The Sea Angling Licence Debate
May 8th, 2007 by Chris in Fishing Regulations
Traditionally, sea anglers have (rightly so) benefitted from free fishing along Britain’s coastline - we’re free to fish, catch and eat (as long as the fish meet the minimum regulation size) from any public shore. Unfortunately this won’t be the case if the Marine Bill White Paper has anything to do with it. The White Paper has proposed the possiblity of introducing rod licences for sea anglers, meaning that anybody who wants to fish from the shore will have to purchase one of these licences before doing so. Estimates are sketchy as to the amount of sea anglers there are out there, some reports state 20,000 whilst others a whopping 1,000,000. Even if you go somewhere in the middle, the amount of Government revenue that would be raised by a licence would be quite significant.
Those acquainted with coarse fishing will already be accustomed to the necessary evil of purchasing rod licences from the Environment Agency. At least coarse fishing licences can be justified - the EA do a great job at preserving the UK’s riverways, banks, canals and even looking after fish stocks. Just how a the license of sea anglers would benefit fish stocks and the maintenance of Britain’s shores remains to be seen. What detrimental effect do sea anglers really pose to the coastline? As a guess, when compared to the commercial overfishing which has been prevelant in the North Sea for example, UK sea anglers probably represent less than 0.0001% of any decline in fish stocks. This is just a simplified number, but I believe that the Government should tackle these commercial fishing issues before introducing yet another regressive tax.
It has been commented that UK sea anglers contribute up to half a billion pounds to the economy per annum - you know where it goes, tackle, bait etc… Surely this contribution is enough to the economy than an unnecessary sea fishing licence.
If you want to have your say against the introduction of sea angling licences, then you can sign your name on a petition over at the Government’s website. It only takes a minute, and every signature counts. You can sign the petition here.
Sea angling is about the only leisure sport that is not taxed, We the great British public are taxed to death, come on leave us one thing thats not taxed.
Richard chidgey
This Goverment, in fact all goverments, are trying every way too tax the ordinary man in his pleasures, why dont they leave the only thing that a man or woman can do, to relieve any stress they might have, by going spending a few hours on the beach, and leave them too enjoy a hobby that has been done for hundreds of years. What are they gonna tax next! Enjoy whilst we can.
The Government are,as usual, exhibiting 70s Russia type control over the British people.We will be forced to pay whether we like it or not.The only hope is that some sort of support will be shown us with regard to safeguarding fish stocks and perhaps pushing commercials a little further out to sea,so that our children will at least have something to fish for.
Had all the fieldsports united years ago, the millions of potential Power-changing votes wielded by the shooters,hunters,coarse and sea anglers not to mention hundreds of minority sports would have prevented the bans,draconian regulations and playground bullying type of legislation we now endure.Governments would fear the fieldsport vote above all, imagine,if the estimated figures are correct, 4.5 million of us voting in unison against a party that seeks to over regulate our activities in response to loud anti minorities. With election turnouts of 20 million,thats nearly a 25% swing we have at our disposal.
Rod licenses COULD benefit anglers but dont hold your breath,as I read recently, even the worst con artist has a product to sell,but our mighty leaders appear to have empty hands in exchange for our proposed payment.
what percentage of fish taken (not caught and released) from british waters do sea anglers take?? perhaps less than 100th of 1%
simply another tax no matter what a bunch of people with the combined IQ of a sprat may claim!!!
i am enraged to hear about a sea angling licence ive fished the sea for over 30 years and in that time no government has ever done a damed thing about protecting dwindeling fish stocks . this licence will only benefit our already greedy governments and put yours and my funds in to their mismanaged pot’i wont be paying for a license and if these bailiffs want to find me its a darn big sea out their this country was great once now its just a greedy nation run by overpaid idiots and were to blame because we all moan and do nothing about it unlike the french // will the rest of europe pay,i doubt it .so stuff the license were the sun dont shine
i dont like the sound of a rod license what are they doing about the commercial fisherman. this is why are fish stock are low becuase of commercial fishing may be they should tax them more money and push them 6 mile form cost line. this is discusting what you are trying to do. i know two commercial fisherman they put nets 50 yards off our shore lines and when are they going to stop them and want to tax us on a rod license that why we dont have enough fish in our sea it pure greed all the government is tax us of the planet something we enjoy doing what are they going to tax us to have a baby ha ha
Ive only just heard this on the news, what a liberty! We people of this so called Great country are being shafted in all directions I think its about time we stood up for ourselves ( How I Dont Know ) Perhaps total refusal to pay for this licence I am sure they cannot lock us all up.
