 Felly, wrth gwrs, wrth gwrs y ddefnyddio y 10 o'r 2018 o'r Cymru Cymru Cymru. Mae cymdeithasol o astiwyr Stevenson MSP, ac mae'n gweithio ar y cyfnodau y cymdeithasol y Cymru John McAlpine. Felly, rwy'n credu i chi i ddweud eich cwyrdd o'r ryleu riliadau. Rwy'n credu i chi eich riliadau, y cwyrdd. Rwy'n credu i chi. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to consider whether to take item 5 actualilys in private. Are We All Agade? We are agreed. The second item on the agenda is to take evidence on the environmental implications for Scotland UK leaving the EU from both Rosanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform and Michael Russell, Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland's Place in Europe. The ministers are accompanied by officials Kate Thompson-McDermott, Ian Jardin, Ewan Page and Julie Steele. We move directly to questions. I ask for the Scottish Government's view of the policy areas that the UK Government says are reserved. Mr Russell. We dispute some of those. I think that the history of that needs to be put in context. The discussions on the areas of intersection between the EU competence and competence for this Parliament have been going on for some considerable time, in fact, since last summer. By last December, we had hammered out a list of 111 items, which was divided into three sections. I'm sorry to repeat this, but it's a context of where we now are. Those three sections include a number of items that no further action is required, a number of items that would be non-legislative solutions, many of which were already in place, such as memorandre of understanding or normal ways of working, and a list of 24 or 25, depending on your definition, of items that might require legislative frameworks. That would be the problematic list, although we would maintain that agreement was required for all those things. At decisions on those matters, even if they were out of scope, should not be made by the UK Government, they should be made by devolved administration. There were, therefore, up until two weeks ago just three categories. However, two weeks ago, a paper was produced that was not shown to the two relevant ministers, such as myself and Mark Drakeford, but entered into discussion at a meeting of the JMC without us seeing it, and therefore it was impossible for us to discuss it because we didn't know what we were discussing. That paper had a fourth category, and that fourth category contained a list of items that the UK Government said were reserved. Therefore, without scope for any of this discussion, decisions had been made and they would not be even talked about any further. We have now looked at that list. Our initial analysis, and I stress that it is an initial analysis, is that the classification of state aid, timber trade rules and protected food names could be and will be contested. Therefore, we do not accept that this list is accurate. State aid is a very interesting part of that, because the state aid issue has always been one that was dealt with by the UK but always dealt with on the basis of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administration of the rules for those areas. What appears to be now suggested is that there would be a single UK system that would only be administered by the UK, which would, in this context, be judge and jury in its own case, because we would be dealing with state aid rules that were set by the UK for the UK. Therefore, if there was any dispute about them, it would be the UK that decided. That may sound strange, but it is how the JMC operates. Any complaint under the great process of the JMC ends up with the UK Government, who says that nothing to see here will move along. We will have to and will dispute that. We do not accept that. We think that it should be a matter for discussion. That list has to go back into discussion as part of the discussions that are taking place. Have you had any feedback from the UK Government on that desire on your part? There has been no formal discussion of that, because, as I say, it was entered into discussion two weeks ago—in fact, ten days ago—without any discussion with us. Now, there needs to be formal discussion of it. Our officials are starting that process, but we do not get any indication that there is any flexibility in it as yet, but we could not accept that list and we could not accept that process, where those decisions are simply made. Talking about further discussion, there are 24 policy areas that would require or may require legislative arrangements, and that will have to be worked through. How do you envisage agreement being reached on whether a framework is necessary? What form do you envisage that taking? What happens if there is a difference of view? Is that these are well-rehearsed positions? Obviously, we have talked about that substantially in recent weeks. Let's accentuate the positive. Last July, we started with the view from the UK Government all the items, every item on the list. Remember, this is their list of intersections. All those items would go to Westminster and then there would be, in some unspecified time period, some unspecified action that would result in some of those coming back by agreement. We and the Welsh, of course, refused to accept that. We are now in the position where the official position of the UK Government, as I understand it, is that the only areas of contention of those 24, however, they have reserved the right to add to that list at any time should a new item drift into their consciousness. This has been a major discussion that simply there could be something that they suddenly realised they wanted to have on a list and they put it on this list. Ostensibly, this is a list that now requires that the final list of the 24 or 25, the December list, had 25 items on it. The present list is slightly different, and the analysis of that has put out to members. This is a list in which we say there could be the need for legislative frameworks. There has been a deep dive exercise on all of these issues and, indeed, on some other issues, too, which is bringing together officials from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the UK to discuss what type of framework might be necessary or required, whether it should be a legislative framework, whether it could have the continuation or intensification of present methods of operation or whether there is something else that needs to be done. I will give you an example. In agricultural support, clearly the UK Government is planning an agriculture bill, and therefore one would expect that, as a process of developing that bill, a framework for agricultural support in these islands would be part of that bill. That bill would require our involvement in putting it together and it would require legislative consent, so that is quite clear. In fishing, it is not quite so clear, taking aside the present situation, but in fishing it is not quite so clear because there are existing arrangements that operate on an essentially a collaborative basis, whether there is work that is done between the Administrations. Therefore, whether there is to be a fisheries bill, we know that, but whether that fisheries bill would contain a new set of legislative frameworks or whether it would seek the continuation of the present informal arrangements, we would really have to discuss that. However, the point here is that it is willing entry into discussion. If the UK Government says that these are the items that we think should form the basis of frameworks, and we were to agree—I do not think that it would be difficult to find that agreement—and say, will you now agree that that is the case, saying to us and to the Welsh, and now let us work our way together to seeing how that happens with a formal structure and with a dispute resolution procedure? Interestingly, there was an amendment in the House of Lords yesterday, which of course none of which were voted on, but there is an amendment from Lord Mackay of Clashfairn, which begins to tackle this issue. I have talked to James Mackay about his amendment and about the process that we are going through. He has very acutely, of course, as he would, seen that the issue is, first of all, a structure of getting