Chamber and committees

I would say that we already work very collaboratively, and I hope that that came across in your previous sessions. I listened to quite a bit of your second panel, but I was in meetings when you were speaking to your first panel.

I think that the reason why we have reached this place in which we have broad buy-in from the vast majority of the fishing sector and from our ENGOs for our approach is that we have taken a collaborative approach. There will always be people who do not think that we are doing enough on the conservation side, but we are fulfilling our statutory duties while taking into account the pressures on the fishing industry.

I must pay tribute to my officials who are with me and the teams that are not with me just now. They have had not just an open-door approach but a very collaborative approach, which has led us to this point.

If anyone feels that they have not been consulted enough, that is not for the want of opportunity to engage, because there have been engagement opportunities. Those include opportunities in, for example, the EU advisory councils, while we were in the EU. There have been opportunities to be involved in all the MPA consultations and events.

The fact that someone thinks that they might not be affected does not mean that they should not be in the room, putting forward their voice. There are lessons in that for other MPA measures as we go forward. I encourage anyone who is working in the marine sector or whose sector is in the marine sphere, if there are any discussions, including on measures or MPAs, to take up the opportunity to be in the room with the rest of the stakeholders who are involved, to make sure that their voice is heard.

The more that we have that technology deployed on our vessels, the easier it is for us to see whether they comply. First of all, we can see the GPS data of where they are, but we take other measurements as well. We have automated alerts for vessel activity within restricted areas. Vessel transit speed is limited to six knots and we will be able to see if they are going over that. There will also be efforts using other technologies, such as drones, aircraft and compliance vessels.

There are other issues, which John Mouat might be able to explain to you, but I will give you the layman’s version. If, when a vessel is in a restricted area, the gear used to fish is not reeled up in the vessel but is out, that is an issue. There are rules around that as well, such as the requirement to stow fishing gear when the vessel is in a restricted area. Technology will make advancements that help us in relation to those issues, and we have to be alive to that and take advantage of developments.

I go back to my point that, from my perspective, there is no reluctance in the fishing industry about adopting these measures. In fact, my impression is that the industry would like to do more.

We have already bottomed out some of the lessons learned, particularly with regard to the one sector of the fishing industry that did not feel that it was involved. I have set out how we tried to involve it, but it was not satisfied with that. I think that the biggest lesson in that regard is that that sector is now represented at the table. That sector—inshore fisheries—has done a power of work in terms of the innovation around the fishing gear that it uses. It will be a fundamental partner and stakeholder as we go forward.

I would like to replicate the success of what has been done in the fisheries management measures for MPAs. As I say, I heard the feedback from your second panel of witnesses, and I am delighted with the feedback that we have had from the fishing sector generally regarding how we have reached this point. I want to continue the openness and transparency of our approach, as well as the way in which we have listened to stakeholders and engaged the sectors, the ENGOs and the scientific community in everything that we do. All stakeholders have to be around the table.

I do not want to blow our own trumpet, but the current position gives me hope. It certainly seems that we have buy-in from most of the stakeholders around the fishing management measures in the MPAs. We need to continue to take whatever was successful in this particular collaboration into the next pieces of work that we do. We will have calls for evidence, workshops and meetings to review the proposals. We will make sure that all of those are accessible. When I had responsibility for inshore fisheries, quite a lot of the meetings featured people dialling in from vessels. We have to recognise that a lot of the people who want to contribute do not have 9 to 5 jobs, cannot come into the Scottish Parliament and cannot come to in-person meetings. We need to be flexible in that regard.

Everyone wants the decisions that we make in this area to be based on science. I will not go over what we are doing in terms of the monitoring, the data collection and the work of the JNCC in this area, but I will say that we have to be alive to all the data from the fishing fleet and the scientific community and use it to inform those decisions. We must take assistance when offered. The fishing sector has data and studies that it has done with particular universities and so on, and we need to take in that advice and make sure that the JNCC knows about it. We must take a collaborative approach.

I hope that we are coming to all of that from a good starting point. I did not hear the evidence that you took from the first panel of witnesses, but the feedback that I have been getting suggests that, while it is true that there may be people who want full closure sites across all the MPAs and that there might be areas in which fishers want the ability to do more fishing, the collaborative approach that we have taken has been fruitful in terms of balancing those views and coming to a decision on the zonal measures. I am hopeful that we will take that approach into the development of the next measures.

That is true.

That is really important. I am very aware of that. “Disparity” is not the right word, but there are individual small vessels that might not be plugged into any of the organisations that come and give evidence on behalf of a lot of the industry.

First of all, we have to be very careful about those people’s ability to contribute, and in that respect we have to think about their needs rather than Government’s needs.

We have a spatial platform, and John Mouat can give you more detail on how people can have an input. We are improving our outreach in respect of getting people’s views. I will hand over to John to give you more detail on that.

There are two things there. There is your final point about how the industry reacts to this and the adaptations that it might want to make, which is an important aspect, but there is also the point about how we are monitoring.

My marine directorate is working with the JNCC and NatureScot. In particular, if you look at the JNCC’s report, you will see all the references at the back as to where it got the evidence and the data to support its findings. It is using all the most up-to-date evidence and that evidence will be coming not just from the scientific community but from the fishing industry. It will be reaching out. It will be getting assessments on fish stocks and it will be getting vessel monitoring system data, presumably.

Again, these are questions mainly for the JNCC and NatureScot about what their sources are, but they are using the most up-to-date evidence from our universities, from industry, as I say, and from scientific papers. Scottish universities, in particular, are really good on this. Of course, they are also using data associated with the vessels that we have in Marine Scotland. In inshore areas we have the mandatory remote electronic monitoring cameras on the fishing fleet and there are a number of them in smaller vessels in the offshore area.

I could get John Mouat to give you a little bit more detail on how we will monitor, but that is effectively the vehicle for it: NatureScot and the JNCC advising Government based on all the science and all the data that is out there, plus industry information.

That is fine.

With the greatest of respect, convener, you gave me only half of that sentence—that there is a

“presumption in favour of sustainable use”.

The second part is very important and I think that that is reflected in my answer to you, because you put it to me that there was a presumption for sustainable use and I said that it is a balance between the two things.

Indeed.

It does not really.