Marine Management Organisation
Date of next meeting:
Thursday, 12th January 2023: 3pm to 5pm. The meeting will be held in-person with the option to join on MS Teams. Please contact regionalfisheriesgroups@marinemanagement.org.uk to request the invite link.
Successes in the South 7d:
1. Grants FaSS match rates on Health & Safety funding
The NW RFG raised the disparity between the amount for grant funding available for bottom towed gear and other gear types.
The Defra FaSS team bought a paper to the board asking for the match-funding rates of fishing vessels which are classed as micro entities to be raised to 80% for Health & Safety projects regardless of the type of fishing gear used. This would bring them in line with the rate available to small-scale coastal fishers (SSCF).
Following discussions within this group and with the HM Treasury, the change has been approved: match-funding rates for any vessel with a length of 12m or less will be raised to 80% for Health & Safety projects, regardless of the type of gear used.
2. Additional Quota 2021 round
Additional Quota was made available from the MMO at the end of 2021. The one-time offer meant a small amount of the additional quota England received from the Trade and Cooperation Agreement was distributed via selected Producer Organisations (PO) without cost to the U10m vessel or benefit to the PO. It enabled capped vessels to fish above their annual 350kg limit for quota stocks before January 1 2022.
3. Additional Quota 2022 round
A similar scheme took place again in 2022 starting earlier in the year.
Temporary lift of the under-10m licence cap from 1 August 2022.
The cap on some under-10m vessels which restricts their uptake to no more than 350kg per year of quota stocks was temporarily lifted for the remainder of 2022. This is being done to facilitate uptake of available quota and as an exercise to make an initial test for any unexpected consequences of lifting the cap more permanently.