Contents
New Petitions
Interstitial Lung Disease and Home Management (PE1714)
Agenda item 2 is consideration of new petitions. The first new petition is PE1714, by James MacLachlan, Jean Watson and Ivy Dodds, on interstitial lung disease and home management. The petition calls on the Scottish Government to provide funding to help to raise awareness of the condition and the development of a cohesive national policy for home management.
We have apologies from Jackson Carlaw MSP, who expressed an interest in the petition. He will attend to our conversations and discussions about it.
We will take evidence from two of the petitioners: James MacLachlan and Jean Watson. I welcome you to the meeting and invite you to provide a brief opening statement of no more than five minutes between you. After that, we will move to questions from the committee to assist our understanding of the condition and to be clear about the action that you have called for in your petition.
I thank you for the opportunity to expand on the issues that are raised in the petition, which aims to raise awareness of interstitial lung disease and home management.
Jean Watson, Ivy Dodds and I are all sufferers of ILD, and we are members of the west of Scotland ILD support group. Unfortunately, Ivy Dodds was unable to travel to the meeting because of health difficulties.
The thrust of the petition is that the Government should provide funding for the issues that are raised in the petition. I will not go over them, as members seem to be aware of them.
We find that one of the main problems is that there seems to be a complete lack of awareness of interstitial lung disease. In particular, the petition highlights the statistics for people who have sought their first appointment with a general practitioner. The delay of perhaps up to two or three years for a person’s first appointment is completely unacceptable and we think that the Government and others must address that by increasing public awareness.
As members can see from my nasal cannula, I am a sufferer of ILD. In hindsight, I should have visited my GP some two years before I did. That delay was down to the fact that I, like most people, was completely unaware of ILD and its effects. I put my increasing breathlessness down to age and asthma, which I was diagnosed as having some eight years prior to my ILD diagnosis. I still take asthma medication, so there was no possibility of any bad diagnosis there.
Another major problem is in the delay in ILD diagnosis. By its nature, ILD mimics many other diseases and ailments. It has no known cause—except, unfortunately, in a few industrial cases involving miners, for example—and there is no known trigger to start it.
A delay in diagnosis may be remedied by the particulars that are set out in the petition. When people go to their doctor, they should automatically get a chest examination if they are over the age of 60 or around that age, even if they have gone in with a sore toe. It takes only two minutes to lift up a person’s shirt and do a chest examination. That will help to diagnose ILD and many other respiratory diseases.
Other illnesses and diseases, such as lung cancer and other cancers, presently have or have had well-funded awareness programmes. Surely such programmes for ILD and similar respiratory diseases are well within the scope of Government funding, and whatever they can come up with should be implemented. That would increase public awareness and highlight that a quality of life is expected after diagnosis. It would also bring ILD out of the shadows and increase public awareness and public acceptance of what it is. We sometimes find, not that the public avoid us, but that they find it difficult to accept that we do not have a deadly illness. If I take off my nasal cannula, I hope that I look the picture of health, but I am not. That is what we have to overcome. It should never be overlooked that ILD and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis are insidious, incurable diseases that bring debilitating breathlessness, as you can hear.
The petition highlights the benefits of home management and says how it should be provided. Again, that is within the scope of the powers of the Government and local authorities. The provision of pulmonary rehabilitation is a mainstay with regard to maintaining the quality of life of sufferers. It gets us out and about and it keeps us mobile. The petition highlights other home management necessities—there are so many that I have not got time to go through them all. We would have to write a book or talk for a few days if we started to list and discuss all the effects of ILD, from pre-diagnosis to post-diagnosis and on to living with the condition.
We understand that a national respiratory plan for Scotland has been proposed. We feel that any delay in its formation and implementation can only cause untold suffering throughout Scotland. We therefore urge the committee to consider the petition and, thereafter, urge the Government to act responsibly.
I will not say any more. Jean Watson has a lot to say.
