EU fishermen should continue to have guaranteed access to UK waters as part of post-Brexit trade deals, the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee has said.

In a new draft text, MEPs said free access to waters and ports was “inseparable” from the free access of fish products to the European market and the two issues should “be treated as a single block” in the UK’s Brexit negotiations with the 27 EU states.

“It would be unacceptable to grant British fishery products free access to the Union, if the European vessels no longer had access to British waters,” it said.

Scottish Tory MEP Ian Duncan said the plan was “fundamentally flawed”.

He said: “The Committee’s demand that single market access for UK fish products should depend on free access to UK waters for EU boats is a nonsense. The European Parliament will not negotiate Brexit and this kind of intervention is unhelpful.”