Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Official Report 335KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Specified Products from China (Restriction on First Placing on the Market) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2012 (SSI 2012/3)

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Sea Fish (Prohibited Methods of Fishing) (Firth of Clyde) Order 2012 (SSI 2012/4)

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Fodder Plant Seed (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2012 (SSI 2012/5)

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Conservation of Salmon (River Annan Salmon Fishery District) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (SSI 2012/6)

The next item on the agenda is subordinate legislation. Four instruments that are subject to the negative procedure are listed on the agenda. One relates to specified products from China, another deals with prohibited methods of fishing, fodder plant seed is the subject of the third and the fourth deals with salmon conservation in the river Annan fishery district. No motion to annul has been lodged in relation to any of the instruments. I refer members to paper 3. Do members have any comments on the instruments?

On the final instrument—SSI 2012/6—it may be an obvious question, but I presume that when we are talking about the cause of the problem, the implication of what we are being told is that—

Do you mean the River Annan salmon fishery district instrument?

Yes. I am sorry—I should have said that. The indication is that the problem is being caused by people not adhering to the voluntary catch code. This is a point of information, but it would have been nice to have been satisfied that no netting is going on on the river, whether sanctioned or unsanctioned. It would also have been nice to know what is the drop in stocks that is causing concern and prompting the regulations.

That is a good question. I am pleased to see a catch-and-return policy in this fishery board area. I think that we will hear in due course about other areas where that ought to be happening—for example in parts of the Highlands, where it is ridiculously possible to catch salmon at the early spring runs.

The regulations are to be welcomed. We can write to the ministers on the points that were raised by Graeme Dey. Are there any other points to do with the salmon regulations?

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It has been pointed out to me that in South Scotland there are long-standing traditional rights to fish. However, if caught fish have to be put back for conservation needs at particular times, we will have to accept that.

As another South Scotland MSP—we seem to be as common as muck nowadays—

Speak for yourself.

Absolutely. I am from a farming background where what I said is not an insult but a compliment, because “Where there’s muck, there’s money.”

There is a lot of salmon fishing with nets in the Solway, which is in the conservation area. I wonder whether the ministers have a view on the implications of that. It is an old tradition to net salmon when they are in the sea and heading towards the River Annan, rather than in the river.

We will try to find out.

We turn to the Clyde cod exclusion order, SSI 2012/4, which I had dealings with in a previous session of Parliament. It is of interest not only to me but to people in the south of Scotland. The order relates to two areas that are set aside in the spring in which cod cannot be caught. I am interested in how the boundaries of the areas were drawn. I have thought about this not constantly, but over several years because predecessor committees have agreed to a no-take zone for the spring in part of Lamlash Bay that is outside the cod-restriction zone. It has never been clear to me why the zone’s boundaries were chosen. Prawn trawling and the like are not excluded from those areas, so why that particular set of boundaries? I would like us to find out.

In the same spirit of inquiry, convener—although this might show my ignorance of the subject—I note from the briefing paper on the order that it

“applies only to Scottish and relevant British fishing boats”

fishing in the area. Is there an issue with foreign boats fishing in the area?

I cannot answer that definitively, but I believe that the order refers to inshore waters, from which foreign boats are excluded.

The briefing paper indicates that there are certain exceptions that are not covered by the prohibition, which include fishing

“with scallop dredges, creels and ... trawls used for fishing for Norway lobsters”.

I imagine that they would not apply to foreign-owned vessels, because the area seems to be inshore.

Indeed.

If the order applies

“only to Scottish and relevant British fishing boats,”

that would tend to open the door to the possibility of foreign vessels fishing.

Yes. I see how the order is drafted.

I do not think that there is a quota or whatever in that area, but we will find out.

SSI 2012/3 is to do with genetically modified rice. I asked a lot of questions about this when the issue first arose in 2008. The background is that an agricultural university in China developed the strain Bt63 rice, but it has not been approved anywhere else in the world for commercial growing. However, it appeared in some imports from China from 2005 onwards, and in 2007 the UK imported from China almost 1,000 tonnes of rice-based products in which the Bt63 gene had previously been found.

The European Union was involved in an alert that led to the directive that stops importation of products containing rice with the Bt63 gene. The regulations are a continuation of previous regulations, because there is concern that this particular rice is still being grown in China. However, I note from an e-mail that I have received:

“China’s major financial weekly the Chinese newspaper the Economic Observer quoted on Friday, Sept 23rd, 2011, an information source close to the Ministry of Agriculture that China has suspended the commercialisation of genetically engineered ... rice. ... It has also been found that many of the GE rice lines in China are embedded with non-Chinese patents”.

In other words, there are developments in genetically engineered rice in China, but probably multinational companies from elsewhere have patented them in the first place.

The EU was left with the difficulties that I referred to earlier. In that regard, a letter from the Food Standards Agency on the Bt63 gene states that

“the European Food Safety Authority has been unable to assess its food safety risk because of lack of data on the GM crop.”

The FSA issued a food alert at that time, which has been continued. It reminds us that the understanding of this science is still in its infancy, but the issue is taken seriously in the EU.

Does it mean that rice of that type that is already in Scotland will be impounded?

Yes. The cost of that will be placed on the importer. It has been suggested more widely that the EU ought to ask the Chinese Government for compensation for such importers, but that is outwith the scope of what we are considering. So, it is up to the people who have imported the prohibited rice to remove it. If tests show that there is any quantity of Bt63 rice in imported rice or rice products for human consumption, such as rice sticks and noodles, then it must be dealt with according to the continued alert, which I welcome.

I do not think that we need to say any more about the four instruments. Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make recommendations in relation to the instruments?

Members indicated agreement.

As we agreed, we will now move into private session. I thank all those who attended and have already left.

11:07 Meeting continued in private until 11:34.