My circumstances have been very similar to Jim’s. I was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis two and a half years ago. I had always been told that my health problems were caused by allergies and stomach problems and, like a lot of people, I used standard medication for those. I retired from work four years ago, mainly due to a recurring cough and the fact that I was feeling increasingly tired throughout the working day. An exacerbation in my condition led to me being referred to hospital and I was eventually diagnosed with IPF. I had never heard of that illness, and none of my family had, either.
On joining the west of Scotland ILD support group, I met other patients who had the same condition. Talking with fellow patients has shown me that they have had very similar problems of late diagnosis, mainly due to a lack of awareness and understanding of their conditions. The symptoms that they display may be treated, but the underlying serious condition might not be identified. Most patients have other serious health problems in addition to ILD that are classed as co-morbidities and make treatment more complex.
Interstitial lung disease affects middle-aged and older people. We feel that many people put up with their health problems due to a lack of knowledge and the idea that they are just getting a bit older. The condition causes a debilitating loss of physical activity, leading to people being unable to care for themselves. The impact on their daily life is considerable. They have difficulties with the simple activities that are involved in looking after their house, and they can experience emotional problems and feelings of social isolation. As ILD is an incurable condition, we feel that there is a considerable need to raise awareness of it to assist earlier diagnosis and create a consistent approach to care throughout Scotland.
We are happy to answer any questions.
Thanks for that presentation. I appreciate that, when an issue affects you directly, it can be even more difficult to lodge a petition about it. The case that you made is interesting. I had certainly not heard of the condition before, or the challenges that go with it.
You have said that the condition mimics others, and that people can assume that it is something else. You suggested that GPs could carry out chest examinations as a matter of routine. Are you aware of any countries where that happens? Even if they were to conduct a chest examination, do GPs know what they should be listening for? Is that a problem?
I think that it is a problem. That is why the petition calls for funding for extra training for GPs so that they can diagnose ILD. It is a difficult disease to diagnose, because it mimics many other chest infections and various other things. ILD itself covers about 200 or 300 degrees of illnesses, and it is difficult for GPs to isolate and identify it. In order to diagnose it, there needs to be an X-ray and, thereafter, hospital care.
We need GPs to be more aware of it. I was very fortunate when I went to the doctor—he must have had patients with it before, because he recognised it right away. However, we know that other patients, and an awful lot of people in our group, have had terrible difficulties in getting diagnosed by their GPs. They are told, “it is a chest infection, take this” or, “it is a cough, take that.” However, a simple chest examination would highlight a lot of it. There is a distinct noise—
There is a crackle.
ILD gives a distinct crackle when a chest is examined. That is all that is needed for the GP to say that they need to look at it further and do an x-ray and so on. Then you are in the system.
The issue is about routine tests and also knowing what to listen for—the distinct crackle.
They have to know what to listen for.
The sounds of an ordinary chest infection and a pulmonary fibrosis are different. There is a crackling sound with the latter; it is a different type of sound. It has to be examined. It is no good just to be told that you have a cough or a sore throat, which tends to be what you get treated for. Although that clears it up a wee bit, it never clears it up totally and it keeps building up. That will happen anyway, but the diagnosis means that you can receive the proper treatment earlier.
Treatment is delayed because the condition is not recognised and people explain away their symptoms.
If you do not know what pulmonary fibrosis is, you just think that you have a cough or a chesty wheeze all the time.
I cannot hear my chest crackle.
You have covered the point about awareness among GPs. It seems as though people go through a long stage of misdiagnosis.
I am not sure whether it is misdiagnosis. I was not diagnosed, as opposed to being misdiagnosed. The diagnosis is missing. If you do not mind me saying so, I think that there is a difference there.
Sure—I am glad that you clarified that point.
What is public awareness like? Are there resources and information out there for GPs? What examples do you have of awareness among the public?
There are lots of websites on pulmonary fibrosis, but if you do not know that it exists, you will not look them up. If you tell the average person that you have been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, they think that you will get tablets for it and that it will be okay. They do not really understand what the condition is, because we do not hear about it.
