Plenary, 25 Oct 2001

Meeting date: Thursday, October 25, 2001

Official Report 748KB pdf

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Ocean Recovery

The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S1M-2279, in the name of Tavish Scott, on the Edinburgh declaration for ocean recovery.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes the Edinburgh Declaration for Ocean Recovery to be put to WWF's Oceans Recovery Campaign conference on 23 October 2001; agrees that our seas are in urgent need of sensible and sensitive management if they are to support abundant fish stocks, viable populations of marine wildlife and thriving coastal communities, and calls on the Scottish Executive to work with Her Majesty's Government, devolved bodies and all stakeholders to develop a co-ordinated stewardship strategy for our seas.

I thank colleagues from across the Parliament for supporting the motion, following Tuesday's historic—I believe that that is the appropriate word—World Wide Fund for Nature oceans recovery summit, which was held here in Edinburgh. I also thank the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development for finding time in what is no doubt a very busy week to attend and speak at the summit. Indeed, she is quoted in the document that was produced following the summit. There is a rather fine series of contributions from distinguished individuals in what is an important document for our oceans and seas. I am pleased to have the brief opportunity to raise these matters in Parliament today.

The future of Scotland depends to a large extent on the debate generating a determination to tackle the problems that the seas face. Scotland is an island nation and our coastal communities make a living from the sea: from fishing, tourism, offshore oil and gas and marine transport. Our future depends on the future of the sea. It follows that, if we let the sea suffer, those who depend on it will suffer. I contend that this is not a be-nice-to-the-environment, cuddly debate, but a hard debate about the future of all those who depend on the sea.

For too long we have exploited the seas with too little thought for their future. We have ignored the warning signs that have been showing for some time now. The evidence of our mistreatment of the seas grows year by year, no more so than in the form of fishing stocks. A WWF report reveals exactly that. It says:

"Between the mid-1960s and 1999, total UK landings by the UK fishing fleet declined by 55 per cent and the value of these catches was reduced by 77 per cent – a decline of £684 million."

That must be of extreme concern to anyone with an interest in such matters, particularly those of us who represent constituencies with strong fishing interests.

For many years, fishing policy has continued to hammer white fish stocks, with more efficient nets and more powerful boats as well as the move into deep water and the targeting of new species, such as monkfish and the more exotic orange roughy.

Because the need to regulate fisheries by international agreement has been acknowledged—fish do not recognise international boundaries—the politically expedient but crude tool of quotas has been adopted. Quotas work for single species and fisheries, such as herring and mackerel, but it is fair to say, and many accept, that there have been conservation disasters with those species in the mixed white fish fishery. The policy of quotas has led to the scandal of the wasteful discarding of marketable, over-quota fish, so I welcome the fact that the European Commission, in its green paper on the future of the common fisheries policy, accepts that the policy has failed and must change for the better. The result of the policy has been that our cod stocks are at an all-time low. Further scientific analysis of that has been published this week. Many of us worry that we are overfishing the deep-water species as well. For example, the annual catch of orange roughy has plunged from 3,500 tonnes to fewer than 500 tonnes in only 10 years.

The result has been a crisis in our fishing ports, which must be addressed. The crisis has had one welcome result—if I can put it that way—in that it has built a partnership between fishermen and the environmentalists, who now recognise that they share many of the same aims. I cannot be the only member of a political party who has been pleased to share a platform at party conferences with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and environmental organisations, led by WWF Scotland. I congratulate them on their joint work and I congratulate the Government on the way in which it has responded to that work. I hope that more can be done in that area.

Productive steps have been taken. Technical conservation measures are being developed and introduced, which I welcome. The record funding that was announced earlier this year for decommissioning is also welcome. Of course, more needs to be done. The Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development will not be surprised that I say that, given my constituency. I do not just want fish stocks to be conserved; I want fishing communities to be conserved. I do not just want fish stocks to be viable; I want those who depend on them to be viable. There is a need to examine closely—particularly as I do not doubt that there will be more cod closure areas next year—the need for compensation to help fishermen while stocks recover, so that we can have recovering stocks and viable fishing communities.

