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Sea Fish (Prohibition on Fishing) (Firth of Clyde) Order 2026 (SSI 2026/10)
For the third item on the agenda, we will hear evidence from stakeholders on the Sea Fish (Prohibition on Fishing) (Firth of Clyde) Order 2026, which is a Scottish statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure. I will invite the stakeholders to introduce themselves in just a moment.
We have approximately 75 minutes for this discussion. Given that we have quite a few participants, I ask everyone to be succinct in their questions and answers. Just indicate to me or to one of my clerks if you wish to participate at any point. There is no expectation for you each to respond to every point of every question, especially if you feel that the point has already been made. It would be helpful if you could restrict your involvement in the discussion to your area of expertise.
You will not have to operate your microphones, as broadcasting will do that for you. I ask you to wait until you see the light on your mike turned on before you start to speak, to ensure that everybody hears the start of your contributions.
We will start with Sean McIlwraith, on my left. Please introduce yourself.
Hi. I am a fisherman local tae the Clyde—fourth generation. I am here today for the discussion on SSI 2026/10, which affects where we can fish: we cannae fish on wir doorstep.
I am chair of the south-west regional inshore fisheries group.
I am a fisheries scientist at the University of Strathclyde.
I am co-chair of the Clyde Fishermen’s Association. I have fished in the Clyde for all my 55 years, using every method known and catching every species known to be caught in the Clyde. I am here today to try to save what we have left of the fishery and, more importantly, to try to save the community that I have lived in all my life.
Hi. I am a trustee at the Community of Arran Seabed Trust, a community-led organisation contributing to the conservation and restoration of the seas around the Isle of Arran and the Clyde.
Good morning, everyone. I am the senior marine advocacy officer at Scottish Environment LINK, and I work with LINK’s marine group.
I am from the Clyde Fishermen’s Association, and I am here to represent mixed-gear fishermen—static, mobile and line—in our membership. We are one of the oldest fishing associations in Scotland.
Good morning. I am public affairs manager for Scotland for Open Seas. We advocate for sustainable fisheries and healthy seas.
I am a fisheries scientist at the University of Strathclyde.
I am from the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust. SIFT believes that the Clyde can and should be more than just a shellfishery and that strong cod stocks and other white fish could bring that forward.
11:30
Thank you. We have about half an hour for each of our three main themes. The first theme covers science, evidence and the targeted scientific programme that we have heard about.
I will kick off the questions. What does the most up-to-date scientific research tell us about the main pressures on the Clyde cod stock? Do you have any concerns about that research or its limitations?
We have circulated a summary of the assessment work that has been done at the University of Strathclyde over the past five years or so. Ana Adão, a PhD student, has done much of that work, which focuses mainly on the likely size of the cod stock and the principal sources of fish mortality.
The assessment work shows that the amount of spawning stock has decreased from about 1,500 tonnes in the mid-1980s to about 50 tonnes. The fish mortality rate has tended to be very high over that whole period. In the earlier period, much of the mortality was due to a directed whitefish fishery. That fishery has largely declined and disappeared, but a nephrops trawl fishery and other static gear fisheries have continued to take cod as a bycatch.
It appears that the mortality rate related to the fishing that is still occurring is preventing any significant recovery of the cod stock. The cod stock has declined to a very low level, but there has been a very slight increase over the past five to 10 years, probably as a result of the absence of the directed whitefish fishery.
The cod stock is in very poor shape, and the analysis suggests that, if we want it to recover, we must reduce the residual fish mortality that is due to the remaining fishing activity. That mortality is caused largely by the bycatch of cod as a result of the fishing that is still taking place. If the objective is to recover the cod stock, we must reduce the bycatch somehow. That is the principal message.
How old is the data on discards that you are using?
There are three main components to the data that we used in the analysis. We used research vessel survey data from 1985 to 2019, data on recorded landings from all fisheries that were active from 1985 to 2019 and detailed observer data from 2002 to 2019. The assessment covers 1985 to 2019, so it tells us something about what happened over that period. The assessment is now five years old, and we do not have data from 2020 onwards.
I just wondered, because we constantly hear from campaign groups that use discard data from the early 1990s, which was before all the nephrops trawlers started to alter their gear to avoid discards. We have come a long way in reducing discards.
In 2014, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation ran an observer trial where it observed 380 trips on nephrops trawlers, and the discarded cod amounted to 1 per cent. I find it amazing that you are talking about discards in the nephrops fishery, because it is almost a clean fishery after the introduction of square mesh panels, larger mesh sizes at the headline of the net, changes to the configuration of the gear, and low-standing nets.
Over the past 15 or 20 years, fishermen have had to do the most difficult thing that any fisherman ever has to do: they have had to learn how not to catch fish. After being trained for a lifetime to catch fish, they have had to learn how not to, and they have been very successful at it. I would take any scientist or campaign group member to task on that fact; indeed, we are willing to take them out to sea at any time so that they can see how clean the nephrops fishery is.
As for the cod—and you will notice that I do not refer to them as “Clyde cod”, because that is not correct—the cod stock that we created this closure for in 2001 came to the Clyde to spawn every year. There were small pockets of local cod, but the main cod fishery came into the south end of the Clyde every year, starting when the closure started—that is, February into March. The main time was St Patrick’s day, 17 March.
We closed it for a good reason. At that time, we could see that the stock was going to be annihilated, because there was a closure in the Irish Sea and we were going to have the rest of the boats visiting the Clyde to take it. The local fishermen decided to take this action. In the first year it was voluntary, and then it became mandatory. Marine Scotland made it mandatory, and we were quite happy with that.
I do not refer to the cod as “Clyde cod” because they would come in for only four or five weeks. I mean, if I went to Aberdeen for four or five weeks of the year, you would not call me an Aberdonian, so I do not see why we would call these cod “Clyde cod”. When they left, there were disputes between the scientists over whether they went to the west coast or to the Irish Sea. Irish scientists tagged some of the cod and we discovered that they actually went to the Irish Sea.
These cod were being fished for 10 or 11 months in some other part of the sea, and yet everybody refers to them as “Clyde cod”. When the stocks go down, everybody says, “They are going down in the Clyde.” Just think about it. When is the bigger chance that they will get caught: the 10 or 11 months that they are out of the Clyde, or the five weeks that they are in the Clyde? I know where I would put my money—they are caught elsewhere.
I want to make another point about the science. In my experience and after 55 years studying nature and the Clyde—as you have to do if you are a fisherman—I can tell you that cod need two things, as do all other demersal species: a source of food and the proper conditions, especially the proper water temperature. The Clyde is bereft of food, and it has been for the past 20 years. There is nothing for the cod to eat. That is why nothing grows—and I am talking not just about cod, but about many other species.
There is one thing that has gone missing. I do not know whether you will remember this, but when you were younger you might have gone out steaming on a boat at night, and you would have seen the phosphorus in the water. It was how the old fishermen used to look for herring and mackerel, and it was created by plankton. That is not there any more. For the past 20 years, you could steam all night, every night, and you would not see that. That is a sure sign that the food has dropped. It has dropped to levels that I have never seen in my whole lifetime. That is also one of the reasons why you have a decrease in your bird population.
That is a good starting basis. I will go around the table, as people will want to feed back on some of the comments that Kenneth has made. I will bring in Michael Heath first.
I will come in on a number of Kenneth MacNab’s points.
