Chamber and committees

John Goodlad, in your response to Colin Beattie, you touched on the streamlined approach as outlined in the report from Professor Griggs. Your report recommended that consenting of new developments should be managed with an adaptive spatial planning model. Will you say a bit more about what you envisage?

Has there been any progress on moving towards that consenting model?

Are you satisfied that SEPA has the capability to effectively regulate the interactions between wild and farmed salmon?

Good morning, John. Both the REC Committee’s and the interactions working group’s reports identified the need for a lead agency to take responsibility for interactions between farmed and wild salmon. As we know, SEPA took responsibility for managing sea lice and wild salmon interactions from the beginning of February and, next March, it will take responsibility for managing sea lice and sea trout interactions. Has the identification of SEPA as the lead regulator addressed that gap, and has it led to more positive outcomes?

Will there be consideration of how social media is used to disseminate information?

My question follows on from our earlier discussion about the new sea lice framework and modelling accuracy. Salmon Scotland is concerned that the new framework places undue reliance on modelling. Other stakeholders have raised concerns that the sea lice counts are not based on statistically significant sample sizes and that there are data gaps. How do you validate and calibrate your modelling?

The Griggs review identified

“mistrust, dislike, and vitriol ... between the industry ... regulators, parts of the Scottish Government and other stakeholders”.

Your review found that

“science on aquaculture ... is not sufficiently visible”

and that there was

“a lack of shared arenas for voicing concerns and dialogue which continues to fuel a perception of secrecy and misunderstandings.”

Will you expand a wee bit on the challenges that your review identified?

I noticed that, in your written submission, there was no mention of the cyberattack in 2020 and the recovery from that. Salmon Scotland told the committee that the system for assessing and grading the compliance of farms against the conditions of their permits was lost in that cyberattack and that it relies on that system to demonstrate high standards of practice. When do you expect to replace the system?

So, it is on-going.

That still leaves a bit of a gap.