Important aspects of the declaration deal with pollution of the seas. I will focus on the extremes of pollution. The seas around my constituency have been the cleanest in the UK, but they are not as clean as they should be. I and islanders round me remember well the terrible sight of the Braer spewing oil into the sea at Garths Ness in January 1993. That was an horrific warning of the dangers of oil pollution, but even though that oil was light crude, and sustained storms did much to disperse it, Shetland suffered severe environmental and economic damage. Cost cutting by shipping companies cost Shetland dear. I pay tribute to those such as Jonathan Wills who campaigned so hard to get to the bottom of those events. Their work is important.

The experience of the Braer made me determined that action should be taken to tackle the pollution of the sea. Some steps have been taken. Due to forthright work by Shetland Islands Council, we now have a full-time salvage tug on station in the area. I acknowledge that commitment, but more action is needed. As a councillor in Shetland, I fully supported campaigns to ensure the highest environmental standards. We called for oil from fields to the west of Shetland to be piped ashore, so I am pleased by BP's decision this week that the oil from the Clair field will come ashore to Sullom Voe by pipeline.

I will go from the specific to the general and conclude by offering my full support for the Edinburgh declaration on ocean recovery and its call for the forging of new partnerships and the development of new ways to manage our seas. In the past, the various stakeholders with an interest in the seas have tended to fight their own corners while ignoring their common interests, and the seas have suffered as a result.

I draw the attention of the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development to the call in the declaration for an oceans act. Will she examine the wide range of regulations—some of which are devolved, but some of which, I accept, are reserved—that cover shipping, coastal protection, fishing and habitats? Does she agree that there is a need for a co-ordinated oceans act to replace those regulations or pull them together to achieve the joined-up government that we so often talk about? We should work with colleagues at Westminster to provide that joined-up regulation and protection for our seas. That is a challenge that we must face up to. It is a challenge that we cannot shirk.

The time has come for change. The declaration that was made at this week's summit is a useful start. There is much to be done. However, WWF's ocean recovery summit has provided politicians from all parties with an opportunity to progress these issues. I hope that the chamber will seize that chance today.

We now move to open debate. Eight members have asked to speak, so speeches will be limited to three minutes.

I would like to take up Tavish Scott's challenge. Hopefully we can move on to bold action from today. I congratulate Tavish Scott on his timely motion, which I am glad the Parliamentary Bureau accepted for debate this evening. The motion has been put together well and I agree with many of the sentiments that it expresses.

I managed to attend only the early sessions of the summit, but it was clear from what I heard and saw that the concept of the summit, which featured high-profile, eminent people, was a great idea. WWF deserves congratulations on putting it together as it did. I know that the minister has already signed the Edinburgh declaration. I, too, took the opportunity to sign it on the morning of the summit.

The signing of a declaration is all well and good. However, Michael Grade, who chaired the summit, was right when he said that political leaders needed not just to make bold statements, but to take bold actions. There can be no question but that bold action is required around the seas of Scotland. We do not have to look far to see where that bold action is required. I know that the minister is personally committed on many issues, but infraction proceedings have been initiated against Scotland in a number of areas to do with the seas. Some of the proceedings relate to bathing water directives, others to habitat directives and eutrophic waters. That can only be of concern, particularly because of the problems that we have with agricultural diffuse run-off and the blooms that it creates. Bold action is required to deal with those problems.

The plea from the summit was loud and clear: Governments must be bold in their action and they must take a much more strategic and holistic approach if we are to deliver the environmental benefits and improvements that are so desperately required for this most important part of the world's ecosystem.

At the summit, Robert Napier, the chief executive of WWF-UK, provided us with some poignant statistics. Seventy-five per cent of Scotland's sovereign territory lies in the seas. Fifty per cent of the world's wildlife lies in the planet's seas, but—remarkably—less than 1 per cent of the UK's seas are protected. The minister signed the Edinburgh declaration, which was a good move. However, it is now time for bold action—action that will bring Scotland into line with its international obligations and that will reduce pollution from oil-related activities or chemical output. We should follow the lead of nations such as Australia, which has taken a holistic and strategic view on the issue.

Finally, we need bold action to sort out the scandal that is Sellafield, which is casting a nuclear, radioactive shadow over not just our nation of Scotland, but our international neighbours in Ireland. It is time for us to stand full square with the Irish in their fight with the UK Government to have the mixed oxide plant at Sellafield closed and to stop radioactivity flowing out of it, which is ridiculous. It is time for bold action to stop the dumping in our seas. I wish the minister all the best in that.

