Chamber and committees

I will jump back a little. We started by looking at Environmental Standard Scotland’s criticism of ministers for failing to protect the seabed. We also heard from fishing industry stakeholders that there is no lack of policy ambition. To what extent do the shortcomings in the implementation and delivery land at the door of the marine directorate? I have no doubts about the calibre of the marine directorate’s civil servants; however, is there a lack of capacity? A lot of the problems relate to the marine directorate’s budget, which has flatlined or decreased throughout the past 10 years. Phil Taylor, are the problems solely due to the lack of progress with the NMP2 or regional fisheries management? Why are the safeguards not being implemented? Is the problem with the marine directorate?

I have no doubt that those in the commercial fishing sector, with no exceptions, recognise that healthy fish stocks are important and underpin the future of their industry, but do environmental NGOs such as yourselves do enough work with the fishing industry as partners to deliver sustainability, including in relation to those things that you might find unpalatable, such as scallop dredging or mobile gear? Do you do enough work to treat them as part of the solution rather than primarily as pressure on the marine environment?

It is lovely to see you all again, but there is a bit of déjà vu. I have been an MSP for 10 years, and reform of inshore fisheries has been on the agenda for every one of those years but we still have not seen any progress. We have had agriculture stakeholders around the table who were incredibly frustrated about the lack of progress in agriculture, and it feels the same with fisheries. We have repeatedly heard about the need for more local decision making and co-management, but nothing is happening. Does it not make a huge dent in the confidence of the industry that, despite consultation after consultation and a review of the regional inshore fisheries groups and so on, nothing is happening?

The elephant in the room is that we also have a delay in producing the fisheries management plans. Where are those? They are fundamental to setting some of the parameters for inshore fisheries management and local decision making. Is there confidence that the Government has the desire to do this? We know that the marine directorate does not have the capacity, but does the Government have the desire to make the changes and reform inshore fisheries in the way that environmentalists and the fishing industry would like?

To go back to the point about competition for space, with the lack of a national marine plan, the ScotWind seabed leases appear to have been done in complete isolation from the impact on fishing, so in some sense the horse has bolted in regard to that.

I imagine that the knock-on effect is that we will lose that critical mass that Elaine Whyte was talking about earlier, which could lead to reductions in improvements to harbour infrastructure—the sort of concerns that we have had over highly protected marine areas and so on.

We are where we are, but, if you are in agriculture, you get paid for what might be a reduction of effort, if you like—less ploughing and so on—and you get compensation for that, or you get payments. Given that the ScotWind leases are a good example of a reduction in fishing grounds, has the Government been quick enough to look at a compensation framework for fishing? Does it need to do that as a matter of urgency, so that we do not lose that critical mass of the industry? How might that framework look?

I want to go back to one of my original questions. We have talked about targets and covered the point that Roseanna Cunningham received £250 million to meet a target of restoring 250,000 hectares by 2030. That was mostly based on the ability of peat to sequester carbon. However, as we have heard, over the past few years, we have found that there is a lot more to the benefits of peatland restoration, whether that is net biodiversity gain or flood or wildfire prevention.

In a meeting in the previous session of Parliament, Emily Taylor from the Crichton Carbon Centre said that we need to look at the biggest bang for our buck, and Andy Ford touched on that. In the good old days—or, if you like, the bad old days—the biggest bang for our buck was getting the maximum number of hectares for the minimum amount of money. Therefore, many projects were focused on the Highlands, where there are big landowners and big stretches of peatland. However, ultimately, as Roxane Andersen has set out, that is not the biggest bang for the buck—there is now more focus on other benefits.

Has the approach of the peatland action programme addressed that, so that smaller projects in terms of hectares get the priority that they should get over what was, in the bad old days, the biggest bang for our buck—the maximum number of hectares that we could get for the money? Has the approach changed?

And you need Opposition parties to lay off from bashing the Government for not hitting its hectare target.

Forestry and woodland are far more significant in Scotland than in Wales. The merger in Wales has been a disaster. Given the inevitable disruption that public sector reform will cause, what is your one ask of Government to mitigate any loss in confidence or undermining of woodland creation and forestry jobs between now and whatever the end point of public sector reform might be?

Yes, but the question is, why go for non-statutory guidance rather than a code of practice? Given that the code of practice is approved by Parliament, why would horses be better protected under non-statutory guidance? Why choose guidance over a code of practice?

When it comes to planting targets, there is often a strong focus on the targets themselves and less discussion about the economic impact and outcomes of timber production and the important role that it plays in relation to rural jobs, local processing, future house building and so on. I do not want to focus too much on the targets, which we are not achieving, but what is the single greatest barrier to increasing planting rates in Scotland?

I remember clearly when the former cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, trumpeted the huge investment that would go into peatland restoration and what we would be doing in Scotland over several years. However, we know that current restoration rates are well below what was required to meet not only the Scottish Government’s ambitions but Scotland’s long-term ambitions on climate change. Is the primary failure to reach those restoration rates due to a lack of funding, a lack of capacity or a combination of both?