Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government has committed to continuing the Fruit and Vegetables Aid Scheme in Scotland. The Scheme is based on multi-annual funding and operational programmes submitted for approval can run for a maximum of three years. Applications for new operational programmes submitted this year are expected to run until the end of December 2028.

A public consultation, seeking views on proposed legislative changes and the longer term future of the scheme was launched on 23 June. We will continue to work with stakeholders to explore how the scheme can be improved to ensure it operates as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The Scottish Government has published this information since the amended economic link licence condition was implemented from 1 January 2023. It can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-economic-link/

No Scottish vessel has failed to comply with economic link licence conditions. Quota payback is the alternative for compliance.

The Marine Directorate provides vessels’ management groups with the landings data for vessels not meeting the threshold and the calculations for evaluating the quota gifts to be made. This provides transparency to vessel owners and managers.

Accountability is delivered though the annual publication of vessels which have provided quota gifts and the total amount of quota stocks paid back.

The following table shows the total amounts of quota payback made by Scottish vessels in each of the last five years.

No Scottish vessel has failed to comply with the economic link requirements in the last five years.

The following table shows the share of the eight species landed into Scottish ports as a percentage of the total Scottish landings of each species. It should be noted that landings for 2024 are still management data and are not currently available for publication.

The Scottish Government is in the process of conducting a review of the amended economic link license condition. This will be published in due course

Non-compliance with the Economic Link licence occurs where a vessel has failed to meet the 55% landings threshold and failed to agree a quota payback.

Vessel owners are provided with the opportunity to query the landings data and the quota payback calculation.

There have been no instances of a vessel seeking to appeal the application of quota pay-back for not meeting the Economic Link compliance criteria since 2019.

No Scottish vessel has failed to comply with the economic link licence condition since 2019. Twenty-one different Scottish vessels have complied with the requirements by making a quota payback in the same period.

The quota payback is calculated as 26% of the pound sterling value of the ‘missing’ landings in order to have otherwise met the landings threshold into Scotland (55% of all landings), aggregated across the eight named species.

The pound value of those missing landings is converted back into a tonnage figure, using the average pound per tonne (PPT) value of landings made by Scottish vessels into Scotland. Please see the consultation outcome report for further details: https://consult.gov.scot/marine-scotland/amendment-of-the-economic-link-licence-condition/