consent, and secondly, a structure for resolving difficulties in which consent cannot be found. I do not agree with the particular solution that he has put in place, particularly on the second part, but I do think that that is an important contribution and it builds on the work of the Welsh Government in last August, who published a paper on the issue of relationships within these islands, because it will come as no surprise this committee that I believe that Scotland should be independent, but even if I do believe that and I do, others believe it too, there will need to be some sort of structure that governs relationships between the nations of these islands with an independent Scotland, let alone a devolved Scotland. How do we reach that? The Welsh have put forward some interesting ideas, ideas about a council of the isles, a way in which we could work together on issues of agriculture and fisheries and the environment and elsewhere, and other subjects. We begin to have those discussions, and the Welsh want to have those discussions, including members of the House of Lords are waking up to that, but the UK Government does not want to have those discussions. It wants to continue with the present situation, the JMC dominating the situation, and that is not acceptable. So, how will the impasse be broken? I have, I was about to say, no idea. I have lots of ideas. I have lots of ideas, but I am not sure how it will be broken. We will continue to discuss, there are ideas such as the ones being discussed in the House of Lords, the basic principle cannot be avoided. That is at the heart of it, the basic principle of ensuring that there is consent or agreement for the use of the powers that are in the control of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament by extension, and the Scottish and Welsh people cannot be overridden. However, if that principle of consent, the recognition of the existing devolution settlement, that is all it is, that if the recognition of the existing devolution settlement is given by the UK Government, then there is a way forward. That is by negotiation and these frameworks fit into that, and we move forward in that way and legislative consent is given to the bill. If that is not the case, then we will move forward by having our own bill, which I hope we will pass this week, by having the UK bill and finding a way between those two bills to ensure that these frameworks operate. Somewhere or another, we have got to make something work, but the best and easiest route is presently being resisted by the UK Government. The other route will be harder, but I think that we will simply have to do it. What you have just said, does that also cover in general a general sense the policy areas where non-legislative common framework should be required? Yes, it does. Taking aside the things that need no action by definition, they should have no action, although, as I say, the UK Government reserves its position to change that definition at its whim. I am not 100 per cent certain that that will be the case, but 99 per cent show that it would be. In the middle area, yes, that would be more discussion, but it is easier to resolve because we are not anticipating that legislation is required. Alex Rowley, I think that those of us who are some of us who do not see necessarily independence as the answer would still be arguing that if you are going to negotiate frameworks, then it is about the states of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales going to the table as equals. If you can accept the principle that people start from being equals, then the dispute resolution mechanism is as key to that as it is not, but can I ask in terms of the process for developing these frameworks, is there an opportunity there how would the Scottish Government engage with key stakeholders? If we take fisheries or farming as an example to that, do you prioritise how, for the process, the timescale would you prioritise based on what? On the first point, I very much agree with you. This is the basis of our very close work with the Government of Wales, which is not a nationalist Government. I work very closely with Mark Drakeford and continue to do so, but it is on the basis that we have different endpoints in our agenda, but we accept, at this stage in the journey absolutely, the need for people to be treated with equity and the nations to be treated with equity and to behave in that way. That is a simple principle. It is a pity that it cannot be accepted by at least one of the four, because if it can be accepted, then everything else flows from it and we do not find ourselves in these difficulties. In terms of stakeholders, it is very intensive engagement with stakeholders on a number of levels. The normal engagement of a cabinet secretary with his or her stakeholders carries on regardless. Much of the topic of that would be Brexit. I think that the cabinet secretary has held at least two very big events for stakeholders and many, many regular events for stakeholders. There is another level of engagement that I will meet with stakeholders either jointly with the cabinet secretary or separately. I continue to do that in a whole variety of ways. It has been somewhat interrupted in the last three or four weeks by other work here, but I have a very intensive diary of engagement and will continue to do so. For example, it recommences next week—I am in Aberdeen next week for a day—and I will continue to talk to people. Prioritisation is a difficult issue in this, because everybody is worried about the timescale and everybody is looking at this and saying, we need some action now. An example brings to mind in the pharmaceutical industry, where the uncertainty about the medicines agency has created a circumstance in which companies have been expending very considerable sums of money in the millions, ensuring that their products are re-registered and re-certified in order to allow the present situation to continue. Now the UK has said that it wants to continue in membership of the medicines agency. That was part of the mansion house speech, but there is no mechanism for that. There is no mechanism for having an additional country as a member, so that has to be negotiated. They are saying that we have a lead time for what we are doing. We passed the first trigger for that last autumn, essentially, so they had to start expending very considerable sums of money. Now they will be saying, and I need to re-engage with them as a light of the document yesterday and the possible transition period. They will now be saying that our time horizon has altered and that we need these things to happen in order to know that this agency is in place so that we do not have to expend even more money. We have to recognise the dynamic within each sector and respond to that. We will see that become quite pressing this summer in both hospitality aspect and in agriculture and in horticulture, where there will be a further diminution, in my view, of the labour available. People will then be saying that we need a new migration system put in place that guarantees that. The time horizon for that was last year, because we are now seeing a diminution of that taking place. There will be a further diminution in 2019 and in 2020, as they anticipate what is taking place. The migration white paper, which was due to appear before Christmas—indeed, I said to the then migration minister at a meeting with Brandon Lewis—would he guarantee that it would be published before Christmas or after Christmas, and he said that he would not say that it would be sooner rather than later. They are now saying that it will be the end of this year before it appears. If it is the end of this year, we have missed this year, so we do not know what is going to take place. We do know, however, that EU citizens continue to come here until the end of 2020 and qualify and be treated in the same way as other citizens. That was a concession from the UK yesterday in a transition document, but that pressure is going to man. When do we get those decisions? Part of our job in the Scottish Government and in those discussions of the UK Government is to remind the UK Government constantly of what the priorities are in Scotland, what the sectoral