Meeting with David Miliband.

[davem2005]

I have just returned from a meeting arranged by Sless with David Miliband.

A report of that meeting is as follows:-

After initial introductions Graham was asked to state his case for the meeting, which was to object to the proposed introduction of a sea angling licence. The opening comment was that local anglers are not happy with (and that is an understatement ) the proposal to introduce licencing for sea anglers.

The reply.

This was just one of many proposals put forward in the Marine white paper which is not a set in stone law just a proposal for changes to be made to outdated legislastion. They are looking for responses from stakeholders to help shape the future of our fisheries.

We then took the opportunity to explain how my meeting with Graham had changed his opinion as an angler from one who was never going to pay a licence to someone, who after been shown how several other items in the white paper could benifit RSA's here in the NE would be happy to pay for one if the sea fishing can be seen to improve as a result.

It was generally agreed that one of the problems with this type of consultatation process is that people who are not familiar with the whole process see just one sentence out of a 190 page document which is detremental and base their opinions on that without taking the rest of the document into consideration. The discussion then went on to try and address this problem and the suggestion was that those proposing the legislation should actually take time out to meet the grass routes anglers as opposed to the more vocal angling representatives. This discusion led to the second question..

Would you be prepared to meet local anglers here in the NE and answer their questions on the introduction of a licence before the closing date for the consultation of the white paper?

The answer was yes he would be happy to meet anglers here in the NE and discuss this and I should contact his PA to arrange a suitable date.

That meeting is currently a case of TBA...but it will be for NE anglers to have their say to someone in a position to make a difference. Rest assured we will follow it up and hold a minister to his promise.

Some figures based on a poll by the NFSA were discussed that show that only 7.5% of anglers supported the introduction of a license and the remainder were split between the no way would I pay the license and those who would pay if there were positive proposals and laws in place to help improve our fishing. I think David Miliband agreed that it is unfair to ask anglers to pay and hope for something better and I mentioned the possibility of minimal initial cost options such as the introduction of a limited area of no trawl and gill netting zone in each SFC area along the lines of the no trawl zone in the NESFC area. At least this way anglers would see something positive without the major expense of introducing and enforcing a license and something of benifit to all at minimum cost.

The Minister then went on to make a point that he feels it is important that the grass roots anglers are kept informed of what is going on regarding legislation ...we will have to see how that transpires into actual changes.

Graham then asked the minister if he would be prepared to answer some written questions as per his post and he accepted the print outs of your questions saying that he was unable to answer the questions immediately but would forward an emailed reply on each question to Graham and asked him to pass on the reply to original author.

The questions handed to David Miliband were those asked by
Alan Charlton,
Brih
Insanojackson
Pottsy
Ray
Carlie Thompson.

I will leave it Graham to see you get your personal answers however it is in the intrests of all forum members if you should chose to post those relpies so all can read them.

Finally I would like to thank Graham for asking me to join him in the meeting. After the meeting we retired for a couple of beers and to make some notes whilst things were fresh in our minds. I asked Graham where we shoud go from here and he agreed that the meeting had fulfilled his expectations and opened an opportunity for NE anglers to say their piece. He agreed that the follow up to this meeting is better left to me as his experience of this kind of meeting is very limited. As the NE regional co-ordinator for the SACN I would be happy to take on the responsibilty of arranging a meeting between NE anglers and David Miliband but if anyone feels they could help that would be gratefully accepted.

Cheers
Dave

[willywetegg]

Thank's to both Graham and Dave for representing us all at this meeting and thank's to Dave for the detailed posting of the meeting.

Looking forward to what I think will be a lot more replies to this thread but please, let's not have any personal attacks of any sort on anyone. They do not help our case at all.

I am going to stick this as I think it is a very important (if not the most important) thread that we have had on NESA for a long time.

Jim.

[davem2005]

Thanks Jim for making it a sticky.
Its a major step forward for NE anglers because as far as I am aware its the first time that grass roots anglers have been offered the opportunity to put their thoughts directly to a government minister.

I am eagerly awaiting the replies to the questions put by forum members which were handed to him in an unedited word for word print out directly from this site..or emails associated.

Sless and I discussed comments he had recieved pm's about people hijacking his initiative and said to me he has taken things as far as he knows how and would like it to be taken to its conclusion which is the succesful organisation of a meeting with David Miliband where NE anglers have their say.

I was asked to be the SACN NE regional co-ordinator because I am a born and bred NE angler. As those who have fished with me will tell you I am a very conservational minded angler who is doing his best to promote the fishing here in the NE. I fully appreciate the differences in the angling styles between this region and other areas of the country and as such up until 18 months ago I thought bass was a type of guitar!

