Rural Affairs and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Official Report 503KB pdf

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Fisheries

The committee will now take evidence on fishing opportunities for the Scottish fleet in 2011, in advance of the conclusion of the coastal states discussions and discussions within the EU about quotas and fishing effort controls, which will be settled at the end of the year at the fisheries council.

I welcome Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation; Ian Gatt, chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association; and Helen McLachlan, senior fisheries policy officer for WWF Scotland. I apologise to Helen McLachlan for the fact that we do not have a name plate for her. We will get one quickly.

I thank Ian and Helen for their written submissions, which we considered with interest. To maximise the time that we have available, we will move straight to questions.

As you know, it is about 18 months since the European Commission published its green paper on common fisheries policy reform. How were your responses to the consultation received? Are you wildly ecstatic with the direction of travel? Are there any signs that the Commission is seriously contemplating radical decentralisation of decision making?

The answer is that we must be hopeful. As well as making our submissions, which have been received, Helen McLachlan and I went to see the relevant Commission official in July with a specific example from Scotland of a long-term management plan for west coast haddock.

We believe it is essential that we get reasonable decentralisation. Everyone from the Commission to the fishermen agrees that rigid overcentralisation of the roles is simply not working. No one disputes that. The question is what will be delegated and to whom. We have put our plans to the Commission, the Scottish Government and the UK Government. We hope that our plans will prevail, but that is a hope rather than a bet on what will happen.

I am sure that the others have comments to add.

In our view, the decentralisation of the CFP does not fit with how the pelagic fishery operates. The fishery is conducted and negotiated in an international forum. We could take decision making closer to the stakeholders, but who are the stakeholders? In the pelagic fisheries, they could be Iceland, the Faroes, Norway and so on. The proposal would create another layer that we in the pelagic industry do not need. I wholly agree with Bertie Armstrong. In demersal fisheries, it is really important that we get decision making down to the sea basin level, but you should remember that the stocks that the pelagic industry fishes migrate through lots of waters, so we need to be careful about that.

Have recent events slightly changed your view on decentralisation in relation to pelagic fisheries?

Absolutely not, because if we are going to resolve the situation that we are in, we have to do it in an international context.

The submissions have been well received, to a degree. It is clear from the commissioner that, as Bertie Armstrong said, there is an appetite for decentralisation. The issue is the details of how that will be executed. Of more concern is the feeling that member states are perhaps backing away from the idea that we need some progressive reform—that is very worrying.

Here in Scotland, we have established some good models of how regionalisation could work. As Bertie said, we have promoted those at a European level, and there has been a lot of interest from other member states, but I make the plea that the Commission needs all the support that it can get. It will help if you talk to your counterparts in the European Parliament, because European parliamentarians now play a significant role in the future of the CFP and strength in that forum would therefore be beneficial. We all know that we need progressive reform, but we will not get it unless there is a strong appetite for it.

Helen McLachlan addressed some of the issues that I was going to raise. A number of us were at the regional advisory council event in Edinburgh at the back end of last year, at which it was clear that there was an appetite for regionalisation and a move away from an overcentralised approach. However, it was equally clear that there was no consensus about what that regionalisation would look like. Almost 12 months on, given that you have had an opportunity to submit a response to the consultation, do you sense that support is crystallising around a particular vision, whether or not people are on board with it yet? As Helen said, it might be up to us and others to lend support to it, but is there now a growing sense that the key tenets and objectives of the regionalisation structure are understood?

I am sure that Helen McLachlan will wish to augment what I say, but the answer is yes. I suppose it is obvious, but we recently became aware that philosophising about what the models and the legal constraints on them might be—we did a lot of that at the conference—could go on ad infinitum. That could be hazardous to us, given the outcome that it could lead to.

We decided to demonstrate how regionalisation could be done in practical terms—that was the subject of our visit to the relevant man in the Commission in July. There have been several examples in Scotland and from the regional advisory councils, but the ones in Scotland are obviously important for us. That is what we are depending on, and the form, in a nutshell, is regionalisation by fishery where that is relevant. The pelagic fishery is most assuredly a special case, and there would be non-regionalisation by fishery or a recognition that it is migratory. For a lot of the other quota species, regionalisation would be effective for Scotland.

10:30

Did you get the sense that the legal block in treaty law was starting to be addressed in those discussions?

The legal discussion centred on the larger-scale models that were explored at the conference. Helen McLachlan may have more on the point, but there did not seem to be any let or hindrance to the local management by fishery that we were thinking of.

That is largely true, but it is clear that there is still some debate with lawyers in Brussels about exactly how the approach will be delivered. There is some wrangling over the degree to which Parliament will be involved in the decision making, particularly over quotas—that issue is still to be resolved.

As Bertie Armstrong said, the appetite for regionalisation by fishery and for looking at long-term management plans for operating fisheries seems to be a reasonably well-accepted way forward, but we were clear that it has to be mandatory. There is no point in the member states who want to manage their fisheries going ahead and operating long-term management plans while others fail to do so and may adversely impact on stocks that are of common interest. We have been looking at and trying to gain acceptance for a mandatory requirement for long-term management plans.

That is interesting. Earlier committee discussions threw up the view that we did not want the all-together-or-not-at-all approach, in that if we could reach agreement on the North Sea and the west coast we should not be prevented from progressing simply because, in the Mediterranean context or elsewhere, agreement had not been reached on how the process would work. Are you saying that that is no longer the approach?

No. Fisheries in the North Sea would identify which fisheries were appropriate management units, and they would develop their plans on that basis, and the same would happen in the Mediterranean. We are saying that they all need to work towards the goal of managing fisheries in the framework of a long-term management plan, because we are lacking that at the minute. Some plans are under development in the more progressive member states, but other member states are simply not coming forward with plans. We need that to start to happen Europe-wide. Some incentive to produce those plans—such as a mandatory requirement—is needed.

My question was essentially the same—how you can make this work—and you have answered it. Do you have the support of members of the European Parliament and the Westminster Government for the proposal? I hope that you do.

The short answer is that we hope so, too—but yes, we think that we do.

I want one last word on the hurdle of what is legally possible under the treaties. We need to be terribly careful—and we will watch this—that the law is not used as a weapon. As Helen mentioned, we detect that one or two member states are now thinking that the status quo suits them best. If that is the case, we might find that the hurdles that exist in the treaty framework might be used as a weapon rather than as what we would hope—a tool to address the solution and find a way of making the approach fit legally, which we think is possible.

Would there have to be a completely separate model for the pelagic sector? You appear to agree that the model would not work. Do you or Ian Gatt have a separate model in mind?

Ian is the best man to answer that.

What does the CFP do for the pelagic industry? It provides an instrument to divide up the fish once the Commission has secured what will happen through the coastal states, so the CFP fits the purpose, but we are under no illusion—it is single stock, and there is no discard or bycatch. It is a completely different model. However, in relation to the pelagic sector, it does what it says on the tin—the fish are divided between member states. There could be some tinkering at the edges, but, by and large, we would not like it to be undermined.

I turn to questions on fishing opportunities and the future of the Scottish fleet. Back in September, an £8.2 million scrappage scheme was announced. Skippers have until 5 o’clock tonight to decide whether to take up the offer under the scheme. I understand that skippers of 41 prawn and white-fish boats are eligible for the scheme, which is linked to a licence parking scheme. In due course, I understand that the scheme may lead to the building of bigger boats, but not before 2015 or 2016. Did such an intervention need to be made at this time?

