Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 17 January 2018.
Diolch, Llywydd. Capable and competent as the Minister is in answering her questions, I want to give the Cabinet Secretary her moment in the sun today as well and move to different areas of policy. I know we have differing views about the virtues of EU membership generally, but I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will agree with me that being outside the common agricultural policy, and the common fisheries policy, and the single market does give us the opportunity to have high standards of animal welfare than obtained in many areas of the EU, and in one area in particular, in relation to fishing. At the moment, the EU permits something called electric pulse fishing, which involves putting an electric current through the water—usually about 60 amps; so, it’s quite high intensity—and stunning fish, which are then dragged by nets into the boats. This has a number of unfortunate effects, not least on the fish themselves, because that method tends to break fish's spines and cause a great deal of internal haemorrhage. The trawling at the sea bed denudes it of all wildlife. And traditional catches are caught up in this as well and are discarded. If we recover policy responsibility for this area, we'd be able to ban electric pulse fishing. I wonder if the Welsh Government will commit itself to that.