Chamber and committees

David Niven would like to come in.

Thank you. The real Phil Taylor would like to come in.

Failures in the laying of the first prohibition order have been highlighted to us and, subsequently, that order was changed. Do you think that that has led to a lack of trust on the part of fishermen and scientific researchers who are involved in this area in relation to how regulations are brought forward?

You also touched on the issue of the resourcing of Marine Scotland. Is the situation that we face unlikely to get better unless there is a significant increase in the resources that Marine Scotland has to ensure that policies are put in place that will deliver the sustainable fisheries and rural communities that we all want?

Alasdair—

Our third panel consists of witnesses from environmental non-governmental organisations. I welcome to the meeting Russell Cheshire, trustee of the Community of Arran Seabed Trust; Alex Watson Crook, projects manager at the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust; Calum Duncan, convener of Scottish Environment LINK’s marine group; David Nairn, from the Our Seas coalition; and Phil Taylor, head of policy and operations at the Open Seas Trust.

We have until approximately 11:55 for this session. I ask Rachael Hamilton to kick off the questioning.

I will go through the rest of the panel very briefly, but I must ask everyone to keep their answers to yes or no. It was certainly a question that you can answer in that way.

Okay. We will move on to questions from Jim Fairlie.

Go for it—it is fine for you to continue.

Alasdair Allan has a short supplementary question.

Would Simon Macdonald like to respond to that?