Hansard

I will speak to the amendments in the name of Ariane Burgess. I support the majority of the amendments in the group, and I particularly support the approach that has been taken by Maurice Golden and Sarah Boyack. There is a wider issue about the management of our marine environment, which the bill so far does not tackle, so we need to go further at stage 2.

Amendments 90 and 91 would strengthen the reporting on the status and condition of Scotland’s marine protected area network by giving Environmental Standards Scotland a formal role in assessing the network. The evidence that we have had from Open Seas stressed the lack of real protection that is being delivered by Scotland’s existing MPA network. The Government has acknowledged that MPAs might not be meeting legal objectives, so giving ESS a more formal role in assessing the network’s objectives and achievements would mean greater accountability for any marine-related targets that are set by secondary legislation.

Amendment 90 would strengthen the reporting by requiring ESS to report on whether there has been any deterioration in the MPA network. Amendment 91 would then require ministers to include in their reports to Parliament under the 2010 act a summary of the pressures and impacts that human activities are having on MPAs.

Amendment 92 relates to the national marine plan 2, which ministers are currently developing. The intention is for the new plan to set out ministers’ policies for how different sectors will interact in the marine environment. That is important, because we all recognise that there is a demand for access to marine space, from fishing to energy to recreation, and deciding what goes where is the critical role of that national marine plan. However, we are concerned that the current proposals from the Government suggest that the new national marine plan would significantly weaken protections, including by dropping the fisheries objective from the new plan entirely. Amendment 92 seeks to rectify that omission.

Fisheries management measures are deemed to be a national or regional marine planning matter under the 2010 act. They are part of the first national marine plan and the Shetland regional marine plan. The proposal, which attempts to treat fisheries management decisions as separate from the wider national marine planning, is concerning. We need to join things up here rather than put fisheries in a siloed box. Amendment 92 would make it clear that fisheries objectives are categorically part of the national marine plan and cannot be interpreted otherwise and removed at the whim of a serving Government.

Amendment 301 would make two straightforward changes to the current light-touch regulation of the wrasse fishery and finish the work that was begun by this committee and the Scottish Government in the area. First, it would close some of our marine protected areas and special areas of conservation to the fishery all year round—specifically, the SACs for which rocky reefs are a qualifying feature and the MPAs for which kelp and seaweed on sediment are a protected feature. Those are the MPAs and SACs for which the various commercially fished wrasse species listed in amendment 301 are the keystone species, which are hugely ecologically important to the future of those habitats. There might be a case for closing the fishery in all MPAs and SACs, but, in those specific areas, wrasse are absolutely integral to the survival of those habitats. You cannot protect rocky reefs or kelp forests and other seaweed habitats if the wrasse that they depend on can be taken away.

Amendment 301 would close the wrasse fishery during the five months when wrasse spawn and guard their nests. At the moment, the closed season is completely misaligned with the spawning season, again risking the future of the fish and the ecosystems that they are part of. Protecting vulnerable fish stocks during the spawning seasons is an absolutely fundamental part of good fisheries management. I am at a loss as to understand why that is not being applied in relation to the wrasse fishery.

We all know that wrasse are used in large numbers by the salmon industry for lice control, and, no doubt, the industry would like the fishery to be open all year round, to give it flexibility. However, that would not be in the industry’s interests if it intends to rely on wrasse for the longer term. It has been reported that local wrasse populations have collapsed in some areas. That is a dire outcome for important marine ecosystems, but it is also a problem for the aquaculture industry. We need better regulation in the area. I think that Ariane Burgess’s amendments take that final step and ensure that there is a sustainable recovery of our wrasse across Scotland.