Plenary, 27 Sep 2001

Meeting date: Thursday, September 27, 2001

Official Report 702KB pdf

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Common Fisheries Policy

We will now take the emergency question from Richard Lochhead.

Does the Scottish Executive intend to submit a response to the European Commission's green paper on the future of the common fisheries policy? The closing date is this weekend.

The United Kingdom response to the Commission's green paper has been issued today. The response reflects fully the Scottish priorities for the review of the common fisheries policy.

There will be outrage throughout Scotland's fishing communities that Scotland is not making its own submission to that very important consultation. The minister will be aware that up to 40,000 Scottish jobs depend on a new CFP that is good for Scotland. Despite the fact that the Scottish Parliament legislates for two thirds of the UK fishing industry, the London minister will call the shots for Scotland's fishing industry. I ask the minister—

Order.

Given that Brittany—

We do not often have an emergency question, but I made it clear at the beginning that an emergency question is treated like any other question. It is not a statement or a series of statements. It is a quick question and then we move on.

Will the minister lead from the front in Europe and submit the Scottish Government's own response to the CFP consultation in the next few days to reflect Scotland's priorities?

I have been over this ground time and time again with Mr Lochhead, yet he still fails to understand the devolution settlement. The UK response fully reflects Scottish interests and priorities. We were fully involved in the preparation of the review and a unified response from a member state has greater impact than a fragmented response from its constituent parts.

Richard Lochhead's question is typical of the SNP, which is intent on picking away at the edges of the Scotland Act 1998. The SNP raises the issue of the CFP as an excuse to argue for more powers to be transferred to Scotland, with the ultimate aim of tearing Scotland away from the rest of the UK. The SNP insists on refighting the battles that it lost at the general election, when barely 20 per cent of the Scottish population voted for independence.

I welcome the minister's response to the emergency question. Given the unanimous support of the Parliament for the report from the European Committee, will the submission reflect the issues that were covered in the report?

Very much so. The European Committee produced its helpful report in May and its recommendations have been incorporated into our response to the review.

The gist of my question has been covered by Alex Johnstone. However, I am perplexed about the reason for having an emergency question on the matter.

The member must be careful—that is a reflection on the chair.

I welcome the minister's response. [Interruption.] The children on the SNP benches are a little excited, but they will calm down.

During this exercise, what consultation took place with the fishing and fish processing industries before we reached the point where we are today?

There has been widespread consultation with every section of the industry. We issued a consultation paper, to which we had a good response. All the responses have been taken on board in the preparation of our response.

Was the minister able at any point to discuss the representations from RSPB Scotland for more local control of inshore fishing? Does the minister agree that her presence with the UK minister would at least reinforce what we have to say at a European level?

I am not quite sure what is meant by that. However, since I became responsible for the Scottish fishing industry, I have represented Scottish fishing interests alongside Elliot Morley at every EU Fisheries Council. I will continue to do that.

We very much welcome RSPB Scotland's involvement and its response to the green paper. We welcome the fact that many other environmental non-governmental organisations responded.

Will the minister confirm that Scotland's interests are being presented to the European fisheries council with the full force of Britain's 10 votes in the Council? Under the terms of the Treaty of Nice, that number is shortly to be increased to 29 votes. What would the effect on the interests of Scottish fishermen be if the Scottish National Party were to succeed in its objective of reducing our vote in the Council from 29 votes to seven, which would mean that we would have fewer votes than landlocked countries such as Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic?

I agree with the member. In effect, devolution gives Scotland the very best of both worlds.

On that happy note, we end question time.