Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Official Report 577KB pdf

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Public Petition

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Scottish Wild Salmon (PE1547)

Agenda item 2 is consideration of public petition PE1547, in the name of Ian Gordon and the Salmon and Trout Association Scotland, on the conservation of Scottish wild salmon. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that no Atlantic salmon are killed before 1 July and to end coastal netting of mixed-stock fisheries.

I refer members to the committee meeting paper, and I invite comments on the petition.

If it helps, I am very happy with the advice offered in the paper, which suggests that we draw the Scottish Government’s attention to the petition following our own look at the wild fisheries structure. I think that that is the logical thing to do.

Yes. If we are agreed on that approach, we will incorporate the petition into our response to the Government on wild fisheries at an early stage. Are we all agreed?

My colleague Claudia Beamish drew attention to press coverage in The Press and Journal this week on concerns about the netting of salmon. I agree with colleagues that this issue needs to be looked at properly. It brings to life some of the discussions that we have been having in the wild fisheries review.

I very much agree that we must make sure that the issues addressed in the petition are brought to the attention of the Scottish Government as part of the review so that a new framework can be developed to enable the issues to be taken forward properly.

You are absolutely correct. I think that we discussed in our response that the sustainable harvest of wild fish is at the root of all our considerations. The petition is interested in dealing with one particular aspect of the harvest of wild salmon; we are interested in every aspect of the harvest of wild salmon and of other species. I therefore think that the proposal in the committee paper, which was highlighted by Alex Fergusson, covers that point. We need to engage the ministers with urgency on the issue, so we should write to them in those terms—if members are agreed.

Absolutely; that is the point that I was making. There are cases across the country, which means that petitions such as this one need to be addressed within the framework of the wild fisheries review. That adds momentum to the review.

Fine—we are in agreement. It struck me that there could be issues related to the netting of salmon, including some that might be addressed in the law courts, that are germane to the issue raised in the petition. We should bear that in mind so that we are talking about a balanced view of the harvest of wild fish.

We are agreed that we will write to the Government and incorporate the petition into our own letter. Our review of the wild fisheries review might take a lot longer to complete, but we are trying to get a letter to the Government that gives a heads-up on some of our headline issues on wild fisheries as soon as possible. The petition will be incorporated into that letter, which will be taken urgently to the Government.

At its next meeting, the committee will consider subordinate legislation on carrier bag charges and return to its consideration of the Common Agricultural Policy (Direct Payments etc) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/58). The committee will also take evidence on the implementation of the Scottish Government’s biodiversity strategy from stakeholders.

Meeting closed at 12:55.