Cuts could 'drive cod fleet out of business'

Scottish trawlermen warned yesterday that they could be driven out of business by a new EU agreement to cut cod fishing by almost half, to preserve stocks.

Fisheries minister Elliott Morley, who came under fire yesterday for agreeing to the deal, admitting it was "drastic" and could put the largest British fishing boats permanently out of action. But he claimed that the UK had won important concessions for its fishing fleet during a week of complex negotiations in Brussels. Tony Blair has agreed to meet leaders of the industry in January to discuss help for those worst affected.

The new EU deal, which starts next February, involves a 45 per cent cut in cod catches and a dramatic reduction in the amount of time trawlers can spend at sea. The original demand was for an 80 per cent reduction because of fears that North Sea cod had been fished almost to extinction. The EU fisheries commissioner Franz Fischler insisted that the choice was between savage cuts now to give cod stocks time to recover or no fish at all for the fleet in future.

In Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, where about two thirds of the 13,000 population depend on the fishing industry, a local councillor, Raymond Bisset, described the decision as a "community disaster".

And the shadow Environment Secretary David Lidington claimed: "The Commission and the Labour Government appeared to have caved in to pressure from France and Spain. It is clear that the Common Fisheries Policy has proved a failure. The one clear outcome from this miserable situation is that we need to restore national or local control to our own water."