Hansard

With a week to go before the December EU fisheries council negotiations and with the EU-Faroes bilateral negotiations taking place as we speak, today’s debate in the Scottish Parliament should be about following the fish, not following the Prime Minister around Europe. I am not sure what the point of following the Prime Minister around Europe is at the moment. Indeed, the only Tories who seem to be following the Prime Minister are the Scottish Tories, and that is beyond me, particularly after what happened last night.

To reassure Mr Chapman, I say that spent the whole of Monday with fishermen in Shetland. The fishing industry in the islands has had a strong 2018. Fish landings are at the highest level since 1972, and are 10 per cent up on 2017’s figure. Two new fish markets in Lerwick and Scalloway will open in 2020, doubling the capacity. New fleet tonnage is being ordered—4 new white-fish vessels should arrive in 2020, or thereabouts. And the youngest crew in the Scottish fleet—all aged under 30, on LK 470 Courageous—have had an outstanding year. Twelve young Shetlanders have taken the “Introduction to Fishing” courses at the marine centre in Scalloway, and all are now working in the industry. There is a degree of financial confidence—something that cannot be said in every one of these debates that we have in this place.

As seafood exports from Shetland exceed £300 million every year, what must the Government do to ensure that those numbers continue to improve, to the benefit of both the islands economy and the Scottish economy? My one local ask of the cabinet secretary is not so much for him as for his colleague, the transport minister. Shetland does not have enough freight capacity from Lerwick to Aberdeen on the nightly ships, so can the Government ensure that when the new specification is set for the shipping contract beginning in October 2019, the future needs of the seafood industry will be accommodated? Those growth figures have been provided to the Government; the industry needs to know that the greater tonnage of fish landed can be shipped south. We may come on to where it gets shipped thereafter, but that is for another debate.

The outlook for 2019, as a number of colleagues have mentioned, is challenging for both white-fish and pelagic catching and processing sectors. On white fish, we know that the EU-Norway talks have concluded with a 33 per cent cut in the cod quota for the North Sea. I recognise, as does the industry, that the Scottish Government, in conjunction with Norway and others, fought the initial ICES recommendation of a 47 per cent cut. However, cod will become a choke species—it is not a question of when or if. It will become a choke species, particularly in the northern North Sea, so it will be a major issue for the Shetland and north-east fleets around our coast.

The cabinet secretary needs to look at any measures that can mitigate against the cod quota tying boats up at the quay. Swaps with other EU states can help—the cabinet secretary may have hinted at that in his opening speech. The industry has also proposed technical measures, including real-time closed areas, but such measures must apply to all boats. Otherwise, as we know from experience, vessels from other EU states and indeed Norway prosecute those areas when our boats are held outwith them. There must be a new policy that covers all vessels fishing in the areas. However, it is a policy that works and has much to commend it, and I hope that the Government will take it forward in conjunction with other EU states and Norway.

A 31 per cent cut in the haddock quota is worrying, too, but in the Shetland fleet context, the vessels have not managed to take up their full quota allocation in 2018, so that cut may be balanced by changes elsewhere.

I want to reflect on a wider point about fisheries science. First, I propose to the cabinet secretary that he sets up an independent scientific peer review system of the ICES advice. That would allow the Government to review fisheries data with specialist expert advice and construct long-term management plans, just as Norway does. I know that the cabinet secretary’s officials work closely with Norwegian colleagues on those points. The marine centre on Scalloway and the Scottish Association for Marine Science at Dunstaffnage both have scientific fisheries expertise, so why should our industry not benefit from that expertise, which would enhance the industry’s scientific understanding? This new approach to science also needs to tackle the changes in the northern North Sea compared with the southern North Sea, which the entire industry knows about all too well. Water temperature has had an impact on where stocks are thriving and indeed staying. Fisheries management needs to understand that.

Secondly, I would beef up the Marine Scotland observer programme on boats. Thirdly, I would suggest that the funding from the European maritime and fisheries fund, which has paid for the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation observer work, is maintained through the chaos of Brexit and whatever happens in the future.

We know that ICES science is not foolproof—no science can ever be, and to suggest that it is foolproof is not to understand the nature of the science of fish. Take the 2 December 2016 EU-Norway agreement from Bergen. It was found that an ICES error resulted in a 45 per cent cut in the haddock quota at that time. That is what went through. My proposal would help to guard against such massive fluctuations by ensuring some peer review of the advice. It would allow fisheries management to verify the science and avoid those vast disruptions in the marketplace. What happened the year after that haddock quota cut? As the agreement shows, the quota was increased by 27 per cent. Such huge swings in tonnage landed do nothing for the processing sector or for the markets that we are seeking to supply. Avoiding such an approach would be in the long-term interests of science and in the long-term interests of stock management, and therefore of the industry, so it must make sense.

On pelagic, as the cabinet secretary rightly mentioned, the EU and Norway have gone through five negotiating rounds this year, finally agreeing on a 36 per cent cut to the herring quota—again, another huge variation. The mackerel quota is set to be cut by 20 per cent, which is down from the 68 per cent cut that the scientists recommended. Again, peer review would help with the process, because—as the cabinet secretary well knows—the scientific fish-tagging programme has not worked as expected. It has not been able to prove the science as we would all wish. I recognise that the Scottish Government was effective in those quota negotiations and I thank it for that. A 20 per cent cut is precautionary and is a better outcome, albeit that it has consequences for both the catching fleet and the processing industry that deals with the stock that is of the most value to Scottish fishing.

The EU-Faroes bilateral negotiations are happening as we debate this afternoon. They are about not just quota share, but access to UK waters. For mackerel, that means the northern North Sea. The current arrangement is unacceptable to the industry, and I agree with Peter Chapman’s assessment of the process and with the cabinet secretary’s remarks. Thirty per cent of the Faroese mackerel quota can be caught in our waters—their boats catch more by volume in Shetland’s coastal area than the whole Shetland fleet combined. I am sure that Parliament will recognise that such a deal can hardly be construed as equitable. It has to change, and I ask the cabinet secretary to make that argument and to use that negotiating position in Brussels next week. Scotland gains some demersal access in Faroese waters—access for some vessels from the north-east and one vessel from Shetland—but the value of that access is but one tenth of the Faroese pelagic gain. As the cabinet secretary knows, that needs to change.

This December’s fisheries council meeting is hugely important. The Scottish fishing industry needs to have successful outcomes, to both mitigate the proposals that are not based on solid science—there are a few of those—and take a long-term perspective on stock management. The cabinet secretary and his team have my support in seeking to achieve those important objectives next week.

I move amendment S5M-15096.2, to insert after “next year’s quotas,”:

“but recognises the importance of real time science data and accurate, current stock assessments as part of this approach,”