Chamber and committees

Thanks very much for that. It is helpful to understand some of the constraints that you are working under, the challenges and the complexity.

I will move on. I am interested in your response to evidence that we have heard from witnesses that the 2024-25 council tax freeze has negatively impacted local government finances and damaged the relationship between local government and the Scottish Government.

What is your sense of the impact of the council tax freeze on the relationship with local government?

What was said in the previous evidence session about communication, connections, discussions and meetings being in the diary indicates that there is still a relationship, which is very important.

Is there anything that we need to be aware of that could jeopardise the UK spending review next spring, or is that review a certainty?

Emma Roddick has a brief supplementary question.

Do you want to carry on, Emma? I think that you have a couple more questions on public service reform.

That is great news. When you say that you feel that there needs to be more engagement, would you like to have more dates in the diary? What would more engagement look like. for you?

For clarity, my question—

It has been an interesting morning.

I am moving on to the theme of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s recommendations. In 2018, the REC Committee inquiry recommended that

“urgent and meaningful action needs to be taken to address regulatory deficiencies as well as fish health and environmental issues before the industry can expand.”

As I understand it, since 2018, more than 50,000 tons of biomass has been given planning permission, but data from the fish health inspectorate and SEPA shows that in 2022 and 2023, four times more fish died in salmon farms than in 2018. Numbers from the fish health inspectorate show that in 2018, there were 3,782,475 seawater and freshwater deaths, and in 2023, there were 17.4 million seawater and freshwater deaths—the figures are as provided in the Scottish Parliament information centre’s briefings. Those numbers are huge underestimates, as they do not include any fish that died in the first six weeks at sea, or any deaths under the FHI’s weekly reporting threshold. As we have been discussing, that is 1 per cent of the total fish in a sea farm per week.

Given the REC Committee’s recommendation that regulatory deficiencies, fish health and environmental issues needed to be addressed before the industry could expand, why do you think that the industry should be allowed to expand? Why is the industry expanding when the recommendation was that things needed to be taken care of that clearly have not been taken care of?

It is great to hear that the industry is doing things to tackle the issues and, as we have heard, spending almost £1 billion to do so, including investing in the sea lice treatment vessels, pesticides and cleaner fish. However, the mortality rate between 2018 and 2023 clearly shows that those measures are not really working. I have heard the point that either Ralph Bickerdike or Ben Hadfield raised—I cannot remember who—about the changing conditions, with warmer seawater, el niño and la niña. However, those issues will not go away; they will keep coming back. The warming of the waters fluctuates and we are having to recognise and face that in many sectors across Scotland.

It was also interesting to hear from Constance Pattillo about bubble curtains and that kind of innovation technology but, to me, those sound—