Icelandic-Water Trawlermen Compensation Scheme
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched the new Icelandic Water Trawlermen Compensation Scheme on 31 July 2009. The scheme is for former trawlermen who fished in Icelandic waters and lost their livelihoods during the Cod Wars of the 1970s.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills launched the new Icelandic-Water Trawlermen Compensation Scheme on 31 July 2009. The scheme is for former trawlermen who fished in Icelandic waters and lost their livelihoods during the Cod Wars of the 1970s.
Applications for the scheme closed on 30 April 2010.
Copies of the key documents can be viewed at:
Written Statement on the trawlermen scheme
The Government has today published a statement on the operation of the former Icelandic water trawlermen compensation scheme. Copies have been placed in both Libraries of the House and on the Department for Business’ website:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/employment-matters/strategies/trawlermen
The Government received around 3400 applications under the new scheme. To date around £3.7 million has been paid or is being paid, to just over 600 successful claimants. We are currently considering how best to take forward around 100 cases where claimants have been unable to provide copies of their fishing records. Around 400 appeals have been received to date, of which around 200 have been processed.
We believe that the new scheme delivers the Government’s objective of compensating former trawlermen for the loss of their livelihoods following the Cod War Treaties of the 1970s, and that we have met in full the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Ombudsman in her 2007 Report. Total payments of around £60 million have now been made to trawlermen under this and the two previous compensation schemes, and we believe this issue has now been brought to a successful close.
