 We look forward to the next meeting of the 15th meeting of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. Our agenda today starts with a decision on whether or not we are going to take item 4 in private. Are the committee agreeable to take item 4, which is a discussion about the committee's business going forward in private? Excellent, I'm grateful for that. Our second agenda item is indeed to welcome Karen Adam MSP, MSP, a potential convener of a new proposed cross-party group on fisheries and coastal communities. Can I welcome you to the committee this morning, Karen? Would you like to explain to us what the purposes and intent behind this proposed CBG are? Thank you and good morning to the committee. As part of my opening statement, I really want to get across the importance of our fisheries to our country and to the economy as a whole. Our fisheries and wider blue economy are an essential part of Scotland's economy and culture. The seas and shores are a part of the rich tapestry of Scotland's history. As a representative of a coastal constituency, I know first hand the important contribution that fisheries and coastal communities make to Scotland. As much as I love to boast about Bampshire and Bucking Coast, if anybody is a bit of a statistician, I have some stats for you here that 48 per cent of constituencies in the Scottish Parliament are coastal, 60 per cent if you include estuaries, and all but one of the electoral regions in the Scottish Parliament touch the coast. That means that there are 93 members of the Scottish Parliament representing coastal communities, including estuaries. That is 72 per cent of our Parliament. We know from recent debates and with this place that the policies affecting fisheries and coastal communities are matters of great importance and have been highly politically sensitive. Scotland boasts the United Kingdom's largest fishing port and Europe's largest white fishing port. Our fisheries and wider blue economy are rapidly evolving and it is abundantly clear that our food and drink sector, particularly our seafood sector, will play a leading role in supporting Scotland to thrive at home and abroad. On a local level, the opportunities that fishing provides are invaluable from catching to processing and from packing to marketing. Our blue economy offers huge opportunities in abundance. The Scottish fish sector is essential also to brand Scotland and is a key component of Scotland's soft power on the world stage. There are a number of issues facing fisheries and coastal communities. We have climate change, the spatial squeeze with offshore and insurer renewable energies and restrictive policies on fishing. Those are just some of the issues that we hope to look at cross-party lines and I hope that the Standards Committee will approve this vitally important cross-party group. Excellent. Thank you very much, Karen. I hope that you are open to questions from the committee. If it is all right, I would like to kick off. Firstly, this is not specifically in relation to your application, but you will be aware from your own inbox and your own involvement in other CPGs how many there are in existence at the moment. There has certainly been evidence that this committee has seen that some CPGs have struggled to maintain the cross-party nature of it and indeed to manage to comply with the requirements of meetings, posting minutes and agendas of that and giving notice. Are you confident that, in the papers, there is a consideration that there may be support by where of the Secretary at? Are you content, as the prospective convener, if so elected to take on that responsibility? Yes, absolutely. I have the support of the Fishmongers Company, which is going to provide a Secretary at who is based in Edinburgh from a company called Pagoda. It also provides support for the All-Party Group on the Fisheries All-Party Group at Westminster. I am on a few CPGs, but the nature of this one I feel for myself over the last two and a half years as I have been a new parliamentarian and bedding in, I have found gaps where I need to have conversations where there needs to be a forum that certain industries can come together and I can talk cross-party as well, where it is a bit more of a politically neutral position where we can really get to the crux of important issues and bash that out and get some action points. I think that this is going to enhance my work and not add to the workload. I feel that this is really going to support my already on-going work and the other MSPs that have come forward to join. That is very helpful. You articulate one of the important elements of cross-party groups, which is the opportunity for MSPs who are responsible for creating them, obviously, and running them, but to meet people outside of this parliament to talk about it. Other than the Secretary at, there is no mention of non-MSP members of the group. Are you able to update the committee on what that will be? I have had some conversations and I can list a few besides the Fish and Mangers Company, the Scottish Inshore Fishermen's Trust, Scottish Fishermen's Federation, Offshore Wind, a number of individual fishers as well, the Salamander Offshore Wind Project, SSC, Peterhead Port Authority and representatives of community groups. It is quite a vast array of different industries, but I feel that that is why I did not want it to be just a fishery CPG. I wanted it to expand to coastal communities because of all the pressures that are really affecting them at the moment. That is very helpful. Do any other members of the committee have any questions? Evelyn, if I come to you first. Thanks, convener. Thank you