Speeches by Reed.

“You will allow me, if I may, to contextualise what has happened here. We set the biggest ever budget for SFI as part of the biggest budget for farming and sustainable food production that we have ever had. We had been highly critical, and so had the farming sector, of the previous Government for setting smaller budgets…”

“It was a big day, Chair.”

“Those are really good points and similar to points that were made to me by the fishing representative organisations. They are critical of a fund that was made available by the previous Government because it did not reach the fishers, and particularly the smaller fishers, who needed access to it. I have said to the fish…”

“That remains in force. When I came back on a flight from France, there were posters everywhere. I was delighted to see that, because it was only the day after we imposed the ban, so I thought that the speed with which the airports had acted was commendable. It is very important that we take that action. We do not know …”

“It will mean a dramatic reduction in paperwork. Export health checks will no longer be required. We are working through the specifics of it with the European Union, so it will have to wait a while, while those conversations continue. The deal was only signed, after all, yesterday at Lancaster House. The intention and t…”

“The previous Government introduced an awful lot of friction at the border, having promised that they would not. This deal enables us to reduce that friction so that trade can flow more easily. I completely appreciate the need for rapid information to the sector so that it can plan, but, in the round, this is going to b…”

“The important thing to say to anybody from the sector is that, until they hear otherwise from Government, they will be required to comply.”

“I am going to call in one of my colleagues on this—I suspect that that is Emily—in a moment. Obviously, things will change once this deal is implemented. It needs to go through a process before there is implementation, so there is time to work through this. As part of the deal, the UK will have access to the EU’s syste…”

“No, we are continuing with the legislation. If you have seen the deal, you will see that the door remains open to an agreement around that. That is what we are working towards. I am optimistic we will achieve that, but it is an important part of the wider programme. I have to increase profitability in the farming secto…”

“The alignment that we are looking for and have secured as part of this deal is to reduce trade friction at the border. The reasons for doing that are that it protects thousands of jobs in our economy, helps to create new jobs in our economy and means we can export more of our good, high-quality British produce across t…”

“It is general access. I mean access into the European markets for exports. In addition to that, the fishing and coastal growth fund is worth £360 million specifically for the fishing communities in those coastal areas. I will say it again: this is a good deal for fish, although we pushed for more. It is a good deal but…”

“As I say, we have retained regulatory autonomy as part of this deal. I am broadly pleased with where we got to on sandeels. The outcome has been largely in our favour. That is to be welcomed. Then, of course, we will look at other species as well where we think there is action to be taken. To address your first point, …”

“You will appreciate, and I am sure that they do too, that this was a negotiation. We, of course, pushed for more, but it is a negotiation. I would have liked it if we had got even more firm. We pushed hard. I engaged with the two bodies that you have referred to ahead of the negotiations and fed their views in. At the …”

“Very respectfully, I completely disagree with them, given that we could have been sat here this morning talking about a reduction in UK quotas, increased access of EU vessels into UK territorial waters, no investment fund for those communities and potentially, had there not been the kind of deal that we have got, no in…”

“It is a pleasure to be back.”

“I am Steve Reed. I am the Secretary of State at DEFRA.”

“I suspected that this issue might come up.”

“I was not part of the negotiating team, clearly. However, there were conversations that we all participated in around our particular areas, pushing the outcomes that we were looking for, many of which were achieved and some of which were not. In the round, this is a really good deal for the sector. It comes on the back…”

“It would be very damaging indeed for that sector, as it would be for any sector, to be living year to year with no certainty about what is going to happen in the future. This is a reasonably good deal for the UK fishing sector, compared to what some of the speculation was and given the pressures on our negotiating team…”

“We are in discussions with local authorities and MHCLG about that right now. The key thing to focus on with anything of this kind is that the outcomes are what we expect to see. That is the priority for me, but we need to make sure that the money that is allocated to local authorities is spent in the way that it was in…”