priorities are and how they get dealt with. Financial service is another one, talking to somebody in financial services yesterday. They have a time horizon and they are missing the time horizon at the moment. Time scales are very difficult in terms of what the timeframe is for this. Is the Scottish Government satisfied that it is deploying enough resources given that there seems to be an uncertainty around timescale and uncertainty about what is going to be involved in this? Are you employing enough resources to this? What are the implications for focusing so much on Brexit and other areas of policy development? I do not think that we are nearly as badly off in that regard as the UK Government, for whom Brexit is a black hole that is sucking in all endeavour and all activity. You cannot have a conversation in white hall unless it is about Brexit. We are conscious of that. We have structured ourselves differently. I operate in a different way from Deksu operates. Perhaps if I may put it this way, I do not necessarily feel it after the last month's more fleet of foot than Deksu is. I work closely with all the cabinet secretaries, advising and supporting them directly to the First Minister in that regard. I have never been constrained by resource in the sense that the things that I think I need to be done are done. The UK Government has allocated £3 billion initially to the task of Brexit—it will cost a great deal more than that, in my opinion—and we are in negotiations about allocating some of that money so that Scotland has that money. We will have to spend what it takes to do that regrettably. I think that there are enormous ways to money. There are other things that we could do, but because we are operating differently, I am able, I hope, to support my colleagues in a way that allows them all sorts of focus on the other things and a legislative programme that has ambition and which is pursuing its way through the Parliament. Yes, I will, because this portfolio and the rural economy portfolio are probably the two portfolios that are experiencing the biggest impact of that work. There has been some restructuring within the Scottish Government in managing that, because we felt that that was absolutely necessary. It is a major challenge. Mike Russell has mentioned the UK's £1.3 billion spend in terms of the resource. What is worth noting in that is that, within that £1.3 billion at the UK level, DEFRA and BASE have been allocated significantly higher funding than other departments because of the same portfolio impact that occurs down there. The so far indications are that the Scottish Government is only going to get about £37.3 million pounds. Obviously, there will need to be a decision taken if that is what it becomes, as to how that is allocated and whether or not those resources are sufficient. It does mean that, whether we like it or not, we have to try and approach that on a risk-based prioritisation in areas to try and keep delivering in policy, as well as managing that process. It is a very complex process. I have one example to walk the committee through if they want to hear it. The kind of thing that has to be gone through. Officials have given me just one example to show the scale of the task confronting us, and that is just in identifying potential legislative deficiencies. One item of legislation is the pollution prevention and control Scotland regulations 2012. I do not expect committee members to be writing this down and thinking about this, because it is quite complex, but it is to understand the way that the process has to work. Section 26A of those regulations states that SEPA must ensure that a permit contains such conditions as it considers necessary to give effect to the provisions of schedule 1B to those regulations. The terms of section 26A would not appear to be affected by withdrawal, if you just read that, as I have read it out. However, if you go to schedule 1B, which is what is referred to, three quarters of the way through that schedule states at Para 17B that existing medium combustion plants until 1 January 2030 are exempt from the air quality requirements in other sections of the schedule, where the plant is situated in a zone that conforms with limit values set out in directive 2008-50-EC. At that point, you then have to go to the directive that defines the zones with reference to member states. As a result, that exemption will no longer work post EU withdrawal, as medium combustion plants in the UK will no longer be in a member state, rendering the original provision deficient. The definition in that statutory instrument no longer works. That is just one section in one of hundreds of statutory instruments, and that is the kind of work that is having to go on as the weeks and months go by. In terms of scale around deficiencies, how big an issue is that? We literally have to go through all those statutory instruments to establish that. I would imagine that the scale is significant. Certainly, across the scanning portfolio and the Royal Economy portfolio, we are talking four, five, six hundred instruments that need to be looked through, and they can range from anything from a page or two to hundreds of pages. Every time we need to look through, obviously, the Scottish domestic legislation and then when you have to refer on to the directors and the regulations, they can extend to hundreds of pages. That is just the legislative aspect, because it is not looking at day one readiness in terms of administration, policy, funding, delivery on the ground. What is the resource that has been directed to that? How far into the process are you, and when do we envisage that process being concluded realistically? We are in the process, because I would not have been able to give you that example. How far into it? How far in? We are not anywhere near finished. It will take a considerable amount of time. I may warn the committee that it is probably going to take a considerable amount of committee time when we start to look at the resolution of the process. There is a lot of work currently happening. We are actually in the process of identifying all possible deficiencies, but some of that does depend on what the terms of the withdrawal agreement are. We are seeing at the moment difficult to assess, and you have heard from Mike Russell about the uncertainties around that. The terms of any withdrawal agreement, we have only just heard what the transition period is going to be and what the terms of any future relationship with the UKEU are. If things do work out in terms of pharmaceutical industry, then some of what is here may not have to be dealt with in early course. It might be able to be dealt with later. At the moment, we are in a world of uncertainty. The legislation in front of the Parliament at present has categories of items that have to be repatriated. If you look at the secondary legislation, which was what Anna Cunningham has been referring to, it will all have to be looked at. There are many thousands of items to be looked at, and it is not surprising that we have been involved with Europe in this way for 46 years. It is bound to be a vast amount of material. The actual number that will contain deficiencies, that is things that would render the instrument inoperable whether to continue, is still a matter of speculation, but my own estimate at the present moment is at least doubling the amount of secondary legislation going through in the next couple of years. You might go from 300 to 600 items, and perhaps more. It will depend. We would, to be fair—let's not just overstate this, because it is sometimes possible just to go and hold your hands up and say how horrific this is—most officials who work in a particular area will know their area pretty well, will know where the European links are and the European issues are, and will pick those up. People like Ian Jordan, who have worked in Europe and have worked in Scotland, are familiar with those links as well, but it is a significant amount of work. We are into it, but there is a Scottish Government-wide set of responsibilities, and then two points apply, which Rosanna Cunningham has raised, which are very important. We do not know the detail of the arrangements withdrawal, and that will affect it, because