Hansard

I am glad to have an opportunity to comment on European Union issues. The next meeting of the environment council will take place on 18 December and the agriculture and fisheries council will meet on 19, 20 and 21 December, which is convenient at least logistically, if not in any other way. Subject to the approval of the Parliamentary Bureau, there will be a debate on fisheries in the Scottish Parliament next week.Given the nature of fishing nowadays and the fact that fish do not recognise international boundaries, the management of fisheries is increasingly international and involves not just the EU but all coastal states who recognise that, unless there are collaborative efforts to manage species, we will have no impact. It is interesting that some 59 per cent of all Scottish fishing activity is controlled in some shape or form by agreements that are reached between us and parties in the EU and beyond.In the context of the annual negotiations, in which we are still engaged, external negotiations with third parties began way back in early October. Those negotiations are at least as important as the EU council meeting in December. In our preparations, we have emphasised the external nature of the discussions and acknowledged that we have had to engage with a wider range of parties, at ministerial and official level.The coastal states, including Norway, reached agreement on the pelagic species, mackerel and herring, which represented a 13 per cent increase in the total allowable catch. That was important. The EU-Norway agreement, which was finalised, although it is technically subject to approval later in the year, had a more mixed outcome. The deal for Scotland involved the securing of an increase in the TAC for haddock, improvements in management plans on haddock internationally and a better position on whiting, which is important to the Scottish fleet. A deal on herring was also agreed, although the scientific evidence was very much for a reduction.The difficulty was to do with cod. I make no apology for repeating myself: for six years I have consistently said that as long as the scientific evidence indicates that cod stocks are below the safe biological limit there will be serious implications for the Scottish fleet, because Scotland has a mixed fishery. As every member of the committee knows, there is a wide-ranging debate in the European Commission and the coastal states about how we tackle the situation. I am in no doubt that the action on cod that Scotland in particular has taken in recent years has demonstrated a huge amount of co-operation and maturity on the part of our fishing fleet. Although numerical evaluation is nigh-on impossible, we know from scientific and other observation that there appears to be a small class of 2005 in juvenile cod. Therefore, in our view, the 14 per cent cut was excessive, but the majority view in the EU-Norway talks was that such a cut should be agreed to.The December council negotiations will therefore take place not just against a difficult scientific background but against the background of that unfortunate outcome on cod. The paper that the European Commission produced yesterday was very disappointing indeed. I had understood that the Commission and member states were trying to engage more and in a less confrontational way, but that is clearly not the case. It is sad that the Commission has issued a shopping list of potential cuts, which takes us back to the situation that we were in two or three years ago. Those are negotiating positions, but I had rather hoped that we would have the more constructive debate that we had proposed, which would have helped.There are other complications. The position on prawns—nephrops—has also been subject to scientific to-ing and fro-ing. The recommendation of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea disagreed with advice posited last year by the scientific, technical and economic committee for fisheries. We are as yet unaware whether that has been resolved. On the one hand, on the basis of a disagreement, ICES recommended a cut, whereas, on the other hand, the STECF's figures would not have resulted in that happening. On monkfish, the scientific evidence remains poor. We are clear from the evidence that we have presented that a minimum 10 per cent increase is justified.My approach will be to acknowledge the difficult balance that must always be struck, to play up the important contribution that Scottish fishermen have made to the conservation effort in recent years and to try to ensure that the measures are balanced and equitable across the piece, so that the outcome is fair and equitable for Scottish interests. The negotiations will not be easy and, as I said, they will certainly not be helped by what we heard yesterday about potential cuts. That is disappointing, because our fishermen have been hugely constructive in their approach this year. They have agreed to and made contributions to the forward-looking progress that is being made by the sea fisheries advisory and reference group—sea-FAR—which builds on the progress on sustainable fisheries management. The fishermen's dialogue with the Commission must have disappointed them.Turning to agriculture and rural development, as the committee knows, a difficult situation has emerged from the position that was negotiated in Europe last December, when attempts to reduce pillar 1 direct support to agriculture ran up against the not-surprising problem of the Paris agreement and therefore the focus of attention moved on to pillar 2, which was profoundly unhelpful. We had a below-average level of pillar 2 support in any event, so the attack on that was not helpful from a Scottish perspective.The matter is complicated by the wide-ranging debate throughout Europe on the use of voluntary modulation. We have used voluntary modulation as a means of boosting our pillar 2 expenditure. The outcomes of that debate are still uncertain, both on the application of voluntary modulation and, more particularly, on whether we in Scotland will retain our current right to apply it on a basis that we decide, rather than the matter being decided at member state level. It is regrettable that the matter has not yet been resolved, which has left us in an impossible situation in relation to submitting our Scottish rural development plan. We are told on the one hand that we must submit it with financial figures, but we have told the Commission that it has made that impossible as a result of the debate on voluntary modulation. The Commission has told us that it will not be competent for us to submit the plan unless we can provide financial figures. That is profoundly unhelpful.I note and welcome the committee's interest in the new fourth pillar of the rural development programme, namely LEADER, which has been transferred from enterprise to agriculture and which forms an integral part of the rural development programme. We have consulted widely on our proposals. I simply reiterate that the broad direction of travel will be inclusive and regionally based. The committee will wish to note that, as I said, the policy responsibility is now with us. We carried out the consultation on that basis.The less favoured area support scheme has also got into difficulties. I emphasise that those do not relate exclusively to the delays with the rural development plan. The SPICe note that the committee has rather indicates that the delays in the programme are causing the problem. However, the more fundamental problem is the combination of the LFASS regulations and the new rural development implementation regulations, which state that all elements of rural development expenditure that relate to agricultural practice should be subject to cross-check. When we read the two sets of regulations together, in effect they mean that if we have to subject the agricultural holding to cross-check, it is impossible to make a payment before December in any year. As members are well aware, we have traditionally made the LFASS payment in March. Having to read the two separate sets of regulations together has been the cause of the problem.Originally, the Commission wholly misunderstood the position, which is why I made a suggestion of £10 million. I had made an earlier suggestion, which I was not going public about, but it appeared to be rejected. Once the Commission understood that the problem had arisen because of the timing difference between the two sets of regulations, it considered the interim proposal of making £40 million available in March and £21 million, and a bit, available later in the year. That will still leave us with a very real problem, but we are discussing with the National Farmers Union of Scotland, the Scottish Crofting Foundation and environmentalists ways of resolving the payment difficulties on a longer-term basis.I wanted to mention LIFE+ regulation, which is the proposed replacement for LIFE III. It will replace a lack of certainty with something more predictable. The current conciliation process between the Commission and the European Parliament has, unfortunately, introduced some uncertainties, but we believe that they will be resolved within the next two months, at the beginning of the new year. We hope that LIFE+ will be a useful instrument, particularly in Scotland. Some 40 per cent of the national allocation has to go towards nature and biodiversity programmes. That will be very important to Scotland.The environmental liability directive breaks the mould of traditional prosecutions. Fines for breaches of environmental law will come into play. The directive will cover significant threats of damage to water, land or biodiversity from certain specified activities in which operators must avert the threat or repair the damage. That is a civil law approach based on the polluter-pays principle. We are consulting stakeholders at the moment, and we will hold a second consultation on draft legislation later in the year.