Joking apart...the marine white paper is the most radical proposal to alter the way our fisheries are managed since 1968 and before that it is something like 1788. One of the major items in the white paper is the reform of the SFC's which were created over 200 years ago and main aim of the proposals seek to increase/improve their enforcement powers to help protect the fish stocks. That has got to be of benefit to all sea anglers in the long term but unfortunately since many stocks of species are listed as criticaly endangered its going to be sometime before they recover and anglers see the recovery in terms of improved catches.

Cheers
Dave

[insanojackson]

I didnt think my questions would seriously be put to milliband!

I was just being my usual sh1t stirring self

[ray]

I didnt think my questions would seriously be put to milliband!

I was just being my usual sh1t stirring self

told you there were more dodgy characters in the plod than security and thanks sless im looking forward to his answer

[sless]

have a look at this

http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/blogs/ministerial_blog/default.aspx

[fishfinder]

Would like to thank you both for the time you have put into this!! as jim said its the biggest and probably the most important thread in the history of nesa ..many thanks again lads it really is much appreciated .. graham you have done us proud mate and did you offer him the scones, dave your enthusiasm for this and down right determination is a breath of fresh air mate Im very pleased to have you representing us in the north east mate lets hope the outcome of this is very positive for all of us!!!

[KeithB]

Well said Paul, Thanks Graham & Dave!

[Ian Alexander]

Thanks lads.

Thanks Sless and Dave for the time and effort you've invested in this issue, it's appreciated.

[davem2005]

Your posts supporting what has been achieved so far are much appreciated but this is only the beginning. We now have to make that meeting happen and allow NE anglers to say their bit.

I will be contacting the SACN and NFSA for advice as the best way to make this meeting happen and for it to e run in an orderly fashion with the maximum number of people being allowed to say their bit to the decision makers.

There are other threads elsewhere regarding the licence and the local MP for whitby has expressed concern about its introduction and its possible effect on the local charter industry. I will be sending many emails on the subject over the next fews days to get some feedback as to where we go from here.

Cheers
Dave.

[Glenn Kilpatrick]

It was generally agreed that one of the problems with this type of consultatation process is that people who are not familiar with the whole process see just one sentence out of a 190 page document which is detremental and base their opinions on that without taking the rest of the document into consideration.

Such a sentence concerns me Dave. Fact is the majority of that 168 page document (Have some of the pages been removed from mine ??) is of little relevance to sea angling as we know it. Such a sentence is an attempt at distraction. The issues for sea angling are simple and should be kept that way. The Government knows exactly what they are doing and hiding the issues effecting us amongst whole list of irrelevance is an attempt at confusing the issue as they know full well hardly anyone will pick up that document and read it.

For once I think the NFSA have got something right all be it too late. The simple issue for us is the commercials took all the fish.

See their press release for this week

Date: April 25 2007

Sea anglers set out to tackle overfishing


The £1 billion a year the economy receives from recreational sea angling will start to dry up unless commercial overfishing in UK inshore waters is stopped and outlawed. This is according to a new poll among sea anglers and angling clubs, including many in the North East. It shows that the prime objective of the country's million sea anglers is to fight for a government ban on commercial overfishing which, they say, has devastated sea fish stocks for 30 years. In the poll conducted by the National Federation of Sea Anglers (NFSA), they said that lobbying the government to protect fish stocks was the most important of the federation's work. It scored 4.55 points out of a possible five. "Their top concern by far was conservation," said Richard Ferré, chairman of the NFSA. "Unless the ruination of marine stocks is stopped and stopped quickly, there will scarcely be any fish for anglers to go after and people will simply turn away from this healthy outdoor sport. "It will be the same for commercial fishermen and the fishing fleets will continue to wither away.
"Before there is any thought of an angling licence there must first beeffective steps to regenerate fish stocks," Mr. Ferré said. "These must be actions which can be plainly seen to be increasing the number and the size of fish in the sea." More than 600 anglers and clubs responded to the poll. Nearly half (49 per cent) opposed any form of licensing for recreational sea angling. Nearly as many (43 per cent) said they would only agree if government action first improved fish stocks and if licence fees were invested to continue to produce better sea angling. Only 7.5 per cent of respondents agreed outright with recreational sea angling licences now.
Mr. Ferré said legislation for licensing was foreshadowed in the Marine Bill White Paper earlier this month, also limiting the number of fish anglers could take home for their own consumption and banning or limiting angling in marine protected areas "We have very serious reservations on all three because successive governments have allowed the commercial decimation of fish stocks and totally neglected recreational sea angling until very recently when they realised its economic value.

