Meeting of the Parliament 18 November 2025
I start by paying tribute to our fishing industry. It is a dangerous industry that delivers us food security and economic value in Scotland.
The Scottish Government is using this debate to complain about the allocation from the fishing and coastal growth fund, but that was devolved at its request. When it made that request, it knew that the only mechanism to devolve funding is through the Barnett formula, which means that it knew the proportion of the fund that would come to Scotland. In the full knowledge of Scotland’s larger fishing industry, it should have looked to have a UK-wide fund or spoken to the UK Government and at least tried to negotiate a different mechanism to devolve the funding. Torcuil Crichton, MP for the Western Isles, has asked DEFRA to look at the methodology again, but the Scottish Government should have done that before it asked for the funding to be devolved. It is late in the day for the Scottish Government to make the same request.
Neither is it clear what the Scottish Government will do with the funding. Will it be added to the marine fund Scotland or will it be used differently? The Liberal Democrat amendment to the motion suggests that the Scottish Government should practise what it preaches and provide a greater share of the fishing funding to Shetland. Shetland accounts for 19 per cent of the fish that are landed in Scotland, but it received only 6 per cent of the latest marine fund Scotland awards.