Chamber and committees

Our final item of business is consideration of a UK statutory instrument consent notification. Do members wish to make any comments on the notification?

As members have no comments to make, is the committee content to agree with the Scottish Government’s decision to consent to the provision that is set out in the notification being included in UK instead of Scottish subordinate legislation?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes our business for today.

There were some concerns that the industry had an assumption about the lead-in time, which was to go beyond the end of this parliamentary session. However, as I have just said, the Bute house agreement suggested that it would be before the end of the session. Given that the Bute house agreement is no more, will that lead-in time be reconsidered?

Just to be clear, given that the primary purpose of the system is compliance, can you tell us what will happen to a skipper if the cameras detect the discarding of fish?

I suppose that our fishers are concerned about how high the bar will be set. I understand what you are saying about the importance of bycatch, but the question is where the Government sits as regards how high the bar is set and what would potentially trigger a prosecution if the cameras detected the discarding of fish. There is also uncertainty about what evidence would be used only for scientific purposes, to give you a better understanding of the situation.

Okay, thank you.

That is not what the committee is hearing. For example, we had an indicative cost for cameras on scallop boats of between £3,500 and £4,000, but that was based on analogue cameras, which no longer fit the technical specification. We are looking at a considerably higher cost for digital cameras, and the industry says that it was not part of that—it did not know what the spec was—and that its response might have been different if it had known that digital cameras would be required and existing analogue cameras would be redundant.

I am sorry, but what does that mean? Is that the ability to apply an exemption or to potentially give compensation? For some pelagic boats, that could be hundreds of thousands of pounds or more from one fishing trip. You are saying that you have the ability to cope with issues when, for example, there is a failure in cameras, winch monitors or whatever, but how would you deal with that? Would you provide compensation if there is a situation that is outwith the captain’s control and the vessel is unable to fish?

Cabinet secretary, we are aware that we are now at risk of running significantly over our allocated time. Are you able to stay with us for a little bit longer?

I appreciate that. Thank you very much.