Yes. The practical fact is that skippers of 50-odd boats applied for the scheme. Those applications are statements of fact by skippers, who are saying, “I really am having difficulty making this work commercially. I would like to leave.” There is no other way of dressing it up. Of those who are offered scrappage, it will be interesting to see who accepts. In one or two cases, the offer may have stimulated sales, not scrappage. I regret to say that the answer to the question, “Was it needed?” is self-evident: the scheme was oversubscribed.

As the member knows well, the fleet is sectored. The pelagic fleet has a comprehensive set of problems around international negotiations. The crab and lobster fleet has market and overcapacity problems, but is doing all right. The two other big sectors, which are prawns—Scottish langoustine—and white fish, are the most pressed. Of them, it is fair to say that the Scottish white-fish fleet—the demersal fleet—in the northern isles, the north-east and, to a lesser extent, the west coast is in real trouble; the 40-odd volunteers for the scrappage scheme came from the prawn and white-fish fleets.

The catching opportunity for next year is worse than this year. The Scottish Government—now on behalf of the UK Government and, indeed, on behalf of us all—is advancing one solution: so-called catch quotas. The solution will work for some but not for others. It will have to be managed terribly carefully, but it might produce an opportunity for a few. Our negotiating friend from the Scottish Government who is sitting behind us has a comprehensive job to do to try to make this work. It will require approval under international agreements—in particular those between the EU and Norway—and financing.

The adoption of catch quotas for one sector—the white-fish sector—is not fiddling around the edges or an adjustment; it is potentially a complete sea change in management—

I will come on to that in more detail. For the moment, I would like to stick to the scrappage scheme. Do you have anything to add, Helen?

I do not have much to add. The issue is one of resilience. The scheme is much needed. It gives breathing space to skippers who require it at this time.

One thing that may arise from the scheme—it happened under previous decommissioning schemes—is that taking out boats today will result in fewer but larger boats in a few years’ time. What effect will that have on catching effort? I guess that overheads will come down a bit for skippers who end up with larger vessels and that their ability to catch accurately—if that is the right phrase—will increase. However, what will that do to the sustainability of the catching effort and the stock over time? On the face of it, it could mean fewer boats, the same effort to make catches over time, and fewer people enjoying the wealth from the industry. I am interested to hear your views on that. Do you think that that is likely to happen?

It will happen. You have described it exactly. The whole point of the scrappage scheme or of the fleet resilience scheme, as it is called—which goes beyond scrapping, because there is some licence flexibility of the type that you described—is to recognise the fact that a large proportion of the fleet is having difficulty with making commercial sense of what it sees in front of it. That will mean that a redistribution of the opportunity among a smaller number will be a fact.

You alluded to the fact that that will affect community and infrastructure, and that the wealth will be shared by fewer people. No fewer fish will be caught, and no fewer kilowatt days will be used in the catching of those fish. It will be done by fewer boats and the hope is that those boats will be able to make a commercial success of that operation, which presently is a step too far for a significant proportion of the fleet.

So you think that we are caught up in an inevitable trend.

It is absolutely inevitable, I am afraid.

I do not see any new boats, bigger boats or people putting together those part licences. Scotland’s fleet has a new sector because there has been a robust building programme during the past 10 years, although it has slowed down in the past 18 months. Those new vessels are pressed, as Bertie Armstrong said, because of the downward pressure on quotas and days. The scheme should deliver to those people somewhere to access more effort and more quota so that they can make their businesses viable. I do not think that there are going to be more and bigger boats. The scheme will underpin the new vessels that we have already.

One of the other complications with the previous decommissioning schemes was that, because they were voluntary, they did not necessarily take out the boats that could most usefully be taken out of the fleet at the time.

There is also a question about whether the current resilience scheme does a great deal for slightly smaller vessels that are equally pressed by the financial state of affairs. I am interested to hear your observations on those points.

You are absolutely right in all that you say. The resilience scheme does not address everyone’s needs. Not everyone who would like to make a graceful exit and whose community or fishery would benefit from a thinning of assets has been able to apply for the scheme. The numbers involved are small enough that the bigger and newer vessels are not in the bracket for acceptance because of the amount of money, but the older, lesser-value vessels are.

There is always a quandary in such situations. If someone has put their money where their mouth is and invested in a new vessel, they will be in a period in their business’s history when capitalisation and debt are high, and they will be most vulnerable if they are constrained by having difficulty in finding raw material. Those are the people we do not want to destroy. However, the numbers this time are small enough to mean that the current scheme passes those boys by and they will have to survive on their own, although they might fall heir to the slightly increased opportunity as a result of the opportunity not being taken up by the older vessels.

My questions have been answered.

I just want to note the depressing similarity between the smaller boats going out of the demersal sector and the dairy sector in Scotland. Just as much milk will be produced, but it will be produced by larger units. Just as much fish will be caught, but it will be caught by larger boats and the wealth will go into the hands of fewer people. That is the depressing reality of I am not sure what. Is it market circumstances? Is it pressure? I do not know what it is.

10:45

I agree with all of the above, I am afraid to say. The difficulty that surrounds the issue that you have identified is that communities reach a critical mass of the infrastructure that is necessary to support these vessels, therefore with fewer vessels they will find life difficult. Until we see how many actually accept this and who exactly they are, we will not know the real answer to your question. However, the fears that you have expressed are real.

I understand that there is particular pressure on the processing sector. How many jobs might be at risk there?

I honestly cannot speak for that sector. I hear every day about its distress, but I do not know exactly how many people are involved.

The arrangement also applies to boats that fish Scottish langoustine, which are feeling the—potentially short-term—economic effects of a downturn in the Spanish market and so on. Even though they are largely catching below their current quota and therefore might have more potential when the economy picks up, individual vessels will be under the same economic pressures even in what might be an enhanced market. Is that your view?

That is exactly the case. Using the word “critical” again, I think that a critical path runs through all this—the cod recovery plan, which on the back of the biology of one species is screwing down effort for everyone else, particularly the langoustine industry. Next year, that industry will feel the first real bite of the difficulties relating to effort and days at sea, which will start to constrain it falsely. That said, prices have got a bit better of late, and we hope that much more can be made of that market. It certainly seems ripe for such moves. Given that, world wide, our share of that fish is very significant, we surely must be able to make a better fist of the marketing; indeed, that work is happening on a daily basis.

How is the maximum sustainable yield commitment being implemented by European fisheries managers and incorporated into scientific advice? I believe that that is supposed to happen in 2015, but I am sure that you know a great deal more about it than I do.

The international commitment to reach MSY in all stocks where possible by 2015 is an aspiration, and we could spend the rest of the day discussing whether it is possible. After all, if one stock eats another stock, the first might well burgeon and be declared to have reached MSY happily while the other declines.

Instead, we have settled on a vague ambition to have a proxy for fishing mortality that would lead to MSY by 2015. As it is already too late to meet the rigid commitment to MSY for all stocks by 2015, the Commission’s proposals over the next five years will set out a step-by-step move towards achieving fishing mortality, stock by stock, by 2015. In practical terms, that will mean a downturn in the proposed quota in the immediate future, which will add to our problems.

