Chamber and committees

The member may not quite understand that interventions work on the opposite principle to the one that he thinks they do.

Will the member accept that the reason that some people on this side of the chamber look forward to Scotland being a member state of the European Union is that, for the first time, we would be represented in Europe by a Government that puts fishing priorities at the top and not at the bottom of our list of negotiating priorities?

My Western Isles constituency can boast a long and proud fishing heritage. If a fishing vessel has an SY or CY registration, she is likely to be one of the smaller, locally owned vessels that form the economic backbone of many communities from Lewis to Vatersay.

It would be fair to say that fishing communities across Scotland have faced challenging times, not least because of the empty promises that were made to them during the Brexit referendum and the lowly position accorded to fishing in the UK’s negotiating priorities with Europe before and since then by successive Tory and Labour Governments.

Scottish fishing vessels have seen employment fall by some 15 per cent between 2015 and 2024, and the fishing sector in the Western Isles has experienced a drop in employment of nearly a third, with 274 fishing jobs in 2023-24 compared with 376 in 2019-20. Therefore, when I attended the annual general meeting of the Western Isles Fishermen’s Association in Uist recently, it came as little surprise to hear fishers’ reaction to the recent news that the UK Government intends to award less than 8 per cent of the UK coastal growth fund to Scottish fishing communities. Indeed, people’s views on that subject were made very clear to me by several people at the meeting literally before I got in the door—and little wonder.

The UK Labour Government’s decision to give Scotland’s fishermen 7.78 per cent of the UK’s £360 million coastal growth fund is justified by Labour on the basis that it represents Scotland’s so-called Barnett share—that is to say, the figure is reached by looking at Scotland’s share of the UK electorate; it is not based on our share of UK fish landings, as previous allocations have been. It is difficult to see—despite some of the arguments on offer from members today—how any UK Government that had thought about it could see any justification for moving away from counting fish to counting people as the basis for such allocations.

The difference between the two calculations is pretty enormous, given that some 70 per cent by tonnage of the fish landed in the UK in 2023 was landed in Scotland. The Scottish Government had sought funding of £166 million—a 46 per cent share—based on precedent, but that was ignored by the UK in favour of a Barnett-based share that gives Scotland only £28 million. The UK Labour Government’s decision has directly cost Scotland’s fishing communities, including those in my own constituency, some £138 million—and that is before we open up the question of how much Scotland previously received in EU funding pre-Brexit.

I thank the member for intervening, because it gives me the opportunity to say this. I am surprised by the argument that Labour makes in its amendment, and I would hope that the Parliament would not attempt to justify cuts by the UK Government on this scale, although I note, with respect, the contortions that the Labour amendment goes through in an attempt to do exactly that.

To pick up on the member’s point, Labour’s position seems to be that the UK Government has withheld money in that way because the Scottish Government should somehow, using constitutional powers that it does not enjoy, have insisted in advance that it did not do it. I am afraid that that is a pretty feeble argument to put forward, and the fishing communities that are affected will not find it very convincing.

That £138 million has now been lost to projects in Scotland that would seek to modernise our fishing fleet, equip vessels with new technology, train new generations of fishers, boost the seafood sector and support the wider local economy of fishing communities. Those, among other things, are what will be missed.

It takes quite a brass neck to suggest—I think that the Labour amendment takes us down this road—that Scotland should now find that money from its own remaining resources, to make up for what the UK Government has denied us. It takes an even brassier neck—if I can use that phrase—to suggest that the UK Government should then be exonerated from all blame for the situation that has arisen. I hope that the Parliament will see through that argument this evening and act accordingly.

All the evidence tells us that the UK has never viewed Scotland’s fishing industry as important—not now, nor at any point since the 1970s, when it described the industry as “expendable”. The £138 million that the UK has now taken from Scotland’s fishing communities is but the latest example of that, and we should have no hesitation in calling it out or in standing up for the communities for which, by any reasonable person’s reckoning, it must surely be intended.

Will the minister give an indication of the importance that the Scottish Government places on further developing a razor clam fishery in future, specifically in areas such as the Western Isles?

The measures in the bill that seek to avoid the accidental situation of deemed crofts or grazings shares that are separated from crofts will be welcome. I am trying to get a picture in my head of a potential scenario in a township where several crofts could end up without any shares in common grazings. What would the Government’s view be on that, and what would that mean for any new entrant who did want to keep livestock in the village?

Would they be able to graze livestock if, hypothetically, half the available crofts in a village had become separated from the shares in the common grazings?

You mentioned co-operation with other organisations such as RPID. That has come up in evidence. The issue is related, as it is about enforcement. Can you say a bit more about how that will work? In giving evidence to the committee, directly or indirectly, a number of stakeholders have been looking for RPID and the Crofting Commission to work together more closely to gather evidence about activity or inactivity.

That is helpful. You said that only 25 per cent of crofters have livestock. Although I appreciate that there has been a big decline in the amount of livestock that is kept, does the figure take into account things such as subtenancies, grazing agreements or, indeed, abandoned crofts?

I am talking about people who own a share in a grazing but who do not have a croft in that community.

I am aware that the scope of the bill is about banning racing in Scotland. However, as I understand it, it will not directly affect dogs that are kennelled or trained in Scotland and then sent to race in England. I appreciate that it may not be possible or practical for us to legislate on that. Could you say a bit about that issue, which must have been raised during the consultation?