Chamber and committees

It is £16.5 million.

We will follow that up and double-check that for the committee, because I want to make sure that we are providing you with the right information.

I have not said that at all today, and I want to clarify that. I recognise the issues that exist with the marine lab. I hope that I have been clear and transparent about that. Work has to be undertaken on those issues because, as I have said, we want the lab to be a place that people feel proud and enthusiastic to work in and we want to ensure that the staff have the best available facilities to work in. That is why the work of the project board in delivering that future will be really important. As we have already set out, we will be happy to furnish the committee with further information on that.

Our fisheries science is, of course, hugely important. I understand some of the concerns that were raised, and I have acknowledged that. However, although our spend, particularly on fisheries science, has not increased, it has remained broadly consistent over the past few years.

I will not reiterate all the work that we have previously talked about, but already today we have given positive examples of it, including the work in relation to monkfish and all the engagement that there is through ICES. Ultimately, we are trying to ensure that we see the best outcomes and fishing opportunities for our industry in Scotland.

Of course, we cannot do all that on our own. I have already talked about the science and innovation strategy and the development of the implementation plan for it. The strategy will be a critical component, because it will be about how we can use our resources as best as we can, in collaboration with other academic institutions as well as industry.

There is a difference between vessel monitoring systems—VMS—and REM. I think that all vessels that are over 12m are equipped with VMS. We are looking to roll out VMS across our whole fleet by the end of the parliamentary session. We have undertaken a consultation on that and are still to publish the outcome.

REM is more detailed. It is about winch sensors and camera footage. It is different for different parts of the fleet. It could be set up differently on the pelagic vessels than on the scallop dredge vessels. I am happy to furnish you with the exact information but, essentially, REM provides us with more detail and more information, and it would apply to vessels that are fishing in Scottish waters.

That is what we are planning for. We aim to go to procurement next year to replace the two vessels that I mentioned.

I do not know if my officials have that information to hand, but I will be happy to provide that to the committee after the meeting. All the technologies that we have talked about today can help us to deal with some of the issues that we see but cannot tackle at the moment. As I said, the roll-out of REM will assist us with that.

If it would be helpful, I have the overall figure for how much we received from fixed-penalty notices last year, which was about £140,000. I would be happy to provide a further breakdown of the detail to compare that sum to the number of cases reported to us, but I do not have that information to hand.

Absolutely.

Since the previous session of Parliament, there has been a review of regional inshore fisheries groups and some changes have been made over the past few years. It has really been a case of looking at how those changes have been implemented. We want to make sure that we are working with our stakeholders on this process, but as soon as I am clearer on the timescales, I will provide the committee with that information.

Yes, that is fine. I am happy to provide the committee with further information. I do not have all that detail to hand at the moment. However, I highlight one thing about that programme, which we talked about when we were discussing science and collaboration: it is a really important piece of work that the SFF is able to assist us in. I will have to follow up with more information for the committee.