Meeting of the Parliament 02 May 2023
I cannot think of a more important issue on which to give my first speech from the back benches since 2018. I am delighted to be back. However, I am not delighted about the substance of the debate because, given that it is about conservation, my warning is stark: if the proposals go ahead as planned, the rarest species in our coastal areas and islands will soon be people.
The figures back that up. National Records of Scotland is clear that all our coastal areas will have a double-digit reduction in population between 2018 and 2044. We are talking about the Western Isles, Argyll and Bute, and Inverclyde. It is people who are at greatest risk, through depopulation. Despite that bleak outlook, there are signs of recovery, and that recovery is driven in many areas by fishing.
Let us look at Tiree, where fishing supports 20 full-time jobs, which, in turn, support 25 per cent of the children under the age of eight on the island. Every one of those children are in the Gaelic-medium unit. Language, heritage and culture drive tourism, but if we sever the lifeline with fishing, we will undermine the wider economy.
My position in the leadership contest was that I would scrap HPMAs completely if elected. I did not win, and my job now is to represent my constituents and to navigate a way forward. The seafood sector’s statement, which I believe is to be issued tomorrow, offers a way forward: either to drop the proposals or to find a clear consensus—which requires fishermen’s voices to be part of the discussion—on balancing protections in the marine environment and safeguarding tens of thousands of jobs.
I was hugely heartened by the First Minister’s comments—and, indeed, by those of Màiri McAllan, who has been exceptional at engaging—that no communities will see HPMAs imposed on them against their will. The difficulty, of course, is that I have not come across a single community that wants HPMAs. Therefore, the challenge will be finding anywhere to impose them.
I have not taken interventions, as I wanted to use the last minute of my comments to quote the words of a fisherman. That is because this is not about taking politicians’ words but about listening directly to those people. I want to quote Donald Francis MacNeil, who made his singing debut last month with Skipinnish with the song “The Clearances Again”.
I will not sing it, but it can be heard sung online. He sings:
“Donald Francis MacNeil is my name,
I’m a fisherman through to the bone.
I have lived by the creel and the wave
To provide for a family and home.
Generations before me have followed
The toil and the call of the seas
But the soul will be torn from our future
And the heart from the Hebrides ...
My people, my language, my Island
And the rights that our forefathers won
To remain on the soil of our homeland
By the sweep of a pen will be gone—
A wrecking ball through our existence;
Tradition and culture condemned
At the hands of the arrogant stranger—
The Clearances over again.
But we’ll join with the kin of our coastline
From Ness to the Holy Isle.
Faceless grey suits from the cities,
They will not play games with our lives.
My song marks a fight for survival
A Mayday call we cry.
We will stand for the rights of our children.
We will not let our islands die.”
May that be the rallying call for this Parliament.