Mr President, I represent a constituency which has a fairly active fishing community along a hundred kilometres of Northumberland coastline. We have a local inshore drift-netting fishery for salmon which is highly monitored and regulated. This fact is widely acknowledged by all those that have any experience whatsoever of fishing activity in the Community. Our experience with this drift-netting completely refutes one of the main arguments in the Fraga report, namely that drift-netting fishery cannot be controlled.

The report itself is contradictory on this issue. Amendment No 7 even asks for the number of fish to be counted, which to my mind presupposes an ability for a very detailed type of control.

I would draw Members' attention to the activities of the Atlantic Salmon Trust which have been active in faxing Members on this issue. It sounds a very prestigious organization. In fact, it represents the owners of the salmon fishing rights along the Scottish rivers. It is a very lucrative industry as you will find out if you look at the costs and the prices at which the rights for these fighting rights are sold. There is no evidence that they are going out of business although they would like to put the salmon drift-netters out of business.

Much of the argument in the report is about the selective nature of drift-nets and the ecological damage that is claimed. The Commission document refers to the Council requirement that there should be scientific proof of the absence of any ecological risk. I would put it to the House that it is impossible to prove an indefinite negative. It has defied the best mathematical brains down the ages and I would submit that even a resolution of this House will not resolve the question. It is sad that not only in the Commission but also in Mrs Fraga's report, there is no effort to look at the claims of the fishermen on this issue.

There is, in fact, contradiction again in Mrs Fraga's report, because in paragraph 19 the drift-netting for salmon is apparently selective but for tuna drift-nets there is no selection. I cannot see the logic in that position. I would call in evidence the Sea Mammal Research Unit which testified to the House of Lords that there is no ecological reasons for the ban which is proposed in the Commission documents.

It is my belief that this report is not just a threat to the fishermen who use drift-nets to go about their business. It is in fact a threat to the whole of the fishing industry. All the arguments which are deployed in Mrs Fraga's report can be applied to a greater or lesser extent to all the fishery methods used in the Community countries and throughout the world. It is much to be regretted that the Committee on Fisheries has lost an opportunity to take evidence from the fishermen and to meet the representatives of the Scientific and Technical Fisheries Committee which advises the Commission. We had the opportunity to do this. I believe we had an opportunity to try to give an element of political leadership in this vexed question but the rush which members have referred to this morning has brought us to this very unsatisfactory vote in a short while.

I would simply point out that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says that it is highly questionable whether the complete elimination of all drift-nets can be justified and, moreover, whether alternative methods might not also represent a threat. That is the tragedy of the report which does not address these problems.