some things may remain the same. You do not want to have to change something and then change it back, so that is really important. The second one is the timescale of it. If we have got until the end of December 2020, which this document—no European document is short, but that is the transition document—if this transition document is eventually what happens, then we have got that period of time. If it is not, and something goes badly wrong, say this autumn, then we will not have that time. However, if there is a longer period of transition, which is something that you will hear talked of quite a lot amongst the 27th, political noise around that is interesting this morning in terms of what might or might not happen, then you might have a longer period of time to do it. However, we are focusing at the present moment on until December 2020 the job of work that we have got to be done, the individual portfolios, as Rosanna Cunningham has indicated, and trying to make sure that we understand the context of which this is happening. Donald Cameron, then Mark Ruskell. In terms of resources, I have no doubt that this will cause extra work for a lot of people. Do you think that this gives you good grounds within the Scottish Government's budget for asking for a greater slice of the pie? I think that if you ask any cabinet secretary about that portfolio, they will always be able to come up with arguments to ask for a greater slice of the pie, but I need to remind everybody that we did do better in the budget this year than other portfolios already. Some of that is a reflection of the importance of a number of the key portfolio areas. The Scottish pie is anywhere near large enough for us to be able to have in any portfolio the resources that we would all want. That is a kind of truth, which is self-evident. We will always be looking for more. In terms of the argument about the share of the Scottish Barnett consequentials, the UK is spending £1.3 billion, but its intention is to at this point give us 2.5 per cent of that £37.3 million. I will argue very strongly internally that there are two portfolios that probably need assistance more than others, but come on, 2.5 per cent of what the UK Government thinks is appropriate to spend on that. You can see the inequity there before we even begin. It is way above my pay grade to the side in any way that people should get out of the Scottish pie, but I am absolutely no doubt that the pie that should be sliced in a way to pay for this is the United Kingdom pie because the United Kingdom is dragging Scotland out of the EU, and therefore the cost of this exercise should be paid by the UK Government. Can I go back to common frameworks? You talked about the fisheries existing arrangements that we have, the common framework that we have up to a point. Presumably, we could be heading towards a bilateral between the UK and the EU over fisheries next year, in advance of quota setting in late 2019. Has there been any progress in terms of a shared analysis between Scotland and the rest of the UK over the principles that sit behind the CFP? On the face of it, you perhaps share some criticisms of the CFP and perhaps share some desire for reform. Indeed, that is part of the arguments that were made in relation to Brexit, but I am just wondering what the discussions are like under that particular shared framework, and whether you have agreement on areas that you like and areas that you dislike in relation to the CFP. I think that none of us have made the secret of the fact that the CFP has not been fit for a purpose for many of Scotland's fishing communities, but I think that that is a question to be fair, better addressed to Fergus Ewing than to me. The detail of this policy is for Fergus Ewing to take forward. The transition agreement indicates that it is not 2019 in which there will be a discussion about quota, but that there will be a discussion about quota 2020. 2019 gives the right of consultation but does not give any right of decision making. Any changes are not going to be kicking in until 2020, despite all the assurances that have come from certain political figures claiming that we would be leaving the CFP in March 2019. That was not true. It was always not going to be true, and indeed people who asserted that it was going to be true were guilty of a cruel deception. I do not think that supporting CFP is not something that I would do. There need to be changes, but that is something that Fergus Ewing. I am sure that if the member were to ask him or to write to him, I am sure that he will take note that you have asked me that question. Presumably, there are areas that cross over into environment as well, because the CFP deals with the ecology of our marine environment and fisheries is one of the pressures within that. The marine environment is one of the areas where there is still discussion on going about what a post-Brexit scenario would look like, but it is not, as far as I am aware, taking place in the context of a discussion about the CFP, per se. I think that people need to understand that when we are talking about these deep dives, they are all done at official level. Ministers are not directly involved at this stage. In a sense, there are discussions between officials to try and hammer out what is and is not in scope, but it is all done caveated by the understanding that those conversations do not have ministerial endorsement and anything that emanates from them would need to go back up or go to ministers for discussion and endorsement at that point. Can I just say that the interpretation of the fishing section of the transition agreement is now becoming even clearer? It is now clear that what it says is that, although at the quota talks in 2019, the UK will be allowed to join the delegation, it will not be allowed in the same room, it will not be part of the negotiations, and it will not be ahead of delegations meetings. In actual fact, that is much, much, much, much worse deal than even the present deal. Frent of the Air Scotland, some time ago, had raised issues about the loss of control in areas such as renewable energy, climate change, air quality and flat fracking, and Nourish has said that taking food standards away from Scotland could result in the diminution of the quality of food that we eat. I raised those issues in Parliament with Cabinet Secretary, it must be a good few months ago now. I just wondered, we are further down the line now, are those organisations, can they take any comfort that we have moved any closer to resolving those issues? I do not believe that any of our external stakeholders at the moment feel that there is a resolution in sight. There is a better conversation now taking place about broader environment principles. We did finally get it on to the devolved administrations meeting in December last year, when that was our first substantive conversation around the broader environmental side. Discussing the things that you are talking about, more granular discussions in terms of the impact of the environment, they are not taking place at that level, they are taking place still at the official to official level, while they try to bottom out what is and is not going to have an impact. I do not want to put words into organisations mouths, but I have not heard any organisations saying that they feel that they things are beginning to go in the right direction in terms of what they might want to see. There is still considerable anxiety about certain aspects of the lists that might rustle has read out. Climate change continues to be a concern, GM foods continue to be a concern, there is a whole range of things that, as yet, there is no resolution on. I am not sure that I have heard any one of our partner organisations feeling that that had come any closer. John Scott Thank you, convener. I declare an interest as a farmer. What is clear is that it is unclear, I suppose, but far in as much as you are able, what progress is being made with respect to new post-Brexit funding frameworks such as environmental funding frameworks to replace CEP, structural funds and funding for research, and development. Obviously, there are continued conversations to my knowledge. There is nothing that has been decided in any definitive