There is no point in challenging the underlying basis of all this, because we are talking about an international agreement. Whether the people who agreed to these things at a high strategic level knew what they were talking about, it does not matter now. It is history and we are now stuck with this commitment, which, as I say, will mean a downturn in fishing opportunity—with the aim, one hopes, of having an upturn at some stage in the future. At the moment, some stocks such as mackerel are already caught at or below MSY, but next year there will be a downturn in a lot of stocks that are important to Scotland.

Are you in your delicate way saying that, notwithstanding the aspiration, the commitment is simply not achievable because of predation and historical fishing levels?

The entire scientific community—indeed, everyone—agrees that the concept is so vague that it is impossible to achieve for all stocks at all times. I know that Helen McLachlan is itching to get in on this discussion. MSY can be coloured and interpreted in other ways. You might, for example, colour and interpret it as an aspiration to achieve much lower fishing pressures in order to allow stocks to build up, which might, in future, allow you to take more from them for the same amount of limited effort. That would be nirvana, but let us move from here to there without wrecking the house on the way.

Fair enough.

Did you want to come in on that, Helen?

As Bertie Armstrong said, the commitment to MSY has been agreed for quite some time now and we have perhaps been a bit slow in realising the practicalities of achieving it. However, when you look across the board at European stocks, you will see that we are making progress, and that is because we have set targets. WWF feels that targets nudge people in the right direction and let them know when they have achieved their goal and whether the aspiration is the right one. After all, MSY is about trying to get the maximum amount of a stock while it is healthy and giving the fishery the return that it should be achieving.

At the end of the day, we would like to have maximum economic yield, which is analogous, I think, to a capital and interest scenario. Instead of eating into your nice healthy capital—in this case, the fish biomass—you live off the interest on it. That is our aim, and indeed is what MSY is trying to deliver; the target is in place and we are moving in the right direction.

I note the concerns about MSY, which have been raised with the committee before. However, if one accepts that this is some nirvana or ultimate objective, the question then is the rate at which we get there. Is there any consensus about the pace at which all this should happen, or with some stocks will the pain have to be front-loaded simply because they are in such a precarious position?

In general, each stock that needs assistance is receiving it. Ian Gatt might have a view on this, but certain stocks that patently are at MSY—I know of one North Sea stock in particular—get a scientific upgrade. For example, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea might suddenly say, “Actually, we’ve made a dire mistake. This stock is a third bigger,” which means that the stock goes from being fished at what could be regarded as the proxy for MSY to being fished very considerably under MSY. There is no great alacrity in putting such situations right and providing more fishing opportunities. As a result, we have now reached the weary conclusion that almost all fishing is overfishing and all capacity is overcapacity, and that we must turn things down and down. We wait for the day when we can turn things up and up, even though some stocks are actually at MSY. I realise that that is a slightly cynical statement, but you will understand our nervousness in that respect.

Bertie Armstong is alluding to North Sea herring. The forecast of the biomass was less than 1 million tonnes, but this year the actual biomass was 1.3 million tonnes. The stocks are tied into a long-term management plan, which is the right thing to do. On MSY, the stock is being fished at a very low mortality rate. It is being said that the fishery should be fished at a 0.25 mortality rate, but it is actually much lower than that—it is at 0.125. The industry has been saying that if we are going to go to this MSY, unlike with other stocks where we have to reduce our fishing pressure, we will actually need to put it up a bit. The response that we get from the managers is that MSY is fine, but we should be sticking to the management plan.

Perhaps somebody else was going to ask this question. The North Sea herring are not reproducing. What is happening there?

The story has turned around; it is quite a good story now. The biomass is increasing and juveniles are coming through. The picture is quite rosy. Next year there will be a fair bit more fish delivered not only to the Scottish fleet but to the European fleet. There were some fish being missed from somewhere.

There is a biblical allusion there.

Fortunately, they found them.

I do not want to take that example of long-term management plans, but instead to set the MSY in the context of the long-term management plans more generally. If, after 2012, we succeed in getting fisheries managed on the basis of fisheries rather than stocks, for every management decision there will have to be transparency and options on the table. We hope that that will be achieved. As Bertie Armstrong said, having all stocks within one fishery at MSY simultaneously is probably unachievable, but to try to meet management objectives, you have to know what the options are. The long-term management plans should allow that to happen.

The briefing that we have states:

“North Sea herring has recently produced eight poor year classes in a row”.

Are you saying that that is not the case?

It is not the case. The 2006 year class is well above average and quite a good recruitment is coming into the fishery now. I do not know whether somebody has missed that.

Can we get your figures?

The latest scientific advice outlines that. It is probably because of food availability that the individual fish at that age are heavier now than they have been in the past.

Have the fish been missed because they have been misclassed?

I do not know, but 30 per cent of the biomass has been missed somewhere. Anyway, as I said, I am really glad that the fish have been found again.

Maybe they were on a short holiday—a package tour somewhere.

We will ensure that we get the updated figures before the minister comes along. Aileen, did you want to come in?

I just wanted to get the figures to which Ian Gatt referred.

I have a question on mackerel, which is probably for Ian Gatt. There has clearly been a fair amount of media exposure of the concerns about the unilateral actions by Iceland and the Faroe Islands to take up a significant quota that they have not historically fished. In the case of the Faroes, a quota that was already sizeable has been tripled. Ian Gatt and Bertie Armstrong both said that the stock has been managed well in recent times, to the point that it finds itself in the right green box in terms of being harvested sustainably. What are the implications of the actions that have been taken by Iceland and the Faroes? How do you see what appears to be a fairly intractable negotiation being resolved?

11:00

In relation to the stock, you are correct—it has been managed through a long-term management plan for in excess of 10 years. That plan has seen the stock develop to where it is now: it is well managed, there is a low mortality rate and we take an appropriate number of fish out of it annually. The most important thing, as I have outlined to the committee before, is the fact that there has been a long-standing international agreement for more than 20 years. In my office, I have 20 agreements that have Faroese, Norwegian and European Union signatures on them. That is what has ensured the health of the stock.

You are right to say that the stock is under threat. Iceland and the Faroes have both set their total allowable catches unilaterally on the basis of their saying that they have sustainable fisheries. However, we know that they have allocated themselves an amount of fish that they could catch when the fish are in their waters that is probably in excess of three times what we could catch. That is what our guys are telling me, and I am quite sure that it is the case. My chairman has finished his mackerel season in three weeks, although he could easily catch a million tonnes—we could all take that attitude, but where would the stock be?

Yesterday, we got the official scientific advice, which tells us that the stock is doing well and is still increasing, although that does not take account of what is going on this year. The scientific advice this year was for a global TAC of 570,000 tonnes; however, it is estimated that 930,000 will be taken out, which is 60 per cent in excess of what is proposed in the scientific advice. That is a huge excess, and it will have implications if we do not arrest it now. At the same time, the Scottish fleet—or the UK fleet—has 30 per cent of the global TAC. We are the biggest stakeholder and have more fish than Norway, traditionally; therefore, we have the most to lose.

It is important that we try to get the stock back into management. We must also be aware that Scotland will pick up the tab if the demands of Iceland and the Faroes are met. As far as we are concerned, that simply cannot happen at any cost. Yes, we want a deal, but we must very aware that, if we do not have a mackerel fishery in Scotland, we do not have a pelagic fleet. We have some herring opportunity, which is fairly small, but that is the stark reality.