It really isnt any good just moaning about the treatment we get we should just stick together and fight once again quite how I admit I dont know maybe someone does.
Hopefully this is another nail in the governments coffin. Maybe the government would like to put a few billion pounds of taxpayers money into imigrating some fish stocks along with all the worlds people. At least me might get a return out of it.
I am not surprised at anything this Labour party think up, or steal from the opposition. This rod license is nothing but an ill conceived tax, proceeds going to, private companies to police the law, another business opportunity to friends and family of politicians. GRRRRR
we should just do what the french would do, all go fishing, nobody buy the license and all refuse to pay the fine. cant put us all in prison can they ?
if they policed the commercial fisherman (inc spanish, french etc) , give them strict quotas and looked into fish farming for the future so the commercial fishing boats could be dramatically cut down (afterall they are the ones doing the damage) then i wouldnt mind paying a small amount for a fishing license. i believe iceland are conserving and breeding fish so why cant we? i know seasons and water temps are a stumbling point for fish farming but if money was put into technology im sure we could sort something out.
all in all if the license money was put to good use and it improved fish stocks even by 20% then it would be a good thing.
if they aint going to do nothing and then charge us to fish then we all need to make a stand.
thats my opinion , we all need to stick together on this !!
Hello
Sea Fishing should allways be free. Nobody ownes the sea so why pay to fish there we need to stick together on this and keep our fate!!!!
i love going sea fishing with other people in my family please dont make us pay !!!!!!
Just another labour government tax in my opinion!
How will it be enforced and what about the occasional holiday anglers? IE,those who have a go on short “deep sea” or mackerel trips run by local boat owners at holiday resorts?
If they were to designate half of the wrecks, reefs and other areas around britain as sport fishing only sites with no commercial fishing allowed,then perhaps I’d be tempted to agree.
It’ll take several years for fish numbers to recover in sufficient numbers and sizes to be able to justify taxing uk sea anglers for their hobby.
Just another pointless tax. The concerns and needs Sport fishing has been ignored for years, the seas raped by the commercial fishermen and now they want us to pay! There is no point in paying for a license when the governments track record on managing fish stocks is nothing short of criminal. Their promises of more fish being available if we pay are impossible to believe, given the total inability to listern to anyone else but the commercial fishin lobby. I won’t be buying a sea license until I see our fish stocks being properly managed and investment of both money and effort taking place.
Well if they want to bring a licence in they are going to have to use bailiffs to police it; I for one will not be buying a licence and would love to see a bailiff try to enforce the licence conditions after walking a couple of miles from the nearest public road and climbing 200ft down a cliff to my favorite spot!
Or are we going to have a “Police state” and be stopped for being in transit with a fishing rod without a licence!
Its a ridiculous idea and should be laughed out of parliament along with the person who proposed it!
Hypocritical self serving bunch of shysters that they are.
This government need these extra taxes to cover the cost of excessive expense claims, inflation proof pensions, taxi fares for wives doing the shopping, second homes, personal security for multi million pound earning ex prime ministers. Who proposed this ridiculous solution to a non existent problem in the first place? Deselection at the earliest opportunity should be their reward.
I am really shocked at this complete back door proposal for the sea fishing licence. Isn’t it yet again another stealth tax we would have to pay, all in the name of conservation. At least thats what we are led to believe, but is it really going to improve fish stocks around the UK, I doudt it. Like everything with this greedy government it will become just another means of lining the governments pockets. I am a avid conservationist who is aware of the state of the sea and the fish stocks, but perhaps they should be looking at the fact the sea is over fished by gigantic trawlers from Iceland, Norway and many many more places. I am also a sea angler, who if I am lucky may catch one or maybe two fish every few months. But its not only the actual catching of the fish, but the freedom to fish when and where I choose along the coast of Britain. Like a previous comment I read, it is about the only past time/sport that is free. Apart from walking that is(at the moment!). How is it that we can allow yet another freedom to be taken away from us, and yet no one seems to even care or be aware. Is it the intention to employ hundreds of bailiffs to patrol our coast line to make sure we have a licence or maybe they intend to board small boats at sea to check for fishing rods and fish? Why is it that people won’t voice an opinion for someting that really matters too them, or maybe they do once something has gone. Too late then. We have eneogh taxes and licences to pay already in this country. Don’t let this become yet another rich mans sport. Why are there no petitions to MP’s? Come on Brits take a stance for once and be heard. We don’t want this sea fishing licence!!