way. Obviously, we have to continue to work with the UK Government, and that is at every level in respect of future funding arrangements. Those are vitally important, but there is a lot of concern about the fact that, as yet, we do not have any details of successor arrangements in terms of a post-Brexit scenario. While we continue to press the UK Government on that, what we need is for devolved administrations to be engaged in the decision-making process around future funding arrangements, rather than being regarded as consultees. Of course, we have just heard that the UK is going to be put into the position of being a consultee in terms of fishing, and you can hear how unsatisfactory that will be considered to be. That is the danger of where we are with a lot of those things. Research and development continues to be a very significant concern in terms of future funding. We still have no resolution to that. We continue to press the issue, but, as yet, there is no detailed discussion about what we are looking at and what potentially we will have post-Brexit. Outside that, it makes it extremely difficult for us, and it goes back to some of the conversation that we have earlier. We can spend a lot of time and effort planning for a scenario that then turns out not to be the one that is decided upon. In which case, not only do we have to then go through that process again for a new scenario, it means that we have wasted time planning for a scenario that did not eventuate. There needs to be an understanding in the UK Government of the way in which Scotland accesses funds and why those funds are important. There needs to arise out of that an agreement on a clear rules-based system that advantages those areas that need those funds most. That is where we should start. We see, for example, with cap payments, that those are going to roll forward to 2020. Mr Gove made a commitment to 2024. I do not know whether that is stuck or whether there is any Treasury backing for that, but it is certainly to 2020. He has talked about ways in which agricultural support will operate thereafter. That is a matter for Scotland to decide in terms of Scottish priorities. That is the work that agricultural champions have been doing and a variety of people have been looking to look at the right thing. However, if you look at pillar 2 of CAP, you look at rural support and then you look at things such as the social fund and regional funding, those need to translate into funding packages and sources that are rules-based, transparent and reflect what the needs of the respective parts are. That is why the European packages, with all their failings over bureaucracy sometimes, have been successful because they have recognised where the need is and we have been able to access them in a way that suited us and worked for us. That is what needs to take place. So far, that discussion has not taken place. Indeed, I have not even had the opportunity to have that discussion, for example, through the JMC process, but we would be very keen to make it clear that that is what we need to have worked for us, rather than the idea that there will be some grand scheme devised in London. We will certainly be told to get on with it. Given that Mr Gove has suggested that Scotland might wish to get on with devising its own scheme in this regard and that the rural champions have done some work on that and others, I dare say, do you have any time scales for when the Scottish Government may come forward with an idea as to how we might wish to create a successor organisation to CAP? We are certainly working on that process at the moment and we are just awaiting the final report from the agricultural champions, which should be available in the next few months before looking at how we take that forward in terms of our response and planning. There are three separate aspects that we need to plan for, which is what would happen during a transition period, depending on what that transition is. While we are within the EU, for agriculture policy, we are looking at what will essentially be transition 2. It will be a transition between the transition period with the EU and getting a fully fledged replacement in place in Scotland. That fully fledged replacement for the CAP will look like. There are a number of scenarios and steps that we are looking through, relying heavily on the work that the agricultural champions and Professor Griggs, Greening Group, and what is coming out of the NCRA in terms of the impacts on rural economy. I think that he was interested in the recent debate about this and the Scottish Farmer, if I recall, that the champions are seen to be and are saying that they are very much at one with the process that is taking place here. Richard Lyle and then Alex Rowley. Good morning, cabinet secretary. You have basically answered the question that I was going to ask, but I want to restate it. If you do not know what someone is doing or planning, how can you plan to be with them? You do not know how much money you are going to get or how much money you are going to spend. It annoys me intensely that people keep saying elsewhere within this building that you should be planning it, you should be making up your own rules. Cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, you answered the question that you do not know the rules, you do not know what is going to happen. If you did plan something and they changed the rules, you would have to re-plan it again. Am I correct in saying that? I think that we are in a sea of uncertainty at the moment. If I can paraphrase an American politician who ended up talking about the known unknowns and at the moment what we fear as well are the unknown unknowns. That is the climate in which we are having to try and plan forward. We can only do the best we can in making a broad assessment of what the period between now and March 2019 will be like, between 2019 and the end of 2020, and then there is a post-2020 scenario. That is basically the three phases that we are really talking about. You are trying to guesstimate in advance where you will be in each of those particular periods of time. That is not easy. If you get it wrong and you start designing schemes and policies on one basis and one assumption, then it turns out not to be true or gets whipped out from underneath your feet during a process of negotiation where things start getting traded backwards and forwards, then you are back to square one on a very short and timescale of trying to scramble to put things in place that you had not foreseen 18 months previously. It is the most unsatisfactory process. To use something that someone said before, you do not necessarily need to have a plan A, B, C, D, E, F, you need to have a plan A through E, Z. That would self-evidently be impossible, so we have to try and assess the most likely outcomes and think about planning for the most likely outcomes, but that creates internal pressures as well, which impact right across the board. We will rise to the challenge, whatever the challenge is. The challenge changes on a daily basis. It is the most uncertain set of circumstances that I have ever seen. It is the most chaotic set of circumstances that I have ever seen. We have a UK Government who is negotiating style appears to be to start off with the EU by refusing to accept any of the things that are put to it, to go through the whole process and at the very end then to accept everything but to claim that this is a triumph because you can move to the next stage. The problem with that is that you have to come to the end of some stage. You cannot do that on every stage. They did it on the exit negotiations. They were going to have their way. David Davis said that he was going to have the toughest negotiations ever. They got the end of that and then they capitulated on everything, but they capitulated and said, look, we can get to the next stage. Now we have had the withdrawal discussions and we have got up to the last minute and they have suddenly said, look, we give way on everything but we will get to the next stage. The trouble is that there is only a limited number of stages. At the end of the process, they are going to have to agree to something. Now, we have to be able to judge what the likelihood