Report rules out fishing fuel aid

The report from a committee, chaired by Lord Sewel, is a mid-term review of European fishing subsidies. Lord Sewel said subsidising fuel prices was "completely" wrong when there was over-capacity within Europe.

The Scottish Fishermen's Federation said it had already reduced its fleet and was now being "left to the wolves".

Lord Sewel told BBC Scotland the last reform of the CFP in 2002, which handed responsibility for a reduction in the size of fleets back to member states, had been a "complete failure". He said the size of the EU fishing fleet was unsustainable due to the reluctance of some member states to reduce their fleets. This was not the case in Scotland, he added.

The Lords report recommends that it should be left to the market "to precipitate exits from the national fleet, notably through fuel prices".

Lord Sewel said: "Where you have got, on a European level, over-capacity, it seems to me to be quite illogical to maintain that over-capacity by subsidising fuel."

The Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) reacted angrily to the report and said neither the conclusion nor the solution makes any sense for Scotland.