Provided he can spot a bit of codswallop it doesn't matter too much whether or not the Fisheries Minister can recognise a cod.
The seas around us used to be much richer in wildlife - it's difficult for us to recognise the changes because most of us can't get out and mix it in the marine world. But the fisheries data are stark from across the world. Here's a rather outdated link for cod in the North Sea - things have got a bit better since this.
Less than a hundred years ago there was a bluefin tuna fishery in the North Sea - now they are gone. Fish species after fish species has been depleted - overfished.
We need to give fish stocks a chance to recover and then there would be more fish in the sea and more fish that we could take out of the sea.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Carduus
The monitoring system you propose already exists, or could easily be adapted from the AIS transponders fitted to most (all?) large vessels. Registered fishing vessels could be required to fit AIS if they aren't already. You can view the positions and courses of ships on a live map at the website http://www.marinetraffic.com - and there are certainly at least some fishing vessels shown.
A thought about marine conservation and no-take zones. There is a huge offshore wind farm to be built on the Dogger Bank in the next few years - a traditional fishing area for cod. Might this create a de facto MCZ, if the density of turbines effectively excludes trawling operations? That would be a brilliant double whammy, but is probably to good to be true.