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Meeting of the Parliament 15 May 2013

15 May 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Bill

Fergusson, Alex Con Galloway and West Dumfries Watch on SPTV

The passage of the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Bill has been a long and arduous process, and I begin my speech at stage 3 in the same way that I began my speech in the stage 1 debate, by thanking the clerks to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, who have made the process much easier and considerably more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been.

We heard and read an enormous amount of evidence at stage 1. If I have one main regret about where we are today, it is that the bill does not do more to reflect some of the serious issues that we all basically agreed on during stage 1. I suspect it was bound to be thus because, as the committee said in its stage 1 report,

“the Scottish Government could have been clearer in its consultation document ... in order to better manage understanding and expectations amongst stakeholders and the wider public.”

I do not recall the Government ever disagreeing with that statement. The result was that expectations among a range of stakeholders were probably raised to an unachievable level, which is probably not a very helpful way in which to embark on a bill.

The minister described the bill to the committee as future proofing the industry in the light of current growth targets and potential new operators coming to Scotland. Although there is much that I welcome in the bill, I fear that those words will almost certainly come back to haunt him. I say that not to disparage in any way the bill or the minister, but to highlight the inherent missed opportunities.

For instance, the opportunity to have lanced once and for all the boil that is the publication of sea lice data has been missed. The industry has shifted its position, which I welcome, but I suspect that it has not done so enough to satisfy the non-governmental organisations, other organisations and individuals that have called for it and will continue to do so. To be frank, why should they not? The first voluntary publication of a report on sea lice management and control, which was agreed by the industry and the minister, should have been published last Monday, which was six weeks after the end of the first reporting period. By 1 o’clock this afternoon it had not been published: members can read into that what they will. The issue will not go away with passage of the bill, and Parliament missed a huge opportunity to address it more realistically when it rejected Claudia Beamish’s amendment 14 this afternoon.

A properly worked-out tagging scheme should have been in the bill, but I take the minister at his word and look forward to what he will introduce in the consultation.

Sadly, the bill will not do very much—if anything—to bring the wild fish and farmed fish sectors closer together, which was a desired aim of the bill. That is a real shame, because a continued stand-off is in no one’s interests—certainly, it is not in the interests of our inshore marine environment. I have no doubt that those issues will have to be returned to—I fear probably sooner rather than later.

That said, I want to finish on a positive note. I very much welcome the inclusion at stage 2, as the minister has mentioned, of measures to toughen up actions that can be taken against suspected illegal cockle poachers, principally along the Solway coast. That has been long awaited and is greatly welcomed. Although it will not solve the problem—I believe that only the creation of a legal fishery will achieve that—it heralds a vast improvement on where we are today. I thank the Government for taking the opportunity to introduce those measures on the back of the bill.

On that—I hope—positive note, I am pleased to say that we will support the bill at decision time. Despite my reservations about the Government’s introductions of substantive sections at stage 3, which thus bypassed parliamentary scrutiny, I congratulate the minister on steering his first bill through Parliament. If he thinks that I give him a tough time in questions, I say only that I suspect he ain’t seen nothing yet.

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Meeting of the Parliament 15 May 2013

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