First of all, there is the issue of whether the cod that were caught in the spawning fishery are actually Clyde cod. All the tagging data that has ever been collected in the Clyde shows that fish tagged in the Clyde, or in the fishery on the sill, are always caught in the Clyde. Only a very small proportion of the fish that are tagged in the Clyde are ever recovered elsewhere or in the Irish Sea. The scientific and genetic evidence is very strong that it is a self-contained and isolated population.
On discarding, you said that cod are 1 per cent—but 1 per cent of what? You were not clear about that. It is not the percentage of cod in the catch that matters but the percentage of cod in the sea that are caught. The first question is, therefore, 1 per cent of what? However, the point is that the discard quantity has gone down because the stock has gone down.
I absolutely agree that there have been great measures to improve the selectivity of the fishing gear to reduce bycatch. However, in the notes that we sent out, there is a graph that shows the quantity of discard from the nephrops trawlers from 1990 to 2019. It is currently sitting at about 40 tonnes a year. That does not sound like very much, but when the stock is only 40 or 50 tonnes a year, it is an awful lot.
All of the data that is collected by the SFF is included in our analysis, and it now faces a problem, because it is denied access to Clyde boats. No samples of discards have been collected by the SFF on observer trips since 2020. It has been denied access, and that is not right. That should not be the case.
Regarding food for cod in the Clyde, the evidence from the plankton sampling that has been done is that there is no shortage of food in the Clyde. It is an extremely productive and rich area, and other fish species are not having the same problem. We have done a lot of analysis of the growth rate of cod in the Clyde, and that shows absolutely no trend over time at all.
I have some issues with quite a lot of what you said there—not all of it, but quite a lot of it.
I have some issues with what you have said, too, because no boats have told the SFF that it cannot come and do observer trips. We had an observer on board two years ago, during the cod closure. It was a Marine Scotland observer and he was out for three days, and we caught an average of between 700kg and 800kg of nephrops each day for the three days. There was not even any cod, but he had total discards, mainly small whiting, and he had 5kg for the three days. Do you think that we have done quite a lot on discards, if that is the case? You do not have any up-to-date evidence over the past five years, Mike.
You can come back briefly on that, Mike, and I will then open up the question a little bit more.
We have all the evidence from all the observer trips up to 2019. We have all of that data from all sources, both the marine directorate and the SFF. From 2020 onwards, we do not have the data. As far as I know, there have been only five observer trips in the Clyde, and none of those were done by the SFF.
It is clear that we have some disputes over the validity or robustness of the science. One of the issues that we have had since I became an MSP is that the evidence that we have heard on the Clyde box science has been less than adequate.
It is also important for the committee to understand whether the approach that the Government has taken regarding the SSI reflects the evidence that it suggests exists. There are questions around whether the Government’s approach reflects the evidence and has been evidence led.
11:45
The marine directorate has now accepted the quality of the science. We had a long and productive meeting with it in October, at which it was clear that the assessment, as it now stands, uses a vast amount of data—more than for many other fish stocks around Scotland. It is absolutely happy with what we have done.
I emphasise that we have been willing to do trials. We did trials from 2016 to 2018 with our own local boats, working with St Andrews University. We have also done a lot of work with Stirling university. Those are very trusted universities. It is a shame that some of those reports were not used, because they probably contain the most practical data that we have available. We did not want to hang any policy decisions on that data, because we accepted that it was the start of a journey. However, it showed that the cod is there and that it is slightly higher in the water column.
Just so you know, Mike, we were keen to keep the science going. We are not part of the SFF, which a lot of funding for the observer data programme goes through, although we are a member of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. We were keen to keep the science going, and any stoppage was not from our side; we actually helped to fund it. However, we did not want to go ahead and do the work ourselves without the marine directorate because we did not want to be seen as partisan. We wanted the science to be seen to be neutral. During the closures, there were observers in from the marine directorate, and compliance was in regularly to measure the cod and so on. There is a willingness to work on the issue, and we want to work on it.
In relation to the model that you are using, Professor Heath, we understand the details of the meeting that was held in October, and we have also spoken to the marine directorate about the model. As far as I am aware, there is no problem with the model itself, although there is an issue with data deficiencies. The feedback from the marine directorate is that we need to work on the data that goes into the model. It has also been candid with us about the discussions that it has had with you.
My wider concern is that we are having such a specialised discussion about Clyde cod, and we are having it all the time. The Clyde is being discussed more frequently than anywhere else. At one of the previous committee meetings, I think that the Clyde was mentioned nearly 20 times while the North Sea was mentioned three times. That shows the proportionate effort that is being made. We were the pilot area for marine planning in 2020, we were the pilot area for the cod box and we were the pilot area for no-take zones. We have been the pilot area for everything, which I think is sometimes more about politics than anything else. Over the past couple of years, there has been an exceptional strain on a small organisation that is more than willing to work on the issue. Our fishermen are pulling their hair out; it is just hard going.
More widely, I am concerned about whether the issue is entirely about fishing. There was a good paper by Karl Michael Werner from the Thünen Institute in Germany, which came out just a few weeks ago, in which he talked about a global warming phenomenon that happened in 2003 and affected feeding. That builds on the work that we have previously mentioned by Clausen, Toresen and Hatun. We also put some work in with Cefas, which came out in the summer. They all say the same thing: the water is getting warmer, so different types of stocks are coming in. That is not just happening in Scotland; it is happening in Norway and it is happening everywhere. Yet, all that we talk about is the Clyde.
If we are serious about finding out what is going on with our stocks, we should be considering the issue on a nationwide basis. It should not be focused on just one tiny area; it should be about all of us. Why are we considered to be exceptional? We are not. To be accurate, we need to consider this on a nationwide basis. We also need to look at stock composition, which is really important.
We talk so much about bycatch, sediment disturbance and all those other things. However, the closure was a voluntary measure by the local fishermen at a whitefish feed that is no longer there or commercial. If we want to consider the composition of the stocks, we should be doing finfish trials, not just bycatch trials.
We are also talking about doing the targeted scientific programme, but we need to know what the details of that will be. It would have been good to come to this meeting knowing those details. They need to be worked up so that we can all have confidence going forward.
In response to the convener’s question about pulling back a bit and what the Government should be doing, it is important to note that there is a disparity in the evidence standard being used. There is a real concern here that evidence-led policy is becoming policy-led evidence.
It is also important to remember that there are a lot of statutory obligations that the Government has not really demonstrated that it is following. For example, section 1(5) of the Fisheries Act 2020 says that
“the best available scientific advice”
should be used to make management decisions on fish and aquaculture activities. Further, “Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030” states that the Government will always take an evidence-based approach by
“fully utilising the data and knowledge available at all levels”.
At the moment, I do not think that the Government is demonstrating that it is doing that.
Another thing that the Government is not demonstrating is how it has assessed the SSI against the national marine plan. If it has not done that, it would be in breach of the legal obligations that were established in the Open Seas Trust v The Scottish Ministers [2023] CSOH 39 judicial review. I implore the committee, when the cabinet secretary is before you, to ask how the evidence is being used and how the Government is using an evidence-based approach and the best available evidence. It is for the Government to explain that and justify it with regard to the SSI.
The Scottish Government takes a very precautionary approach in this particular case, which Scottish Environment LINK believes is justified, given the poor state of Clyde cod and, in fact, cod populations more widely in Scottish seas. However, the Scottish Government’s response to the consultation does not necessarily fully reflect some of the evidence that is available, some of which we have heard about today.
