TWO MPs took to a Greenpeace boat to meet campaigners and discuss problems affecting the local fishing industry.

Bob Seely, Island MP, and Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing West and Father of the House of Commons, who has long had connections with the Island, this week discussed the threats facing the seas off the south coast of England and the importance of strengthening marine protection to protect nature and boost local coastal communities.

The meeting took place on Greenpeace’s newest boat, Sea Beaver, which took the group sailing around the waters to the east of the Isle of Wight.

During the outing, they discussed the threats posed by supertrawlers, bottom trawlers and industrial fly-shooters, and how these destructive industrial forms of fishing have harmed the UK’s fishing communities.

Fishers were promised that Brexit would help revive the UK’s struggling coastal communities, and provide the UK with a unique opportunity to implement world leading marine protection standards.

While the Government has used its new Brexit powers to ban electric pulse trawling from UK waters, supertrawlers, bottom trawlers and fly-shooters are still allowed to fish in most offshore Marine Protected Areas without restrictions.

Greenpeace research found that supertrawlers, which are more than 100m long and each capable of catching and carrying thousands of tonnes of fish, spent 5,590 hours in 19 of the UK’s marine protected areas in the first six months of 2020 alone.

Greenpeace says, as a result, fish stocks in inshore waters have been severely depleted and local fishers have been struggling to make ends meet.

Sir Peter Bottomley said: “I am grateful to the Greenpeace crew for this opportunity to learn more about the need for enforced effective rules to ban unsustainable fishing.

“It was a pleasure to meet the working fisherman from Newhaven, who explained why fly-shooting, super trawling and techniques that destructively scour the sea bed combine to ruin the marine ecosystem while ending the opportunities for appropriate catches of mature fish.

“The Greenpeace ‘Operation Ocean Witness’ helps detect inappropriate or illegal fishing. We should all be grateful.”

Mr Seely said: “This campaign is an important one. The Government’s Fisheries Bill has meant we can take some important steps to develop a Fisheries Policy which is right for the UK.

“That includes supporting and growing our fishing industry as well as protecting fish stocks and the marine environment.

“I think Greenpeace are right to be highlighting the dangers of industrial trawlers and illegal fishing and I will be working to press the government to take further steps on this important issue.

“When industrial trawlers hoover up, in a space of only a few hours, significant fish stocks as well as damaging the long-term health of the marine environment, they destroy inshore fishing along the south coast.

"I’ll be working with other MPs along the south to make sure the government is listening, as I’m sure it will be.”