Chamber and committees

Thank you—I appreciate that.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you, cabinet secretary.

Before we move on to the questions, as we are already aware, Charles Allan is with us this morning. I note that Charles also appeared before the committee on this topic back in June in his capacity as head of the fish health inspectorate.

Charles, would you mind briefly clarifying for the committee your role in relation to today’s proceedings?

I call Emma Harper.

You have quoted the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, but farm fish are not covered by that. We heard evidence from OneKind that, as sentient animals that are protected under the 2006 act, farm fish should have statutory welfare standards and official guidance, but they currently do not.

RSPCA has suggested that all its schemes are voluntary accreditation schemes, so all the fish farms are working at an enhanced level, above what is required by legislation, because no legislation looks at the welfare of fish. There are no key performance indicator data to monitor welfare standards because, as RSPCA said,

“It is incredibly difficult to measure welfare.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 5 June 2024; c 18.]

You touched on the 2006 act a couple of times, but farm fish are not covered.

I want to stick with reporting. The Scottish Government’s vision for sustainable aquaculture enables further expansion of the sector as long as it operates within environmental limits and with due attention to animal health. What indicators does the Scottish Government use to monitor whether the industry is operating within those environmental limits and with that due attention to animal health?

That will be helpful. Are there also capacity issues in the Scottish Government? We have received correspondence from Loch Long Salmon, whose planning application for an innovative semi-enclosed caged farming system might well address some of the issues that we have. That application has been sitting with the Scottish Government for two years, waiting for approval or otherwise. When it comes to planning, is there an issue in the Scottish Government?

Thank you. I call Edward Mountain.

Do we need to be a little more honest, realistic and pragmatic about mortalities? Are we ever really likely to make massive improvements in the percentage of fish that are dying? Should we be looking at survival rates? The survival rate for farmed salmon would be significantly higher than the rate for salmon that are in the wild. It is about the narrative.

It seems to be pretty unpalatable that there is an annual mortality of 17 million fish, but it is a bit like comparing apples with apples. We are not talking about sheep or cows. The life cycle of different species of fish, whether it is salmon, wrasse, pollock or cod, is completely different. Rather than trying to defend what, on the face of it, would be unpalatable and unacceptable levels of mortality, is it not time that the industry and the Government took it on the chin and was honest about it? Could they admit that the mortality rate is to be accepted, that we should get over it and that that is how it is going to be? It is completely unrealistic to expect a 10 per cent mortality rate, given where we are with science, technology and innovation.

It is probably a good idea to have a break before we move on to data accessibility and transparency, so I suspend the meeting.