I come from a part of the world where the sea sends long fingers into the land—the Inverness firth, the Cromarty firth and the Dornoch firth. In my area, there is strong interaction between land and sea.

The greater Moray firth area has a diverse economy, all sectors of which impact on the sea—farming, fishing, oil rig fabrication and engineering, for example. In addition, it has spectacular wildlife sites, including coastal flats and bird sanctuaries. It has a seal colony and, most famous of all, a school of dolphins, which are at the northernmost limit of their range and are suffering stress from, it would appear, the pollution in the marine environment.

The Moray Firth Partnership is a voluntary organisation and a coalition of organisations and individuals including local authorities, environmental organisations, businesses, industrial interests and local communities. The partnership covers the 800km from Duncansby head in the north to Fraserburgh in the east and it aims to make people aware of how their lifestyles and businesses might impact on the marine environment. It shares best practice across local authorities and interacts with national research initiatives. It raises issues, holds workshops, provides a forum for debate and encourages public involvement in solutions to environmental problems on the Moray firth coastline.

The partnership is made up of people who genuinely want to proceed together and I encourage more industries and individuals to take part in it. In particular, I urge the fishing industry to take part, because so far none of its representatives has joined the partnership—their presence is sorely missed.

The Executive supports the Moray Firth Partnership through funding from Scottish Natural Heritage and the partnership draws money down from other sources. However, those funds are less than the partnership needs to fulfil its ambitions. I ask for support for the partnership from public or private funds or through legislation because I believe that to preserve our marine environment we must engage the whole community, not just environmental specialists—although they, too, are needed.

The Moray Firth Partnership is, in many ways, a grass-roots organisation. Although, as has been said, legislation is welcome and necessary, nothing compares with working on the ground and along the shore with local communities. I believe that that is the way forward; it must be encouraged if we are to make a difference to pollution in the marine environment.

I commend Tavish Scott for lodging the motion and I commend WWF for its ocean recovery campaign summit, which I attended on Tuesday to support the WWF declaration.

I will consider Tavish Scott's motion first from the viewpoint of the Scottish fishing industry, particularly as the talks on the cod recovery plan are due to begin on 29 October. A key area on which to focus is found in the recent communication from the European Commission that states that all the measures employed so far under the banner of the cod recovery plan will constitute no more than 20 per cent of a solution to the cod problem. The remaining 80 per cent is being sought from a combination of decommissioning and effort restraint or limitation.

Many in the fishing industry believe that the only real method of conservation is effort limitation, but at the moment the Executive will not accept that, because it would have to pay money for a tie-up scheme for fishing boats for periods of the year. However, the decommissioning scheme closes to applications on 31 October. I ask the Executive to tell Parliament what proportion of the £25 million specifically set aside for decommissioning has been taken up. If significant money is left over, will the Executive ensure that that money stays within the fishing industry? Will it reconsider the possibility of a funded tie-up, which has found favour in Parliament in the past? I agree with Tavish Scott's comment that conservation of fishermen and their families is as important as conservation of fish stocks.

A closed season on the cod spawning grounds is an essential element in the recovery of that important fish stock, but if fishermen simply diversify into areas where they catch too many young haddock, the whole exercise becomes self-defeating. I urge the Executive to take a fresh look at the idea of including a subsidised tie-up as part of the conservation plan.

It is good that we are beginning at last to look at our oceans in the same way as we look at our landmass. It is also good that there is a realisation that many diverse incomes could be brought into our coastal areas under intelligent and imaginative management.

I recently attended two other fisheries conferences, one in Edinburgh and the other in Oban in Argyll. On both occasions I listened to Doug McLeod of the Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers put forward a paper on an interpretation of integrated coastal zonal management. ICZM is a concept that puts great value on our estuarine waters and sea lochs and gives a vision of great varieties of fish and shellfish being farmed sustainably with different types of sea plants and weeds. Mussels, scallops, oysters, lobsters and crabs, as well as fin fish, all have their place.

The concept of combining different species in a polyculture originated 1,000 years ago in ancient China. Aquaculture production in China reached a staggering 18.6 million tonnes in 1996. That was 31 per cent higher than China's wild catch and accounted for more than 63 per cent of global aquaculture production.