Can I clarify, Jim—sorry to call you Jim, but Jean Watson did.
That is okay.
You spoke about a delay of two to three years in seeking your first appointment, because you thought that it was your age and then, eventually, there was the asthma.
I had been diagnosed with asthma about six or seven years earlier, but I put my increasing breathlessness down to getting older and not being as active. The asthma treatment was working for the asthma side of it, but I was still getting increasingly breathless.
If the proposals in your petition had been successful and funding had been made available to resource an awareness campaign, would you have realised that you had the condition and highlighted it to your GP?
I would have. However, even before that stage was reached, I am absolutely certain that my wife would have said that my cough was getting worse and worse and that I should get to the doctor; even if I was saying that it was going away and that it was just the asthma and that I was getting older.
That is public awareness—public awareness leads to the doctor’s appointment, which leads to the doctor’s diagnosis. That is the sequence that we have to follow.
The flu jab has a public health awareness campaign behind it. Could there be merit in considering doing the checks when people over a certain age—say people who are over 65—go for something such as the flub jab?
Yes, but the flu jag tends to go along with an age profile. If you are diagnosed with ILD, you get those pneumonia and flu vaccinations from your GP at a younger age than you normally would.
10:00
I am thinking along the lines of a preventative agenda.
If you went for your flu jag, they could do a sounding—yes, that would only take a couple of minutes. It would be very simple.
Do GPs currently do checks?
No, not when you go for your vaccinations. Usually, you book in for your vaccination and you go to a nurse; she just asks if you are feeling all right. You do not get any soundings—at least, I have not. I can speak only for myself.
For flu jags, you get an appointment at the GP surgery for Saturday between 10 and 12, for example, and you and 200 other people queue up to get your jags, so there is no possibility of any examination.
Should ILD and other conditions have parity with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma in relation to levels of public awareness?
Yes.
Yes. There is not the slightest doubt about that. If you speak to the average person on the street, they know what lung cancer is, they know what COPD is and they know what asthma is. If I say I have ILD, people do not know what that is. They ask me if I have stopped smoking.
I think the word “disease” tends to put in people’s minds the idea that you catch ILD but you do not; it just develops in you.
In your initial submission, you provided statistics from “The British Thoracic Society Interstitial Lung Disease Registry Programme Annual Report 2015/16” that showed the elapsed times from initial onset of breathlessness to presentation. For the record, the submission says:
“46% waited over 2 years.
25% waited 1 to 2 years.
20% waited 6 to 12 months.
8% waited less than 6 months.”
Are those the most recent figures? Do they relate to the whole of the United Kingdom? Have you estimated how many sufferers there are in Scotland?
As far as the statistics go, we have not been able to find any that say how many sufferers there are in Scotland. There was something in the parliamentary written answers that I looked at. Joe FitzPatrick’s written answer to question S5W-21025 from Colin Smyth was about the number of people with ILD who had received pulmonary rehabilitation. That written answer referred to a table in a different written answer, which I could not quite relate to the question because the table is headed:
“Number of patients discharged from an acute hospital with a diagnosis of interstitial lung disease, by year ... 2014-18”.—[Written Answers, 23 January 2019; S5W-20839.]
That does not relate to pulmonary rehabilitation, and it does not really reflect the number of people who are diagnosed either because, if someone has been discharged from hospital, that means that they have been an in-patient. I have never been an in-patient—I am only an out-patient. Lots of people, including me, are not included in any of the available statistics, and we have not found any other statistics that say how many people in Scotland have ILD.
We cannot find that information anywhere. One of the things that we ask for in the petition is for the people who keep those records to record the information better rather than just putting down “respiratory illness”, “respiratory disease” and so on. It would be better if they could code it properly.
The information is coded, but it tends to revolve around hospital admissions and hospital discharge. Most of us just attend the respiratory clinic although it is a chronic disease—we are on their books for ever, really. I have a three-monthly appointment, and I just keep turning up every three months for the tests and so on. However, I will not be in those statistics.
