Seòmar agus comataidhean

Work is on-going in relation to the Clyde. My colleague Gillian Martin has been leading on the marine planning process, but what has been set out is that we need to wait until we have a new national marine plan in place before looking to the further development of regional marine plans in this interim period, given that it looks as though the new plan will be adopted within the next couple of years. However, Shetland, Orkney and the Clyde area have been at the forefront of developing the regional marine planning work.

I would not want it to come across that there is almost an absence of any sort of framework for such developments at the moment, because the framework is very much in place. We have been clarifying that over the past year. On offshore development, for example, we have clarified that local authorities are responsible in the 3 to 12-nautical-mile zone and that SEPA would be the lead regulator in that space, as well as removing any potential duplication with the marine licence. We have been trying to clarify what that element looks like. We do not need a regional marine plan to be in place for such developments to be determined, because local authorities have the planning powers to be able to look at them anyway, and they would be doing that in accordance with their own local development plans.

We also have the overarching national planning framework 4, as well as the overarching existing national marine plan, which remains in place until such time as a new national marine plan is introduced. Any developments coming forward at the moment would still be considered within that existing wider planning framework—they do not need that regional marine plan focus. However, where areas want to take forward regional marine plans, that has happened. Shetland, Orkney and the Clyde have been at the forefront of that and have been developing their own.

You have touched on a number of points there, and we have made a number of different investments to try to get more of that information. Ultimately, we want to ensure that development happens in the right places. We are seeing a trend of people wanting to move further offshore where there are better environmental conditions, and they are seeing improvements in fish health and welfare.

To go back to Rhoda Grant’s questions, it is about how we can facilitate the consenting regime process. It is not about removing any of that process; it is just about making it a bit more streamlined. That is largely what the consenting work has been dealing with. It is about making sure that we have development in the right place from the start.

It has been an iterative process, and we have been looking to make improvements as it has been developing. An evaluation of the consenting work was published last year. It highlighted that there were some benefits to the approach, but there were also 10 recommendations on the back of that about what other improvements could be made. I ask Jill Barber to speak in a bit more detail about some of the changes that have been implemented as a result.

It will be delivered next year. The rest of the engagement work will take place throughout this year.

When I am talking about our community benefit package, I am talking specifically about the communities that host aquaculture and, for example, the funding that flows from Crown Estate Scotland to local authorities for coastal community benefit. It is about the wider benefit that we have seen provision of. As an example, I have talked previously at committee about visiting Colonsay, where Mowi invested, together with our rural and islands housing fund, in building six houses for the local community, which has been transformative. It is about the wider benefits that we hope and expect to see. Again, we are engaging on that wider work.

We talked a lot about the issue at the start of the meeting, so I hope that I have been able to outline this point, but I must emphasise the robust regulation that is in place for our salmon farms across Scotland as well as the transparency of the sector. It is more transparent than any other sector, in terms of the volume of information that is published, whether that is on mortality or environmental impact. It is important to get that on the record and to recognise that. The product is our number 1 food export, but that is on the back of the strict environmental conditions and regulation that we have in place.

I have not captured that information, so I do not know what the extent of the issue would be. I am just trying to counter the point that you raised. Given everything that we have outlined today and the discussions that we have had, I hope that people will continue to support our Scottish farmed salmon.

I wish that it could be.

It cannot. As I said, when it comes to international comparisons, we are not comparing like with like. We have different regulatory systems with different responsibilities, and we are dealing with and working in completely different environments.

The first question is about the wider collaboration piece. We are always looking at what is happening elsewhere. We ask whether there a development that we could look at, which might not be a lift-and-shift model but might have elements that we can learn from or adapt or that might work in a Scottish context.

You are right that the work on persistent high mortality focuses on mortality, because we were tasked with examining whether there is a significant issue there that we need to address. That is what the development of that model was about. We have other mechanisms in place that consider all that information in the round. We are also working on the consenting framework and the sea lice risk assessment framework. Jill Barber might want to say a bit more about international comparisons.

I think that I understand the point that you are trying to get to. The model would never provide all of that, because it was not designed to do that. It was designed to come up with a definition to discover, first, whether Scotland has a problem that we need to address. The model has a very specific purpose rather than being broadened out to cover everything.

You seem to be talking about the overall package of industry performance. I am trying to get to the point that, with all the robust regulation in place outlining the processes that go into it and managing some of those concerns, as well as the other frameworks, we are working to improve consenting and taking all those different factors into consideration. Are you asking about pulling all that together, or is your question about how we display that information?