Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the 19th meeting of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee in 2024. Before we begin, I ask everyone to ensure that electronic devices are switched to silent.

Our first item of business is to consider whether to take item 5, which is consideration of a draft report on petition PE1758 on ending greyhound racing in Scotland, in private. Do we agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Under our next item of business, we will hear from two witness panels as part of our follow-up inquiry into salmon farming in Scotland. First, we will hear from John Goodlad, the chair of the salmon interactions working group, to discuss the group’s report on addressing the interactions between farmed and wild salmon. Thank you for joining us, John. We have allocated about an hour for this session.

Also joining us is Edward Mountain, who will ask his questions after the committee members have asked theirs. Edward, do you have any relevant interests to declare?

Please be brief.

We will move on to the theme of escapes.

I have a further point to make before we move on from the subject of research and collaboration. Everything seems to revolve around sea lice and the potential impact of increased sea lice load on wild salmon. Has any research been done to examine the impacts of the use of chemicals or antibiotics, or to consider how the biomass created by fish farms might impact on wild salmon? Is that impact significant, and is it something that we should be considering aside from focusing on sea lice?

We will now move on to sea lice regulatory reform.

Is the work that you did in line with the work done in Norway to set out what number of lice would be impactful? Do you align on that?

My apologies, Emma—do you want to come back in?

Certainly.

Our next theme is sea lice regulatory reform.