In reply to Angus MacDonald’s question, the figures are for the whole of the UK. They are certainly not split between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
If we continue the petition, we can request a better breakdown, if one is available.
Further to Rachael Hamilton’s question, I am interested in the suggestion that people are delaying going to their GP. I presume that people understand that something is amiss, but I want to understand why they would delay going to their GP.
Initially, I was X-rayed. That must have been about six years ago. You have one X-ray and, if it is not 100 per cent clear, you wait and get another one. At the end of that, I was told that things looked okay—my blood tests were okay, my cough would probably clear up, and I just had a breathing thing. I was told to take the allergy tablets and so on.
That went on for quite a number of years. Eventually, I had what is classed as an exacerbation—things became worse. It was like getting a chest infection. I went back again, and I was diagnosed at that point, but that was only because I said that I was there because of my breathing and that there was more to it than just a chesty cough. As well as seeing a specialist, you have to go through X-rays and a computerised tomography scan before you are diagnosed. GPs cannot diagnose; they refer.
The delay is because you are left with annoying symptoms that do not quite go away. They clear up a wee bit in good weather and get worse again in the winter. You are on cough bottles and various things, as everyone else is in the winter.
And the breathlessness increases.
It gets worse.
It gets worse. If you are not active and doing something a wee bit more strenuous, you do not really know that you are getting breathless. If I take off my nasal cannula, I can sit all day as long as I do not move, but as soon as I start moving, I start to get breathless. Eventually, I was cutting the grass and found that I had to rest after each time I went up and down. My wife told me that I had to do something about it. That is when you realise that you have to do something. Until then, though, unless you are pushed to the limit, you do not really know that you are breathless. When you exert yourself, the breathlessness gets worse.
Thank you for clarifying that. When you talked about not going to the doctor’s, I thought that it was a man thing, but what you are saying is that the delay is in following up on the initial diagnosis. You go to the doctor’s, get some kind of diagnosis, and accept that diagnosis for a while before returning to the doctor to say that you feel that there is something more going on.
The information that is provided in your petition appears to suggest that home management principally comes from friends, family and charities. Can you expand on that?
My husband and I work things out between us in the house. If I was on my own, I would find it very difficult to do very basic things about the house. I do not have oxygen—I just have tablets—but everybody eventually gets oxygen. If you have oxygen, you need help most of the time.
You do need help. If you have a family, you find that you are unable to do the share that you used to do. You just cannot do it. When you reach the oxygen stage, it is physically impossible to get showered or even get dressed. It takes you longer—you just do not have the energy, and you have to stop and take a rest. It is debilitating, and there is nothing you can do about it. You get fatigued and cannot function properly. It is just a fact of life.
Although I do not have oxygen, I would say that most people at my level cannot do a lot of very basic things, such as changing a duvet cover. With simple things such as bending over to tie your shoelaces, you feel a bit dizzy and end up sitting down again. Very simple things become difficult. Although I can walk about on the level, stairs are practically impossible for me. I always look for lifts. If I am going anywhere, I plan a route that does not have a slope up the way, although I can cope with a slope down the way. Everywhere I go, I have to watch where I go and what route to take to get there and back.
I tend to wear slip-on shoes now, because I find it very difficult to bend to do things. I can hardly blow up the car tyres at the garage—I cannot bend down for long enough without getting fatigued. I have to get somebody to do it for me or buy some attachment to do it. I cannot work when I am bending down. It exacerbates the problem, and I cannot breathe or function.
In your petition, you say that there is not a uniform service from local authorities across Scotland. Do you have any examples of that? How much help do you get from local authorities?
I was at a course at which I spoke to and heard from a lot of people. It is evident that a postcode lottery operates to a certain extent for a lot of things—that is just a fact of life. Whether a person gets a stair lift easily—or at all—or whether they get things such as a new bathroom with grab handles and so on depends on what area of Scotland they are in. It depends very much on their local authority and on its funding. Let us face it: not all local authorities are funded well enough to do a lot of that. It all comes back to funding. We are asking for extra funds for all those things.