Lately, our Scottish salmon farming industry, which provides vital jobs in outlying areas and a large percentage of Scottish food exports, has been severely attacked. The wheel grinds slow, but it is coming down too hard on the sector now. If the industry were accepted in the same way as terrestrial agriculture is, it would receive the necessary encouragement to allow it to deal of its own accord with many of the perceived problems.

The industry has the answers and the scientific knowledge. In a healthy and successful industry, conservation falls into place, but that will never happen in an industry that is forced to hang on by its fingertips. In the words of Jamie Lindsay of Scottish Quality Salmon, the industry wishes to live in sustainable co-existence with other sea loch users. Proper scientific advice coupled with imaginative practices would lead to a system with far more diverse sea farming than the monocultures that exist.

I agree that our sea lochs and coastline hold enormous potential value. I urge the Executive to use all means in its power to harvest that value to sustain local coastal populations, while maintaining the reputation for clean and pollution-free waters for which Scotland is famous. I urge the Executive to maximise economic, social and ecological benefits from our coastal waters for the Scottish people.

I congratulate Tavish Scott on initiating the debate.

Newton's third law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If only the complex ecology of the oceans were so simple and we could see that one action had an identifiable side effect. Of course, the matter is not simple.

I share Tavish Scott's view that conservation of our coastal communities is an important objective, but paramount and underpinning a future for our planet is conservation of the oceans. For many years, we have heard our forests referred to as the earth's lungs. I suggest that our oceans have been used by the human race as the earth's kidneys and by industry as the earth's bowels, much to the oceans' disbenefit.

Bruce Crawford referred to Sellafield and the MOX plant. By coincidence, I brought a group of seven Norwegian teachers to the Parliament today. They sat in the VIP gallery during question time this afternoon. The first question that they asked me was on my reaction to the new Norwegian Government's intention, stated in today's press, to sue the UK Government over contamination of the North sea from Sellafield. I suspect that we in the Scottish public are playing catch-up with our Norwegian friends over our concerns for the ocean.

Occasionally, a bit of serendipity comes into play. During the recess, I had a pleasant visit to my local distillery—yes, it was very pleasant, Winnie. I discovered some interesting information. Whisky is the basis of an important rural industry—that I knew. Malt mash is a by-product of the brewing process that leads to the distillation of whisky—that I also knew. However, I did not know that malt mash is increasingly being converted into fish food. About 20 per cent of farmed salmon eats the waste product of Scotland's other excellent product, whisky. That is displacing the primary source of feeding for salmon in farms—fish-meal that is prepared from industrial fishing in the North sea, mainly for pout and sand eel. They are the food stocks on which cod depend.

I am running out of time; I would love to give way.

The whisky industry is helping to save the cod. I say to Jamie McGrigor that I have been told that 5 tonnes of industrial fish yield only 1 tonne of salmon, so it is good that whisky by-products are being used. In the whole food chain, the malt that we grow for whisky helps to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. Whisky and cod are helping each other.

My colleague Tavish Scott has covered eloquently and comprehensively the issues around fishing, fishing communities and pollution—the areas where man interacts with the sea.

I want to underline how fundamentally important the oceans are as a part of our environment. For a start, as any schoolchild could tell you, the sea covers more of the earth's surface than does the land. Even using that basic measurement, the importance of the marine environment is evident.

Mankind has exploited and, in some cases, devastated the land resource. Mankind has also done so with the seas around our shores in a way that is literally careless. Damage might sometimes have been done through ignorance, but that does not make it any less damaging or in any way more reversible.

At least we are starting to care a bit more and to be more aware of the effect of our activities on our basic life support system. Until we know more about our oceans and understand them better, it behoves us to restrict our activities and avoid making any potentially damaging impact—from self-interest, if not from a moral standpoint. The ocean's effect on the earth's climate is recognised, but it is not fully understood. We could be teetering unknowingly on the edge of catastrophe.

The deep oceans are the last wilderness on earth. We know very little about them, their ecosystems and the plants and creatures that live there. However, we do know that a rich biodiversity exists in the seas around our shores. If anyone should be taking the lead in tackling the way in which we regulate our activities to protect that biodiversity, it should be Scotland—a country with a marine environment that is described in a WWF parliamentary briefing as

"staggering in its size and richness."

There are encouraging signs, such as the increasing dialogue and co-operation between the fishing industry and marine scientists and the honesty of the European Union's admission that the common fisheries policy has failed. However, there are also warning signs, such as the depredation in recent years of deep-sea fish species. There is no time to waste.