There is a focus on maintaining the closure, which is valid on a precautionary basis, and there is a focus on a targeted scientific programme, which is also a positive step. However, the Government citing those programmes as a reason not to pursue management measures to address other issues for which we have evidence is perhaps something that needs to be reviewed.
It is clear that, after 20 years of closures, this approach is not doing anything to improve the Clyde stock. If the Government were to be congratulated for anything, it would be that it is prepared to evolve the management measures here. This has been a damaging closure to the industry and it cannot be allowed to go on in perpetuity.
You asked whether the science would support the measures that the regulation is intended to address. The regulation is very much focused on a closed area for spawning. Essentially, the Government is saying that it wants to protect the spawning fish, which is reasonable.
However, there are two very important points that question whether closing a spawning area is the most useful thing to do. First, in relation to productivity, Kenny MacNab mentioned that he thought that there was not enough food. However, if you look at the production rate—in other words, the number of juveniles that are produced per female in the Clyde stock—it increased rapidly before the spawning closure was introduced. That was a direct response to heavy exploitation—as you reduce the spawning stock, it tries to respond by being more productive. The spawning closure is not enhancing productivity in the stock—that natural phenomenon occurred long before the spawning closure was introduced.
The other thing is that, if you accept our analysis as a reasonable characterisation of the status of the stock, nearly all the fish that are being caught currently are juveniles and very few are spawning fish. Therefore, around 90 per cent of what is being caught are fish that have been born that year or are one year old. That means that fish are being caught before they spawn, so, when a spawning closure is introduced, it is too late: much of the spawning potential has already been lost by catching the fish when they are very young. That is why one should ask the question: if we want to produce a more productive or healthier stock, is introducing a spawning closure really the optimal thing to do?
On a point of clarification, we heard previously that closure was all about ensuring the best spawning conditions. We heard that leisure boats or whatever were being excluded because they would have an impact. I remember cringeing at hearing some of the evidence from the Scottish Government that the noise of engines could affect the ability of cod to spawn. Are you being clear, however, that there is no issue with spawning? The fish that go to spawn are spawning quite happily, if you want to put it that way. In fact, the spawning level is actually increasing in the Clyde. Is that, in effect, what you are saying?
Not quite. The productivity of the spawning population was increasing before the spawning closure. When the closure was implemented, that level of productivity remained static. It increased to the point when the spawning closure was introduced, and it has stayed at a high level ever since.
I will come to Dr Cook in a moment, but I will start with Alastair Hamilton.
You said that the closure is not doing anything—in fact, Dr Cook said that it is not enhancing the stock. You said that the focus is a closed area for spawning but asked whether—I am paraphrasing you, because I cannot write that quickly—that is the most effective way to protect a spawning stock. What would another way be? From what I am hearing and from what I have read, this approach is not doing what we need it to do, which is to protect the cod and make sure that we have a future cod stock. What else could we be doing that might be better?
I am really sorry to interrupt, but can we focus on the science at the moment? We will go on to alternative methods later in the questioning, so I ask members to stick to questions in science.
Beatrice Wishart, do you have a question around the science and the Government’s approach?
I have a question around the science, for those who are best able to answer it. What could we expect from another three years of monitoring? Perhaps Professor Heath might answer that.
Well, part of the monitoring has disappeared. The observer programme, which monitors what is actually caught, has declined to a very low level of activity. It must be reinstated, because there is essentially no monitoring of what is being caught. The research vessel surveys are an absolutely vital part of all this, and they will surely continue, so that element of the science is going ahead—in safe hands, I am quite sure.
I just wonder whether, in three years’ time, we will be sitting here, asking the same questions.
I think that this is an emergency. When the stock has gone from a spawning stock of 1,000 tonnes in 1985 to something less than 50 tonnes today, I think that that is an emergency. I do not think that we can afford to wait three years for an answer from the science programme. We have the data, and we know what to do in order to analyse that and give some advice on what might be done.
I agree with Elaine Whyte on the targeted scientific programme, which has an extension to three years—that is why the committee has been asked to extend what is usually a two-year order. There are no details at all around the TSP; we do not know what it looks like and we need to know. It must surely focus on monitoring new methods of how to bring the stock back—I know that we will come on to those—but there is no detail at the moment. What will the TSP bring us? That was Beatrice Wishart’s question: how does this assist us? It is my understanding that the marine directorate absolutely accepts both the methodology and the robustness of the data. I think that the science is now incontrovertible, so we must move forward to work out what we do next.
Again, I will come back on that point. We have been informed that the marine directorate would not debate the model, but that there are data discrepancies before 2002 and after 2020. That is the feedback that we have had from the marine directorate—that the model is not in question, but that the information that is feeding the model is. That is what we have been told directly.
12:00
To go back to another point, we are all talking about the science and I am just upset that the people from the University of St Andrews are not here, because they are the ones who have come out and done practical work with us, and they have quite a different take on what is happening. It would be great if they were around the table as people who have been out on boats and have seen what is happening.
We are talking about cod as though it is the only fish that is there, but I have talked about stocks coming in. The biomass in the Clyde is far higher than it was in 1930 and 1940—that is a fact. It has gone up and up; it is just different types of fish. As Professor Heath said, sometimes it is smaller fish. However, we have to see the reality of the climate, and I really think that we have to speak about it.
NatureScot has recently put out information on the increase in flapper skate on the west coast of Scotland. We have had closures for that for a long time. We have various other predators coming in, such as spurdog, that are impacting what is happening at sea as well, but we are looking only at cod. I do not think that we can do that, and we cannot look only at the Clyde. That is not the way to do it.
I completely agree that we need to have science behind the approach, and I am not sure why Professor Heath thought that we would not want that, as we have been pushing for it for a long time. However, that has to look at climate, predation, seal numbers and all those things. We need to look at the international research that is being done, as the same is happening everywhere. Can we stop making the Clyde a special case and really look at the information that is out there?
I totally agree with Elaine Whyte. We seem to be concentrating on one thing: discards. That is not the way that I see it and it is not the way that fishermen see it. We now have temperature sensors on our gear and we have recorded seabed temperature every day for the past 20 years, and we get the surface temperature as well. We are seeing things happening in temperature that we have never seen before. The week before Christmas, before we stopped fishing for the year, we saw something that we had never seen before: the seabed temperature and the surface temperature were the exact same, between 11C and 12C, which is abnormally high for that time of year.
When it comes to the closure time this year, I reckon that, because the water has been that warm over the winter, the conditions will not be any good for cod to spawn. It will be too warm. We are seeing this every day, and nobody is doing anything about it. It is not even mentioned in any of the scientific papers—no mention at all. The paper that Elaine Whyte spoke about that the Norwegians and the Germans published just a few weeks ago talked about the north Atlantic flow. It gave two specific years—2002 and 2003—which were extremely warm years in the sea. We see it, and I have seen it personally over 20 years.
In 2014 or 2015, I did a trial with our boat for Marine Scotland for two weeks with semi-pelagic gear. We were looking for cod, because everybody told us there were no cod in the Clyde, but we knew that that was completely wrong. The cod had moved into the deep water. Because the shallow water was warmer, they had moved from it into all the deeper areas of the Clyde. They were not on the bottom—they were off the bottom slightly by five fathoms—but we had the gear that could catch them, and we caught cod. We caught cod, and all good-sized cod.
