Meeting of the Parliament 20 March 2025 [Draft]
The Rural Affairs and Islands Committee’s report was difficult to compile, because it represents an appraisal of changes that were put in place following the report by its predecessor, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. It was difficult to measure change, because the challenges that the industry faces today are different from those that it faced when the previous report was written. However, we found that there had been no significant change with regard to transparency, regulation and governance. Even though salmon farming faces even greater challenges today, it appears that little progress has been made since the REC Committee’s report.
It is for the Government to improve regulation and reporting, but, time and again, we discovered information that had not been published in a timely fashion. Although that information is gathered, it is not transparently or accessibly available. That feeds negativity towards the industry. I welcome the fact that, in her response to the committee’s report, the cabinet secretary admitted that and agreed to look at how such information could be made more freely available.
There are members of the committee and of the wider public who would like there to be a moratorium on all fish farm development. If they were honest, they would admit that they want to close down the industry altogether, but they forget that fish farming provides benefits. We need food, especially oily fish, which salmon farming provides. In rural parts of Scotland, where such farms are based, there is also a need for the jobs that the industry provides.
Recently, I read in the West Highland Free Press that a company in Skye, Organic Sea Harvest, has stopped farming at two of its farms in Skye, which will lead to the loss of 16 jobs in a part of Skye where local population retention is really challenging. That is the number of people who are directly employed by the company, but I fear that more jobs will be lost downstream in local support industries. In an already overheated tourism and second-home market, in which local people struggle to get a foothold in the housing market, such jobs are essential in allowing them to do so.
From press reports, I understand that the reason why the company has stopped farming at those farms is to do with our slow and clunky planning process, with blame lying at the door of Highland Council and the Scottish Government. We are talking about a small local company that the Government should be supporting, which has fallen foul of a complex and expensive bureaucracy. It is little wonder, therefore, that most of the aquaculture industry is now owned by large multinationals, which have deep pockets and patient capital to see them through the planning process. The situation must change, because those jobs are crucial to our local economy.
Good governance not only is transparent but cuts bureaucracy and makes trading easier, without cutting standards. Good governance also protects our international reputation and the reputation of the fish farming industry. Therefore, the Government is failing the industry and those who work in it by not acting on the concerns.
I was brought up in a rural area, where the arrival of a fish farm provided permanent well-paid jobs that allowed young people to buy a home and stay in the community in which they had been brought up. We need more of that. We cannot simply hand over such communities as playgrounds for the rich, but the lack of good governance structures means that it is close to impossible for small companies to succeed. The planning system sets communities against one another and creates time lags that only those with the deepest pockets can survive.
The industry is also impacted by climate change, but the Scottish Government’s marine laboratories have been all but hollowed out. We need research and development to take place to ensure that the industry is world leading, rather than being left to wither. We saw what a catastrophic effect the micro jellyfish had. What research was carried out to identify that up-and-coming challenge before it arose?