Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee
Meeting date: Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Official Report 651KB pdf
Contents
Petition
Salmon Farms (Closed Containment) (PE1715)
Item 2 is consideration of a public petition. PE1715, which was brought by Mark Carter on behalf of Marine Concern, concerns closed containment in salmon farms in Scotland.
The committee has received responses to its request for information about research and other work that the aquaculture industry in Scotland is doing on closed containment, from the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation and the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre. The petitioner has submitted additional comments. Do members have comments or questions on the information that we have received?
It has been helpful to get responses from the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre and the producers, as well as representations from the petitioner and others.
Many submissions referenced the committee’s report on salmon farming in Scotland and the work of our sister committee, the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, on the issue. I should not pre-empt members’ views on what we want to do about the committee reports, but I think that at some point we will want to revisit our findings.
It is interesting that the SSPO said that closed containment equipment is being trialled in Norway and Canada and went on to say:
“The permitting regime in Scotland does not currently allow for the trialling or piloting of such innovations”.
I would be keen to hear from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency about that. It would be helpful to our deliberations if we understood SEPA’s position.
I took the opportunity, via the Scottish Parliament information centre—and this information is available from SPICe—to ask the Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum whether it has done work on closed containment. SARF referred to some practical uses and said:
“SARF has not specifically commissioned research into the economics of closed containment aquaculture—whether recirculation or other systems on land, or fully enclosed pens at sea”.
It went on to say:
“it is high time we had some high-quality peer-reviewed research in Scotland on this subject. Unfortunately that will not be through the vehicle of SARF, which will shortly be winding-up due to lack of funding, after 15 years of delivery of relevant applied science in aquaculture”,
which is disappointing.
SARF, too, referred to research in Canada. It would be good if the committee agreed to get information from SEPA, ideally through oral evidence to the committee rather than in writing. We should keep the petition open so that we can make a fully informed decision about the petitioner’s wishes.
Before I bring in Angus MacDonald, I should say that, when we discuss aquaculture in Scotland, I always declare that I have an interest in a wild salmon fishery. I do not think that there is any conflict of interest in this context.
It is clear that there are differing views on the commercial feasibility of closed containment salmon production. The industry states that recirculating aquaculture systems are
“neither technically nor commercially feasible in Scotland at this time.”
However, the petitioner, in his latest submission to the committee, states that RAS and other fully contained systems, which can operate inland or at sea, can be cheaper to operate at sea in particular as there are no temperature issues.
From my comparatively limited knowledge of the industry, I am aware that there can be temperature issues even at sea, as was seen last summer. It is clear that—as John Finnie alluded to—Norway, Denmark, Canada, France and Spain are starting to select closed-containment salmon production instead of open-cage systems because they know—to quote the ECCLR Committee’s “Report on the environmental impacts of salmon farming”—that
“The status quo is not an option.”
We should keep the petition open as part of the committee’s follow-up scrutiny work on salmon farming. I agree with John Finnie that we need to hear from SEPA, along with an update from the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban.
I am content for the petition to remain open and for the committee to do what it feels is necessary to take further evidence on the matter. However, I refer members back to the wording of the petition, which calls on us
“to urge the ... Government to ensure that the salmon farming industry solely utilises closed-containment”.
To be fair to the petitioner, the committee will at some point need to take a view on whether it agrees or disagrees with the premise of the petition. That should happen during the current session of Parliament.
I will attempt to summarise what we have agreed. I can confirm that, as John Finnie knows, the committee has agreed, when we have a moment in our busy programme, to look back at our report on our inquiry into aquaculture. That is planned, and I believe that all the parties that were mentioned in the report will be given the option to come back and explain what is being done in the industry.
The committee seems to be of the opinion that, until that process is complete, it is probably worth keeping the petition open, with the reservation that, as Jamie Greene highlighted, there may be an issue with the petition’s use of the word “solely”. The fact that the petition is still open will allow us, as a committee, to question the interested parties and regulatory bodies when they come back to give evidence.
Have I summarised the position accurately?
Members indicated agreement.
Perfect—that is what we will do. We will also write to the petitioner to explain what we are doing.