That was in 2014. Because the water is even warmer now, we are now seeing that they are disappearing from those areas as well. As Elaine Whyte said, we do not look at other predators. The seal population has gone up, as have the populations of flapper skate and dogfish. We had a guy who transitioned away from trawling and tried static gear, such as gill nets and lines, and he shot his lines and gear down in that closed area in the summer. Where the cod spawn, hake spawn in the summertime and always have done. He put his nets down and, when he lifted them up, he found that any hake that he had caught in the nets had had the bellies ripped out of them by either dogfish or seals—and I have photographic evidence of that. It became not worth his while doing it.
We have two protected species, one of which is dogfish. We can sell some now, but they must be of a certain size. That fishery had been closed for years, however, with a zero total allowable catch. Then there are flapper skate, which have appeared in massive numbers. Those species are both bottom feeders—they feed on the bottom. If cod were to spawn, that spawn would disappear within hours. There are so many dogfish and so many flapper skate. The things that we are protecting are destroying the demersal stocks before they even get to grow.
Okay. Thank you. I—
We need to have a big look at this. It is not happening just on the Clyde; it is happening everywhere else, too. Why we are just picking the Clyde for these measures, I do not know. It does not make sense.
We will now hear from Esther Brooker and then from Professor Heath again.
The targeted scientific programme, proposed for three years, is a positive thing. As I mentioned earlier, however, it is not a substitute for action on other issues that we have evidence for. The targeted scientific programme would need to be well resourced, and I question whether the kind of resources that we need in order to answer the questions that are coming up through the programme are available.
We have other management interventions that can support monitoring that we are still waiting to be fully rolled out. Those include having remote electronic monitoring with cameras across our fleet. That is an important thing that needs to be taken into account.
Some of the impacts that have just been raised involving warming waters and predation are more natural things that can be taken into account in fisheries management, but they cannot necessarily be controlled through direct intervention. We need to concentrate on those things that we can control through direct interventions.
Returning to the point about climate change, it is absolutely right that, in the North Sea, warm years produce poor recruitment. There is an inverse relationship between the two, and both Robin Cook and I have written about it in the past. The evidence from the Clyde does not show the same thing to be the case: there, the warm years do not produce any signal in recruitment.
Why is that? As Kenny MacNab mentioned, the Clyde is an unusual place. It is very deep in places and has pockets of cold water in the deep basins, where cod and many other species can take refuge under warm conditions. In fact, the Clyde has been a refuge for certain plankton species, which have sat there since the last glaciation. Calanus finmarchicus is an Arctic residue left over from the last glaciation, which still lives in the Clyde. It should not be existing at those latitudes at all.
It is absolutely right to say that climate change is happening and environmental change is happening. If we want to keep cod in the Clyde, fisheries management has to respond to that and adapt. If productivity is going down due to environmental change, the fisheries probably have to be scaled back in order to compensate for that.
The question is: does anybody want to keep cod in the Clyde? What I am hearing from those in the fishing industry is that they do not really care about that. I think that we should keep it there. The Clyde stock is genetically unique, it is in an amazing climate refuge and it is an important part of Scotland’s biodiversity. I think that we should care about it. I am not hearing that from around the room, however. I am not really hearing a clear statement from those in the marine directorate that they think that the cod is worth saving. That is the key question. If you think that it is worth saving, we should get up and do something about it—but I am not hearing that.
The people on our boats that are doing the temperature surveys could tell you that there is an increase in the Clyde. Kenny MacNab has just said that in terms of water temperature. I do not believe that any of us has said that we do not want the cod to be there—so I will speak for myself, please. It is not that.
The reality of what we are dealing with on the ground involves different stocks coming in. I will quote some of my colleagues from Shetland who have given us figures. Over the past 20 years, the abundance of bony fish there has increased by 94 per cent; six species of crab, lobster and scallops have increased by 99 per cent; and 37 species of sharks, skates and rays have increased by 301 per cent, against a global decline of 71 per cent. A NatureScot study showed all that. Eleven species of squid and octopus have increased by 398 per cent. That shows that things are changing on the ground. It is not that we do not want any particular stock to be there; it is just that there is a reality of the environment changing, and we have to be responsive to that—and sensible.
I am conscious of the time. I will bring in Evelyn Tweed now, and Emma Roddick has a supplementary question. We will put those questions together and hope to get some answers from the stakeholders.
I want to dig a bit more into the point about the targeted scientific programme. Esther Brooker said that she felt that it was positive, but it needed to be well resourced. Alex Watson Crook also said that it was a positive measure but that it needs more detail.
I would like to get answers to a number of questions from the wider group. Will the programme improve evidence? Will it improve trust? Will it lead to more collaboration?
Do you also want to ask your question now, Emma? We can then address the two questions together.
I can do that, yes. I want to pick up on Dr Heath’s comments about protecting the cod. I understand the keenness to protect it as a specific species. Going back to your comments about the uniqueness of the Clyde, Dr Heath, I wonder whether there are wider implications around biodiversity or viewing the cod as an indicator of the health of other species in the area, which also makes it important.
The Clyde is a unique environment. Some of the most polluted areas of the UK’s waters are in the Clyde, and some of the most pristine and cleanest waters are also in the Clyde. That is why there are marine protected areas there: because it is a hotspot for endangered species that need to be protected—not just fish, but benthos, plankton and wildlife in general. The Clyde is indeed a unique place, which comes from its geology and geography. Cod are part of that system and they have been for centuries.
Yes, things are changing. The amount of haddock in the Clyde is increasing enormously. There is a very high stock of haddock there. Other species are coming in, and there is a turnover of species all the time. Cod have been there for centuries, however. Do we want to be on the watch that sees it disappear?
If we lost cod, would there be a risk to any other species, or are there other considerations in the Clyde?
I am sorry—could you repeat that?
Would the loss of the cod cause other impacts on other species down the line?
That is a difficult question to answer.
I am afraid that I have a bit of a cynical view in relation to the targeted scientific programme. Having read the documents, I took them to say that we do not know enough, so we must have a targeted scientific programme. In other words, it is a case of, “We do not have enough knowledge to take any action now, so we will wait three years.” I do not think that that position is reasonable.
Elaine Whyte mentioned that the marine directorate has accepted the methodology for the assessment but that it does not have confidence in the data. Okay, there are certainly weaknesses in the data, as there are in almost any stock assessment that you might choose to look at. However, we were aware of the weaknesses in the data in the assessment that we did. We did a very extensive sensitivity analysis, which showed that, even if you knew certain things that you currently do not know, the broad conclusions of that assessment remain. In other words, there has been a dramatic long-term decline in cod and there is a very high fishing mortality rate.
Getting more data will improve the precision of that assessment, but it will not change the general result. We are in a position to say that we know something about the state of the stock, and we are in a position to say what sorts of things would likely produce some kind of beneficial effect.
In response to Evelyn Tweed’s point about the targeted science programme, I would say that it would be welcome if we knew what it actually looked like, and if it addressed the right things. It does not appear to be doing that at the moment—I think that most of us would agree on that.
Cynically, we might say that the Scottish Government is proposing an additional collection of data for three years simply to maintain the status quo, and the status quo of the particular legislation is that it is now a quarter of a century old and is not fit for purpose if we are aiming to achieve what we need to do.
The TSP needs to seek the right information, but it is not doing that at the moment.
I go back to what Rea Cris said: it is an illustration of policy driving the science, not vice versa. That really is not good enough. We cannot avoid robust, credible evidence for the sake of discredited policy agendas. We need a TSP that looks at how we manage and minimise bycatch.