Having seen the disastrous introduction of a Sea Angling Licence in Portugal. I wonder what the Government’s agenda really is: It is almost as if they want to destroy RSA in the UK & the jobs it supports.
I own a small fishing tackle shop in Whitehaven, Cumbria & 90% of my custom is from sea anglers. I am appalled by the idea of a licence.
The vast majority of my customers aren’t dedicated, week in - week out anglers & if they are forced to pay for a licence, will simply cease fishing.
If I lose their custom, then I will quite simply be forced to close at an age where finding alternative employment is unlikely & will have no business to sell to supply my pension.
I can see nothing being promised to sea anglers in the way of immediate action to improve our sport & have serious doubts that anything WILL be done to restrict commercial over exploitation of fish stocks: The need for urgent action has been driven home to successive governments by their own scientific advisers for forty years with no effective measures being implemented, so why should we think anything will change now?
Look what happened to the increase in Bass MLS for how much this government cares about the needs of RSA.
Write to your MP expressing your complete opposition to this ridiculous licence & do the same to the Fisheries Minister - do it NOW
I live in the south west region of the country and i personaly dont know how they expect to govern a sea fishing licence as it would be vertually imposible to check on shore fishermen, and i find that the main targets would be the charter boats who take people fishing as well as normal boat owners and holiday makers and would drive people away from charter boats as the coast line is vast in Devon AND Cornwall with so many places to shore or fish from rocks ect how on earth would they be able to check such a large area answer is it would be imposible and instead of going in charter boats would drive people to either find hidy holes or to risk life by trying to reach ineccessable places or worst still stop the sport they enjoy,licences for fresh water is ok the money goes into restocking the rivers ect which i dont mind paying, but for a sea licence im sorry but the thought is where would they put the money taken they cant restock the sea thats up to nature,they could use the money taken to add to the stocking of even more fish to the rivers but is that fair on the sea angler i think not . As far as im concerned a sea fishing licence for the average joe is obserd.
I worked for 17.5 yrs with the NRA, then the Environment Agency as a local Fisheries Inspector (freshwater).
Whilst local fisheries teams worked hard and achieved much with little,
the official mantra that all licence income is spent on fisheries work is bullshit. Mis-management, top slicing of budgets to pay for Agency support systems (IT, Admin. Offices , Vehicles, Servicing etc) are often works of pure fiction or fantasy, coupled with arcane accounting systems, resulting in peanuts dribbling down to the local areas where the licence income is generated and supposed to be spent. In one instance ring fenced Fisheries Licence Income was used to prop up another Departments budget shortfall. Expect no better or worse of these cockeyed proposals for a Sea Fishing Licence. They can’t even licence check freshwaters adequately with current staffing levels.
if the goverment got someone who new what thay where doing thay wouldn’t have to keep thinking of new ways to make money because thats all the licence is about is to take money from people who dont have a lot to start with and besides that it not there sea to tax people its every bodes so does that mean we will all get a cut of the profits
I think it is totally rubbish. Just now we are going to need a license to even peaking around a takle shop.
Another goverment Tax how can they enforce it, just started fishing again after 20 years and did a google search as i want to try and find out about sea fishing, don’t mind paying normal licence but a sea fishing one aswell, i am sixty mile from any coast line and would only go a few times a year as i cannot afford the DIESEL another tax
Typical, our govournment sucks. Where would THIS tax money go? Mr Browns booze fund?
i am a keen angler both course and sea, i think where all missing the point here, its not the issue about possible charge for sea anglers to have a rod licence, its that rod licences should be scrapped all together, the thing about the money going to improve waters and the enviroment is all bumff, if i need a licence to own a rod, simular to a gun, why does it depend where im using it as to needing a licence, another load of rubbish we have to put up with in this country.
