The following is to illustrate, by example, how Mrs Moon failed to project the facts of a functioning bass gill net, resulting in seriously misleading the House of Commons (at the expense of commercial fishermen) on the 11.1.2016, by projecting a vague description and false impression several times.

Mrs Moon:

  • failed to give an accurate description of a functioning gill net.
  • failed to mention what target species she was referring to, (but the inference is it is bass.)
  • failed to mention the importance of mesh size regarding fish size selectivity and just how size selective gill nets in general can be (especially drift nets).

Mrs Moon – in common with other MP’s in that debate who also made spurious comments (critiqued in our ‘Analysis’) – can have no excuses for misleading the House of Commons. There are far too many (intended?) deviations for her to defend. As a responsible MP, it is her duty to obtain the correct facts. We demand to know where this erroneous information came from.

Authorities like Southern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (SIFCA) have evidence on gill nets used for bass, which would confirm (as they have already confirmed with us) that gill nets are highly size-selective (for bass and other fish also). Those are the facts, but Mrs Moon chose not to gain confirmation of those facts or to disclose to the House whether or not she was referring to an illegally deployed gill net or not. An illegal net, with small mesh, will of course catch an undersize bass.

We suggest that these people stop misleading and deceiving those in the public and in high office and gather the facts before peddling deception against this worthy industry of food producers.

We now require that the authorities involved in this industry and connected organisations; DEFRA, MMO, IFCA’s, take note of our grievances and deal with these corrosive issues and that the House of Commons MP’s who have mislead the House on these issues, do so likewise and correct all those misleading statements  pertaining to the fishing industry that were voiced in the aforementioned debate on RSA 11.1.2016.

All misleading errors should be withdrawn, corrected and a full written apology to the fishing industry be forthcoming. These apologies and corrections should be issued to the fishing industry through the Minister and a copy sent to the Fishing News for publication. We at the Warsash Fishermen’s Group feel fully justified in asking for these corrections since we, in common with all inshore fishermen who use nets, are being irreversibly tarnished by these propagated errors.