Seòmar agus comataidhean

That concludes our questions, but I just want to thank Joanne Walker for making the point about taking control of the narrative. Indeed, a clear thread in your contributions has been the need for communication as we move forward with the process. I thank everyone for joining us and for a very helpful and illuminating discussion.

I suspend briefly to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

This morning, we have been having a conversation to try to get a better understanding of this process and the framework that will emerge from it, but you have sometimes said, “Oh, that is dealt with by a different team or department.” I would find it helpful if you could provide us with more information on the IFMI process. You have described what triggered it, but what legislation and strategy does it link back to?

For example, the Fisheries Act 2020 requires an ecosystems-based approach, good environmental status of the sea bed and so on, and there is the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and the marine strategy. There are all those legal requirements that we are trying to help you to meet, but there is now yet another process, which seems to have started a long time ago but is now producing something that we can see—it is like mycelia, when the mushrooms have fruited.

The agriculture directorate provides us with good maps that show why processes are being done, when they are coming online and which processes are parallel. It would be helpful to provide us with something similar so that we can ask better questions and know what we can ask you and what is the responsibility of other teams. That would mean that we could say, “Can you also bring the compliance team with you, because we want to know how this affects compliance and enforcement?”

It is good to see you all—and to see some of you again. Jim Watson has provided helpful context.

I want to touch on exploitation. You have described where the work has come from, but I am concerned that other pieces of work were going on. Has this work superseded that work? I want to get to the bottom of that. For example, at one point, there was a commitment to consult on a cap on fishing activity in inshore waters up to 3 nautical miles, but that seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke—I cannot think of a marine metaphor at the moment.

Marine Scotland’s 12-point future fisheries management strategy committed to a consultation on marine protected areas and priority marine features by summer 2023. I am interested in why the marine directorate failed to deliver that. Will that consultation be carried out in the current parliamentary session, following that commitment?

We now have the IFMI programme, but it concerns me that we have not followed through on things that have come forward—we said that there would be a cap on inshore activity, and we made commitments on MPAs and PMFs—so how can the committee have certainty that the IFMI programme will be delivered? Why did you fail to deliver in relation to MPAs? How can we have confidence that the other things that are being brought forward will be delivered, given that the situation is urgent?

Yes, but it is on different spatial measures. I want to get a sense of the relationship between the IFMI programme and the marine spatial planning process. The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 set out how the regional marine plans would integrate with the national marine plan process, but 15 years later they have not been adopted. I would like to understand whether, through the IFMI process, we will get to a date when all of Scotland’s waters will be covered by such regional marine plans, and whether those plans will include fisheries management.

It was not triggered by the crab and lobster stock issues that came to light.

I am talking about FMAC as a whole, not just in groups.

That would be helpful to understand. It would also be helpful if you could provide the committee with all the dates of meetings. We hear that the meetings happen, but it would be helpful for us to understand the regularity of engagement, given that they seem to be such an important part of your process.

I will pick up on Rhoda Grant’s question about the decentralisation of fisheries management powers. I want to get a sense of whether the inshore fisheries management improvement—IFMI—process will help us get to a place where we understand how a level of decentralised spatial management could be adopted and implemented. The international evidence is that spatial management, guided by science—for example, the characteristics of the seabed in any area—is essential for the recovery and resilience of fish stocks.

We hear about the need for spatial management over and over again. Will IFMI move us in that direction, or is it again off the table because, as the convener has unearthed, the scope of the current process is quite tightly prescribed?

Did you just say that fisheries are not included in the regional marine plans? Why is that?

Spatial management.

I have a question on compliance and enforcement. I would like to explore that and understand how it is being considered in the IFMI programme.

Various information has come to us. For example, we have seen that a 2017 investigation by the European Court of Auditors identified less-dissuasive fisheries sanctions and greater levels of reoffending in Scotland than exist in other European countries, and we have been given anecdotal information indicating that certain activities that adversely impact marine species and habitats have continued to occur with few repercussions because of a lack of enforcement. At our 26 October round-table discussion on inshore fisheries, concerns were raised around the lack of enforcement of management in the marine protected areas—I know that there are plans for that, but we need to get on with it. Concerns were also raised about the lack of sufficient information and data to ensure transparency and accountability, and about the need for more enhanced sanctions for non-compliance. There is quite a lot in there. Will the IFMI process help in that regard? It is a bit embarrassing that Scotland has a higher level of reoffending than other European countries, is it not?