Firstly, the licence income for England and Wales in 2020/21
was, in total £21m. I suppose it is not a bad lottery win but in the
general scheme of annual government expenditure (£800bn+) it is a tiny
fraction of a decimal point. Even in terms of the EA annual income of
£1.6bn we are not exactly moving the needle. Now don’t be fooled by the
general EA line that ‘we have no money’ – since 2016 annual expenditure has
risen from £1.3bn, an increase of 26%. Yes, the EA have cut staff but that
has been a conscious decision by management who have favoured capital works
and other expenditure over staff.
As to the value of that £21m we probably need to cut it by
40% in real terms to take account of administering, collecting, policing,
and prosecuting in the cause of the licence. The EA make a big play of
their ‘revenue protection officers’ dressed up in paramilitary style garb
but the statistics as to their ineffectiveness do not lie. Last year just
700 people were cautioned for fishing without a licence with only 350
ending up in court. If you want some sort of comparison, in the same
year there were 50,000 TV licence prosecutions. One prosecution a day
with over a million fishing licences sold? It is a hopeless waste of
resources when the same people would be better employed patrolling our
waterways to prosecute the true offenders, namely the polluters.
I often see some of that £21m (sic) in action, shovels in
the bank if you like. Firstly, much of it is not the actual dirt moving –
there is quite a growth industry of consultants and NGOs, ultimately paid
for by the EA, who survey, measure and report on numerous projects
many of which never see the light of day. This same industry is really the
creation of the EA who have created a bureaucratic jungle so that you have
to employ consultants to hack your way out of said jungle to bring any
project to fruition. Similarly, I can promise that any
grant-funded-EA-sanctioned project will be 2-3 times more expensive than it
would have been if you did it left to your own devices.
Finally, there is the wider societal implications of a
fishing licence that is a barrier entry to a pastime that is as blameless
and cost free to society as cycling, wild swimming or canoeing to name but
three, none of which require a licence that has the sanction of law. How is
it you don’t need a licence to sea fish or swim in the sea both of which
are under the purview of the EA? I don’t know the answer. Maybe someone out
there does.
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