There is a history lesson to be learned in relation to our fishing communities. We have the ships and the port infrastructure, the welders, the ship manufacturing, the repair facilities, the painters and a processing industry. However, all that is underpinned by fishing opportunity. If we do not have a quota and a right to fish, we do not have anything. Three of our ports—Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Lerwick—are doing extremely well in relation to pelagic fishing, but that is all we have left in that industry. Back in the 1970s, at the height of the cod wars, Aberdeen and Granton, just down the road, were vibrant places; however, when that negotiation was lost, we were left with a fleet of ships, good crews, port infrastructure and a processing industry that all fell like a house of cards because we did not have fishing entitlement. We have a lot to lose.

The negotiation will start on Tuesday next week, and we suspect that it will last for a number of rounds. I am not of the view that the UK should rubber-stamp what Iceland and the Faroes have done this year, which has been nothing short of eco-terrorism.

That is very helpful. In discussions that we have had in the past, you have said that the motivations behind the actions of the Faroes and Iceland have been different in important respects, which may have a bearing on how the negotiations will be conducted, and that the bilateral approach may be the best way forward. Can you expand on that?

You are right. The Commission’s first approach should be to try to encompass everybody in what we call a four-party agreement. However, it is aspirational to imagine that Iceland will come on board this year. We know from talking to the Icelandic industry that it is not interested in a settlement this year unless the deal is “very sweet”. Those are the words that the Icelandic industry has used. It has said that it is quite happy to hang it out until 2012 before talking about any settlement.

We have an opportunity to get the Faroes back on board, however. The Faroes have been part of a long-standing agreement, and they are one of our closest neighbours. If the EU and Norway work together, we should manage to convince the Faroese that it is in their interest to come back on board under an agreement. That is where we should focus our efforts, in my opinion.

There is another aspect to the Faroese situation that I wish to outline, as I would like the committee’s support in trying to do something about it because our hands are tied. When Faroese representatives met their counterparts from the European Commission about three weeks ago, they said that they had taken their autonomous quota of 85,000 tonnes. We thought, “That’s fine”—or at least, “That’s the end of the fishing.” However, as part of their bilateral agreement with the EU, the Faroese have got entitlement to catch 4,500 tonnes of fish in Community waters from 1 October. Rational thinking would say that the 4,500 tonnes should be deducted from the 85,000 tonnes, but that is not what is happening. I had a phone call from a member of the Tait family, who are big players in the pelagic industry, and he said that his vessels were fishing alongside the Faroese this morning.

I raised the matter at the European Parliament last week, and the Commission said that it could not suspend the bilateral agreement on that basis, because it was a signed deal. I would like as much pressure as possible to be put on the Faroes and for it to be stressed that the situation is totally unacceptable. They said that they have caught the 85,000-tonne quota, so it is unacceptable that they can carry on and catch another 4,500 tonnes, especially inside Community waters. It is ludicrous.

You probably have the acceptance of the committee on that. We can certainly discuss the matter, and I would take it forward.

Over and above the negotiations, where pressure can be brought to bear to ensure that sense ultimately prevails—one hopes that the actions this year are not seen as establishing a track record that becomes the gift that keeps on giving in subsequent years—would you like specific actions to be taken to force a rethink by the Faroe Islands and Iceland?

Importantly, there was a strong indication at the fisheries council last week that the Commission needs to negotiate on behalf of the Community to resolve the situation. There was not going to be a deal just at any cost, and the Commission was not going to be a soft touch. If there is no deal at the end of the year, however—and we hope that there will be—there will be repercussions for Iceland and the Faroes. The commissioner has said that she wants to keep all her options open. We think that there is an extremely strong card that can be played with the Faroes if we say that we do not want a bilateral negotiation with them next year. If Norway says the same, that will put a lot of economic pressure on the Faroes. If their fishermen are isolated in their own zone next year, they will find it a very lonely place. I know that that is an extreme action to take, but a bilateral negotiation can be reconvened a quarter of the way or half way through the year and there can be an exchange of fishing opportunities.

Do you get the impression that, with the unusually strong and robust rhetoric from the Commission over recent weeks, we are safe from any repeat of what happened with blue whiting a number of years ago, when assurances were given that turned out not to be fulfilled and, essentially, the Scottish fleet was carved out of an important part of the catching opportunity?

I would love to say that that is the case, but I cannot give that assurance. The commissioner seems to be saying the right things. She is saying the right things to us, anyway, although I do not know what is going on behind the scenes. You are right that there is a lesson to be learned from what happened with blue whiting. We lost the shares, and we can also see what happened to the stock. It is a horror story.

We need to keep up the pressure. Be under no illusion: if we take mackerel out of the equation for the Scottish fleet, we will have a lot of problems.

I took a phone call yesterday from a man in Port Glasgow—Mr McLaren, from McLaren Packaging. He told me that his was a small family firm with 60 employees. He explained that part of his business is from the fishing industry: he supplies package cartons to Shetland Catch, which is the biggest pelagic processor in Europe. He said that he had invested a lot of money in a new inkjet machine that puts out a high-quality carton. He then said that he is frightened for his business. We have to protect the fishing community, but that man at the other end of Scotland said that if the mackerel industry goes wrong, he will lose his business. There are many implications.

I return to what Ian Gatt said about the mackerel situation having an impact on Scotland and how Scotland will pay the price if it is not sorted out. How helpful has it been that the cabinet secretary has taken a lead in Europe as a Scottish voice representing a Scottish problem?

To be quite honest, the cabinet secretary has taken the problem to heart. He realises the importance of the situation, and he has been writing to and communicating with the Commission regularly. In fairness, however, so has the UK minister. They have moved above party politics. The UK minister has been working extremely hard as well, and it is important for the two ministers to work hand-in-hand. I do not think that the Commission will roll over the UK, including Scotland, and Ireland. We are the biggest stakeholders, so as long as we stand firm and say the right things, we can resolve the situation in our favour.

You said that you have a bilateral agreement with the Faroes, but that the situation with Iceland is different. Can you explain a bit more about that?

Helen McLachlan will tell me that I am wrong, but there is also a bilateral arrangement with Iceland, although it is less important because Iceland is that bit further away. That situation is far more complex because accession talks are going on, and we do not know what is going on behind the scenes. Are the talks being used as a lever to get Iceland to behave, or are they being used as a bargaining tool for when Iceland comes into the EU? I do not know, but it is a far more complex situation, and I do not think that we should hang our hat on resolving it this year.

If we can get the Faroes back on board, it will mean that we will have reduced the risk to the stock by 50 per cent, and it will also put more pressure on Iceland.

Do you get the feeling that there has not been as much openness in the negotiations?

There has not been with Iceland, but I might have missed it—or it might just be my upbringing.

I want to add a little bit in answer to Liam McArthur’s question. Iceland has declared its intention of hanging on until 2012 because it has very little to lose and everything to gain. The EU’s approach is one of negotiation, which of course implies that we must give Iceland something to make it stop. The one weapon that is available is trade. If Iceland is made to look to the international community as if it is disregarding the biological health of the stock and the moral stance on that, that should be reflected in taking those fish from Iceland. Whatever is legal and possible under the World Trade Organization is our one means of making Iceland do that, because otherwise it will hang on in the negotiations and wait to be rewarded. That is the most important thing to know, and the Commission is making noises that it is willing to assist. Norway also banged in there immediately and did what it could, but it is limited in what it can do alone. We have one weapon with Iceland, and I believe that we must use it.

