Des Taylors Usual Tripe?

[Steve Coppolo]

Indeed Steve - it's just as anglers we cannot expect the government to shell out the compensation for the commercials in advance of us paying a licence.

 

If the government turned around and said from June 1st new legislation will stop commercials fishing within a mile but a £40 sea fishing licence will be introduced I'd have no problem with it - even though it will cost me five, ten or more years before seeing the results.

 

Licensing is definitely the way to go in my opinion - and again - defining a proper fishery body to manage both coarse and sea angling (taking coarse angling off the environment agency) is also an immediate need.

 

I'm not so sure the government would shell out compensation. I've seen them taking plenty of money off people, just look at the pensions debacle, but I haven't seen much evidence of them giving anything.

[Ian Burrett]

I'm not so sure the government would shell out compensation. I've seen them taking plenty of money off people, just look at the pensions debacle, but I haven't seen much evidence of them giving anything.

 

Unless your a farmer

[Jim Roper]

HM Government already gets £63M from VAT on sea angling,

What difference is another £3M (Government net figures) going to make.

1% on sea angling VAT would raise that extra amount, without having to employ another layer of tax collectors, aka license checkers.

Jobs for all those ex d-stream school prefects. That's all it will be!

Edited February 24, 2006 by Jim Roper

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

As I said Jim, 3 million seems like a very low figure AND one I suspect the anti-license faction of us have come up with.

 

The reality is 1 million licences with tourists (I've heard) and if we plumbed for £40 a licence that's a cool 40 million, something which is now almost at the level of contributions the entire sea fleet contribute via VAT.

 

By the way, I run two VAT registered business but the money I pay to the VAT office does not go into either the fishing industry or that of my other company! VAT is just a retail tax, aimed to get more money of of the general public, which you can argue for/against (taxation at earning/taxation at spending), BUT, anyone thinking £63m of VAT goes back into sea fishing is kidding themselves.

 

If a sea licence was introduced with a proper fishery body with paid staff

 

150 Licence checkers at £20k per annum = £3million

150 Support and administration staff = £3mllion

40 Managers, Directors, Specialists = 2million

2 million (premises, business running costs)

 

If the licence generated 40million (which if it was enforced it easily could), that would leave circa 30million to plough into fishing - WHICH - should then be the responsibility of the above department (to a certain extent). I am all for it personally

[sam-cox]

Yes but we do not live in a perfect world, I can already hear Gordon Browns hands rubbing together!

[johhno]

........

 

If a sea licence was introduced with a proper fishery body with paid staff

 

150 Licence checkers at £20k per annum = £3million

150 Support and administration staff = £3mllion

40 Managers, Directors, Specialists = 2million

2 million (premises, business running costs)

 

If the licence generated 40million (which if it was enforced it easily could), that would leave circa 30million to plough into fishing - WHICH - should then be the responsibility of the above department (to a certain extent). I am all for it personally

 

Fraid your sums are way out, you've forgotten NI, marketing,training, hardware, software, overtime, maternity leave, sick pay, inter-departmental cross charging, and all other 'over and above' items and if you can get 40 Managers/Directors/Specialists for £3M I suggest you go see Alan Sugar.

 

Using your figure of £40M and the numbers of people above, you'd no doubt reduce unemployment a tad, but I doubt there'd be any money left over to actually improve fishing

[Mike Connor]

Indeed Steve - it's just as anglers we cannot expect the government to shell out the compensation for the commercials in advance of us paying a licence.

 

If the government turned around and said from June 1st new legislation will stop commercials fishing within a mile but a £40 sea fishing licence will be introduced I'd have no problem with it - even though it will cost me five, ten or more years before seeing the results.

 

Licensing is definitely the way to go in my opinion - and again - defining a proper fishery body to manage both coarse and sea angling (taking coarse angling off the environment agency) is also an immediate need.

 

This discussion has been going on for a long time now, and was indeed the cause of very considerable upset among anglers.

 

Licensing would be a very good idea, if correctly implemented and administrated. But nobody really knows how to do this, and it is extremely difficult getting agreement amongst anglers even on general terms.

 

TL

MC

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

Sorry Johnno, but my figures were an example and 75k per person per year to cover managers, directors etc is probably in about the right area, bearing in mind most middle management is going to struggle to push more than 30 to 35k anyway. Yes, you main director may well feel he should pull 150k, but you are talking five or six guys tops at that end of management (or you should be!)

 

I am also working on the assumption that this is not based in London, which doubles your salary expenditure as you probably know!

 

In reality the point being that £10 million should be enough to enforce licences and sea fishing practices etc. The other point being that 3 million of revenue from licences is way too low. If you give it an honest look recreational sea angling can more than displace any contribution made through the commercial fleet.

 

My other point was that VAT is not directly pushed back into it's derived source. So (by definition) 63 million pounds of recreational sea fishing income pushed back into fishing is going to be more influential to our sport than 63 million pounds of VAT which gets spent on roads, european union rubbish, etc..

Edited February 25, 2006 by UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk

[johhno]

......................... snip

 

In reality the point being that £10 million should be enough to enforce licences and sea fishing practices etc. The other point being that 3 million of revenue from licences is way too low. If you give it an honest look recreational sea angling can more than displace any contribution made through the commercial fleet.

 

My other point was that VAT is not directly pushed back into it's derived source. So (by definition) 63 million pounds of recreational sea fishing income pushed back into fishing is going to be more influential to our sport than 63 million pounds of VAT which gets spent on roads, european union rubbish, etc..

 

But what do you consider to be the commercial fleet, trawlers, seiners, long-liners, potters, drifters, etc ; where do you draw the line ?

How about the income derived from the secondary commercial industries associated with those activities, they need to be factored into your sums.?

How do you make sure all licence fees get ploughed back into fishing - your road tax doesn't all get back into the road systems.

One or two people on here say they would be quite happy to pay £40, can't see the holiday angler paying that for a couple of days handlining off the end of a pier.

Nor also children, the disadvantaged, unemployed etc - means testing now !!

Licence checkers approaching people in the middle of the night and demanding what ? I don't see that either.

What would the penalty for non-compliance be - this bit should appeal to G Brown esq.

 

Various governments and fisheries bodies have so far shown no real intention to bite the bullet with illegal fishing methods/practices, my guess is they'd say thankyou for the money, put out a shed load of sound bites, create a few cross party focal groups, initiate a few white papers, refer it all to Brussels etc etc.

 

After all that I'd then forsee lots of appeals to The Hague.

 

The whole thing is too untidy and unworkable, there are approx 18000 kms of coastline around the UK.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Put 1% on sea angling VATables and you get the £3,000,000 collected for nothing.

 

I agree with that, but which pot would it vanish into and what about all of the e-bay sales?

 

You say jobs for the boys, now if RSAs were employed in the same way as it happens in the freshwater scene it would be a few good jobs for the right boys.

 

That is the main issue policing it, the second is kids, as a younster I had plenty of spots I could fish in fresh water without a licence or permit. Today every square inch of fresh water is owned by clubs or private individuals and kids have been deprived in my books of the care free attitude that fishing should give.