A British captain has been charged by French authorities in a row over licences after the environment secretary said “two can play at that game” following France’s threat to block ports.

A UK government source confirmed the captain of the Cornelis Gert Jan scallop trawler, which was detained on Thursday by France near Le Havre, has been charged this morning.

Andrew Brown, head of public affairs for Macduff Shellfish, which owns the boat, said the charge “relates to fishing in French waters without a licence and that’s the bone of contention”.

“We believe we were fishing with a valid licence and the French authorities don’t,” he said.

The row kicked off after the UK refused to give licences to 55 French fishing vessels to fish in UK waters because they did not meet the requirements, the UK said.

But the French claim the British are in the wrong and threatened to make it difficult for UK fishers and lorry drivers in France before detaining the Cornelis Gert Jan.

There are two other British crew members on the Cornelis and they have all been told to remain on the boat for their own safety as tensions continue.

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Earlier on Friday, environment secretary George Eustice told Sky News the UK has issued post-Brexit licences to 1,700 vessels, including 750 French fishing boats, which amounts to 98% of applicants.

He said the remaining 55 vessels, despite the UK trying to help them with the data, could not prove they had fished in Jersey’s waters previously so could not get a licence under the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU.

As well as detaining the scallop trawler, France has also fined two other UK fishing vessels over the row.

Paris has also threatened to block French ports, carry out security checks on British vessels, reinforce controls of lorries to and from the UK, reinforce customs and hygiene controls, and raise tariffs.

Mr Eustice told Sky News’ Vanessa Baffoe: “We don’t know what we’ll do, they said they wouldn’t introduce these measures until Tuesday at the earliest, we’ll see what they do.

“But if they do bring these measures into place, well, two can play at that game and we obviously reserve the ability to respond in a proportionate way.”

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Moments after Mr Eustice spoke to Sky News this morning, the prosecutor in the French port of Le Havre said the captain of the detained scallop trawler Cornelis will be called to appear in court in August next year.

The prosecutor’s office said the trawler did not have the required licences to operate in France’s “exclusive economic zone” – something the captain denies.

European Commission spokesman Tim McPhie said: “The information we have is the licence for this vessel had been withdrawn by the UK authorities back in March.”

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A fishing industry source told Reuters the European Commission plans to propose to London that a last round of negotiations over fishing licences takes place over the weekend, with the French wanting more licences and not wanting provisional ones that are only valid until 31 January 2022.

A Downing Street spokesman said Boris Johnson will have a “brush by” with French President Emmanuel Macron about the row at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which starts on Sunday.

Mr Eustice said the comments made by France are “completely disproportionate, they’re unacceptable”.

“The things they’re suggesting doing, start to make things difficult at borders, close ports, this is a clear breach not only of the trade and co-operation agreement that we’ve got with them but also of EU law, the official control regime,” he said.

“It’s not justified at all, it’s a very small number of vessels that just don’t qualify under the terms of the agreement reached.

“We’re asking France to try to calm this down, remove these threats, they’re not acceptable.”

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Mr Eustice said the UK will be talking to the European Commission and they need to step in and sort the issue out, but he insisted the UK is correct.

Labour’s shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard told Sky News the seized scallop vessel did have the proper licence but he believes it was not included on a list handed to the French authorities so it could be an “administrative error”.

He said if that is the case then UK ministers “need to own up to that”.

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Brexit minister Lord Frost is holding a meeting with EU Brexit negotiator Maros Sefcovic and they are expected to discuss the fishing issue.

The French ambassador to the UK is meeting Wendy Morton, the UK’s minister for European Neighbourhood, later today after she was summoned yesterday over the issue.

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