12:15
We also need to consider the ban on creeling. I know that there are issues with the science around creeling that we have not touched on. At the moment, there is no evidence that creeling is having a disturbing effect, so that needs to be dealt with in the order as well. We need to lift the prohibition on creeling.
Mike Heath suggested reducing effort in fisheries to try to save cod. I refer him to some marine directorate figures. Thirteen years ago, we had 66 vessels over 15m in the Clyde; we now have 15. We have lost two thirds of our fleet under 15m.
The total sea area of the Clyde is about 3,600km. You cannot possibly fish all that, but that is the sea area. In those 13 years, due to the establishment of five marine protected areas and 18 fish farms, and the loss of ground to the Royal Navy, we have lost about 1,150 km, which is a third of our fishing area. That has resulted in the decimation of communities.
When I walk along the front street of the village that I live in, I could weep. Fifteen years ago, we had a thriving community with about 25 boats. Since that time, I have seen three hotels, three restaurants, two grocers’ shops and two banks shut, and the community is now a shadow of its former self. That is mainly down to losing the fishing.
We have fish farming, which helps slightly—we took some of those jobs—but in our community of 1,400 people we lost about 60 full-time jobs.
I am sorry to interrupt you. We will come back to the socioeconomic part of it so that you can focus on that. We appreciate that that impact is an incredibly important part of the legislation, and I will come back to you on it, but let us come back to the science again.
I just want to say, briefly, that I have never advocated for reducing fishing effort. What we need to do is improve the efficiency of the fishing so that it is not taking the bycatch. That is the key thing.
That is what we are doing.
I know that, but it needs to go further. The focus of the targeted scientific programme has to be figuring out how to make fishing gear even more efficient at not catching cod.
I call Elaine Whyte, and then we will move on to our next topic.
I want to respond to Alex Watson Crook. She said that we can all agree that we have enough science, but I do not agree with that point. We have to work on trust and we need to work on practical science. A lot of trust has been lost.
Just so that everyone knows, we have been doing quite a lot in the meantime. We have a BAT map—bycatch avoidance tool mapping—project, which looks at instances of high-density catch of things that we do not want to catch. We developed that ourselves, so Mike Heath might not know about it.
We have to make communication better, because there has obviously been a breakdown. We talked to the University of Stirling and we are talking to the University of St Andrews. Maybe the University of Strathclyde does not know everything that is happening practically in the science. We are happy to work on that.
We are talking about something that happened in 2019. That is not five years ago—it is seven years ago. We really have to get science on the issue that we trust.
We talked about getting observers on fishing trips. That has been difficult to do, because, as Kenny MacNab just indicated, there are hardly any boats out there some days—our fleet has been decimated. Trying to get people who are able to take people out is quite a challenge, because of the state of our fleet.
I would argue that decisions are being made on a precautionary principle, because there is a fear of management by litigation. That is where we are, and we have to get out of that space.
I have a question for Elaine Whyte. Is the data that is coming from other academic establishments being shared with those in the marine directorate, because they are the key people?
Yes. We have always insisted on doing everything with the marine directorate. You should know that, because I think that you made a freedom of information request for the previous report, and took the matter to the Scottish Information Commissioner. There is also information from the BAT map system, on which we are working with other partners.
We will move on to look at proposed management measures, with questions from Beatrice Wishart.
We have already heard, in discussing the science, views on whether the proposed three-year period for the SSI is justified. What adaptive review mechanisms could be included in that period? Does reinstating exemptions risk undermining the conservation intent of the closure? Could tailored, controlled exemptions achieve a more balanced outcome?
Who would like to kick off? The proposed three-year period raises concerns about whether any interim measures will be brought forward on the back of some of the work that has been done.
I would turn that question around and ask the Scottish Government what adaptive management mechanisms there are in its fisheries policy. The Scottish Government is not particularly strong in that regard—when new evidence comes in, things do not necessarily change particularly rapidly.
Would anyone else like to comment on interim measures?
I would like some advice on whether removing the measures that were introduced in 2022 to prohibit creeling, in particular, would jeopardise any scientific programme. I do not believe that they have any impact on cod stocks.
Ariane Burgess, would you like to come back with the question that you started to ask in the previous set of questions?
Okay—thank you, convener. I will see if I can cobble it together again. I was inspired by Alastair Hamilton’s point that the closure is not doing anything and Robin Cook’s follow-on point that it is not enhancing the stock.
Dr Cook, you said that the closed area is focused on spawning, but you asked whether that is the most effective way to protect spawning stocks. That inspired my question: what else could we be doing?
As Professor Heath was saying, I am quite sure that, in trying to improve the selectivity of the gears that operate, fishermen are doing everything that they can to avoid catching cod. They have made modifications to gears and so forth. It is a question of what more we can do to improve that selectivity, so that nephrops trawlers do not catch any cod and reduce the stock.
There is a question about creels, which I find unclear. The Scottish Government—or at least the marine directorate—has argued that there may be significant bycatch of cod in creels. The Government says that it has data on that, but I have asked it a number of times to explain what information it has and I have not received any indication as to what those data are. I understand that those data do not come from the Clyde.
It is possible that there is a bycatch in creels that needs to be addressed. I would have thought that that bycatch was pretty small, but I do not know that.
I want to dig into that a bit more, and then other people can come in. Are we using the right measure? If we took that measure away, what could we be doing to get us where we want to be—protecting the cod stock?
A few people have mentioned creels and mobile fishing and the impact of that. The convener is entirely right—when the report initially came out, it said that any noise at all had an impact. That could be noise from leisure boats or anything.
My argument, therefore, is that the approach is not right for creel boats or for the small mobile boats that operate in there either. I do not think that the initial measures were ever right for the small fleet.
I point out, while we are talking about this, that our guys have a licence, the same as everybody else nationally has a licence. They have quotas and they do everything the same as everyone else. However, our guys are being curtailed in a way that nobody else is nationally; their markets are being curtailed as well their ability to fish and their science.
If we want to do things better, we need to work with the marine directorate, because we need an honest party in the room. We cannot let this be political or have fishermen turned against fishermen, depending on their gear type. I have guys who fish with both of the gear types. I do not want it to be political—I want us to have a decent science programme that makes sense. I would like that to be rolled out nationally to some extent before we start making decisions, because the issue is bigger than just the Clyde.
I will ask a supplementary question that is political. Is this situation typical of the Government, which wants to be everybody’s friend and is unwilling to make the really hard decisions, based on the science, that are going to annoy some people?
We have heard previously that one of the reasons that the Government excluded everyone was to ensure that there was no discrepancy, or a drop-off in the markets, for boat-based nephrops fishing. That then saw creelers benefit from their competition being excluded.
The idea was to say, “Let’s just ban everyone, so we’re not pitching fishermen against fishermen.” Ultimately, however, if the science suggests that the biggest impact on the cod population in the Clyde is bycatch from nephrops fishing, the Government needs to take the bull by the horns and do something about that. It needs to support the nephrops business and incentivise gear innovation and different types of fishing while ensuring that the sector does not lose out. However, the Government is just not willing to do that.
If that is a question to me, I think that, again, it is a national issue. The Clyde is the focus because we have done things. Our men themselves implemented the closure, and we brought out the no-take zone.
We have done a lot of good things on conservation policy that have actually turned round and bitten us. The issue has become a piece of meat for people to chew on and make it very political.