I presume that what you are discussing is the situation once you have a diagnosis and specific requirements. You mentioned stair lifts; I presume that the requirements also include walk-in showers and toilets, for example. You have said that the condition is not readily recognised as a long-term one. I presume that you would say that that exacerbates your difficulty in accessing the extra items that you need. What other items would you include in your requirements? Do you want to see those things included in the cohesive national management policy that you have said you would like to see established? I am sorry—that was a lot of questions.
If I approached the local authority for assistance of that sort, I would like to think that it would send somebody out to do an assessment of my house and say yes to some things or “No, you do not need that” or “We can do this,” but as far as I am aware nobody does house assessments for such cases. Perhaps if you ask for a stair lift, someone will consider that, but somebody should come out and do a proper assessment of your house, help you to make up your mind, and provide not just what you need today but what you will need tomorrow, the next day and following that.
Is that perhaps because, as you suggested before, the condition is not recognised so, when people approach local authorities, it is not in their books, so to speak?
Because it is a breathing issue, it is not seen as being on a par with mobility issues. People do not relate the breathing difficulty to why you are not mobile. They do not understand that you cannot climb stairs and walk about because your breathing is not working. They think that you should be able to do that because your arms and legs work.
It is really just a lack of knowledge.
Yes, I think that it is.
You talked about extra training for GPs and the fundamental issue that, even if they are listening, they are not hearing. They do not know what they are listening for. Who should conduct that training? Have you had any discussions with bodies that represent GPs?
I have not.
No. I suppose that respiratory specialists would deal with it. We are not medically informed enough to go into that depth.
We are just people who have the disease.
It must be the respiratory specialists—the people who eventually identify the condition.
10:15
Have any of the clinicians you have come across talked about the lack of awareness on the part of those making the referrals? Is the medical profession—at the level at which there is an understanding of the condition—aware that there is a disconnect?
I have never heard anything said about that, and I have not asked about it. I have never spoken to a consultant in that way.
The condition was recognised by the doctor who dealt with me, who must have encountered it previously. Doctors must have experience of the disease before they can deal with it. There seems to be a special way of sounding the chest so that the crackle can be recognised. It is not just a quick case of the doctor saying, “Breathe in, breathe out.” It has to be done in a certain way. We do not think that all GPs are fully trained in how to do that.
Joe FitzPatrick, who is the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, responded to Colin Smyth’s questions. My understanding is that the minister said that this is a matter for clinicians and health boards. I assume that you think that more central direction is needed and that it cannot simply be left to the health boards to decide how much of a priority they make the condition.
I have no idea how health boards operate or how the whole system operates. We just know that there seems to be a lack of awareness and that the condition does not seem to be being dealt with. Who makes the relevant laws and arrangements is beyond us; that is above my salary scale.
Your point about keeping people at home makes sense for the health service—people managing their condition at home relieves health service resources.
I imagine that the prevalence rate of ILD would have to be compared with the prevalence rate of other conditions. There is competing demand across a number of conditions when it comes to awareness raising and prioritising those conditions, so it is important that the statistics are right. There is a lack of Scottish statistics.
Have you worked with the British Lung Foundation?
I have had contact with the British Lung Foundation. It sent out something with my picture on it telling its people that they should support the petition.
On the convener’s point about GPs, is there any merit in considering whether other healthcare professionals, such as practice nurses, could do the check? Jean Watson said that age was not relevant to the condition, whereas James MacLachlan said that he thought that he had it because of his old age. Could a check be carried out at the same time as the flu jab? That way, more people would be reached.
That could be done, but there is a problem with restricting the approach to one that is based on age. Most people will have the condition long before they are diagnosed. Lots of people will have it before they are 60. I think that, in the past, it has been shoved to the side because it has been seen as an older person’s condition—the view has been that it is just people’s breathing going. If it were diagnosed sooner, it would not be seen in that way. It affects younger people.