I add my support to Tavish Scott's request that the minister should review the existing plethora of regulations and begin to work towards co-ordinated, comprehensive and effective oceans legislation to replace them.

I welcome the opportunity to make a few comments. I congratulate Tavish Scott on lodging the motion and the WWF on its campaign. However, I will not thank the three members who have stolen most of my speech.

The issue is important because it concentrates the minds of people and, more important, the decision makers, on how important the oceans are to Scotland. We know that that is the case partly because of the many high-profile fishing issues. If we cast our minds back a few years, we also recall how consumer power and the Brent Spar issue activated people power. People used their consumer power to take on a multinational and the United Kingdom Government because they did not want to see their oceans used as a dustbin.

The WWF strategy is good and a huge step forward. It recognises the environmental and social role of the oceans. Time and again, it has been said that the fishing industry and the environmental lobby now share common objectives and that they are singing from the same hymn sheet. In common with Tavish Scott, I am heartened how, each year at my party conference, the WWF and the Scottish Fishermen's Federation share the same platform.

A massive step forward has been taken. Both organisations share the same agenda. The fishermen need healthy seas because healthy seas mean healthy fish stocks, which allow them to sustain their livelihoods. The environmental lobby now recognises that it has to work closely with the fishing industry and other sectors that make their livelihoods from the oceans.

The social role of fishing is important. In Stewart Stevenson's constituency of Banff and Buchan, it is reckoned that 33 per cent of jobs are dependent on the sea. In other constituencies across the country, in particular the Shetland islands—represented by Tavish Scott—a fifth of jobs may be dependent on the oceans.

Does the member agree that at the moment, because of draconian European measures, some people in the fishing industry are losing their livelihoods? I am thinking of the scallop industry.

Yes. I can certainly identify with those comments.

We can do much to help our oceans. Our fishermen need to get on board alongside the environmentalists by adopting sustainable fishing methods. That is one area where they have led throughout Europe. The Scottish fishing industry has adopted more sustainable fishing methods.

There are indirect measures that we should take. Let us remember the overall impact of climate change on the oceans. The fuel that we fill our car with might have an impact on the oceans; that in turn has an impact on fish stocks. Cod stocks, for example, are moving further north because of the change in temperature. That has implications for our white fish fleet.

We cannot leave everything to Westminster. The Scottish Executive has to take the lead. Westminster too often sees the ocean as something from which we can extract a valuable resource: oil. We do not really put anything back into the ocean—we must change that attitude. The oceans are much more important to Scotland than they are to the UK. The Scottish Executive must take a lead and adopt sensible policies.

The tie-up scheme is one area where the environmental movement and the fishing industry were singing from the same hymn sheet. They saw a compensated tie-up scheme as an important tool to help the oceans to recover, yet we found out a couple of days ago that the Executive was running a £25 million underspend at the time when it was rejecting the fishermen's plea for £5 million for a tie-up scheme. We need the Scottish Executive to get on board now.

I want to raise a number of concerns to which I do not expect the minister to reply today. However, when she comes to address those concerns, I can assure her that she will have my enthusiastic support.

First, I take issue with Jamie McGrigor's remarks on decommissioning. I support the Executive in its decommissioning scheme. Reducing fishing effort by decommissioning is the only safe and sure way to reduce fishing effort in the North sea. I heard an extraordinary figure the other day: the 30 biggest boats that operate in the North sea at the moment exert the same pressure as did 10,000 boats in the 1850s. There should be another round of decommissioning, focused entirely on the largest boats, so that our inshore and near-shore fisheries, and the small ports that they support, can begin to prosper.

The minister recently revealed in the chamber that black fish landings have increased over the past year. That is a matter of considerable concern; it must be of concern to the fishermen who keep to the rules. I urge the Executive to do everything that it can to reduce that breaking of the rules. The response that I received to another issue I raised suggested that the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency does not enforce engine size regulations—it does not come under the agency's aegis. Where boats break the European Union engine size regulations, they are unlikely to be caught, yet I have an estimate that between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of all the boats that fish in EU waters are breaking engine size regulations. That allows them to exert extra pressure on fisheries.

Does the member agree that fish that are put back are dead anyway? Stopping black landings will not conserve fish stocks.