We have to remember that the whole thing happened because of the Bute house agreement. It was not based on science initially. We are all retrofitting aspects on to it—we are talking about sediment disturbance and bycatch. The measure was to prevent a targeting of white fishery and it has turned into a million different things to a million different people.
Fishermen, whether they are static or mobile, are tearing their hair out. This is about their lives. I know that we will go into the socioeconomics later, but when we hear about what has happened and hear Sean McIlwraith’s story and the other stories that I have heard, we see the impact that it has had in real life—away from this table, where we are talking theoretically about models and everything else. It has been really devastating.
I will bring in Sean at this point.
Ah have a statement here, convener—it is quite long. Ah do not know if you are happy fur me tae read it.
Absolutely—go ahead.
It puts everything intae perspective for me.
I am here today as a fourth-generation lobster and crab fisherman from Ballantrae in the Firth of Clyde. Fishing is not just my job—it is my identity and all that I have ever known. SSI 2026/10, with its track-record requirement, effectively shuts people like me out of our own waters. If you do not fit the paperwork, you do not get tae fish, regardless of skill, sustainability or family history.
The closure of the cod box for the fifth year running, combined with the pressure of the interim crab and lobster measures, has meant reduced safe areas to fish in and a reduction of up to 69 per cent of our total catch return at times. Taken together, those measures are making viability for a small community-based boat very, very difficult.
This is not just an economic issue—it has a serious impact on my mental health. Watching your livelihood disappear because of decisions that are made away from the harbour is deeply distressing. People in power may see this as a policy; for us, it is the slow killing of a profession, a community and a way of life that has existed for generations.
We want sustainable seas—we depend on them—but sustainability must include the people who have fished responsibly for decades. Right now, these decisions are pushing local fishermen out, not protecting the Clyde.
Thank you, Sean.
I will bring in Alex Watson Crook.
I hear you, Sean, and SIFT fully supports removing the prohibition—I have said that already, but I will keep repeating it.
I have a question around that—potentially for you, Professor Heath—on what we know about the proportion of cod caught in creels in comparison to trawling. I certainly do not understand that, but perhaps you do.
Convener, going back to what you were saying about the political aspects, and Elaine Whyte’s comments on the wider issues and what we should be dealing with nationally and at a local level, I hope that that we do not consider the Scottish Parliament information centre to be particularly political in any way, but, back in 2024, it wrote two amazing blogs ahead of the committee’s last consideration of this matter. The last line of the second blog says:
“Future consideration of the Scottish Government’s approach to the Clyde seasonal closure could seek clear answers about whether recovering Clyde cod remains the defining policy objective”.
That is so clear. The question is this: is that what the Scottish Government is trying to achieve here? If so, what you have in front of you will not achieve it.
I want to echo that last point and say that SPICe’s two-part briefing is excellent. It also speaks to what has been said around the room about a lack of trust and transparency, and I want to just pull back a bit and highlight the real concern that there is around the marine directorate. The directorate’s head of sea fisheries has come in and given anecdotal evidence not once, but twice, and I think that, as parliamentarians and stewards of legislation, you should be highly concerned that the directorate has repeatedly not done what has been asked.
Just to pull out even further, I would point out that a lot of people in this room have been involved in the evidence-taking sessions for your pre-budget scrutiny—they are usually, to the convenience of the marine directorate and the Government, pitched against each other—and they have been talking about a lack of transparency from, and trust in, the marine directorate. It speaks to a wider concern about what is actually happening at the Government and marine directorate level. If a rogue department is leading, or misdirecting, the Government, it goes back to what I was saying about not having evidence-led policy and not listening to the people whose livelihoods and communities are being decimated. Instead, what you have is policy-led evidence; you are trying to fit the square thing into the round hole, and vice versa.
Therefore, it should really concern the committee that statutory and policy obligations are not being met—and, indeed, are being wilfully ignored. I think that the committee has heard as much on many different occasions; I am thinking, for example, of the inshore fishery management consultations, in which you had marine directorate officials sometimes prejudging a consultation decision. The committee has heard a lot of concerning things coming out of the marine directorate, and I think that that is where the focus needs to be. What is actually going on there?
In general, the main reason for implementing a spawning closure is that fish, when they spawn, are easier to catch. If you have a directed fishery and you want to protect the stock, it is a good way of going about things.
Given that there is no directed fishery any longer, the question is: is this still necessary? It seems to me that the justification now for a spawning closure is not to reduce the amount of mortality occurring during spawning, but to reduce disturbance. That is an argument that is produced to justify an existing policy—it is not an argument for a policy.
I have the benefit of looking at stocks all around the world, particularly in the United States, Namibia and South Africa, and I have never heard it argued that disturbance to spawning fish is a problem. These fisheries are not dissimilar to those that we see in the Clyde. I think, therefore, the argument that disturbance from whatever source is a factor is not sustainable.
Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, if you look at the rate at which recruits are produced per female, you will see that it has increased, not decreased, over time, and you would have expected that productivity to decline if disturbance was a factor. It is not evident in the data.
Would reinstating the exemptions significantly impact the outcomes that the Scottish Government wants to achieve, or is this tool just simply so unfit for purpose it would make no difference, given that most of the exemptions have been developed around disturbance to spawning?
The disturbance argument is really neither here nor there—I do not think that these measures will reduce disturbance to such a degree that it will have any noticeable benefit. There might be an argument that excluding nephrops trawling during the spawning period might reduce fishing mortality to some degree, but that has nothing to do with disturbance.
On a point of clarification, what kind of disturbance are we talking about? Is it disturbance from sound, from trawling, from contact with the bottom of the seabed or from something else?
The argument is that activities prevent fish from successfully spawning—it could be noise or physical disturbance from, say, a trawl going through a spawning aggregation. However, there are all sorts of natural causes, too—seal predation, for example. Seals will be attacking spawning populations, and they will disturb cod. Severe storms will also have an impact. I would have thought that the added disturbance caused by creeling was negligible, but that is an opinion and it is not based on data.
Elaine, do you think that tailored, controlled exemptions should be considered as part of this tool, given the impact on fishing businesses that are excluded?
I go back to the fact that, in order to answer that question, we need to be doing neutral, unbiased science without any political influence. We have never had a massive problem in our dealings with the marine directorate; what I am seeing is a marine directorate that is underresourced and that is having issues because, as I have mentioned, it is all, in my opinion, about management by fear of litigation. We are frightened that somebody is going to take us to judicial review or that we are not meeting the conditions of the Fisheries Act 2020. As a result, we are being forced into a situation that is not ideal for anybody.
What we really need to do is, potentially, look at the by-catch in all the fishing methods, but also look at the finfish trials and try to get them re-established. We also need to work with local boats. When I was invited to this meeting, I asked who was going to be at it so that I could bring two fishermen along, because I was very aware that I was going to be just one voice.
I think that that is symptomatic of everything that is happening. Things are happening to fishermen; they are not as involved in the science as they should be. If we can get to that position over the next few years and do this right, it could be very positive when it comes to making decisions.
I want to respond to Elaine Whyte’s point about policy making by fear of litigation by saying that that has happened already. Open Seas has taken the Scottish Government to court. It won, and it won on appeal, and the Scottish Government is still not adhering to its obligations. I repeat that this SSI has not been assessed against the national marine plan, and that, again, breaches the court order.