Liam McArthur speaks for the committee when he says that we are all behind you, but I want to reassure myself and others that the Commission is behind you. Are other member states equally behind you or are different vested interests emerging? It has been suggested to me that there might be. Perhaps you might want to discuss that with a view to members informing their political colleagues in Brussels about the direction of travel that you want to take.

You are right. I would have loved to have been able to sit here and tell you that the whole of Europe is on board. I suppose that there is a clear north-south divide on what is happening. Some are looking at the situation in relation to Spain and thinking that it is an opportunity to renegotiate the whole mackerel situation because they are happy with what they have got. However, we cannot allow the tail to wag the dog. At the end of the day, those countries have to be kept in line. All the major players—the UK, Ireland, Holland and Denmark—are saying the same things, which is important.

11:15

Did the Commission tell you that we cannot do anything about the Faroese boats that are presently fishing for 4,500 tonnes because of a bilateral agreement that cannot be torn up?

Yes. We were informed that the Commission cannot suspend one part of the agreement. We were told that, technically, it is not possible to suspend the agreement in-year.

Perhaps I am being a bit slow. I presume that the bilateral agreement includes an agreement with the Faroese on what they can catch. If the Faroese have broken that agreement by catching fish that, theoretically, they cannot catch, why does the agreement still exist?

I do not know the true legal position. Perhaps the legal position is that, because the Faroese have not signed a mackerel agreement, they can set themselves whatever target they like. However, the separate bilateral agreement that has been signed is still legally binding. Morally, what the Faroese are doing is totally wrong. At the end of the day, they are setting themselves an autonomous quota of 90,000 tonnes, not 85,000 tonnes.

If they have not signed an agreement—

They have signed a bilateral agreement, but they have not signed a mackerel agreement. The only mackerel agreement that has been signed this year is between the Community and Norway.

Is the bilateral agreement about where boats can fish?

Yes—and about the amount of fish that we can catch in each other’s waters. Let me put the issue in context. You will remember that last year there was one mackerel negotiation after another; the process continued into the new year. There was no EU-Faroes bilateral in December, when such agreements are normally negotiated.

On mackerel?

No, I am talking about the bilateral with the Faroes. Things happened out of order. The EU agreed a bilateral deal with the Faroes, which told the Community in all good faith that it would enter the agreement on mackerel. However, it never did so. The bilateral agreement was signed, but the Faroes decided that it would not have a mackerel agreement. I do not think that that will happen two years in a row.

I would like to think not.

I would like a strong signal to be sent to the Faroese. It must be sent now, as they are fishing now. The committee should tell the cabinet secretary that that is unacceptable.

I understand that the Faroese have to land the mackerel in Norway or Scotland, as they cannot process it.

You are right to say that there is limited processing in the Faroe Islands.

If they cannot land it, they cannot process it.

They can reduce it to fish meal, which they have been doing.

So, they go for the low-quality end and waste a rather excellent product.

What is happening is a disgrace. We hope that the economic implications of actions that we have taken to try to ban them, as a gentleman’s agreement, will convince them that it is far more sensible for them to be part of an agreement that gives them access to the key markets here and in Norway than it is for them to reduce all that beautiful fish to feed for pigs and the aquaculture industry.

Might other parts of the EU agree to process the Faroese’s fish for them, if Norway and Scotland are successful in keeping them out?

They would not at the moment. Everyone is standing firm, but it is very much a gentleman’s agreement. We wanted the Commission to take the same action as the Norwegian Government, which introduced a legal agreement to ban mackerel products from coming into Norway. We have been telling the Commission that it must do the same thing. In our view, the Faroese are fishing illegally. However, because the Commission is a big unwieldy beast, it has been discussing the issue for months on end. I am not saying that a legal instrument cannot be introduced next year, but that has not been done yet.

We have talked a lot about mackerel and a little about North Sea herring. Can you give me a breakdown of how the other stocks in the pelagic sector are faring?

There are two other stocks that are worth mentioning. The first is Scando-Atlantic herring, which is the largest herring stock in the world. That has been at an all-time high for a couple of years, but it is now declining. It is still within safe biological limits, but it is coming down from the previous very high level. Next year there will be a fairly significant reduction in the stock’s TAC, although that may balance out with what happens on North Sea herring. As I said, there are no problems with the stock level, which is still above the fantasy MSY figure and doing quite well.

Blue whiting is an absolute horror story, to be honest with you. The stock is in deep decline and although the assessment is uncertain, if the management plan is followed this year, we will deliver 40,000 tonnes. To put it in context, five years ago 2 million tonnes of fish came out of that stock. Potentially, we could go down the same route in relation to mackerel; you can draw strict parallels. I do not have to write the story about it because you know what the implications are. That is what is happening to the blue whiting stock largely because Iceland and Faroe fished it as an Olympic fishery for many years, built up a track record and then, as Liam McArthur rightly said, when the negotiations came the Commission relinquished half its share to accommodate them. However, the downside is that the stocks absolutely crashed—there is no other way to describe it. I will not sit here and try to paint a nice picture because it is not a nice picture.

Is there no general concern that we are setting up a series of precedents of getting out there, grabbing as much as we can and forgetting what happens to the stock because we will get a bit more in the long run?

That has certainly been Iceland’s and the Faroes’ approach, particularly the Faroes. They built new ships because they secured that huge deal on blue whiting. They have the biggest tank ships in the world. We have large 60m to 70m ships, but Faroe has 80m boats with 3,000-tonne capacity. They have destroyed the blue whiting stock and now they are saying, “Look, Government, you need to deliver me more fish. I’ve got this beautiful boat; I’ve got to fish 300 days; what are you going to do for me? Oh yeah, the mackerel looks okay, we’ll have a go at that.” Our guys are doing 60 days at sea. Should we reward the bad behaviour of Faroe? I do not think that we should.

Is Iceland’s approach to the demersal fishery any better?

The blue whiting situation is not replicated elsewhere in the stocks. Cod is recovering, but not at the rate at which anyone desires—it is heading in the right direction, but not at the right rate. The plan that governs it and contains automatic next steps in relation to quotas and days at sea is—

I am thinking more about the approach of Iceland and Faroe to the demersal stocks in their waters.

I am sorry. The EU-Faroes bilateral agreement contains seven demersal stocks that are important to some sectors that fish there, particularly in the northern isles. Generally, we would like mackerel to be attended to without collapsing all the other opportunities. That will be as important to Faroe as it is to the small but significant numbers of fishermen from Scotland who fish the Faroese water. Iceland is a different matter.

In both demersal fisheries, if the fish are in their economic zone—which demersal fisheries generally are—then, by God, they look after them. If we are talking about pelagic species that are migrating through lots of people’s waters, they take the Viking attitude that it is open war. It is as simple as that. Those countries do not seem to adhere to anything that involves other people, but if the fish are in their zone, they are highly protective of them.