is of those agreements on certain issues and act accordingly. Therefore, we spend time looking at that and thinking about that, but we also have to be a very cool and clear eye on what we actually see taking place in front of us and the way in which things are being done and they are being done badly. Alex Rowley, you say that if we only got an agreement on the question of the border, others may flow, but my question is more on influence because listening to yourselves with the greatest respect, it just comes across that we really are not influencing very much in terms of these negotiations. I was going to say that Michael Gove, for example, has made quite a number of high-key speeches on the carp. His vision is going forward, although I did note last week before that Ruth Davidson and Michael Gove made an intervention on fisheries, and that does not seem to have influenced much. Are you having discussions at ministerial level with UK ministers, and is there any way of trying to influence from that angle? Does anybody have any influence or is it just not the case? I can only speak from my experience in respect of that. The fact is that we have had a fair number of meetings at ministerial level involving DEFRA, my counterpart in Wales and officials from Northern Ireland. I think that the engagement, the devolved administration's meetings that are conducted in the DEFRA portfolio areas—both Fagus Ewing and myself—is probably the most extensive in policy terms of any portfolios that we could have. I have always said that. In that sense, the DEFRA ministers have been ahead of the game in terms of that sort of relationship. However, there have been a significant number of meetings at the ministerial level, so one, two, three, four, five, six—there have been seven ministerial level meetings so far, and there is another one on Monday in London that I will be going to. The extent to which the sense from them that I would take away that there is a great deal of effective outcome is—I would say that there would have to be a question mark over that. There is a lot of discussion, but I am not entirely convinced that we are having it at the level that needs to be had in order to move things forward. You put your finger on a slightly separate issue, which is that you are aware that you are speaking to ministerial counterparts who themselves can be overruled. They have their own arguments within their own Governments. They have their own finance ministers to have to deal with. It is so that you are conscious that, even at the ministerial level, there are still layers of this conversation going on elsewhere that may impact back on the conversations that you are having. I have to say that it was no secret that there was a level of frustration that I was feeling that it was not until the meeting in December that I managed to get environmental issues on to the agenda and discussed. They had been on the agenda at a meeting in February, but nobody else came prepared to discuss the environment, so it fell off the agenda and it was not until December that we managed to get environmental issues on to the agenda. That is a sense in which the ministerial level meetings engage because we must engage clearly and sometimes some helpful things come out of it, but I am conscious all the time for precisely the reason that you put your finger on that you are also discussing those things with people who may themselves be left high and dry by decisions taken in another place. That is what we are always subject to. John Scott has a question directly for you on a subject that you have pressed to UK Government on. Yes, moving from the general to the particular in terms of the immediacy of a need for a seasonal workers scheme, I have raised this in questions in Parliament. I wonder if you have raised this in your discussions with UK Government ministers because it affects us all equally across the United Kingdom, the need for such a scheme and if you have an update on the likelihood of that. I have raised it on a number of occasions, so has Fergus Ewing raised it? We have raised the need for continued freedom of movement, which is the best solution to that. I have to say that I am none the wiser. I have explained about the issue of the white paper on migration, which requires to consider this. I know that the fruit growers, for example, have met with the UK Government on a couple of occasions and come away tearing their hair out at the lack of progress that is taking place. There is a huge reluctance to address those issues. The point that Roseanna Cunningham makes is an important point. It may not be the ministers themselves. The ministers themselves may believe that it needs to be addressed, but there is no master plan of how you get from A to B on this. This is a voyage in which the UK Government is engaged in trying to avoid going on the rocks created by the extreme Brexiteers and going on the rocks created by the EU. They are trying to steer their way through that, and there is no plan to do so. I am afraid that, no matter what we say on this, we are not getting the result that we want. Can I please address slightly more widely? If I may, before you move on, Mr Russell, please. Seeking to reassure the industry, does the continuity document that was produced yesterday—the transition document—forgiven me? Does that offer freedom of movement until 2020? Does that mean that there is such a pressing need for a seasonal worker scheme this year? No, it does not mean that regrettably, because we are seeing an attrition on people coming year on year. The convener represents the prime fruit growing area of Scotland. The number of people who are prepared to come is diminishing. The number of people who stay year to year is diminishing. People do not want to come, because they do not feel welcome. That is the effect of the United Kingdom Government on this thing. They do not feel welcome and they do not feel secure. It is also the effect of a weaker currency. Can I just widen it slightly? There are two ways in which you can influence things. You can stop bad things happening and you can make good things happen. I think that Mr Rowley and I probably long for the days when we were working him as the general secretary of the Labour Party and me as chief executive of the SNP to help to make this Parliament happen, and that seemed to be clear. We thought that we were making good things happening from different standpoints. On the continuity bill, we are trying to stop the wrong things happening, because those things undermine this Parliament. However, making the good things happen, we define at the present moment as saying, let's try to ensure that the worst that happens is continued membership of the single market and the customs union. I have to say that I am very much with my colleague Mark Drakeford on this, who frequently says that if you look at that argument over the last 18 months, it has been flowing towards us. In terms of the customs union, a much stronger recognition now that that's essential. A recognition at the single market and the customs union would be the way to solve the Northern Irish situation. A wider recognition in this Parliament and across Scotland and across lots of the UK that leaving the single market would be a disastrous, foolish thing to do. There is a continuing progress, in my view, on this issue against a backdrop of absolute chaos, where ministers themselves often don't know what is taking place, UK ministers, where decisions are centralised and decisions are taken because of that, trying to find a middle way between extreme forces. I think that we are making some progress, but I can't honestly say that it's the happiest thing I've ever done, and you wake up every morning wondering what is next. However, the certainties that we're looking for are not there, and it is extraordinary that a task of this complexity and difficulty—in my view, foolishness—is being undertaken in this way. That is an absolute dereliction of duty. Very briefly on the point that we're on, Joan McAlpine. My point was on the environment, to get back to environmental matters. Notwithstanding the difficulties that you've outlined, I welcome some of the planning measures that you've taken, such as the round