As Jean Watson said, it is when you start to walk up a hill that you find out that you cannot do it. People do not walk up hills all the time. It is something that grows and grows; it is a slow burner.
If you had had the opportunity to go informally to another healthcare professional, such as a practice nurse, instead of making an appointment with a GP, would you have done that?
Yes, of course I would—on the assumption that she was qualified to do such an assessment.
There is a lack of awareness of the condition and how it is experienced and treated. Is there an issue with people who have the condition not being given the relevant support by the social security system?
I am retired, so I cannot answer that.
That is a difficult one. Everyone is different. I stopped work and just took my pension, so I did not think about that issue at all.
The condition affects younger people, too. I was surprised to learn that one member of the support group that we attend is 39 years old—she is the youngest member. I think that she still works. Even so, she is entitled to claim some benefits.
We are not that knowledgeable on the benefits side of the issue.
The petition might have flagged up an issue that the system in general should better appreciate.
We have come to the end of our questions, so we will now discuss how to take the issue forward. Angus MacDonald asked whether it would be possible to get a breakdown of statistics, so we could pursue that.
Two things jump out at me. One is data gathering, which seems to be a theme that runs through a lot of the issues that we discuss in this committee. The other is GP knowledge. It strikes me that, if I was a GP who was regularly watching the Public Petitions Committee or the Health and Sport Committee evidence sessions, I would be hiding under my desk at the thought of the number of things that the committees are calling on me to be retrained in. We discussed retraining last week in relation to myalgic encephalomyelitis, we have discussed it previously in relation to Lyme disease and now we are doing so in relation to ILD. I wonder whether there is a need for a bigger piece of work. That might be an issue for the Health and Sport Committee rather than this committee. I am just putting that out there, convener.
We could contact the Royal College of General Practitioners about that. Of course, given the amount of pressure that GPs are under, it strikes me that very few of them will be watching our proceedings. Also, if a GP does not know about a condition or how to identify it, the issue is not the GP but that there is a gap in the system, because the GP has not been informed about the condition.
I certainly think that we should seek the Scottish Government’s views. Joe FitzPatrick’s response that the issue is a matter for health boards and clinicians is not sufficient, if there is a lack of awareness about the condition.
We could ask NHS Education Scotland what awareness-raising information it makes available. I also wonder whether we should ask ISD what reporting it does on ILD.
ISD?
The Information Services Division. It could provide the statistics.
Yes.
The national respiratory plan was mentioned earlier. Could we have clarification on its progress? Has it been completed?
From what I have read, I do not think that it has been started. There is an intention to do something in that regard, but I do not think that the Government has got to the point of bringing people together with terms of reference. We could ask the Government about that.
It would be good to get an update.
We will contact interested stakeholders who might be able to add to our information. We will write to the Scottish Government to ask for its views on the prevalence of the condition, the awareness of the condition, training for the medical profession and support for people who have the condition. Another aspect is the extent to which this issue comes under the heading of preventative medicine—that is, if people are supported to manage their condition at home, they are less likely to have to go into hospital or whatever.
I think that that approach is a good start.
We should write to some of the charities that are involved.
We can identify which ones those are—the obvious ones are Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland, the British Thoracic Society and the British Lung Foundation. If the petitioners are aware of any others, they can let us know.
The issue of what would happen if a person with the condition approached a council was raised. We could write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to find out how councils deal with the issue.
I agree. Home management has been mentioned, and there will need to be a balance between that and treatment in a national health service setting.
A good starting point would be to contact COSLA to ask whether it is aware of the issue and whether there is any guidance on it.
There is quite a lot to be done, but the most critical action is to contact the Scottish Government, because we are asking it to think about appropriate training for and awareness among the profession, and asking what it is doing for people in communities who might have the condition. That will be significant.