Can we go back to the fact that mackerel are not part of the negotiation? If mackerel are going through all those different waters, why was that fishery not given a position in any EU bilateral agreement if it had the potential to be fished by other countries? Perhaps I am getting it wrong, but I just wonder why—

Do you mean why was there a bilateral negotiation?

Why did the agreement not include mackerel specifically? If mackerel are going through lots of different countries’ waters, surely it is important to include them.

There are two things. There is a coastal states agreement on each of the pelagic stocks, whereby countries devise sharing arrangements. After that, there will be bilateral arrangements that say, “Look, I’ll give you access to 4,500 tonnes of mackerel if I get something from you.” That is normal across a range of stocks.

They indicated that they would come into a mackerel agreement in January, when they signed the bilateral deal, but they obviously had no intention of doing that.

I presume that that means that, in the future, all deals will have to be signed simultaneously.

I think that there should be a certain order to them.

Liam McArthur wants to ask about west coast cod, haddock and whiting.

Let us move from the happy subject of blue whiting to the west coast. The west coast fishery has been the focus of much attention because of the emergency measures that some felt were unworkable because of how they were constructed. The Government, in consultation with the industry and others, has submitted alternative proposals, but there seems to be a question about whether alternative alternative proposals are emerging from the RAC and whether the Commission is being asked to deal with two separate propositions representing Scottish interests. I would be interested to know whether that is the case and in your observations on that.

It would also be helpful to get a sense of how you see the current state of the key stocks for the Scottish fleet on the west coast. Is there the prospect of recovery? The prognosis a year to 18 months back was pretty bleak.

I will start with the stocks. There are glimmers of hope for the cod stock, in which there has been a small, detectable upturn, which we hope will continue. Historically, however, the west coast stocks are not in good condition and require to be cared for. The brightest stock on the west coast is haddock, which is not in such a state.

As we touched on earlier, the RAC proposed a long-term management plan, which has now been accepted. There are some technicalities around accepting it because one economic study has yet to be done, but that should not be a hindrance. In effect, the Commission has agreed to make it a virtual long-term management plan and to put that in the catch proposals for this year, as though the plan were already in place. That has been a success story.

What are the implications of that for the emergency measures that were introduced and then rolled over for 18 months?

Regrettably, none. The emergency measures remain, and there has been a proposal to roll them on further. Frankly, we are stuck with them. As a way out of the situation, we have proposed that we be allowed access to the haddock stock under the terms of a very precautionary, sensible, long-term management plan. It is thwarted by the emergency regulations, which produce an impossible catch composition. No matter how hard our fishermen try, they cannot get what ends up in their nets to comply with what is written on the page of the statute. That is unhelpful and creates all sorts of other difficulties. It looks as though the fishermen are undercatching the stock, but the reason why they are undercatching is that they cannot access it without discarding everything that they get apart from haddock.

So I am afraid that we are not much further forward on that. The salvation and solution to the situation will be local management, as proposed by us. That is where we are. The honest truth is that we are not holding out much hope, although we will fight as hard as we possibly can.

Given the lack of activity in the area for the reasons that you have suggested, is there still a feeling that the scientific data on what is happening to the key stocks are not being built up because the boats are not there?

Indeed. In the past, data gathering has very much depended on landings. If there is a low volume of landings by few boats, that has exactly the effect that you have described—the science is light. We have asked for more survey but there is, regrettably, a limit to the amount of scientific effort that can be put into it. Although an attempt has been made to provide the information, it has not been sufficient.

There are also other factors at play. There seems to be a very high level of natural predation by, for instance, the seal population, which has not been properly investigated because the science on the west coast is inadequate to base sensible decisions on. We are in an awful pickle, with elements of stock recovery but a regulatory framework, which governs access to the stocks, that is illogical and is stopping fishing. Particularly in your constituency, there is the utmost frustration about that among people who know what is happening on the ground and are unable properly to access the fish.

11:30

I want to ask briefly about the nephrops stock on the west coast and in particular in the Clyde. That stock is not being fished to the full. Do you have something optimistic to say about it?

We have no particular fears about the stock in the Clyde. The management of the stock is under discussion and there is a push for it to be managed by small sub-units. We have been trying to resist that, not because we do not want to manage it effectively, but because we need to manage it practically. There has been quite a lot of pressure on the west coast because of miscellaneous ecological reports along the lines that the Clyde, specifically, is suffering badly, which have received quite a lot of coverage in the press. I found out literally a few days ago that there is to be some sort of study, the details of which we do not have.

To cut a long story short, there seems to be a push from a small band of people who would, frankly, like the Clyde to be shut down to mobile fishing. That has happened over the past few days, and we will have to address that in the context of the plans that already exist, all around the coast of Scotland, for proceeding with ecological protection under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. That little pop-up of something odd and rather extreme specifically for the Clyde will need to be resisted, but we will have to see the details of it. Maybe you have heard about what is happening there.

No, I have not. I was hoping that you might be able to tell me about it.

The situation in the Clyde raises an interesting point about the management efforts of the Scottish Government to make progress with the inshore fisheries groups, which have been tasked with bringing stakeholders to the table and seeking resolution of some of the gear conflicts in the inshore area. There is a general view that the IFGs need to progress a little faster than they are currently progressing.

You will be aware that there are some good news stories in the Clyde, in that the creeling part of the nephrops fishery there is undergoing Marine Stewardship Council certification, with the towed gear fleet hopefully going to do that as well. Nevertheless, there are conflicts and there are cries for effort control in the area both from those who use towed gear and from the creelers, given the number of creel that are in the water and the fact that the returns for effort are decreasing. There seems to be an appetite for that, which needs to be looked into.

Rockall haddock has provided a bit of relief for those who are no longer able to fish as they did in the Minches. However, there seems to be some prospect of a cut in quota of 46 per cent, based on the scientific advice, although the Commission may be looking at a cut of around a quarter. What impact is that likely to have on the parts of the fleet that have come to rely on that stock? What is the basis for the proposed cut?

The fact of the matter is that the stock is regarded as particularly healthy and the reason for the adjustment is a move towards MSY. The stock has become more important over the past year. As effort connected with the cod recovery plan limits days at sea for vessels inside the cod recovery zone, the opportunity for demersal catching outside that zone—which is not subject to days-at-sea limitations—will be very important. Both the Rockall haddock and the bilateral agreement with the Faroes provide relief in that respect. In moving towards MSY in the Rockall fishery, account needs to be taken of the need for sensible access to the stock.

I can understand that changes in how the regime is managed and in the objectives to be achieved will have a bearing on the quotas, but there seems to be a fairly dramatic year-on-year cut for a stock that we are told at present is being harvested sustainably. Is that your observation?

Yes, that is exactly the observation, and it will be more troublesome because of the additional requirement to have access to Rockall given what we know will happen to days at sea next year.

I want to return to nephrops. Has the low uptake of the nephrop quota in the west of Scotland been caused by difficulties with technical measures or low prices or both? If it is to do with the market, what can be done to help, or is the market recovering?

The problem this year was the fish themselves. The science did not indicate that there was anything particularly wrong, but the fish did not come on, if you like. They did not present themselves in an accessible way at the times when they would normally do so, which led to undercatching. Plus the prices for some periods of the year, particularly for the smaller prawns from the Clyde, were low, which was a disincentive to catching. There was general gloom. The honest truth is that the fish were not available as normal, not because of a biological downturn but simply because of a cyclical change in behaviour, as sometimes happens. They were not appearing when they were expected.