table on the environment and climate change that you've set up. I wonder if you were able to briefly update the committee on its work and any issues that it's identified going forward, such as gaps in monitoring and enforcement? As it happens, having asked the round table for advice on environmental governance gaps, I received it at about 8 p.m. last night. Other than to say that they've obviously completed that stage of their work, I now have to look at it in some detail. I wouldn't want to try and embark on a discussion about it at this point until I've had an opportunity to talk it through with officials. However, there is work being done in respect of what we would identify as governance gaps in Scotland. That's a piece of work that will probably take up a considerable amount of time now, once we've got that, once we've had a look at that. Given how late in the day it came to be fair to the round table, that was the deadline that they were given. They weren't to know that I would be sitting here the next morning. I think that that might be a discussion that I better had at the next time that I'm in front of the committee, which, to my recollection, is not that far away. Correct. However, I think that some colleagues want to explore this a little bit further. Yes, thanks, convener. I appreciate it. It was only concluded at 8 p.m. last night. Can you just talk a bit, cabinet secretary, about what the process is now? What further work will the round table be doing? Will the initial document be published? How do you expect Parliament to engage in that? What opportunities will there be? Obviously, we're aware that you'll be coming back to committee, but I think for us to be able to really look at this work, look at the options that are being proposed. I've seen that there are various options that are being proposed. We're a little bit in the dark here. I mean, they have literally only just completed their work and still finalising their report, but what they've given me is initial views, really, and they are, as far as I'm aware, going to flag up a number of areas where they think that we need to do further research and consideration. What was received last night, I don't think, is not an end point to this process. Obviously, I'll need to consider the options and decide on which ones I want the round table to go back to and look at with a good bit more detail. Once they've provided the final report and we have a much clearer sense of the identification of the governance gaps and the options that exist to deal with those, then obviously that conclusion has to be looked at. I know that there is a discussion taking place in the context of the continuity bill about wider consultation in respect of that, which I would anticipate at that point. The whole environmental governance issue will be a much wider question out there more openly. It's fair to say that I referred to the December meeting in the DEFRADA meeting in December, when the environmental issues were first really actively on the agenda. There was some brief discussion about environmental governance at that point and an indication that the UK Government was going to consult in respect of England in terms of what they were proposing. That hasn't yet happened, so I don't have any sense in which I know what they're intending to do either. I suppose that we're circling back around to the issue of frameworks, if you like, because there are a lot of different ways to deal with this issue. However, if we talk about it in a UK sense, from our perspective, we would want it to look more like the kind of council of ministers or something set up along that basis than I suspect will come from the UK Government. There's going to be that debate going on, and then there's the one that will take place in respect of the round table advice, and that is obviously going to be a live discussion throughout spring and summer. Can I ask, did the December meeting discuss what happens when we lose the European Court of Justice and is that a work stream that the round table is working on? The governance issue is what takes its place. How do we replace that? The UK Government had an initial proposal that didn't sound either to myself or to the Welsh as being a route that we would necessarily want to follow. As I've indicated, it hasn't yet published a consultation on it yet, so whether or not that initial proposal is what actually comes out in its consultation, I don't know, but we do need to look at how we might think about managing that in Scotland. There may be issues for the whole of the UK, but then, as I said, we're back to the framework conversation again as to how that's managed. In terms of the conclusions that were drawn around environmental courts last year in Scotland, obviously, there are many definitions of what an environmental court may or may not be, but has the Government now drawn a line under that issue? Is there still some flavour of environmental court that you're considering? I don't want to be drawn into a conversation about what I'm considering at the moment because I really need time to look at what the round table has identified thus far as gaps. You want to work up from that basis rather than starting at the top and working down. Let's identify what the governance gaps are in practice and then decide, given the nature of those gaps, what is the most appropriate way to manage their handling in a post-Brexit scenario. Finlay Carson. The limited extent of any control over the EU in Leicester at the moment, what role do you see the Scottish Parliament have in scrutinising common frameworks once they're proposed and how will they operate once they're in place? At the moment, we have to decide the basis on which the frameworks are being set up. Those deep dives aren't about discussing frameworks. They're about deciding whether or not a framework is actually necessary. If we decide that a framework is absolutely necessary, it's GMC that is deciding the principles behind how those frameworks should work, and at the moment, that discussion has not come to a conclusion. I think that you can take it that the discussion on the Scottish Government's point of view has been to ensure that every way is found and to ensure that the Scottish Parliament can scrutinise. I would think that the earnest of good faith in this is the continuity bill, which has a higher level of scrutiny than the withdrawal bill is considerably higher. Moreover, during its passage at stage 2, at the sessions of which you were present at, I accepted changes that would increase that scrutiny even further. The role that the Parliament plays in scrutiny has been emphasised by ourselves. Indeed, for example, some of the proposals that I've been floating about in terms of how agreement would come to would involve the Parliament agreeing, as opposed to the Scottish Minister's agreeing. I don't necessarily buy into the view that there isn't scrutiny of EU legislation—there is scrutiny of EU legislation—the scrutiny of EU legislation and regulation through this Parliament, through the Westminster Parliament and through the European Parliament. You might say that there is triple scrutiny, but I have championed, as the Scottish Government has championed, an increased level of scrutiny and an increased involvement by the Parliament when we continue to do so. Do you foresee new Government-to-Government processes put in place to deal with common frameworks now and going forward then? That is the idea, as I indicated. The list of three categories indicates how those would operate. I suppose it indicates what the Government-to-Government-to-Parliament relationship would be, and both of those things. In the first category, there's no need for any change. That's just going to go on. Those subjects shouldn't have been in the list. In the second list, there are existing arrangements that are non-legislative, which can either continue to be enhanced. Again, there would be a role for Parliament, both in scrutiny and in decision making. In the third area, where legislation may be required, there are layers of scrutiny and decision making. Of course, if the Sewell process applies to all those areas, if there is legislation, something that, unfortunately, in this Parliament, the