Chamber and committees

I intend to press it, convener.

Thank you, convener. I have a number of questions about the Endrick Water. Cabinet secretary, do you know yet how many riparian owners there are on the Endrick?

But there are some active fisheries. I understand what you said to my colleague earlier about a series of letters. Is any enforcement action taken if active fisheries do not provide returns?

The Government has been trying to do that for years, convener.

It has been a great debate. I say as a matter of record that I am always happy to engage with the cabinet secretary at any point, but it is fair to say that my constituents have been engaging since 2016 and they feel that nothing has really changed, that it is groundhog day and that they keep coming back to talk about the same thing.

For the record, it is not the methodology that matters—I entirely accept what the cabinet secretary has said about its being benchmarked against others. The reality is that it is the input data that matters. That is the issue before us, and we have been trying for more than eight years to get some sense in terms of the data that is processed using the methodology.

I also want to say a little bit about the legislative process, because I am always very much of the view that where there is a will there is always a way. This Parliament has introduced regulations from scratch in days—I point you to the regulations on cremations and burials, which affected my constituents directly. We have gone through stages 1, 2 and 3 of primary legislation in a day, dealing with bills whose actual evolution has taken less than a week. Taking the convener’s lead, I would suggest that you could amend the subordinate legislation; indeed, you could resubmit it tomorrow, having removed the contentious provisions and leaving in the provisions related to the Annan and other rivers. It is that easy. Therefore, I invite the committee to consider carefully what option it wishes to encourage the Government to follow.

Neither I nor others with an interest in Loch Lomond can speak to what is going on in other rivers, but, as Rhoda Grant has highlighted, 46 per cent of those consulted raised issues about the data. We cannot keep going on like this, year after year, having the same conversations, just because the data has not improved. We are not doing salmon conservation—or regeneration, for that matter—any good if we continue to lack the evidence to act.

Who knew that salmon protection and conservation could be so interesting?

The suggestion is, therefore, that the information on the number of owners—whether we call them owners or fisheries—is incomplete.

No, thank you.

I am grateful to you, convener, and to the committee for affording me time to speak to the Conservation of Salmon (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. I do so with a heavy heart, because I believe that everyone around the table shares a desire to conserve and—dare I say it?—regenerate salmon stocks in Scottish rivers. I believe that that also applies to the cabinet secretary and to the anglers in my constituency. However, we must do that on the basis of accurate data.

Those of you who know me will appreciate that this is not my specialist subject, but it is not the first time that I have had to raise concerns from my local community about such regulations. In this context, I have been contacted by the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association, an organisation in my constituency that I believe is approaching its centenary, which means that it is safe to say that those anglers know the local rivers well.

My first such outing on the subject was back in 2017, and I came before the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee—of which this committee’s convener was a member—in March 2018. The story now is remarkably similar, so today feels a little like groundhog day. The data has not improved in eight years. I will be absolutely clear: the problem is not with the methodology but with the data that is gathered and used as the basis for the regulations.

The cabinet secretary promised to make the best use of information and data, but we have been providing local information since 2016-17 and that does not appear to have been taken on board. In 2017, the issue was the lack of data and evidence on which similar regulations were based. If we roll forward eight years, we find ourselves here with a new set of regulations but the same problems with a lack of data.

The members of the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association are not shy and have been in dialogue with the Government for a long time, so to suggest that they are not providing information is slightly remiss. I say at the outset that the association has no desire to stop the provisions that relate to the Annan salmon fishery district, nor does it wish to criticise, object to or endorse proposals for any other rivers or their catchment areas, because we do not know the details of those. However, I note that 46 per cent of respondents to the consultation had concerns about the data used by the marine directorate.

The association’s concerns relate specifically to the Endrick Water special area of conservation, which is linked to the adjoining Loch Lomond catchment area. Those concerns were first raised in 2016. Meetings with marine directorate officials followed, and there have been letters to the cabinet secretary over the years. Most recently, the association emailed officials about the regulations, which resulted in a meeting in October 2024. The cabinet secretary is aware that I wrote to her in November and December 2024 to outline those concerns, in the hope that they would be listened to and that the regulations would be amended before publication.

I take a moment to note that the association does not allow salmon to be retained until 1 May and for the whole month of October—which is more than is required by statute—in order to protect spring salmon, fish nearing spawning and late-running fish. This is not about stopping the conservation or regeneration of salmon but is quite the contrary, as the association’s practices demonstrate.

At the heart of the problem is the lack of data. The cabinet secretary rightly talked about best evidence and data, but the best evidence and data in this respect is poor. The association reports the data about salmon catches on the stretches of the Endrick that it owns but, until 2017, the marine directorate did not appear to have much knowledge of fishery owners on other stretches of the Endrick. The association helped by supplying that information, but it is clear from the earlier evidence that the marine directorate does not know all the fisheries that are operating, which means that the data is incomplete.

Unfortunately, very few fishery owners supply catch information, despite there being an existing legislative requirement to do so. It is also clear from the evidence that the committee has just heard that no enforcement action is in place regarding owners who do not supply information. A freedom of information request revealed that, in 2016, only two returns of catch data were submitted by fishery owners and that one of those came from the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association. In 2017, there were three returns, one of which was from the association. There are many more fishery owners on the Endrick, but the marine directorate does not appear to have pursued them for catch data. The association also contests that nil catches were declared. Its water bailiffs have seen and recorded catches from other stretches of the Endrick not in the association’s ownership, where owners have declared nil returns.

All of that information has been shared in great detail with the marine directorate since 2016 right up to now, but it does not appear to have resulted in any substantial change. I am interested in hearing whether there are any plans to put a counter on the Endrick, given the number of times that I have had to appear at this committee, making the case for local data.

In summary, I understand that 99 per cent of the fish recorded on the Endrick are returned, but its poor grading would mean that Loch Lomond itself, the River Fruin and the River Leven, which are classed as moderate, would drop to poor, too. That is the detrimental impact of having flawed data.

I ask the committee to invite the Government to withdraw the regulations. It can resubmit them, removing the change to the Endrick’s grading until it has evidence for that, and it can do so at pace, so as not to affect the provisions in the regulations that members support. It has done so with regulations in other circumstances in a matter of days; it should do the right thing here and withdraw the regulations. However, if it fails to do so, I hope that the committee will support my motion to annul them.

I move,

That the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee recommends that the Conservation of Salmon (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 be annulled.

If it will bring you out to the A82, I will promise sunshine for you, convener.