Thanks for posting the link on the Whitby site Dave. Hopefully some of our members will come here and take part in the debate.

Cheers - Glenn

[elton]

have a look at this


http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.u...g/default.aspx

"There is a welcome debate starting about how we move on from the current "no pay, no say" position of recreational sea anglers - up to 20,000 of them"

Is that per county!!!

Well done to Dave and Sless for taking this step, btw. Keep up the good work, guys.

[PAUL.S.HARRISON.SNR]

I have just returned from a meeting arranged by Sless with David Miliband.

A report of that meeting is as follows:-

After initial introductions Graham was asked to state his case for the meeting, which was to object to the proposed introduction of a sea angling licence. The opening comment was that local anglers are not happy with (and that is an understatement ) the proposal to introduce licencing for sea anglers.

The reply.

This was just one of many proposals put forward in the Marine white paper which is not a set in stone law just a proposal for changes to be made to outdated legislastion. They are looking for responses from stakeholders to help shape the future of our fisheries.

We then took the opportunity to explain how my meeting with Graham had changed his opinion as an angler from one who was never going to pay a licence to someone, who after been shown how several other items in the white paper could benifit RSA's here in the NE would be happy to pay for one if the sea fishing can be seen to improve as a result.

It was generally agreed that one of the problems with this type of consultatation process is that people who are not familiar with the whole process see just one sentence out of a 190 page document which is detremental and base their opinions on that without taking the rest of the document into consideration. The discussion then went on to try and address this problem and the suggestion was that those proposing the legislation should actually take time out to meet the grass routes anglers as opposed to the more vocal angling representatives. This discusion led to the second question..

Would you be prepared to meet local anglers here in the NE and answer their questions on the introduction of a licence before the closing date for the consultation of the white paper?

The answer was yes he would be happy to meet anglers here in the NE and discuss this and I should contact his PA to arrange a suitable date.

That meeting is currently a case of TBA...but it will be for NE anglers to have their say to someone in a position to make a difference. Rest assured we will follow it up and hold a minister to his promise.

Some figures based on a poll by the NFSA were discussed that show that only 7.5% of anglers supported the introduction of a license and the remainder were split between the no way would I pay the license and those who would pay if there were positive proposals and laws in place to help improve our fishing. I think David Miliband agreed that it is unfair to ask anglers to pay and hope for something better and I mentioned the possibility of minimal initial cost options such as the introduction of a limited area of no trawl and gill netting zone in each SFC area along the lines of the no trawl zone in the NESFC area. At least this way anglers would see something positive without the major expense of introducing and enforcing a license and something of benifit to all at minimum cost.

The Minister then went on to make a point that he feels it is important that the grass roots anglers are kept informed of what is going on regarding legislation ...we will have to see how that transpires into actual changes.

Graham then asked the minister if he would be prepared to answer some written questions as per his post and he accepted the print outs of your questions saying that he was unable to answer the questions immediately but would forward an emailed reply on each question to Graham and asked him to pass on the reply to original author.

The questions handed to David Miliband were those asked by
Alan Charlton,
Brih
Insanojackson
Pottsy
Ray
Carlie Thompson.

I will leave it Graham to see you get your personal answers however it is in the intrests of all forum members if you should chose to post those relpies so all can read them.

Finally I would like to thank Graham for asking me to join him in the meeting. After the meeting we retired for a couple of beers and to make some notes whilst things were fresh in our minds. I asked Graham where we shoud go from here and he agreed that the meeting had fulfilled his expectations and opened an opportunity for NE anglers to say their piece. He agreed that the follow up to this meeting is better left to me as his experience of this kind of meeting is very limited. As the NE regional co-ordinator for the SACN I would be happy to take on the responsibilty of arranging a meeting between NE anglers and David Miliband but if anyone feels they could help that would be gratefully accepted.

Cheers
Dave

well dave i can see where your going hear, its never changed to find out who is in who's pocket we all know were you are comeing from. once the law is changed they can do what they like, so tell you something now but once its law do what they wish "WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE LABOUR PARTY HEAR ARN'T WE" DONT BE FOOLED BY THE SWEETNERS PUT IN TO MAKE IT LOOK GOOD THE BOTTOM LINE IS THEY WILL CHANGE THE LAW ONCE AGAIN TAKING AWAY OUR LEGAL RIGHTS. once this law is changed and it all goes tits up where will you be, in another cushy job or standing side by side fighting to try and reverse the law that you let get passed. SLESS there is more than one side to this argument meet with an oposition and find out there views before you give miliband any type of creedance.

