Thank you, Presiding Officer. As always, I am unmuted.
Scotland’s inshore fisheries are one of our most valuable community assets, and fishers and their businesses contribute significantly to the economic and cultural fabric of our coastal communities. Those benefits have cemented the centuries-old bond between the coast, the communities and the families.
Currently, there are just more than 2,000 Scottish-registered fishing vessels, 80 per cent of which operate in our inshore waters. Those 1,600 vessels, most of which are classified as microbusinesses, are made up of a mix of nephrops trawlers, scallop dredgers, and creelers and divers—all fishing for high-quality shellfish. Much of the catch is destined for export markets in France, Spain and Italy. Seafood is our second largest export; for example, in 2018, £100 million of langoustines alone were exported from the United Kingdom. Two thirds of the world’s langoustines are sourced in Scotland; the main markets are France, Spain and Italy.
To help that diverse sector to co-exist and co-operate more effectively, we published our “Scottish Inshore Fisheries Strategy 2015”. Its key objectives are: to improve the evidence base for inshore fisheries, improve governance and participation of fishers in policy making, and improve integration with marine planning. Through the modernisation of the inshore fleet programme, we are progressing those objectives; the key commitment is to more effectively monitor fishing in inshore waters. That will provide vital data for Government to manage fishing resources, reassurance to local communities about fishing activity, and information for fishers to guide how, when and what they fish.
Following a procurement process that was undertaken last autumn, I announce today that Woodsons of Aberdeen Ltd is the Scottish Government’s preferred supplier to deliver the remote electronic monitoring programme. The scallop dredge fleet will be among the first to be equipped with remote electronic monitoring systems.
Modernising our approach to vessel monitoring and tracking will help improve our insight into the inshore fleet’s profile: how it operates, how it adapts and what matters most to its sustainable development. However, we also need to blend technological innovation with other policy activity. Competition for space in our inshore waters can be intense, and no more so than in some fishing grounds.
The “Report of the Gear Conflict Task Force” in 2015 laid the foundations for the modernisation programme. Since then, we have worked with inshore fisheries groups and communities to address issues and encourage co-operative working. Moreover, we have all become increasingly aware of the risks that plastics in our seas pose to fish and other marine wildlife, and that marine litter is an increasing problem. In Scotland, we are not immune to that and we must all do more to clean up our waters and coastlines.
Therefore, this spring, I intend to lay a Scottish statutory instrument to regulate the marking of creels. That will enhance visibility, improve navigational safety and identity of ownership, while ensuring that buoys are of a consistent material and design. The use of footballs and milk cartons to mark creels will be a thing of the past.
Government officials continue to engage with local fishing communities and groups to encourage behaviour change. Empowering our inshore fishers to contribute to and manage their own activity is key to sustainable fishing in the future.
We are continuing to develop a multi-agency approach to managing conflicts between fishers, including building the relationship between Marine Scotland and Police Scotland. That will enable Government, working in partnership with the industry and communities, to facilitate more effective sharing of sea space between the various users, and will help determine where and how Government intervention is most needed.
Given the increased intensity of marine planning activities, an improved evidence base is key. We must protect Scotland’s unique and valuable marine environment while enabling appropriate offshore wind and renewables initiatives, as well as allowing fishing to continue. It can often feel to Scotland’s historic and still hugely relevant inshore fisheries fleet that their needs and interests are less important than other considerations. I assure them that that is not the case. They matter, and the Government wants them to continue to fish sustainably into the future. That is why gathering verifiable data on inshore activity is so important. It will give everyone confidence that the right decisions are being made for the right reasons, and it will allow open dialogue to continue to ensure that compromise on activity in our inshore waters can be achieved.
I welcome and appreciate the willingness of the inshore fishing industry to engage in that dialogue, and help to inform future management. The dialogue has been evident in the inshore fisheries pilot programme. The Mull spatial separation trial has seen conflict successfully mitigated. Now in its second year, the lessons learned from the Mull trial will be applied to the Outer Hebrides pilot, where we will also be continuing to develop the prototype low-cost vessel tracking solution.
That has been developed through the world-leading Scottish inshore fisheries integrated data system project led by the University of St Andrews and funded through the European maritime and fisheries fund. It is due to commence soon and will trial a range of behavioural changes, including gear capacity limitation measures.
It is fair to say that less progress has been made with the inner sound inshore fisheries pilot. Following a further consultation last year, it was still difficult to see where different users agreed on the way forward. However, there were important points of agreement that can be built on. That is why I am establishing an inner sound local fisheries management advisory group to design cross-sector participation in the modernisation programme, and to open up dialogue between the range of interests in this area. Further details on the way ahead are set out in the consultation outcome report, which I have published today.
Communication is key to empowering our inshore fisheries fleet so that they can get more involved in managing activity in inshore waters. That has been a key aim of the regional inshore fisheries groups. The network has been evolving for over a decade and it now contains five groups. The role of the chairs of those groups is key, so I am pleased to advise Parliament of the appointment of Jennifer Mouat to chair the north and east group, and Simon Macdonald to chair the west coast group.
Enabling more inshore fishers to engage and contribute to their local group is key to their sustainability, so I can also announce that we are creating a new online platform at rifg.scot.
This is Scotland’s year of coasts and waters. It is entirely appropriate that we pay tribute to the role played by our inshore fishers, who still often work in hazardous and sometimes, sadly, life-threatening conditions to bring economic, social and cultural benefit to our coasts and waters.
Our fleets must be encouraged and enabled to modernise, not just to survive but to thrive in a way that contributes to the sustainable management of these vital and valuable waters. They must also be empowered to make that contribution. That means providing them with tools and opportunities to engage and collaborate. Above all, it means valuing them and the economic, social and cultural benefits that they bring to our coastal communities. The Government remains committed to doing just that.