Meeting of the Parliament 11 December 2018
Our fishermen were completely in the right in that argument. The French were not supposed to be fishing in those waters, whereas we were allowed to do so. To be quite honest, their reaction to our boats was absolutely illegal. We could never support what went on there.
I ask Mr Ewing whether he agrees that that level of foreign fishing pressure is unsustainable. It is clearly unfair on our fishermen, so I ask him what can be done to protect our stocks from such excessive pressure.
Another anomaly that rightly annoys our fishermen is the annual swap with Norway of 100,000 tonnes of blue whiting, of which our share is 20,000 tonnes. In return for that, the EU gets 21,500 tonnes of Arctic cod. That is of no use to our fishermen: we get no benefit from it because those cod are caught by Spain and Portugal. Therefore we must push for those countries to pay their share of the blue-whiting transfer to Norway in order to mitigate the cut from the Scottish fleet.
As we heard from Mr Ewing, the EU and Faroe Islands negotiations will take place today and tomorrow. Those agreements are heavily skewed in favour of the Faroe Islands. The Faroese catch about £45 million-worth of mackerel in Scottish waters, while the entire EU fleet catches only £5 million-worth in Faroese waters. So, again, during this week’s negotiations we need to push for the reduction of Faroese access to mackerel.
As I have said, this year has been good for our skippers. However, the fish processing sector has seen a decrease in capacity. Between 2008 and 2016 there was a 34 per cent decline in processing capacity in north-east Scotland. We are losing business and jobs to Humberside, where fish processing is growing. Our lack of competitiveness is due, in great measure, to high business rates. We need to reverse that trend so that we will be able to handle the extra fish that the sea of opportunity will undoubtedly bring.