Hansard

I could speed things up by saying, “Ditto” to both of the preceding speeches, but I will add a wee bit to the debate. I thank Beatrice Wishart for bringing this vital discussion to the chamber.

I agree with pretty much everything that has just been said about our fishing industry. I will start by mentioning a couple of initiatives that impressed me recently. One was the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation’s “Pride in the Seas” exhibition; the other was the Open Seas #OurSeas campaign. I have taken a few quotes out of the many that we saw at a recent showing of the SFF’s exhibition in the Parliament. Colin Stephen, the skipper of a haddock trawler from Peterhead, said:

“You’ve got to look after the next generation. I don’t know any fishermen who just think about today and forget about tomorrow.”

According to Erin MacKenzie from Mallaig,

“fishing holds an integral place in coastal communities”

and we have to preserve

“generations-old skills and knowledge”.

As part of the #OurSeas campaign, Haydn McKenzie from Kyleakin said:

“There’s definitely a future for the fishing industry if we play our cards right. But at the same time, it is a pretty bleak future if we don’t.”2

Going back to the “Pride in the Seas” exhibition, Mark Robertson, part-owner of a Fraserburgh shellfish vessel, maintained that

“solutions can be found if government works with fishermen, not against them.”

There is really only one question to be asked today, and it is for the cabinet secretary. Can she give us some time to debate the issue fully and have a full discussion about the importance of our fishing industry across the whole of Scotland? Whether it is in Shetland, on the west coast of Scotland or in Buckie, Fraserburgh or Peterhead, it really matters.

Beatrice and Karen already mentioned some of the reasons why that is important, but I will go over them again. There is the Norway-United Kingdom fishing deal and the end of the UK trade and co-operation agreement—it will be interesting to hear Rhoda Grant’s thoughts on that. There are issues around inshore fisheries; spatial squeeze is truly becoming a big issue and a real worry for our industry. There is the national marine plan and where we are going with it. We need more conversations about landings in Scotland and the local management of seas. We need to talk about the marine directorate, including where we are with it, what facilities it needs for the future and whether we are making the best use of the resources that it has.

How are we really managing foreign-owned boats in our waters? That affects several segments of the industry. I have recently spoken a wee bit to Fishing Forward UK about the pressures that it feels there are and its distrust of some of the statistics that the Scottish Government is putting out.

How can we invest in great projects like those in Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Ullapool and Shetland, which would all love to see expansion? What about ghost fishing and black fishing—illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing?

Karen Adam made a very good point about the processing sector. I hear that there might be new markets in the middle east, but we need to have that discussion in the chamber so that we can ensure that the Government and the Parliament are fully behind everybody.

I have been trying to get to the bottom of concerns that my constituents have raised with me. As I mentioned, there are concerns about statistics not being right, and I have been sent videos of unreported and unmonitored landings and transhipping at sea. There are concerns about boats not meeting the economic link conditions, which Beatrice Wishart brought up.

We need time to discuss those things. I cannot cover them all in four minutes—we must have more time. That is why I really hope that the cabinet secretary can, today, give us an assurance that the Government will give time to this important debate. If we come together and get behind the great value of our primary industries; if we work towards practical, reasoned rules and regulations; and if we rightly allow ourselves to make the most of our seas—and, for that matter, our land—we can build communities that are strong and resilient. I say to the cabinet secretary: please let the Government take the initiative, and take the lead, so that we can all show that fishing matters to all of us in Scotland.