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.