Re M Salter MP Vol/ £1 levy for sea fishing, I do not believe Go/ would accept such a paltry sum, nor do I believe anglers would pay an excessive charge. The industry would lose revenue, from anglers, who only fish on holidays, unless charges (or permits?) were issued for i.e. lifetime, 5 year, yearly, monthly, or weekly (lets face it, that’s how it would be paid, very weakly) This would however, allow the individual, to select the tariff, most suitable. Access is restricted in many areas, would this be lifted, on purchase of a fee (I doubt it) Installation of Wind farms etc wrecks havoc in the surrounding area, such as Llandudno to Ryll (would compensation be given) I assume licences if enforced, would not cover sea trout or salmon, so what stops Gov/ saying at a later date, bass, cod, etc. exempt as well (youi can take doggies or weavers only? thank you) Disabled and the elderly are severely restricted now, nor could they hide in inacessable places (would they be exempt from any such charges). The Government cannot effectively police charges for TV licenses, car insurance, MOT, etc not even deterr litter louts (mant I am ashamed to say are anglers) so they have no hope of effectively policing sea anglers (over 2,500 miles of shoreline?). Those willing to pay would grudgingly do so, whilst the rest (justifyable) would not purchase licenses.
The number of bailiffs required and the cost involved, (hello they could use the forecasted 3 million on the dole) to effectively police these licenses, would exeed the revenue obtained (I say revenue, it is in fact a
stealth tax) The fishing industry is in dire straights now, due to excessive cost, of dwindling bait supplies etc. it could not sustain further loss, due to anglers leaving the sport (for it is a sport, we don’t make a profit) The inshore trwlers would have to stopped as would the habit of nets from the shoreline, which are decimating the fish stocks, leaving virtually nothing for the sea angler to catch (sorry I forgot the doggies and weavers) . This would have to be stopped, before anglers would pay any charge (they are not going to freeze to death, unable to catch anything, and pay for the privilage) and for what, a possible future limit of one fish.
The idea of allowing fish stocks to rise, will only benifit the trwlermen, who will only come back onto the scene and wipe them out again, the sea angler is not capable of doing so. Finally I don’t believe any revenue obtained, would benefit the sea angler in any way, it is just another way of milking Joe Bloggs. I believe a charge is inevitable, what the Gov/ wants it gets (the people servants/ rubbish) and they will have to tax everything in sight, to recoup the billions chucked away, to the banks and in Iraq etc.
GC
well just as i thought id try a new hobby to gey me away from the rat race the rat race follows me with a new tax. Th next tax will be for sitting looking at the fish,
Dave Carmarthenshire
Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll be taxed for it.
As a course fisherman I have no quarms in paying my fee, as the benifits to the environment have being pointed out already,In fact I have no desire to sea fish at all, But I find it grossley unfair to charge the sea angler to fisdoes Gordon Brown actually like being PM ?, Look at the effect this will have on the local guy’s and girls with charter boats and local tackle shops ! yes id say the Lunatics have took over the Aslialum for defininte.
Yet another tax that will bring no benefit to those who pay it.
I live in Herefordshire so am a good one and threequarter hours from the nearest sea fishing I am also unfortunately a customer of Welsh Water and as such already pay a stealth tax to cover improvements to the coastline and coastal waters insomuch as we have one of the highest water charges in the UK (along with South West).
I personally would have no problem paying a nominal fee if I thought that there was any chance at all that the present dire fish stock situation would be improved but unfortunatley as long as we have commercial fishing on the scale that we have at present we will see no improvement, from where I stand all we will achieve is yet another group of inspectors (most likely suitably empowered locals in some suitable brightly coloured uniform) who will have the right to nose into our business and tackle boxes and have the ability to impose unreasonable fines and crush our cars should we make the mistake of using a 6oz potentially toxic weight instead of the EU acceptable CE marked non toxic 170g version (it will come I promise you and I cannot wait for the rules on casting in public to be coverered under H&S regs).
On of the main things to think about where any form of licence is imposed ongoing regulation becomes much easier to implement as it then becomes a licece requirement and should you fail to observe regulation licence is revoked and fishing ceases and resulting fines can become serious.
The proposals have absolutely nothing to do with conservation, increasing access due to improvements (bear in mind that most of the access routes to fishing areas are privately owned so no improvement will be made there) or making things better for anglers it is all about taking one of the last real freedoms we have in this country away unfortunately this government cannot bear the thought of anybody having the freedom to carry out an activity that they cannot snoop into and control in some way this is one of the last historic freedoms we have in this country enjoy it while you can as we soon have people in yellow hi vis jackets with some inane title on the back watching everything we do with the intention of finding fault and then marching us to the nearest cashpoint to hand over a subtantial fine (should be interesting in some of the areas I fish).
Sorry for the tirade but I really do feel as though this is one of the last bastions of freedom from regulatory inspectors we have in this country and that it is being taken away by the use of completely spurious arguments that have very little basis in fact and will do absolutely nothing for the people concerned.