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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.

There are lessons to be learned from that, convener, but I would also point to what Kenny Coull said. He said that the static gear representatives could have been in those meetings but were not. I do not want to labour that point, because that was then and this is now. We now have a situation in which it is engaged, and I want those relationships to be nurtured and improved going forward, because if there is one lesson that we have learned—I am not referring just to Government, but to everyone who is involved—it is that we should not assume that the position in 2014 will be the position in 2020, because the science, the evidence and the data change.

On the cameras and sensors on boats that monitor fishing activities, I will just say that there is now a requirement for all scallop dredge vessels and pelagic fishing vessels that operate in Scottish waters to have sensors—whether they involve REM or whatever—to monitor all the activity that is associated with the catch. That applies not only to the Scottish fleet; it involves every vessel that is fishing in that area. The requirement will be rolled out to other fleet segments, so there will be even more data coming in from the fishing sector.

There is a 16-week consultation—I will ask John Mouat for the dates on that, because there are lots of consultations and I do not want to give the wrong dates. The spatial platform and everything associated with that will be available before the consultation, I believe.

I would not say that there is a presumption of anything in particular. The way that I would frame it would be to say that conservation of the marine protected areas is the main objective but, where possible, sustainable fishing can be allowed.

It is a useful example. Although you may be saying that we do not want to home in on static gear in particular, it is important that I address some of the points that I heard when you were taking evidence but also talk about how the static gear sector itself has been innovative in this space. First of all, it has already done an awful lot to reduce the bycatch of birds and marine animals associated with its practices, and that will be particularly important as we go forward in looking at the inshore MPAs. I absolutely accept that the sector takes its environmental responsibility very seriously.

The JNCC said that there could still be an impact from static gear operators’ practices, in particular on the corals, which are slow-growing, very vulnerable features. I think that the Aberdeen Fish Producers Organisation mentioned a study that its members had been involved in, I think with the University of St Andrews. The data that they provided backed up what the JNCC was saying, because that study identified an impact as well.

That said, Ms Grant, you are right that, if, in however many years—in a decade, for example—there is more robust evidence and data to suggest that we might allow certain types of gear to be used in areas and that it will not have an impact because the data and the evidence have come forward, of course we would adapt. That is very much the case. Similarly, if the industry came up with an innovation in the gear that it was putting forward or investing in such that there was no contact—I am not a fishing expert—and the pressures that had been identified in the evidence were no longer present, of course that would be a development.

It comes back to the adaptive approach. Again, you said that you did not want to home in on a particular sector but, when we were in the EU, the static gear sector was very involved in the discussions about all of this. Evidence and data change and that is part of the adaptive process. There are a couple of MPAs in which the JNCC advised that there might be long-term potential damage to very vulnerable types of benthic structures, particularly in coral.