Executive Council Meeting: May 2003 Report

Executive Council has met three times in the last fortnight. On Thursday 22 May we held a special session devoted to fisheries policy. On Monday 26 May we met to consider urgent items only (with non-urgent items put back to our June meeting). And we held a brief meeting on Wednesday 28 May to consider some small amendments to the budget before final consideration by Legislative Council.

All Councillors attended our special fisheries session, partly because of the importance of the subject, and partly because two out of the three regular members of ExCo have a personal interest in the issues. We had an excellent discussion, which got to the heart of the subject and succeeded in carrying the debate a good way further forward. Policy work will now be taken forward by the Working Group on Fisheries Policy, on the basis of the following ten points which were agreed by ExCo:

1. The Falkland Islands should move to a rights-based system
2. There should be long term rights
3. Rather than perpetual rights we might prefer ‘lease hold rights’ or ‘term rights’ around 20-25 years in duration
4. Each fishery should be treated separately but in the longer term the policy should apply to all fisheries
5. In principle the idea of a number of fishery management plans with a different management plan applying to each fishery should be accepted
6. Government must have scope for intervention to ensure that property rights were properly managed by the owners, inter alia to ensure sustainable conservation of fisheries stocks
7. That fisheries rights should, in principle, be proportional and not fixed in terms of absolute quantities of fish
8. The new fisheries policy must not have an adverse effect on the Falkland Islands Government income from the fisheries
9. The new policy must have as its prime objective and make possible the proper management and conservation of the fisheries
10. The working group on the fisheries policy should be re-established and should make regular progress reports to the Executive Council, the first such report to be delivered to the July meeting of the Executive Council and incorporate a list of issues needing policy decision by Executive Council.

In addition to the budgetary and financial business which needed to be transacted in preparation for the budget session of Legislative Council later in the week, ExCo’s meeting on 26 May considered a number of other items of interest.

Of these perhaps the most important – particularly for those who live in Camp – was the new Coastal Shipping Contract. Subject to certain amendments ExCo approved the terms of the contract negotiated with Island Shipping Limited. The contract was subsequently signed by the Governor and representatives of Island Shipping on 3 June.

Moving from sea to land transport, ExCo approved a proposal by the Transport Advisory Committee to reposition part of the PWD’s road construction team currently based in Lafonia to West Falkland. The purpose of this is to accelerate completion of the road construction programme on West Falkland. Any additional costs resulting from this decision will be found from within the existing roads budget.

On the Ross Road clearway, ExCo agreed that the trial should continue until March 2004. Meanwhile the Environmental Planning Officer is being asked to consider the possibility of a one-way system and the scope for additional parking. It was also agreed that two additional pedestrian crossings should be created, one close to the West Store and the other at the east end of Ross Road or at the bottom end of Philomel Hill.

ExCo considered a report on human rights in the Falkland Islands prepared by consultants, Social Development Direct, on behalf of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. This was part of a wider exercise involving the preparation of Human Rights reports on all of the UK’s Overseas Territories. Members decided to publish the report, and the associated synthesis report which drew conclusions from the complete set of reports on the Overseas Territories, and to consider the reports in more detail at the June session of ExCo.

The Attorney General presented a report on legal aid. ExCo noted that the annual budget for legal aid was finite, and that it needed to be administered with this in mind. Members agreed that legal aid should be available in the 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004 financial year on the same basis as in the current financial year.

ExCo decided to turn down a recommendation for changes in the opening hours of the Post Office and to maintain the current schedule.

Because a number of ExCo members were due to be away from the Islands at the end of June ExCo decided to bring its next meeting forward to Thursday 19 June.