What do you think about managing nephrops stock by stock? What are your views on an MSY with regard to nephrops? Sometimes it seems to be splitting hairs.

Managing nephrops stock by stock or by functional unit in small penny packets sounds logical, but it is enormously difficult practically. The way in which people catch almost falls into functional unit management, anyway. Therefore, we urge caution on legislating for something that does not need to be legislated for.

Aileen Campbell has a question on monkfish.

Yes—just a brief question. I understand that the science treats the west of Scotland and North Sea monkfish as one stock, but that there are separate quotas. A cut of 15 per cent in 2011 is being advised for the North Sea stock, but the quota for west of Scotland monkfish is to be held over. What are your views on that advice?

It is indeed one stock, which is known as the northern shelf monkfish stock, but for reasons of history, there is a differential in the quotas. On my right is Ian Gatt, a recently experienced monkfish skipper. In case I get it wrong, I ask him to answer the question.

I will probably get it wrong, but the member is absolutely right that the different quotas do not make a lot of sense if it is all one stock. Recent work has been done on the issue through a fairly comprehensive annual survey by the marine laboratory. It now has more information to hand on where different elements of the stock are and can judge better how they are doing. There are four areas—the North Sea stock, the west of Shetland stock, the west coast stock and the Rockall stock. The lab is getting a better handle on how the individual populations are doing. You are absolutely right that it is assessed as one stock but managed differently in different areas.

Could that lead people to consider that, in future, it should not be treated as one stock and the different areas should be monitored separately? Perhaps I am getting the wrong end of the stick.

No, you are probably right that that is what will happen in the long run. Another aspect is that Norway fishes the stock, too, but the stock is not jointly managed with Norway. Norway has been pushing for a number of years to manage the North Sea aspect of the stock jointly. A lot of things are going on around there, but the scenario that you have painted will probably happen at some point, although we are a bit away from it.

You said that Norway is pushing for a jointly managed stock, which implies that there was not much enthusiasm for that in the EU. What is your view on that?

From the Scottish perspective, that is quite a difficult question. We have a large portion of the North Sea stock, and although you might imagine that we would have more on the west coast, the French have more there. The picture is pretty complicated. We have quite a small share on the west coast.

If all that is merged, there will be winners and losers, and we are acutely aware that we do not want to lose more than we have to.

The simplicity of the biology is often obvious, and when someone asks a completely logical question, they find that there is a complicated set of international reasons why the French and Spanish have some access in one place but do not have any in another—and we do not, in any circumstances, want them to have access there.

I want to make one observation about Norway, although it might sound cynical. Norway is shoulder to shoulder with us over mackerel, but in a lot of other fisheries, Norway is simply not our friend. It catches those fish in its own waters with greater ease than we do, and it does not wish to make our life any easier as competitors, especially given the fact that the EU is Norway’s largest export market.

The situation is always more complicated than it looks when one looks at the biology.

Oh dear.

I want to ask about cod and haddock in the North Sea. There was a bit of optimism about the haddock stock recovering, but it seems to have evaporated, certainly as far as ICES is concerned, because it is proposing a 20 per cent cut for next year. What are your views? Do you agree that mortality has increased again and that a larger decrease in quota is needed for this year?

It is fair to say that the science on the North Sea cod stock is less than complete and there is some doubt around it, particularly because of the great surprise that fish mortality appears to have risen despite smaller fleets. That is not to say that we dispute the direction of travel, and we are surprised and disappointed that cod is not heading in the right direction more quickly.

I am delighted to say that haddock is part of a long-term management plan. There will be a 15 per cent reduction next year, but that is in accordance with the normal cyclical behaviour of a stock that is being fished sustainably. There are times when we need to throttle back a bit, and now is one of those times.

It is different with cod. The science is not complete. The problem with the 20 per cent reduction in quota is the effect that it will have on the mixed fishery. If cod is one component of the mixed fishery, particularly if the fleet has cameras and the fishing has to stop, or there are haddock, saith or whiting to catch, getting the balance right and accessing the fish that it is perfectly reasonable to access without killing cod once the quota is reached is enormously difficult. That is the issue that catch quotas are trying to address. Cameras are fitted to the boats, and they are allowed to catch and land what they would have discarded, but once the boat has reached its catch quota, it is over. That is the general approach to solving an intractable problem. It is difficult; there are no two ways about it.

I was slightly surprised to see the 5 per cent reduction for haddock. The ICES assessment suggests that even a precautionary approach could mean that, EU-wide, twice as much North Sea haddock could be landed as is being landed now. That seems to be based on the management plan.

11:45

It is. We are now entering the interesting zone of the difference between long-term management plans, which are trusted and seem to have worked well—the North Sea haddock plan is a good example—and the MSY approach, which works in one way in some cases and another way in other cases, if a radically different approach is taken.

The problem with an MSY approach is that it will tend to lead to radical and dramatic changes from year to year, which common sense indicates are probably not a good idea and which the market indicates are definitely not a good idea. Starve and flood of a market will not help the industry. That problem, which is one anomaly of MSY, has yet to be wrestled with.

One issue that runs through all the discussion on the North Sea is trying to achieve stocks that have a mix of all age groups—healthy and buoyant stocks, which are the best scenario. One constriction is that recruitment has still been relatively poor in recent years. We are trying to work towards good recruitment, which provides a balance of year classes and means that the stock is buoyant and robust.

Bertie Armstrong talked about fishing for the market. We can all do something about that here and now. Focus, attention and effort are needed from all parts of the industry to ensure that we achieve a better return for the fish that come out of the water—fishing less and earning more, which is simple to say.

At the outset, a point was made about members’ perspective. The public perspective on fishing seems to be relatively negative. There are not enough good news stories out there and the understanding of what we have is not good enough. We probably all have a job to do on that.

Is the conservation credits scheme delivering cod avoidance? If so, what is the evidence for that?

Common sense says that the scheme is certainly doing that, but we have yet to receive the complete scientific output, which is required. It is no good if something sounds right or if we tell everybody that it is right—it needs to be scientifically provable. That is being worked on continuously and we expect more results.

Conservation credits are part of a slightly broader picture. If the right thing is done, such a scheme gives a reward, because fish are saved—the management aim is achieved. The position of people who do the wrong thing is prejudiced and penalties are applied to them in comparison with their correctly behaving brother.

That system works well when enough capital, if you like, is available to support it. Conservation credits relate to days at sea. The reward for compliance is extra effort. When enough capital is in the system to give a reward, that scheme works well. However, it is regrettable that external factors—not the conservation credits machine itself—mean that no capital is left. We have gone from using the asset to incentivise good behaviour and deter bad behaviour to sitting around trying desperately to allocate among ourselves a scarce and inadequate resource. I do not criticise the efforts of the scheme, but that is the reality that we need to break out of.

We need to continue the innovative management that the conservation credits scheme has started. The scheme was intended to be a means of allocating effort and doing good with that, but we have reached the point at which it is just a means of allocating effort—people sit round and decide whether they will be shot or hanged.

The lack of capital means that there has not been much opportunity to offset kilowatt days.

