Fishing for profit…

You’ve no doubt read our recent report on fisheries policy, Plenty More Fish in the Sea — yes, of course you have. It shows how, a decade on from Brexit, we still haven’t done the right things to revive the UK fishing industry. Indeed, we have burdened it with quangos, while EU vessels  benefit from everything we are doing to conserve stocks. We have a one-in-a-generatiobn chance to fix that. 

It seems nothing has changed. Back in 1776, 250 years ago, the pioneering economist Adam Smith was complaining about fishing policy too. He figured it was pointless for British families to pay higher taxes to subsidise herring exports to other countries. And because the subsidy was paid to fishing fleets according to the size of their vessels, ship owners would build over-large ships to ‘catch the subsidy’ rather than the fish!

And here he is explaining it to his student, the young Duke of Buccleuch, in my graphic novel of The Wealth of Nations.

Eamonn Butler