[davem2005]

Hi Paul ,
A valid point , but as anglers we have a right to get our points of view over. I know where my opinion lies and that is that I will pay a sea angling licence IF we get some improvements in our fishing before we have to pay. According to a survey by the NFSA this is also the opinion of over 50% of those polled. 7% said they would happily pay a license and the remainder said they would never pay. Not an etched in stone figure but it does give an indication of anglers feelings and the most important figure is that only 7% agreed with the licencing proposal. The indications I got from our meeting is that the politicians are well aware of these figures and are rapidly realising it would not be benificial to upset a large number of voters. This may not be of concern in a safe seat but there are marginal seats they would have to defend.

One very intresting point brought up by David Miliband (before we had a chance to do so) was that he considered it only right that we should expect to see the improvement before we asked to pay. He also gave us a copy of an article in Tackle and Guns Magazine by the labour MP Martin Salter ( Reading West ) who stated in that article and also in the commons debate on the marine white paper:-

"I do not think that the recreational sea angling sector is wholly hostile to the idea of a rod licence. However given the problems that sea anglers have faced for a long time which have been caused by other sectors and our failure to manage this preciose marine resource, they are entitled to see some improvements first. Personally, I am content for the marine bill to go ahead with the power to create a sea rod license. However we should be very clear about the pre-conditions and circumstances under which a rod license should be introduced."

There is no doubt that politictians at all levels are are aware of the reservations of sea anglers ( or indeed in many cases the the outright refusal to buy any proposed license) and the only way to ensure we get what is best for us is to get off our butts and speak our minds but not necessarily here to directly to those who can make a difference.

If anyone wants any help as to how to make an official reply to DEFRA on any or all of the proposals in the Marine white paper just ask. For the record I hope to be in the same job after the marine white paper goes through parliament which happens to be as a commercial painter. A job I take time off from (unpaid) to attend meetings to try and get a better deal for anglers and more importantly try and get anglers themselves to voice their opinions to the decision makers.

Cheers
Dave

[PAUL.S.HARRISON.SNR]

Hi Paul ,
A valid point , but as anglers we have a right to get our points of view over. I know where my opinion lies and that is that I will pay a sea angling licence IF we get some improvements in our fishing before we have to pay. According to a survey by the NFSA this is also the opinion of over 50% of those polled. 7% said they would happily pay a license and the remainder said they would never pay. Not an etched in stone figure but it does give an indication of anglers feelings and the most important figure is that only 7% agreed with the licencing proposal. The indications I got from our meeting is that the politicians are well aware of these figures and are rapidly realising it would not be benificial to upset a large number of voters. This may not be of concern in a safe seat but there are marginal seats they would have to defend.

One very intresting point brought up by David Miliband (before we had a chance to do so) was that he considered it only right that we should expect to see the improvement before we asked to pay. He also gave us a copy of an article in Tackle and Guns Magazine by the labour MP Martin Salter ( Reading West ) who stated in that article and also in the commons debate on the marine white paper:-

"I do not think that the recreational sea angling sector is wholly hostile to the idea of a rod licence. However given the problems that sea anglers have faced for a long time which have been caused by other sectors and our failure to manage this preciose marine resource, they are entitled to see some improvements first. Personally, I am content for the marine bill to go ahead with the power to create a sea rod license. However we should be very clear about the pre-conditions and circumstances under which a rod license should be introduced."

There is no doubt that politictians at all levels are are aware of the reservations of sea anglers ( or indeed in many cases the the outright refusal to buy any proposed license) and the only way to ensure we get what is best for us is to get off our butts and speak our minds but not necessarily here to directly to those who can make a difference.

If anyone wants any help as to how to make an official reply to DEFRA on any or all of the proposals in the Marine white paper just ask. For the record I hope to be in the same job after the marine white paper goes through parliament which happens to be as a commercial painter. A job I take time off from (unpaid) to attend meetings to try and get a better deal for anglers and more importantly try and get anglers themselves to voice their opinions to the decision makers.

Cheers
Dave

PLEASED YOU ANSWERED MY COMMENTS DAVE NOT IN THE WAY I EXPECTED BUT YOU DID NEVERLESS, STILL WAITING FOR YOU TO SAY YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO TALK TO OPERSITION PARTIES OTHER THAN LABOUR I LIVE IN HOPE!!!! AS I SAID IN MY FIRST COMMENTS THERE IS ALWAYS MORE THAN ONE SIDE TO A STORY BEST TO HEAR IT ALL BEFORE MAKING A FINAL DESISION OH! AND DONT FORGET THERE IS STILL THE MOVMENT OF BLOCKING THE BILL WITH A LEGAL CHALLENGE THROUGH THE COURTS DONT FORGET