When we receive responses, the petitioners will be informed and will be able to comment further before the matter comes back to the committee. They will be able to put their stamp and give their view on the responses that we receive, which will be immensely helpful for our consideration.
We recognise the importance and significance of the petition, which is partly to do with the fact that nobody knows about the condition, which in itself tells us something. As a consequence, things will be happening that will make it more difficult for people to live with the condition, and that will end up costing the system more money.
I thank the witnesses very much for their evidence, which we have found very useful. There is a lot of useful information for us to seek. As I said, once we receive that information, the petitioners will be able to look at it and give further views.
I suspend the meeting briefly to allow the witnesses to leave.
10:26 Meeting suspended.10:27 On resuming—
Salmon Farms (Closed Containment) (PE1715)
The next petition is PE1715 on closed containment for salmon farms in Scotland. The petition was lodged by Mark Carter, on behalf of Marine Concern, and seeks action to ensure that the salmon farming industry in Scotland uses only a closed containment method of farming.
The note that was prepared by the clerks and the Scottish Parliament information centre outlines a number of steps that have already been taken in the area, including the separate inquiries that have been undertaken by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Those committees recommended that independent research on the benefits of closed containment farming methods be undertaken as a matter of urgency. In its response to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee report, the Scottish Government stated that the industry was already undertaking research in the area.
Based on the information that is set out in our meeting paper, and further to yesterday afternoon’s debate on the issue, do members have any comments or suggestions for action?
As a veteran of the bill process for the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2013, I have certainly learned more about salmon farming and wild fisheries than I ever thought I would.
During yesterday’s debate in the chamber on the joint report from the REC Committee and ECCLR Committee, there was unfortunately little mention of closed containment, but it was highlighted that Norway is moving forward with it at pace. It is clear that closed containment would have a massive environmental benefit but, yesterday, there was no indication from the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy that the Scottish Government is keen to move in that direction at pace—certainly not at the pace that the petitioner is looking for.
10:30It may well be that closed containment is the answer to the majority of the environmental problems that the industry faces. I would be keen to see it move forward but, given that we did not get a lot of clarity on it from the Government in yesterday’s debate, I am keen that we write to the Government to ask exactly where it is with regard to supporting closed containment in the industry. That would allow us to decide what next steps we could take with the petition.
I agree with that. I have been on the committee only for this session and, like my colleague, I now know more about salmon fishing than I thought I could possibly know. There is certainly an interest in closed containment. The argument against it is that it is cost prohibitive at the moment. However, I would be interested to see the Norwegian model.
Like others, I do not have a lot of expertise and experience in the area, but I am conscious that the Parliament has looked at it since the very early days. I recognise the economic significance of highly skilled jobs in remote communities. There is also the question of whether there are animal welfare issues with closed containment. It does not seem to me that salmon being in a box on land is natural or even akin to what they would normally experience. However, as I said, I do not have any experience in that area.
We can get clarification from the Scottish Government on whether it is looking at the issue. I thought that the debate and the committee’s report would have addressed the issues that have been highlighted, but we might want to look at the area a wee bit further.
Yes. It would be good to hear from the industry as well at this stage. We could write to the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation and possibly some of the main players, such as Mowi—which was Marine Harvest—or the Scottish Salmon Company, which may well be developing closed containment.
The problem is that the report that was conducted by SAMS Research Services Ltd and the report by the two committees were done about a year ago. Things are moving forward, and it would be interesting to see where things are now.
The salmon farming inquiry was quite extensive. Are you saying that you believe that technology has advanced so much that closed containment was not looked at at that point?
No—it was looked at, and it is referred to in the report. I am saying that it was not discussed in much detail in yesterday’s chamber debate. There are certainly developments in Norway with regard to closed containment. It would be good to find out exactly where the Norwegians are with it.
Angus MacDonald has suggested that we should write to the Scottish Government in particular, and perhaps to those in the industry that have an interest, on the specific issue of closed containment. Do members agree that we should do so?
Members indicated agreement.
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Continued Petitions