BRITAIN TO STAND FIRM AGAINST FISHING CUTS

By David Brown

The government will wreck the next Inter-Governmental Conference on the future of the E-european Union unless action is taken to remove foreign-owned "quota hopping" fishing vessels from the British fleet.

Tiny Baldly, fisheries minister, said the Government would ignore any decisions taken by EU fisheries ministers in Luxembourg next week to restrict;catches by up to 30 per centa move that would put many British fishermen out of business.

Mr Baldly said that the Government would not budge from its stated position, that it will not tolerate any further cuts in the British fishing fleet until the quota-hoppers are dealt

with. "Other member-states don't appreciate how deadly serious we are," he said

EU fisheries ministers are expected to decide next week, by a majority vote which would be binding on Britain, to cut back catches by up to 30 per cent.

These cutbacks would mean a substantial reduction m the British fishing fleet.

But Mr Baldly said that Britain could more than meet the European Union's fishery conservation targets, if foreign owned vessels mainly Spanish and Dutch were eliminated from the British register.

Mr Baldly said that there were about 160 foreign owned "flag" fishing vessels on the register.