 Ddiolch i dod yn gwybod a fwy iawn na'r 6 mwyn i'r 2017 yw Llywodraeth Gaelol a Llywodraeth Ffwrdd y Comedi felly rhaid i chi i ddaeimu eu llumau ym mwneud? A bod eich i gael i sicr i'r ystafellau sgiliau Cym乏 i'r ystafellau sgiliau cyffredinol yma, gan hynny i'r ystafellau cyffredinol i'r rhaid i'r ystafellau! Item 2 is for the committee to decide to take future consideration of this report from the commissioner and its own draft report on the complain in private at a future meeting. Does that agree? Thank you very much. Move to agenda item 3. It's for the committee to take evidence on a proposed cross-party group on fishing. I would like to welcome Stuart Stevenson, MSP, to the meeting this morning. Stuart is the proposed co-convener of the group. I would like to invite Mr Stevenson to make an opening statement. Thank you very much, convener. The other co-convener that we held to organise on 7 February is my colleague Tavish Scott. We did offer other interested parties the opportunity to be co-conveners, but that's what we've ended up with. Since 1999, when the Scottish Parliament resumed, we've never had a cross-party group on fishing. Perhaps the profile of fishing in the light of the substantial changes that the catching sector in particular expects with leaving the common fisheries policy has drawn together a very diverse group of interests in the industry. We have people from environmental interests, people from the catching sector and people from the processing sector. Fishing is a very important industry for many people in specific areas of Scotland, but probably one that will pass by many others. We've never had as good quality information flowing from the industry to members in this Parliament when we're having debates, and we see the opportunity to get this diverse. Often, people who quite fundamentally disagree with each other together in one room to make sure that parliamentarians are much better informed. I'm delighted that we've got representatives at our first meeting and prepared to sign up for membership from all the political parties at the moment, apart from the Greens, but that was purely because the person who might be interested happened to be unwell at the time, so I'm expecting. I can't commit other people to sign up, but I think that there will be a further sign up. I hope that this will be a group that will better inform Parliament but also provide a structure for the many different parts of the industry to talk to each other in a way that's moderated by their being here and under the BDI of Parliament, because the industry has surprisingly few opportunities to meet together and all its diversity, and we might for the first time be creating it. I'm very happy, convener, to take any questions that members now have. Thank you very much, Mr Stevenson, and I open up the end, Mr Harvie. Thank you very much. Good morning. It's just a very simple question for clarification. The name is just fishing. It seems to imply from the description and the membership that it's about commercial fishing. It's about the fishing industry, although it's not going to touch on issues relating to fishing as a pastime by individuals. I just wondered whether I've got that right and whether you'd considered a name that clarifies that it's about commercial fishing rather than the kind of fishing that individuals might choose to participate in. Well, you are correct that it is about the catching of wild fish. We're not seeking to cover the commercial salmon farming industries or similar industries, but it does not exclude those people who catch wild fish offshore on a non-commercial basis. Although we haven't sought to include them because it's difficult, it doesn't appear to be an organisation that we can make contact with. When we say fishing, we are covering quite a wide range of activity, but it is restricted to, in essence, offer shores catching wild fish and people who are related to that in the processing industry. It is essentially commercial, but it isn't seeking to exclude people who have non-commercial interests, and in particular by making sure that we have environmental interests as part of the membership, and they are keen to be so. We have a degree of balance of people who are not simply there because they have commercial interests in the industry. You are not intending to cover things such as recreational angling in shore? We are content to include that, although we haven't yet found offshore, we haven't found a way of making contact with people. It is the first meeting that we have had. We are very open to people with that interest coming to our meetings and participating. It is an important interest, and I can say right at this moment that there is a piece of secondary legislation that touches on precisely those people's interests that will shortly be coming to the committee of the Parliament. It is not a trivial matter, and it is quite proper to raise it. You specifically said that you weren't looking at salmon farming, but, obviously, both in ecological issues and in other areas, salmon farming can impact on wild salmon fishing. Can you explain a little bit more why salmon farming offshore would be excluded? We are not actively trying to exclude it. We simply haven't included it, if I can put it that way. In part, that is because the offshore industry is a very complex industry, with many different strands of it. It competes with each other, and simply what we have come up with is an attempt to have something that is sufficiently narrowly focused to be possible to do something about. However, we would not exclude if there was a feeling that farming offshore, in our locks and offshore, were not finding a proper way to communicate with Parliament. However, the salmon farming industry, in particular—very important as it is, I think, between £300 million and £400 million a year to Scotland—has effectively managed to work with Parliament. However, the offshore fishing industry has not hitherto found an effective way of dealing with Parliament and parliamentarians, so that has been an initial focus. However, we are not seeking to exclude anyone, and we would be delighted if other people wish to come and join the group if the committee approves it to be established. Declaring an interest is one of the co-conveners on the cross-party group on food, is that, indeed, the fish farming industry, when you have inadvertently understated the output of the fish farming industry, is a great deal more than the figure that you gave, but notwithstanding that, is that where you would see a crossover with the cross-party group on food in that regard, although very much the wild fish that you are talking about representing those particular interests that are also for food? Yes. Our focus is not directly on food, but there are people who, for example, the Scottish Seafood Association, who are members of this proposed group, do crossover, obviously, to interest in food. By the way, I am delighted to hear that I underestimated the value of salmon, a product that I really personally love and I hope remains very successful in an environmentally proper way. However, in practice, there is not any evidence so far that we are going to cross over to be talking about food as our core activity. We are part of the supply chain that enables Scotland to have an important role in food and drink both domestically and internationally. I thank Mr Stevenson for his attendance at the committee this morning. We will be taking a decision on the proposed group at our next agenda item, and you will be informed of that decision as quickly as possible. Thank you very much, Gimbure. Agenda item 4 is for the committee to consider whether to accord recognition of the proposed cross-party fishing. Any comments? I think that there is an identity gap that should have been filmed long ago, and when they have identified it, I think that when staring you in the face, I am surprised that there has not been a group on it before, so I think that it is good. Any further comments? I do not want to ask you to extend to mollics and muscles and that sort of thing, but I resisted the temptation. Interesting. I am sure that that will come up in some of their ecological discussions, but we are farming the seabed. On that note, I will ask for the committee to approve. Thank you very much. We now move into private session.