I think that what Elaine Whyte talked about has happened, and I am not placing the blame for that on the industry. I place the blame on the Scottish Government, because it needs to adhere to its statutory and policy obligations, and it is not doing so across a whole range of stuff.
Do you want to respond to that, Elaine?
Yes, because this is another issue that has come up. We might all be hearing the same thing, but we are all taking different interpretations from it. For example, we have never seen marine planning as a fisheries management tool—I think that that is the position of the Scottish Government. What I, you and other stakeholders understand when we hear “marine planning” are different things, and that is another pressure on fishermen. We engage in marine planning in our area; ours was the only pilot area, and then there were Shetland and Orkney. It has been really difficult, because the main focus of marine planning has been fisheries management by the majority of stakeholders around that table. The Clyde is very much a political issue, and that has been a struggle for us all.
You can respond to that, Rea, and then we will move on.
I just want to come back quickly on that and say that what we need to do is take this back to legislation. Legislation is not up for interpretation—it is not a case of what my interpretation is, what your interpretation is and so on.
Legislation is stated, and the Scottish Government is not meeting its legal obligations. The law was decided by the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament, and the Scottish Government is not meeting those obligations. That is not open to interpretation. If we do not like the law, that is another question, about whether we need to change primary legislation.
Which part of the law are you talking about in marine planning and fisheries management?
Well, there is national marine planning legislation and we have the Fisheries Act 2020. There are objectives that the Scottish Government is not meeting, and we have policy statements. It is not really worth getting into the minutiae of the law—the point that I am making is that law is not open to interpretation. The only ones who can do that are the courts, and, as I said, it has already been proven in court that the Scottish Government is not following the legislation.
Okay. I will move on to Professor Heath.
The question was whether the exemptions should be reinstated, and I would say absolutely yes. The case for the removal of the disturbance exemption is spectacularly weak. The evidence is drawn from small-scale studies elsewhere in the world. Not one shred of evidence has ever been generated in the Clyde that disturbance is sufficient to interrupt or disturb the cod—not one shred. I understand why people would be fearful of striking down those exemptions, but my opinion is that you can quite safely do so and there will be no adverse consequences.
Kenneth, we are going to move on to socioeconomic impacts, but if you want to respond to this discussion, please do so briefly.
Just briefly, I hear what Robin Cook and Mike Heath have said about disturbance, and I think that it is really sad. We had a member—a creel man—who lost his business through disturbance. He packed it in because of the closure, and now I hear them saying that disturbance is neither here nor there. That is a really sad situation. I know the man personally, and he gave up his business because of the closure.
Professor Heath can come in to respond to that.
I am saying that we should allow creeling in the spawning enclosure area, and that is what Robin said, too.
That is not what Robin said.
That is what I am saying.
My interpretation is that the two scientists are suggesting that any removal of exemptions relating to noise disturbance and so on was not founded in science that was based on the Clyde. However, that is certainly the argument that the Government pushed strongly the last time that we discussed the measure. That is one of the reasons why we are sitting round this table—it is because of the dispute over the science that was used to inform the Clyde cod box policies.
The west wind creates more noise than any creel would ever create.
We will move on to socioeconomic impacts. Alasdair Allan has questions on that.
We have talked quite a bit about socioeconomic impacts, but I would like your opinion on whether the legislation that we are looking at reaches some kind of balance between socioeconomic impacts and other issues, such as environmental issues. Is the legislation evolving—that is the phrase that others have used—to cope with changing circumstances? What do people feel about the alternative scenario, which is that the legislation is not passed?
I am going to sound like Elaine Whyte for a moment here. You have to take a look at the bigger picture. This piece of legislation is for a six-week closure in the Clyde. That is not, on its own, damaging, but when you look at how it lies alongside all the other cumulative effects of closures—we have heard about the five MPAs and the seabed that is required for the navy—the overall cumulative impact of all those restrictions is to push fishing towards commercial unviability.
I looked at the socioeconomic impact work that the Government has done. It said that an island communities impact assessment was not required. However, I work with people from Kintyre and the islands, and, to be honest, the reason why Magnus Barelegs called Kintyre the mainland island was because we all face the same issues. We have depopulation and difficulty getting there, and we want to keep those populations there as much as we can.
12:45
Obviously, Sean McIlwraith has given his opinion, and a few other fishermen wanted to say something. Paul McAllister has two young children aged two and four. He had three boats and he sold one. He was employing 10 people and is now employing seven people. He has started the paperwork to leave for New Zealand with his young family, because the stress of this is becoming too much for him. The point that he made was that Campbeltown Creamery ran a full campaign to save the creamery, with 11 full-time members of staff. He had 10. That is the impact that this measure is having on local communities such as Campbeltown and all around the Clyde. It is really important. He will leave a tight-knit family because of situations like this.
You mentioned Kenny Campbell. It eats at my conscience every night that we could not help him through this debacle. As I said, it is political to some people sitting around the table, but that man gave up.
Andrew Harrison made some points. He was very disappointed about the perception of bycatch—because we are all talking about bycatch. Every single time that he goes out for a trip, he logs what he catches, and it is less than 1 per cent cod. That data is with Marine Scotland, so why are we not using it?
My final point is from Alex Gillies, who, like Andrew Harrison, took part in the CFA trials. He said:
“Why is the Clyde completely different from every other area? Any science should happen not only in the Clyde but nationally. Also the pressure of monitoring that we are under. We have monitoring boats following our boats when we leave the harbour. It feels like we are doing something illegal when we are just doing what every other legal fisherman does in the country.”
It is really easy to forget the impact. I take the phone calls from people, so I hear how stressed out they have been through this situation. People keep saying that they have written to the media or to someone else, but this is about people’s lives. They are not all here to be heard, and it is not a game. The socioeconomic impacts are really serious. You can see the figures for the drop in landings—we lost well over £1.5 million. That is not £1.5 million for just one year; that is for every year that this measure is in place, which is a significant amount of money to places like Kintyre and Ayrshire. We need to start thinking about that. We need to be aware of the massive impact that this measure is having. It is about not just the landing figures but the whole industry that is attached to those figures as well.
Thank you for sharing your stories—I really sympathise with the views that are coming forward. I emphasise that we need to take a much more ecosystem-based approach to this, and, as Professor Heath mentioned earlier, people are part of the ecosystem. The marine environment is a very complex place. We are looking at one spawn enclosure that supports one stage of a fish’s life history. We have already talked about how we are not necessarily taking into account all the rest of the impacts or the rest of the life stages. We need to make policy that is smarter and that can leverage benefits for people. We know that healthy seas and healthy fish populations support sustainable businesses, and we want to see legislation done in a smarter way in conjunction with other aspects. People have mentioned things such as marine protected areas. We know about the UK Fisheries Act 2020, and we have fisheries management plans. There are a lot of different pieces on the board, and they all need to work together in a way that will enhance the opportunities for sustainable businesses and communities.
Following on from Esther Brooker’s points, I echo what she said about the need to take an ecosystem-based approach. Marine protected areas have been mentioned several times now, so it is a good time to mention the no-take zone and the south Arran MPA. These areas both show that a zoning approach supports habitats as well as commercially important species and increases opportunities for low-impact fishing, such as creels and diving. We have seen a real increase in scallops and other commercially important species in the areas that support these businesses.
