Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 08 November 2023
08 Nov 2023 · S6 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Fisheries Negotiations
It will not be a surprise to anyone here that Scotland is a welcoming and inclusive nation. We want to make Scotland as attractive a place as possible for people to choose to live, work, study, raise their families and build their lives here, and a key part of that vision is to ensure that we have thriving coastal and island communities. That means enabling the inward migration that they need and ensuring that our fishing, seafood processing and other sectors can access the vital labour that they need.
However, the UK Government has, in stark contrast to our position, implemented an increasingly hostile immigration policy that has exacerbated labour shortages and rural depopulation, and it has consistently shown a lack of understanding of Scotland’s needs. That includes a visa system that has persistently maintained an uneven playing field based on the geographic location and operational area of fishing vessels, which is particularly detrimental to the Scottish inshore fleet in the Highlands and Islands and which imposes charges for people to obtain visas that are far in excess of what would be reasonable.
I make no secret of the fact that I continue to believe that Scottish independence and membership of the EU is the best way to overcome the harms of Brexit, give Scotland a voice and influence at the heart of Europe and help our marine sector to reach its full potential.
In the same item of business
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Liam McArthur)
LD
The next item of business is a statement by Mairi Gougeon on Scotland’s approach to the 2023 coastal state fisheries negotiations and securing principled, su...
The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands (Mairi Gougeon)
SNP
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to set out Scotland’s approach to the negotiations with coastal state partners on fishing opportuniti...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
LD
The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow up to 20 minutes, after which we will need to move to ...
Rachael Hamilton (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (Con)
Con
I thank the cabinet secretary for prior sight of the statement. I wish her teams well with the negotiations. The fantastic work of our fishermen is placing ...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
Rachael Hamilton’s comments started off well and I thought that we were going to be on an agreeable footing. However, I welcome her initial comments. I hope...
Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
Lab
Having finally recognised that HPMAs were not fit for purpose, does the cabinet secretary recognise that poor management of a well-meaning policy has signifi...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition published the results of the consultation on HPMAs yesterday. An important part of setting ...
Karen Adam (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP)
SNP
The annual negotiations are critical to the fortunes of Scotland’s fishing industry, but it is also important that we manage to reach longer-term sharing arr...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
Karen Adam raises a really important point. As I outlined in my statement, it is becoming urgent that we reach agreement on longer-term sharing arrangements,...
Jamie Halcro Johnston (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Con
Yesterday’s U-turn by the Scottish Government on highly protected marine areas was welcome. Credit must go to those coastal communities, fishing organisation...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
As has already been made abundantly clear by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition, we are not looking to seek to implement HPMAs...
Kate Forbes (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP)
SNP
Considering the nature of the questions today, I suggest that listening and changing tack is a sign of strength. Other parties might want to recall that. Fi...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
It is vital that, in addressing the challenges that Kate Forbes outlined, we secure the opportunities that are afforded by the negotiations. When I talked a...
Mercedes Villalba (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
The value of landings in Scotland last year was £617 million, and the industry employs 4,100 fishers in Scotland. Will the national marine plan 2 include spa...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
It is the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition who is leading on the development of the national marine plan 2, work on which is alr...
Emma Harper (South Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
What would independence in Europe mean for Scotland’s fishing interests? Last week, the Scottish Government published the latest “Building a New Scotland” pa...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
It will not be a surprise to anyone here that Scotland is a welcoming and inclusive nation. We want to make Scotland as attractive a place as possible for pe...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
LD
Can we listen to the questions and responses from the cabinet secretary without the running commentary from members, please?
Beatrice Wishart (Shetland Islands) (LD)
LD
I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement and agree that the annual fisheries negotiations matter hugely for Scotland. I note the cabi...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
I hope that I have made it clear that reaching those sharing agreements will be hugely important. We are putting all our strength into negotiating on that fr...
Ariane Burgess (Highlands and Islands) (Green)
Green
The cabinet secretary said: “We will continue to advocate for responsible fisheries management approaches”, which means safeguarding “the diversity of t...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
Fisheries management plans are just one of the tools that we will use to manage our fisheries and marine ecosystems. As we set out in our fisheries managemen...
Audrey Nicoll (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP)
SNP
In 2017, Michael Gove—the then UK Government minister for fisheries—promised that leaving the EU was a “sea of opportunity” for the fishing industry in my Ab...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
The promise of a sea of opportunity and of a dramatic increase in the amount of fish that we could catch was one of many that were made by UK Government mini...
Finlay Carson (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con)
Con
In the statement, the cabinet secretary quite rightly praised the efforts of Scottish fishers who have engaged and worked closely with her to protect and rec...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
It is never good to hear comments like that, and, as I have made clear in previous responses—the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition has also ...
Jackie Dunbar (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
SNP
Just to pick up on what Audrey Nicoll said, Michael Gove also told the fishing industry in 2017 that “once we take back control of our territorial waters, w...
Mairi Gougeon
SNP
No, it did not provide more opportunity. As I outlined, under the trade and co-operation agreement, access to UK waters for EU vessels is guaranteed until at...
The Deputy Presiding Officer
LD
We are in danger of moving away from the substance of the statement. I call Colin Smyth. Please be brief.
Colin Smyth (South Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
Given the clear legal duty that the UK Fisheries Act 2020 places on the Scottish Government, will the cabinet secretary tell us how she will use the negotiat...