Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2015
If that was Jamie McGrigor’s last speech in Parliament on fisheries, we will all miss his contributions. Richard Lochhead might remember the sketches that Rab McNeil, then of The Scotsman, used to write about fisheries debates, right back to the early days. Jamie McGrigor will certainly remember them, as will John Scott. If I remember rightly, Mr McGrigor used to be called Mr Prawn in those sketches, which was an outrageous slur on his character. He has been a doughty fighter for the industry over the years, regardless of who has occupied the cabinet secretary’s seat in the annual debate.
There are a couple of broad questions that I would like to address this afternoon. The first concerns the importance of fishing to fishing communities in the islands, on the west coast and, as we have just heard, in the north-east—the cabinet secretary’s part of Scotland. It is important not only to the skippers and the men on the boats, but to those who work in the shore-side businesses—whose issues do not always get the same airing—and the men and women who run haulage businesses across Scotland and provide logistics support. They all contribute to the wider economic impact, and therefore the social impact, of an enormously important Scottish industry. It is occasionally right, in debates on fishing, that we ask whether the powers that be in Europe understand that.
The acid test, as the industry now sees it—and I share the view—is how any country will implement the discard ban. If countries get it wrong, those that currently have a white-fish industry will not have one in the future.
Angus MacDonald organised a very good parliamentary meeting last week, for which I am grateful to him. Mike Park—who has already been mentioned—said in that discussion that the discard ban regulations that were drawn up by the European Commission were the worst piece of law ever written in Brussels. To be honest, thinking about legislation over the years, I could probably come up with a few other examples.
Mr Lochhead mentioned the cod recovery plan—that was a pretty appalling piece of drafting, too, but no matter: the cabinet secretary made a serious point, and that concern is mirrored by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Shetland Fishermen’s Association and any skipper or fisherman whom we care to meet. It is important that we reflect on the industry’s concerns in that respect.