COAST is really concerned about the drop in fishing levels in the Clyde. Over 20 years, we have seen an 80 per cent reduction in trawl and dredge vessels and around a 70 per cent reduction in static fishing vessels. There used to be productive fishing communities on Arran, but that is no longer the case, because of the unchecked trawling and dredging, which have completely decimated the stocks that we are talking about today. We need effective measures to address that. The current measures have been in place since the year that I was born and have done nothing to address the decline in the stock. We need to address bycatch and, as Esther Brooker was saying, we need a wider ecosystem-based approach that looks at the habitat and the whole lifecycle of the cod.
I am a bit puzzled about where the idea of a decline in stocks has come from. When I went into fishing, in 1969, the nephrops fishery was a summer fishery, but it is now an all-year-round fishery. There are 10 times more prawns, as we call them, in the Clyde now than when I went into fishing, so there has been a massive increase in the stock.
Campaign groups are saying on social media that there are no herring in the Clyde—what a load of nonsense. We do not fish for herring in the Clyde because it is not economically viable. For a start, they have to be transported to Peterhead, which costs £1,500 for every lorry that goes up the road. The nephrops fishery is profitable and the trawlers have done consistently well there for the past six years.
We were the last boats to partake in the herring fishery. As I explained, we left it because it was not economically viable, and it has not been so for the last six years, but that does not mean that there are no herring in the Clyde. The quota for the Clyde is 530 tonnes, and the Northern Irish Fish Producers Organisation has two thirds of that, because of its track record. A month before Christmas, two boats came up the Clyde from Northern Ireland and fished 340 tonnes of herring in one night. Saying that stocks are depleted in different areas of the Clyde is complete and utter nonsense. The boats are working in a nephrops fishery because it is economically viable and sustainable.
Emma Harper has a question for both Kenneth MacNab and Sean McIlwraith.
It is a question about socioeconomics. What do you do during the six-week closure?
It is not six weeks; it is 11 weeks.
Sorry—my mistake.
There are only two people in the room who are not getting paid today: me and Sean McIlwraith. Everybody else in the room is getting a salary. [Interruption.] You will get expenses, Robin—do not worry. We are here voluntarily. Everyone in the room would be jumping up and down if their boss told them that they were taking 11 weeks of their salary away again this year, but we are going into the fifth year of that happening. Would you take that? That is what we have to take.
Everybody says about mobile gear, “Oh, you can just go somewhere else,” but, if we do that, we will annoy someone else, because we will take their fishery. We would move the effort and double it somewhere else. Working around an 11-week closure is nearly impossible.
We are the same, although we have static gear. Before it shut, we couldnae trawl the south coast of Arran and the east coast. Around 2014, there was a great abundance of scallops. In oor last towing there, we caught five or six baskets of scallops. Where had they come from? They were always there.
Now, we are having to move our static gear and our scallop boats outside the area, up towards Girvan, which is causing conflict with other creelers and scallop boats, because we are all pushed into one area. We are also loading wir boat up, because, up until last week, we didnae know that this was coming into play again. We have to move all our creels and wait for good weather to dae that—to load wir boat up—because me and my crew can only take 40 creels comfortably, to be on the safe side. Aye, it is stressful.
I appreciate that we are talking here about the negative impacts on the industry, especially where those impacts are not justified by the science. That is just insufficient. However, more broadly, we need to think about the potential positive impacts of bringing back the biodiversity through the recovery of whitefish, cod and other species in the area.
I am not playing politics. I have been in Prestwick for nearly three decades now, and I love the place. When I first arrived there, as a marine compliance officer, it was thriving in relation to tourism, accommodation and festivals, particularly in the recreational sea angling environment. That is all gone now, and there is nothing else there.
There are stakeholders who are considered not to be part of this process. If we cannot get quota for cod, or if we do not know whether the measures will work, why bother? However, we can surely all agree on the need for diversification of the fleet and the need to bring resilience into the fishing industry and the Clyde ecosystem as a whole through the recovery of whitefish stocks more generally.
I am here voluntarily, because I am a young person who is concerned about the future of the Clyde. I am not being paid to be here today.
In 10 years’ time, I want to see a Clyde that is flourishing. Imagine if we had the cod stock in a state where there was a fishery again. Alex Watson Crook talked about diversification, and using an ecosystem-based approach for the whole Clyde would help us to achieve that.
On the points that have been made about the south Arran MPA, there needs to be consideration of what happens to the cod when they are not in the spawning area and disperse across the Clyde. Research from the south Arran MPA by the University of Glasgow into the habitat requirements for juvenile cod has shown that they prefer more complex seabed habitats. We know that bottom trawling and dredging decrease the complexity of seabed habitats. That was recognised in the 2020 marine assessment as being the most widespread physical impact on Scotland’s seabed habitats. Taking an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management would help to support cod throughout those different life stages.
We are talking about cod, and the issues will be similar in different areas and different countries. Lots of non-domestic fleets are fishing English waters just south of the Clyde. They are using very large vessels and they are not monitored in any way at all. We need to consider such points.
Going back to the biomass point, we are talking about having a thriving Clyde, but I do not know how many fishermen I have spoken to who have said that there are more fish in the Clyde now than they have seen in so long, potentially because there are hardly any boats left. Recent reports are that sprats have increased, for example, as have herring. The fish biomass is therefore increasing, but the fish are smaller, and different types of stock are coming in, including bluefin tuna. There are different opportunities and there is a different ecosystem. It is not static, and people are also part of that ecosystem—we need to remember that. This is a national issue that we need to get our heads around.
We were part of the no-take zone when it first started, and we have not had very good communication about it in the past few years. That has become a bit of a regret of ours, because we have not been involved in it as we would have wanted to be. Our fishermen have weekend bans and conservation measures beyond those anywhere else in Scotland, yet we are still here, talking about this, when no one else is. There is a point at which you are putting stress on communities and fishing reps and associations. This is the culture that you are impacting. Alex Watson Crook said that she came to Prestwick when it was thriving. I have been in this job for 12 years—I have been through MPA campaigns, highly protected marine area campaigns, regulating order campaigns and various others things coming at us—and the one thing that I will say is that the fishermen have not been involved as they should have been.
I am really glad that Robin and Mike are here, because I hope that we can start talking together about these issues a bit better and that we can work together on the science, because communication is important. We need to get away from the politicisation, because these are people’s lives.
13:00
A couple of people have mentioned the problem whereby the spawning closure simply diverts effort elsewhere, which is a particularly important issue in evaluating it. Closed areas generally do not work very well, because they displace vessels elsewhere and the mortality that there would have been in the spawning area is simply experienced elsewhere. In relation to this particular measure, we have to ask the question: is the cost that we are imposing on the fishery by closing an area worth the benefit that we are likely to get from that closed area? It is questionable, frankly.
Esther Brooker, very briefly.
That echoes my earlier point about needing a smarter and more cohesive policy framework.
We have come to the end of our session. It would appear that there is very little support for the SSI as it stands at the moment. We need something different, but everybody is coming at it from a slightly different angle. In my view, it is unfortunate that we are discussing the issue again. However, your evidence has been hugely helpful, and we will raise those issues with the cabinet secretary before the committee takes a decision on the SSI. I thank you for your contributions, time and commitment today.
I ask you to remain seated so that we can deal very briefly with the last agenda item.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Agricultural Products) (Consequential Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/407)
13:01
The last item on our agenda is consideration of a negative instrument: the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Agricultural Products) (Consequential Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 (SSI 2025/407). Do members have any comments to make on the instrument?
As no members have any comments to make on the instrument, that concludes our proceedings in public.
13:01
Meeting continued in private until 13:26.
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