I cannot possibly agree. The black landings are not necessarily just discards; black landings are when people are going over their quota. To say that we should accept black landings is to say that we should accept people breaking the quota rules.

Will the member give way?

No.

I disagree with the quota rules—quota rules and total allowable catches should all go. However, we have regulations, and that is one way of doing things. We cannot allow people simply to break the law willy-nilly.

There is another important matter that I have raised previously. I hope that the Executive will campaign in Europe to ensure that the reduction in fishing effort here is not simply exported, so that we start raiding the coast of Africa, virtually decimating stocks and robbing people there of their birthright.

Furthermore, it has come to my attention that at least some salmon feed used in this country—I do not know how much—is made from perfectly good fish, which could be used for human consumption, raided from the Peruvian and Chilean coasts by large factory ships.

One of the biggest pollution problems that we are likely to face in future is the dumping of ballast water. I draw the minister's attention to that.

As we all know, life emerged in the seas. In the past half billion years, there have been six major extinctions on the planet. The best known is the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, which wiped out some 65 per cent of all species on the planet. One of my great concerns is that we are now going through the seventh great extinction, which is being inflicted on the planet by humanity itself. We have already exterminated many species on the planet, such as the Caspian tiger, the great auk and the Caribbean monk seal. I would not want to see other species of sea mammal, fish or coral go the same way.

In bringing the debate to the chamber, Tavish Scott has done the Parliament a tremendous service and I welcome what he said. However, we must look beyond Scotland as far as possible—not just to Westminster or even to Europe. If we are to ensure a long-term, sustainable future, not just for our children and grandchildren, but for ourselves as a species over the centuries and millennia, it is important to have an international regulation of life in the sea that is as tight as possible.

Over recent weeks, many of us have been absolutely captivated by the TV series, "The Blue Planet", which has been a fascinating exposé of life in the deeper oceans. Although half of all known species are in the sea, 97 per cent of the planet's biosphere is below the surface of the waves. As Nora Radcliffe said, it is interesting to note how much of that has still to be explored.

Stewart Stevenson made a significant comment about the lungs, kidneys and bowels of the planet. I am concerned that industrial waste, sewage and munitions have been poured willy-nilly into the seas over many years. Indeed, Beaufort's dyke contains huge quantities of munitions from the second world war and since. The entire Minch area should be designated as a particularly sensitive sea area by the International Maritime Organisation. I would like to hear the minister's view on that.

Humanity can work together to clean up the seas and ensure a sustainable future. The hole in the ozone layer has been reduced by strict action on chlorofluorocarbons, and that should be a model for international co-operation. We will not be held in high regard centuries from now if we bequeath not only a devastated landmass, but polluted seas denuded of the fish that we hope will be the main food source for our species over future generations, as well as providing so much life for the rest of the planet.

I whole-heartedly support Tavish Scott's motion.

I share many of the concerns highlighted at the WWF oceans recovery campaign conference on Tuesday and in the debate today.

The Scottish Executive recognises the importance of a co-ordinated approach to protecting our marine environment. The picture is a complex one, involving international, UK and Scottish regulation. Although an oceans act is appealing in its simplicity, it would be difficult to achieve and could delay action on the ground. However, the Scottish Executive is whole-heartedly committed to working with others, nationally and internationally, and is already making progress in developing an integrated approach to the management of the marine environment. We must continue to do that.

In its green paper on the reform of the common fisheries policy, the European Commission highlighted the need to secure a better balance between fishing effort, fleet capacity and available fisheries resources. It also emphasised the need for an environmentally based approach to fisheries management.

With Ross Finnie, I have responsibility for fisheries and the environment in the Scottish Executive and I fully support that approach. Indeed, I chaired a seminar at the recent Scotland week in Brussels to help focus Commission thinking on key issues.

The majority of fishermen share our concern about securing a sustainable ecosystem with healthy fish stocks. A reformed CFP must win the support of fishermen by being more inclusive and regionally based. The Executive is working to ensure that the Commission's proposals reflect that.

The Scottish Executive is leading the way with our decommissioning package. In March this year, I announced a £25 million decommissioning scheme, which is currently under way. It aims to assist in the reduction and restructuring of the Scottish white fish fleet by up to 20 per cent. The WWF recognised the contribution of that significant package to ensuring healthier fish stocks in its report, "Now or Never—the cost of Canada's cod collapse and the disturbing parallels with the UK", which was published last week.