for your presentation, Karen. That was really helpful. Obviously, there is a lot of commercial interest in this area. You mentioned yourself that you are going to cover, if you get approval, politically sensitive policy areas. How are you going to ensure that the CPG is not co-opted by commercial interests? That is a really important point. That is a point that some individual fishers have spoke to me about, the agenda behind some of the memberships on the CPG and how that would affect everything. As convener, I would really have to be attuned to that and ensure that we are keeping true to what this cross-party group is meant to be. It is meant to be supporting the coastal communities and the fisheries and ensuring that their voices are heard above all. Lived experience is something that I have always gone about and this is something that I will definitely be highlighting and giving most voice to on this CPG. Thanks, convener. Stephen, did you have… Karen, it seems astonishing that there has not been a cross-party group for fisheries and coastal communities up until now. In relation to your experience over the last two and a half years, are there any of the existing APGs that you have tried to raise these issues in? What has your experience been? I have not really found a forum for that. I have looked because over the last two and a half years, obviously within my constituency work but also my work on rural committee, we did once have a round table with the different fishers from the peligic sector, from processing, from insure fisheries and it was really beneficial to have that but we have only really had that in that moment. You appreciate how packed our workloads can be and I just felt that we needed that additional space to give room for more to come forward. The fisheries sector kept talking about the renewables industry and the impacts on ports and service vessels and I thought that there is not that joined up or collaborative approach. Some offshore wind companies have had discussions with fisheries but it is done in bits and parts and I think that having a national overview of that, I think that we can really set a standard for best practice of communication between all the industries. Thank you for that. It was amazing that there was not. I found the elusive missing. I am sure that we have all these. There are some as obvious as this. Absolutely. Does any other member have any questions? If not, I thank you Karen for your attendance today. The committee will consider recognition as its next stage and the clerks will be in touch with you and your course but I thank you for your attendance today. Thank you everybody. A gender item 3 is, as anticipated, to decide whether or not we will grant recognition to the proposed cross-party group on fisheries and coastal communities. Do any members want to make any comments? Stephen, if I come to you first. As a member representing Central Scotland, I have to be honest that fisheries has not always been top of my inbox or case work agenda but I would just repeat again, convener, that this is a vitally important totemic in fact part of Scotland's economy in the fact that we haven't heard a cross-party group that looks at this specifically seems extraordinary to me and therefore as you can probably tell I'm very sympathetic to it but it does highlight the fact that of the 116, however many there are, cross-party groups there are clearly still gaps in terms of the kind of interest there is outside of Parliament for engagement with parliamentarians in that kind of environment to talk about issues free of the dramas of the gender. No, I think that's very helpful and I think it was very helpful for Karen Adam MSP to highlight specifically groups that would be interested in contributing to it and I think it did show a wide range and I found it quite helpful that she indicated it wasn't simply fisheries but was also talking about the communities which was helpful. Do any other members have any, Annie, if I can come to you? I was just quite amazed with the statistics she was saying about how many MSPs actually represent coastal communities and I think that that in itself gives warrant to the fact that this is a CPG that is needed so that's all I've got to say, convener. That's helpful. Ivan Evelyn, I come to you. Thanks, convener. Yes, I think Karen's answers about who would be involved, the sort of breadth of the groups that would be involved, I think that was good to hear. I still possibly have a bit of concern about the commercial interests and how potentially they might try to dominate, as sometimes they do on CPGs. However, I think that Karen's aware of that, she talked about the politics of it, so I'm content. Ivan, any comments to Annie? Clearly I need for it and she's clearly thought about the different aspects and understands what's required so I'm supportive of it. That's helpful. Just before I formally put the question then, one of the things that has concerned this committee, and I think, Stephen You've made mention of it, is the number of CPGs that exist and the workload that that provides or puts on MSPs and the obligations that they have, and we will return to that in relation to the annual report on CPGs to look at the state of all of the CPGs that have existed. But Karen clearly indicated an understanding of the obligations that she was taking on, which I found helpful. So, as a committee, are we prepared to officially recognise the proposed CPG that was before us today that's been presented by Karen Adams to make it an official cross-party group? We are. We are in agreement. I'm grateful for that. I will now move this meeting into private.