideas they want to put past me. In terms of the science, we are obligated to act on scientific advice, so that we can ensure that fishing is done…”

“I understand your frustration. That was the advice on that particular question, but there were some other options ICES put on the table for those fisheries, which were the ones that we took up. I do not know whether officials want to go into more technical detail about it. The advice for zero catch was one option, but …”

“It was 48%, was it? I am trying to remember.”

“The Calamari (Enforcement) Regulations 2026.”

“We are considering all that at the moment. It is a very complex sort of landscape, given the way that food distribution now works. It has rather moved away from local distributions, so it is a question of how we can see what can be done much more locally. It is more difficult than I had hoped, simply because of the way…”

“I do not know the answer to that. We seem to have stuck particularly in this country with our white fish for fish and chips. Tuna is also very much something that we eat in this country. Older, more traditional fish that we ate, like herring, are semi coming back, but they are not big sellers. We are quite conservative…”

“I am an octopus eater myself, but I recognise that not many people in Britain do the same thing.”

“It is a very wide-ranging review. You only have to wait a small number of hours now to see it. I certainly hope that, taken together, it will be able to deal with quite a bit of this.”

“A huge bloom, yes.”

“That is certainly not my experience since I took up this post.”

“I do not have anything personal against land agents, but I want to have a system where, after you have been in the fields all day, you can come back and make your application without having to go through hell or employing somebody to do it. I have had the Rural Payments Agency in my office to show me how the system wor…”

“It is never ideal when the price drops, and it is even less ideal if it drops under the cost of production. Our understanding is that this is due to a glut of milk in the market rather than any other reason. This system was not invented to give a guaranteed price for a commodity that was produced. We just think a glut …”

“We are very open to seeing how we can improve the way that those structures, which are reasonably new, work going forward.”

“From my sudden introduction to this very particular world, I have been quite impressed by the nature of the consultation and co-operation that happens. I arrived at the Department just as the opening was being made on all the international negotiations for fishing opportunities for next year, and I was struck by how in…”

“Yes, I know. I know that is a sore point because I have been reading your hearings.”

“One strategy, probably. But if you do strategy, that can guide you. The farming road map is at the pinnacle of that, because that will demonstrate the way forwards. In order to do that, first you have to have the “what”, and that is the profitability report, which will be coming this week. Then we have the land use fra…”

“We are still considering a method of production labelling. The slight issue that we have at the moment is the SPS talks with the EU. We cannot suddenly diverge and do things completely differently, if we then have to dynamically align with EU labelling methods. In between me personally and us wanting to have as much in…”