Rural Affairs Committee, 03 Oct 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 3, 2000

Official Report 169KB pdf

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Petitions

Item 5 on the agenda is petition PE194, in the name of Mr D Keith on behalf of the Scottish Campaign for Public Angling. Members should have copies of the petition and a cover note from the clerks. The petitioner seeks the revocation of the River Tay Catchment Area Protection (Renewal) Order 1993 Variation Order 1996. The petitioner complains that, since the designation of the order, there has been a marked reduction of availability on the River Tay of fishing for brown trout and other freshwater fish, and calls on the Scottish Parliament to revoke the order.

Papers have been submitted in relation to the petition, which members should have in front of them. Do members feel that we have enough information to comment on the matters that are addressed in the petition?

The petitioner says that the aim of the order was to improve public access to fishing, blah, blah, blah. Was that the aim of the order?

No, not according to my interpretation of the papers that we have been given.

Paragraph 4 in the briefing paper indicates that orders cannot be made unless an owner of fishing rights applies for an order to be made in the interests of improving, or giving increased access to, fishing. It also states that orders cannot be made unless a representative of those who want to fish for freshwater fish in inland areas has been consulted. Fishing for those who are not owners of fishing rights must continue to be available to a reasonable degree after the designation and the order must be made in the interests of conservation of a fish species.

Although the petitioner is correct in drawing our attention to the first point in paragraph 4, it is a different issue from that which appears in the last point in paragraph 4. There is more than one reason for an order to be made.

I am not too familiar with the circumstances in relation to the River Tay, but I have a lot of sympathy for arguments for increased access to Scotland's freshwater fisheries. It is an enormous issue in rural Scotland. Labour policy was to implement several proposals to increase and improve access. However, none of those proposals has been implemented since the 1997 general election. The Parliament must address that.

One way forward would be to contact the minister. We should ask him for his response to the petition, whether he views the order as a success and what steps have been taken to monitor its success. As has been mentioned, 13 such orders are in force. It would be in the committee's interest to find out what has been done to analyse to what degree the orders are successful. We should also ask for a specific response to the petition.

It would appear from the briefing note that orders cannot be made unless all four of the conditions that the convener mentioned are met. The owner said that the order is in the interests of improving, or giving increased access to, fishing. If what the petitioner says is correct, which is that access has decreased, it seems clear that one of the objects of the order is not being fulfilled. There is at least a prima facie case for considering it further.

Will we, as Richard Lochhead suggested, approach the minister for an explanation as to why the order was granted so that we can consider it further?

We should also ask the minister whether he is aware of the history of access to fishing on that area of the Tay since the order was made.

Can we clarify how effective the order has been for conservation? That is relevant to the Salmon Conservation (Scotland) Bill, so it might be a good idea to get feedback on that. The order was put in place with conservation in mind. Monitoring must have taken place to find out what stocks were like.

We could ask the minister how effective the order has been against the criteria that were set out. We will approach the minister for that information.

As there is nothing further on agenda item 5, we will move to item 6, which is the continuation of a previous agenda item that the committee agreed to take in private.

Meeting continued in private until 16:45.