When I first heard of a sea licence, I thought, fair enough, I pay for a river rod licence why not pay a sea rod licence. £22 did not seem a massive amount for a year’s fishing. Then I started to think, on Chesil beach where I often fish in the winter, there is a hard core of fishermen who brave it out whatever the weather.

But if you go to Chesil Beach in the summer it is crowded with fishermen and their families, most from the local caravan camp trying to catch a Mackerel. It is a cheap fun day and I remember I did this as a child with my father, we never caught much, but they were very special days. Would these people still fish if they had to pay £22?

West Bay has recently had a new harbour built; fishermen were told if they wanted a fishing jetty on the new harbour as they did with the old, they would have to raise over a million pounds, would our new licence fees have paid for this?

Poole, where I often go for my boat trips, most people there fish for fun, fishermen/women paying a few pounds for a couple of hours fishing. Will these people suddenly be expected to pay £22 for a licence, or are the Skippers expected to become tax collectors. Many of these Skippers live on the edge of bankruptcy already, if they don’t get people on board in the summer they starve. Health and Safety laws have made such a dent in their profits already, is the Government now to sting them again?

I am told that the monies will help the sport, but what facilities do people on the beach require? I am told that it will help fish stocks, how? Surely the problem is the foreign trawlers that rape our shorelines of fish and leave a football field sized desert behind, destroying our seabed for generations.

I find it amazing that our law makers allow breeding grounds to be netted; surely these places must be set aside for nurseries. Yes our seas are being over fished, but not by rod and line, so I can only believe that this licence will just be another tax where the funds are siphoned off for other obscure purposes.