We have had dramatic activities to retain the days that we have and to stay within the scheme. No new, big and innovative things are left to do; we have had to do such things to preserve where we are. In the end, that becomes counterproductive. Having closed areas may allow for extra effort, but the difficulty is that a point is reached at which the closed areas are so big and frequent that all the extra effort that has been accorded is used in driving round those areas.

Bertie Armstrong is right: we are now reaching a critical point for the conservation credits scheme. However, what we must always ask is: where would we have been without it? The Scottish Government took a bold and innovative step in bringing the stakeholders round the table and taking the approach that it did. We are certainly in a better place than we would have been if we had not gone down that road.

The approach now serves as a useful model. On a practical level, we can show other member states and the commissioner the way we could go, which is great. I hope that we are starting to build the capital back up so that we have a more buoyant fishery. The initiative to date has been good.

When will the scientific analysis be available?

It is being addressed by the relevant Commission body, the STECF. The E stands for economic—it is the scientific, technical and economic committee for fisheries—so broader aspects are being considered. In honest truth, that is a long waffle to say that I do not know when we will get the analysis. [Laughter.]

I suppose that 12 months is a long time in fisheries. You have set out some of the benefits of the conservation credits scheme. This may be due to the lack of capital that you talked about, but I am aware of some recent misgivings about the conservation credits steering group, which is being seen as a means of telling and informing the industry rather than genuinely consulting it. I would be interested in your view. Perhaps the build-up of capital may see a return to a more consultative approach, as Helen McLachlan suggested.

Just under 12 months ago, we were receiving fairly dire warnings about the introduction of closed-circuit television cameras on vessels. Some of us shared the misgivings—Bertie, you described the idea as a perfect management tool for enforcing a system that is fundamentally flawed. However, Mike Park has commented recently that we should break out of the trial phase of CCTV and embrace the experiment more fully and widely. That may be a reflection of the economic imperative and of the idea being seen as the only game in town, but there seems to have been a shift in the industry’s position over the course of the past year.

There has. This is a fair statement: not one fisherman took cameras on board because they recognised that doing so was the morally right way to go in changing the management scheme; they did it because there was a commercial benefit and, on balance, it would make life better, as they would get extra quota and days at sea for it. It is as simple as that.

The sea change that has yet to happen at the quayside is a complete acceptance by all that they will not be prejudiced by the move from accounting for what they land—which means there are discards—to accounting for what they catch. That is the fundamental difference. The unstated bit in Mike Park’s statement is that when we get to the bottom of the fish that we are allowed to catch, we will have to stop fishing—end of story—and fishermen need to be able to cope with that. If we introduce something that will cause the white-fish fleet of Scotland to cease its activities in April, we will have lost.

That is a dramatic overstatement of what is likely to happen, but there is a danger in the change. It is a fundamental change of management and it makes perfect sense—why would we not account for what we take from the sea rather than what we land on the quayside, which is largely meaningless? We would like to move in that direction, but we need to do so carefully. Both sets of comments are relevant, because we need to get from A, where we are now, to B, which is a removals-based management system, in steps that do not take the industry down. We also have to cope with the terrible problem of mixed fisheries—how do we cope with stopping when we get to the lowest common denominator?

Do you recognise the concerns about the conservation credits steering group?

You have described exactly what is happening. Management has been faced with the problem that where it used to incentivise good and penalise bad it now has to divide a limited—indeed, inadequate—amount of effort among the players. That has been the recipe for the current situation in which people simply sit around and get told what to do. In fact, you end up with cabinet corporate responsibility. After all, we decided to engage in this process and, as a result, we sit round the table, deciding whether we will be electrocuted or hanged—and worse still we have to deal with corporate responsibility, which is where the quayside problems arise. The quayside turns on those at the table, saying, “Hang on a minute. I really dislike what’s come out of this and you’re responsible for it.” That is the difficulty for the people like me sitting in front of you. However, we have to make the process work.

The birth of the conservation credits forum has been a very good thing and a big step forward, as Helen McLachlan said. It would be good if the same principle could be applied to making catch quotas work but, although that is the proper way forward, we have to be very cautious. We are missing quayside approval and recognition that we have a new method of management that will work once we get over the problems. We should not forget that we have not got over the problems yet.

This comment is not going to help, but I think that the committee should hear it anyway. There is another fundamental problem with the quayside. Despite the drive not only in the UK but in Europe towards introducing catch quotas, the harsh reality is that if the measure is to be delivered in any meaningful way, we need Norway’s approval, because we are fishing the same stocks. The pilot scheme was introduced last year on the back of our having some currency against Norway, which at the time had no access to the EU zone for its mackerel. Norway now has that access, and the tank is running on empty. If it decides that it is not going to play ball, we will find it extremely difficult to deliver catch quotas in any meaningful way.

As far as fisheries management is concerned, what upsets the public more than anything else is seeing good, consumable fish being thrown overboard. For the mixed fishery, the issue of discards is extremely difficult. I realise that there might not be any figures on this, but do you have any anecdotal evidence that there has been a reduction in the amount of discarded fish?

No, that is provable and yes, we do have such evidence. I forget the exact figure but the effect on reducing discards has been positive. You have quite correctly put your finger on the central problem; indeed, we should all have made the point that discarding fish is the one thing that the public simply will not tolerate in future. Catch quotas move us in that direction but the question is how we get to where we need to be without wrecking the place.

I cannot remember whether it was officially or in the margins but, last year, I asked you whether there could be more co-operative working in the pelagic sector. For example, catch quotas could be used in a joint way to catch less but land more, which could also deal with discards. I do not know, but it seems to me that, given that it has only 25 or 26 boats, the demersal sector works in a co-operative way already. I wonder whether you can comment on that and on whether the four-point plan that was mentioned last year is working or whether we are at least moving towards its development.

We need to move towards developing the plan. Although the industry from which you originally come has gone a long way down that road, we are not there yet by any stretch of the imagination and catching for the market in the demersal sector is by no means a reality. In the early part of the year, commercial pressures and uncertainty, particularly with regard to days at sea, triggered behaviour that resulted in the overall strategic objective of making the most of one’s quota over the year—and knowing, for example, when prices might be up, down or otherwise—simply not being met. The market was piled with inappropriate fish at inappropriate times because people thought, “I need to catch the fish now.” You get this awful nonsense whereby low fish prices result in higher volumes—

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I have been there and seen it all in the agricultural industry. That is why I am urging you to consider the possibility of co-operative working.

The subject is still very live. Everyone recognises that they need to catch some fish for the market to maximise profits, but the question is how we get there. WWF and some producers and processors are leading a very good Europe-wide initiative in that respect, and other things are happening in Scotland. In fact, the producer organisations are meeting next week to discuss the matter. Frankly, the short answer to your question on why we are not making any headway on this—which I realise you asked me last year—is that, instead of a more strategic view being taken, commercial desperation in the demersal sector at the start of the year caused certain distortions in behaviour.

We have to finish now. I thank everyone for their attendance and very helpful evidence.

Because of timetabling arrangements, we will take evidence from Marine Scotland scientists and the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment on 27 October. If the witnesses wish to comment on any issues that have arisen in the course of this meeting, I ask that they do so in writing. Any points that they might wish to make about the evidence session on 27 October should be submitted immediately after that meeting.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes for a comfort break and the changeover of witnesses.

12:01 Meeting suspended.

12:06 On resuming—