Fax Patron Byline with airSlate SignNow

Official byline

right it has been all over the news recently the fishing industry coming down to westminster to protest brexit dozens of lorries piling up outside westminster because they've been hit by that wall of brexit red tape so what's going on we decided to talk to tom howard who has been working in the oyster farming industry all of his life his family have been doing it for 300 years we wanted to talk to him about what the impact is on his industry and what it's been for his own business so you're on the east coast in essex and farming your oysters there and when talking to fishermen around you they were all pro brexit then where are they now what are they saying we've had some fishermen some english fishermen come out and saying you know they were had and they were angry about it but a lot of them seem quite silent on the matter yeah they've gone very silent still where i am uh locally um they're not very keen to talk about it it's all where i am a lot of the fishermen and um i mean there's a lot of oystermen who do fishing as well and they've moved from fishing into oystering because there was more money there because the fishing industry in brixton has been dying for small local communities like ours um but they've all been very pro-brexit and thinking it was going to be something wonderful but now um in the past couple of weeks since january the 1st they don't want to talk about it they're not they're not vocal they don't have an opinion anymore it seems it's it's almost like we don't talk about that anymore it's if you even want to have a conversation it's swept under the carpet because it's not happening how they envisaged i'm not quite sure what they envisaged would happen i'm not quite sure what their rose tinted view would be of of what would happen on january the first but whatever they thought was going to happen hasn't yeah and that wall has hit very hard hasn't it because um the the paperwork coming in suddenly the lack of support that the government have it you know it really jumped it turned it turned 180 quite dramatically and now it's it's one of the top issues let's let's talk about you though in your business because you've been hit by both the pandemic and then now brexit so your eighth generation oystermen your your family has been in this for about 300 years now in the same area building it up building up that trade new supply to the uk to some of the the finest restaurants and to markets there across europe and and even out to thailand and so you're well developed and well experienced in in this area but still it's a tough business and you've you your business had many tough times over the generations down the years but right now you're quite concerned for its existence from from what i understand because that pandemic has really shut down the hospitality industry and then when we talked to you over the summer you were dead worried about what brexit would do particularly in no deal brexit but from what i understand this deal itself is very much in the same place as a no deal brexit as far as you're concerned as far as exporting is concerned you don't have the tariffs but you do have the red tape barrier so um yeah yeah and i think ultimately i've off i mean we were supplying spain uh belgium and germany um regularly especially 2000 i'm forgetting 2020 even existed in regards to anything um 2019 we're supplying belgium spain uh germany and sending a healthy amount to each of those countries um but this but brexit alone we've lost them completely as customers we've just lost them we can't we physically can't send oysters to them anymore because of the cost that's involved with that paperwork um because that cost is so so impactful on on what we do we have to we have to put that cost somewhere yeah and either we swallow that cost yeah or we pass to the customer and we asked you and we asked you for some of the examples of of the paperwork and you and and you sent us through um three examples of paperwork saying you know that this this isn't this certainly isn't all of it but here are a few things that you should know about you should know about the certificate of of origin that we have to complete now certificates of health that need to be completed catch certificates which now need to be completed and and this one from hm government which you sent us which i'm looking at on my phone needs signatures all over the place we need a signature from the master the receiving vessel we need a signature from the trans shipment authorization within a port area another signature for name and address of exporter another one from flag state authority validation another one on the importer declaration with their name and address and then you need a signature at the end and then you need a stamp so this has to pass through a lot of people's hands um this is this is time consuming right very time consuming and the thing is is that well spain for instance our a big customer in spain that were basically lost um for cost reasons and also on a monday morning at 10 a.m our spanish customer would say i need 150 kilos of oysters we need to know by 11am right we can't do that in the new system because there's no way at 10 a.m i'll be able to then get hold of my environmental health officer to sign a certificate by the end of the day that day it just wouldn't i wouldn't be able to do it margins are tight it doesn't matter who you are these these big guys in scotland or whoever yeah they sell a lot of shellfish but they have to sell massive bulks of it i'll assume based on my own business to make up those margins because margins are tiny within within food anyone in the food industry those margins are horrible um so but with this paperwork that's going to squeeze our margins even more and we will have to put that cost on the product for the customer because we can't swallow any more loss on our margin that won't compete with danish oysters irish oysters french oysters they can send their oysters all around europe without any of this paperwork without any of that hassle and on a click of a finger which is what the free market the the the single market was meant to be all about right just you know for all this eu red tape i mean the the old bureaucracy was about trying to rip down these barriers so that you could be instant wherever you are just like you you're within one country whereas before by being in the single market they just catch them and pack them off yeah and that's it not sending it to it's like me sending a box to to you right now you know you just i just put in a box and send it and don't have to think about it yeah well that's what we're doing in europe well we i mean we care tom and we want to like chat with you again when we can and um keep us updated and uh fingers crossed and we'll stay in touch and thanks ever so much for your time again thank you for having me it's been great so after that conversation my reflection to this that it's it's sad it's it's quite a bleak situation for uk fishing industry they were held up as one of the reasons for brexit they were championed they were talked about small industry but really highly valued in fact we were as a country prepared to throw away so much so many other industries for this industry for the fishing industry but then at the last minute our government capitulated on that as well threw them under the bus at the last minute just before christmas eve and then you've got other ministers like dominic rabb basically denying that it's a problem at all saying it's got nothing to do with the trade deal that this industry is now collapsing on us as we speak and even the prime minister who championed them all the way through is now saying that all these problems are caused by these people not being able to fill in paperwork correctly and that it's just teething problems it's transient ephemeral it will go away when we know that this is actually and as we've been told now set in stone as how they're going to have to operate and it costs too much for them so where are their champions now nigel farage who is happy to stand on many boats with them before hasn't been tweeting about this hasn't been talking about this where's he and this is this is the sad thing because there was so much representation for them before when they were pawns in that brexit game when they were that symbol of traditional english and british industries that were held up as something that we wanted to recapture but at the end of the day they've just been cast aside like rotting fish and so what are they meant to do now with their industry that's the sad thing that all this promise of bounty and the the markets opening up to them the reverse has happened and it's going to take more than money more than structural support to dig them out of this but not even that seems to be forthcoming at the moment you