Meeting of the Parliament 18 December 2025
I congratulate my colleague Alasdair Allan on securing this debate and standing up for his constituents.
Six months ago, Scotland’s fishing industry found itself being sold out, yet again, by a UK Government, this time under Labour. To soften the blow of conceding fishing access to European trawlers for a further 12 years under its EU reset deal, Labour announced a £360 million fishing and coastal growth fund to
“modernise Britain’s fishing fleet, deliver new training and skills to back the next generation of fishers and promote the seafood sector to export our high-quality produce across the world.”
Labour committed to working with the industry
“to target investment where it matters most.”
A casual observer might have thought that a fishing fund would have been targeted where the most significant fishing takes place and at the local communities that are involved in that activity. That was certainly the case under the previous European maritime and fisheries fund, under which Scotland received approximately 46 per cent of the UK’s total funding.
However, to the horror of Scotland’s coastal communities and the acquiescence of Labour parliamentarians, only one of whom is here in the chamber today, minister of state Angela Eagle MP confirmed that Scotland would receive a paltry allocation of less than 8 per cent, despite the fact that Scottish vessels account for 70 per cent of total UK landings, 63 per cent of the total value of fish landed and 40 per cent of the fishermen. Shetland alone lands more fish than England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
The reaction from fishermen has been fierce. Sheila Keith, executive officer of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association, said:
“This allocation is not just inadequate—it’s a betrayal of Scotland’s fishing communities ... we’ve been handed a dismal fraction of the support we need to modernise and sustain our industry.”
Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said:
“This has gone from being a consolation prize to now being a booby prize. It’s hard to feel that this”
UK
“government cares one jot about the Scottish fishing industry. Sold out by the Prime Minister through the EU re-set, told that we would have this fund to help support the industry for the future, only now to find that Scotland’s share is close to derisory.”
Faced with such a staggering injustice and betrayal of his constituents perpetrated by his own Government, Western Isles Labour MP Torcuil Crichton said:
“There is a question of fairness in the geographical distribution of the fund, and the Minister should consider that; I hope the funding will be reviewed in due course”.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 23 October 2025; Vol 773, c 1112.]
Stirring stuff indeed there from Mr Crichton. One wonders what Torcuil Crichton the journalist would have made of such a meek response had it come from his predecessor, or any Scottish National Party or, indeed, Tory MP.
The approach of the Labour Government, sadly echoed by members on the Labour front bench in this Parliament, has been to deflect, buck pass and blame those who had the temerity to call for funding to be devolved. Time and again, Ms Eagle said the Barnett formula had to be applied, and if we did not like it, we should find the money from devolved budgets.
This is desperate stuff. There is no legal or constitutional requirement that sector-specific funding be allocated according to Barnett. Whether it was the previous UK Government short-changing the Scottish Government of expected Barnett consequentials when it rolled out the levelling up fund to communities around the UK, or Theresa May’s deal with the Democratic Unionist Party for £1 billion to Northern Ireland, there is a whole catalogue of examples to the contrary. This is a political decision by Labour that sees it value a fisherman in England more than 14 times more than a colleague in Peterhead, Lerwick, Stornoway or Ayrshire.
Labour is not the first UK Government to demonstrate that it does not understand, value or care about the Scottish fishing industry; sadly, I doubt that it will be the last. The Labour Government should, as a matter of urgency, reform the allocations to deliver a fair and equitable outcome for Scotland’s fishermen.
This episode demonstrates yet again that, for Westminster, fishing will always be an afterthought at best. The only way that we can secure the long-term future of this vital Scottish industry is through the full powers of an independent country.