Chamber and committees

Those companies are actually monitoring themselves and providing the data. They may have a mandatory obligation in law, but they are not independently assessed to establish whether the data is correct.

So, it is the records that are inspected.

This is my final point, as I know that others may want to come in. Let us say that I accept the figure of 25 per cent, although others may or may not. Are you content with that figure for animal welfare purposes?

How do you reduce the level?

We had better send a note of what was said in private. A note saying that queries have been raised could usefully be sent in advance to the Government, if appropriate, and circulated to the committee.

It is a matter for the Government to decide. Committees have priority, and there may have to be—I say this with inverted commas around it—a “political decision” at the end of the evidence session about what they do or do not do with the regulation. Therefore, I am not happy that it would be just an official.

I was not party to the original discussion, although I listened to it, or to the queries that were raised by members around this table. Perhaps they could be circulated and sent to the Government in a letter saying, “These are the problems that we have. It will be a brief session, but we would like clarity,” and so on.

Okay. That is fine.

The topic is one of mine, but I thought that I would ask the question now, as we are already on it.

Let us take the maximum mortality rate, which is 25 per cent. How is that checked? I am trying to find out how that is verified independently, because I am not too happy about self-regulation. How is it done? When the figures come in, does someone in the fish health inspectorate say, “I think we should go and check all this stuff on site,” or do they simply check the data? How do they do it?

Professor Griggs asked for independent scientific evidence. That was one of his calls. Are you pursuing that?

We are looking to get actual data. You could go in and say, “Well, the fish are not too bad today,” but I have seen sea lice, and they can do horrible things to the fish. How do you know that the figures are right? That is what I am getting at. This is very important. You have given a figure of 15 to 25 per cent, which is a loss of quarter of the stock.