Gutting fish in the Faroes was filling labour shortage
Jamie's Journal by Jamie Stone
After I graduated in the late 1970s, I was a broke student who owed the bank quite a lot. “There’s money to be made gutting fish in the Faroe Islands,” said one friend.
So, four of us got to Shetland and tried hitchhiking a lift on a trawler to the Faroes. That failed, but it's a story for another day.
The point is that the fish factories in the Faroes were short of labour and they needed people to process the catch.
That is how I came to know how to gut a fish and why I spent an awful lot of time salting fish. I spent many days unloading trawlers and shovelling ice. I even learned that ‘rock salmon’ – which was being sold in the United States – was nothing of the sort. In fact, it was a fish that is not highly regarded in Scotland, saithe, which was pretty high by the time we came to gut it. But that too can be another story.
Though we didn't know ourselves as seasonal migrant labour at the time, that is what we were. Today, much of our seasonal migrant workers in the UK, particularly people from Eastern Europe who used to pick the fruit, work in UK fish factories, and process meat, have gone home.
“Get Brexit done" was a favourite phrase of our Prime Minister a little while back. Listening to the radio over the past few weeks and hearing fruit farmers say that next year they are going to grow far less fruit, impacting upon choice on our shelves and the food sector's profitability, makes you wonder if Brexit has in fact done us.
Indeed, far closer to home, our own National Farmers Union is predicting very hard times ahead. That and the shortage of lorry drivers seems to be the beginning of what could turn out to be a perfect storm.
For my own part, I have spent quite some time in the Commons chamber highlighting the difficulty of getting fresh fish from the Highlands and Islands to continental markets in the short space of time that is essential if the fish is to stay fresh. As one producer put it to me, there is growing evidence that buyers on the continent are shifting to non-UK fish catching countries such as Denmark. Further, if any business loses part of its market, then it is incredibly hard to regain it at a later date.
There are even scare stories about a shortage of turkeys come Christmas Day because the people to process the turkeys may not be there. We could be in for a lack of Brussels sprouts too. While small children may not complain about this, it is nevertheless scary to think about what December 25 might look like.
Though the picture currently looks bleak, I will leave you with one saying that I’m fond of: “In politics, expect the unexpected.”
We shall see what Boris gets in his stocking on Christmas morning.
- Jamie Stone is the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.