Hansard

I am pleased to set out to Parliament the progress that is being made to deliver a sustainable aquaculture sector in Scotland. Last year, the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee contributed to the debate on the farmed salmon sector. The committees concluded that in relation to regulatory arrangements for the sector the status quo was not an option. The Scottish Government agreed with that conclusion: today’s statement demonstrates our determination to deliver the necessary changes to strengthen the arrangements.

Before I describe those changes, I want to make reference to wild salmonids and the potential impact on them from sea lice in and around fish farms. We are, of course, extremely concerned about the serious declines in wild Atlantic salmon populations right across the north-east Atlantic. The reasons for the declines are multifactorial.

We have identified 12 major groups of pressures that are impacting on wild salmon stocks, and we recognise that aquaculture is one of the pressures. Sea lice are, of course, ubiquitous in the marine environment and have the potential to impact on wild and farmed fish. That is why we established a salmon interactions working group, which is making good progress in collating recommendations for a future approach to managing farmed and wild fish interactions. That group is aided by a technical working group, which is developing practical arrangements for improving regulation in the area. Its work is informed by regulatory regimes elsewhere, including Norway. Discussions are on-going to develop proposals: the group aims to issue those for public consultation this summer.

I have mentioned those developments simply to emphasise that we are serious about delivering a broad programme of reform; the changes that I am announcing today are only the first part of that programme.

The Scottish Government has completed its review of Scotland’s farmed fish sea lice policy. Two years have passed since changes to the policy were last introduced. To put that in context, that represents one fish farming cycle in the marine environment. As a result of the review, we will be making the following changes to the current policy.

First, we will in 2020 introduce new legislation that will require all marine fish farms to report a weekly sea lice number to the Scottish Government’s fish health inspectorate, one week in arrears. The sector has already recognised that it must become more open and transparent, and has in the past year announced its own sea lice publication plans. However, we will take action to strengthen the statutory basis of our sea lice regime in order to ensure a consistent approach and to deliver confidence in the system.

The introduction of legislation will remove any ambiguity about reporting requirements and will deliver more detailed information about salmon and rainbow trout farms. Crucially, it will provide data to enable monitoring of specific farms and issues as they arise, and to allow for further policy change, if needed. To ensure openness and transparency, every sea lice report will be published.

Secondly, from the next reporting week, we will reduce the current reporting and intervention thresholds from three and eight average adult female lice per fish to two and six, respectively. Those thresholds are an average of adult female lice per fish on the farm, and are calculated by following established counting and recording protocols. That change means that fish farms will now be expected to report at much lower sea lice levels to the Scottish Government’s fish health inspectorate, which will allow for earlier intervention and enforcement action being taken. We will publish an updated enforcement information sheet to that effect, which will include a simplified enforcement process.

Thirdly, today I am also committing in the medium term—unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary—to a further reduction of the sea lice reporting and intervention thresholds to two and four average adult female lice per fish. That further reduction will happen, if confirmed by a review of the evidence, 12 months following the implementation of the new statutory reporting regime. I mentioned that the changes to the intervention levels are being introduced following just one fish farming cycle in the marine environment. It must be recognised that those timescales are actually very short in terms of the fish farming production cycle, and we must ensure that farmers can adapt and make necessary investments.

Finally, I am announcing today that we will explore how to introduce third-party independent checks on fish farms’ sea lice counts to ensure the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Scottish Government.

Taken together, the new measures signal a major shift from self-regulation to statutory regulation. They also seek to move to an approach that supports prevention through robust and independent monitoring. The new sea lice management policy will not operate in isolation. All marine salmon producers will continue to follow the code of good practice for Scottish fin-fish aquaculture, which includes points of compliance on sea lice and national treatment standards. Adherence to the code, alongside voluntary monitoring and early intervention by salmon producers, as well as investment in new technologies, has resulted in 2018 having the lowest annual average reported sea lice levels since records started to be made available, which was back in 2013.

The changes that I am announcing will ensure that efforts to control and minimise the prevalence of sea lice will be maintained and, indeed, exceeded in the future. The improvements to date have been supported by investment since 2016 of £13 million of European Union and Scottish Government funding, through the European maritime and fisheries fund, in 48 aquaculture projects, which has unlocked more than £25 million total sector expenditure in innovation and new technologies to address the issue. Hydrolicer, Thermolicer and permaskirt technologies to tackle sea lice have all been supported, in addition to cleaner-fish hatchery projects being supported. At the same time, the sector has invested about £53.5 million over the past three years on lice-removing technologies.

The review of the farmed salmon sea lice policy has been progressed as a key strand of Scotland’s 10-year farmed fish health framework. Work is also under way, through the framework, to ensure that we lead on information sharing, that we support and promote innovation in fish health management, and that we deliver on other sea lice actions, such as creating a sea lice modelling and farm connectivity action plan. A wider update on progress on all those strands will be provided to Parliament in due course.

This week, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency published a new fin-fish regulatory framework, which seeks to strengthen protection of Scotland’s marine environment and enable sustainable growth of aquaculture in the right places. The framework will be implemented through improvements to the existing controlled activities regulations—CAR—licensing process. SEPA is now using the best modelling available so that it can better predict and monitor environmental effects. In addition to the introduction and enforcement of a tighter organic waste standard, the improved modelling will mean that risks to local environments will be better understood and can be better managed. That approach will allow assessment of larger-scale impacts, including interactions with other farms, to be carried out.

Tougher regulation will ensure that farms are sited in the most appropriate areas. It will also mean that sites that might have the potential to increase sustainably without threatening sea-bed environmental standards will be able to do so.

Taken together, the measures demonstrate the progress that is being made in changing our approach to regulating the aquaculture sector. They also show our intention to continue to work with the industry and alongside our independent regulator to ensure that appropriate and proportionate action is taken to allow the sector to grow sustainably while protecting our marine environment. Ensuring that growth in Scottish aquaculture is sustainable is key to its future success.

We must continue to apply high health and welfare standards in order to ensure that Scotland can continue to produce a world-class and high-quality product that is one of the most eco-efficient and sustainable forms of healthy protein available to feed the growing global population.