The Executive has been an active participant in the development of cod and hake recovery plans, which were worked up in conjunction with fishermen's representatives. Other plans will follow. We recognise the need to manage carefully the exploitation of deep water species that are increasingly becoming targeted as traditional stocks decline. Many of us have watched the wonderful "The Blue Planet" series on television and I feel particularly strongly about that issue.

The Scottish Executive is committed to meeting its environmental targets in the programme for government and our UK, European and international commitments. We are contributing to the planned UK marine stewardship report, which will set out an agreed vision and strategy for the marine environment. I hope that that will respond to some of the concerns behind the call for an oceans act. As part of the consultation process, I will hold a workshop involving key Scottish stakeholders next month. I hope that members with an interest will be able to attend.

Recently, I answered a number of parliamentary questions from Tavish Scott. He has a great interest in pollution in marine waters around Scotland and beyond. We are keenly aware of the fragility of the oceans, but it is important that actions are based on good, sound, scientific evidence. For that reason, the Scottish Executive is undertaking work that will address concerns and fulfil international obligations. We have also decided to commission an independent review of the scientific work that is available. All findings will be made publicly available.

Much attention has been focused recently on aquaculture—including in Parliament. We are committed to addressing concerns about management and environmental impact through our consultation on a long-term strategic framework for aquaculture. That will set out the key principles within which the industry must operate and where the public sector will intervene, either as a sponsor or regulator.

I am conscious of the contribution that local communities can and do make to managing the marine environment. Through the Scottish coastal forum, the Executive and many other organisations are working to produce a strategy to implement an integrated approach to coastal zone management. I recognise the work that is being done by the Moray Firth Partnership in that area.

It is equally important to engage with other areas of industry. In Orkney, we are working to support a project that is aimed at establishing a marine energy test centre to capitalise on the sea as a clean energy source.

We are achieving a great deal for nature conservation in the marine environment through selecting and managing a network of protected areas. There are 60 special protection areas for birds and proposals for 31 special areas of conservation under EU directives. The recently discovered Darwin mounds in the Faroe Shetland channel are likely to become the first UK SAC beyond 12 nautical miles. We will be closely involved in drawing up a management regime for that area. Through the UK review of marine nature conservation we are addressing what more must be done to protect our marine and natural heritage.

I will respond to some of the specific points that have been made. I have addressed Maureen Macmillan's point about the Moray Firth Partnership. I spent most of my adult life living in the Moray firth area and I am happy to lend my support to that project.

Jamie McGrigor asked about compensated tie-ups. Given the number of application forms for the decommissioning scheme that have been submitted to date, we expect it to be oversubscribed.

Richard Lochhead also mentioned the possibility of underspend being spent on tie-ups. A revised autumn budget will be presented to the Parliament shortly. That budget will propose the allocation of £44 million, which will be made up of the underspend and some extra resources obtained from the centre. Those will be additional resources for rural development budgets in 2001-02. However, the extra £44 million includes formal provision for the decommissioning scheme that I announced earlier in the year. We are not able to spend that money twice. At the risk of repeating myself, we believe that decommissioning represents a better value-for-money approach than compensated tie-ups. The European Commission shares that view.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I will take a brief intervention.

The minister just said that the £25 million for the decommissioning scheme is being provided for out of the £44 million underspend in the rural affairs budget. However, I believe that she first made that announcement in March. At that time, was it her intention to fund the decommissioning scheme from a projected underspend?

When we announced the £25 million in March, we said that we would work up the proposals for the decommissioning scheme as quickly as possible. In the event, the decommissioning scheme is now open for bids—we will open the sealed bids in November. Until we see those bids, it is difficult to project the amount of money that is to be taken up. I emphasise that the £25 million is clearly for decommissioning—that money is safe.

Will the minister give way?

I am just about to conclude.

There is one minute left before I must close the meeting—I am bound by the time.

An important aspect of improving the health of the marine environment is that of forging new partnerships between those who are most closely concerned at local, Scottish, UK, European and international levels. Therefore, I was pleased to be able, by participating in the WWF conference and by responding to the debate, to demonstrate the commitment of the Scottish Executive to working with others to ensure the recovery of our seas and their future stewardship.

I congratulate Tavish Scott on securing the debate.

Meeting closed at 18:03.