Scottish Conservatives have not confirmed, although I was interested to see Lord Keane confirm it in the House of Lords, which I think is a helpful step and I hope he continues to do so, then there would also be the scrutiny of the legislative consent process. In those circumstances and the involvement of the Parliament in the legislative consent process, I see that continuing, but those frameworks need to operate on the basis, as Mr Rowley indicated earlier, of equality, of the partners working together and being treated equally and treating each other equally, otherwise they can't work. Kate Forbes, do you want to come in on that? Probably not. I was going to ask, because the original point was asked by Don Cameron, if there were any supplementaries. Thank you, convener. Good morning to you both and to the officials. You have already touched on it, Cabinet Secretary Russell. Could I ask you, though, to give us any further comments on the update since last week on environmental principles and the continuity bill? I think that that would be helpful and also from yourself, Cabinet Secretary Cunningham. You did say that it was only in December, as we all already knew, that the environmental issues were taken seriously, as I understand it, by the Westminster Tory Government. Also, Mike Russell, you did, I quote from earlier this morning, saying that there was no master plan. If clause 11 was to proceed and there wasn't the necessity possibly for our continuity bill, which I of course very much hope and feel confident will pass tomorrow, then what opportunities are there for environmental protection within that, and how can we influence it? Do you want to deal with the continuity bill? As you are aware, so we are having a conversation here on the basis that we both know what's happened, but it's useful to put it in the record. As you're aware, the helpful and useful amendments that Colin Smyth, Mr Ruskell and Tavish Scott moved on environmental issues and animal sentence issues were the subject of further discussion. As I offered, we have reached an agreement on what those amendments should be. Those amendments have now been tabled and I look forward to you proposing them and me accepting them tomorrow, and hopefully that will contribute to the progress of the bill. I saw Mr Ruskell tweeting on Friday night that this was mature politics, so it's a good phrase. It has been a useful exchange of working together to allow things to actually happen, and I think that that's very helpful. We've hoped that we've managed to do it in some other areas as well. In terms of clause 11, I think that the point that you make is an entirely fair point. If clause 11 was to remain unchanged and if there was to be no element of agreement or consent between Governments and Parliament in Mr Carson's term, anything is possible. Given that there is complete clarity from the UK Government that the existing list, whilst they say that they won't alter, could alter and that they want to construct a system based on the exception rather than the rule, that's a rather interesting way in which things are now done by the UK Government. Any system has to encompass any and all eventualities to stop things happening, rather than saying, here's how we're going to do things, and if there are exceptions, we'll try and deal with those, then it is perfectly possible that they could drag in something from the first list, or they could find something new that they hadn't thought of that comes into the list, and we would be powerless to stop it. That's why the issue of agreement or consent is at the heart of this, because if agreement and consent is there, then it is perfectly possible for them to come and to say, we have suddenly discovered in the depth of this legislation something that we need to put on this list, let's agree to do so, and we say that's a reasonable case that you've put, we're not going to unreasonably withhold that consent, let's do it, but if we put in the position to say, it doesn't really matter what you think, because we're going to do this, anything could happen. Mark Ruskell. Yes, can I thank you for reflecting on the progress that we've made there? I was particularly pleased to see the commitments around article 13 of the Elizabethan Treaty animal sentience finding a place, an appropriate place within the bill, but in terms of taking principles around animal sentience further forward, I think that everybody recognises there's still work to do on that. I'm aware, cabinet secretary, that there have been discussions between the UK Government around the animal sentencing bill, which is currently going through Westminster and has been stalled to an extent, there has been extensive debate around how to put a new improved definition around animal sentience into that bill. How confident are you that that's the most appropriate vehicle to take the debate forward? We've effectively saved animal sentience, but we will hopefully tomorrow effectively save animal sentience into the continuity bill, but there is still a debate about where do we go next. I want to ask you what your reflections are on the discussions with Westminster ministers and whether you have faith that that process around the UK bill is adequate to reflect our own concerns? I suppose that the general response to that would be because there is a bill going through the UK Parliament that is sensible to have a conversation at that point with regard to that. If it doesn't work out, we'll back to having to look at why we best manage it here in Scotland. I think that it's really just trying to work with what looks like the currently best available option to do it. If not, we'll back to thinking about how we manage it in Scotland. You've heard me say that, I think that we've already got the things in place in Scotland and if people want a different formulation, then we need to find a way to legislate for that slightly different formulation, but let's see if we can make it work through the UK bill first. It's trying a mechanism, and if that doesn't work, we'll fall back into a different conversation. Are you happy with the current definition that's been put forward into the UK bill? Is that satisfying you or do you share some of the concerns of the effort committee around that? Officials are currently in discussions with deaf officials on how that is going to be taken forward. Obviously, deaf officials themselves are currently working on a number of the comments that were made. As Ms Cunningham said, that is part of the ongoing discussion about whether that is the most appropriate vehicle and the hope is that it is. If it is not, and if it does not meet all the relevant concerns, then alternatives can be considered, so that's an ongoing conversation that's happening at the moment. Can I thank you very much for your evidence this morning? I think that that was useful. I'm going to suspend for five minutes until we change the panel. The third item on the agenda is to take evidence on the conservation of salmon Scotland amendment regulations 2018 SSI 2018 forward slash 37, from the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Roseanna Cunningham, and her officials who have been involved in its construction, namely Dr John Armstrong and Simon Dryden, who gave evidence to the committee last week. In addition, I welcome Jackie Baillie, MSP and Liz Smith, MSP who have joined the committee for this item. I invite each of them in turn to declare any interests that they may have in relation to the instrument. First of all, Jackie Baillie. None, convener. And Liz Smith. Nothing that's registrable. Okay, thank you very much. So we will move to any questions that members have on this. Sorry, Cabinet Secretary. You get to say something. If you wish to say a few words. Thanks. I think that it would be helpful just to remind people of the background to this because the first of the regulations was introduced in 2016 against a background of threatened infraction proceedings from the European Commission, and more general concerns about the downward trend in salmon stocks in our rivers. The issue about numbers of wild salmon in our rivers continues to be a concern. The regulations were introduced alongside other conservation measures after a lot of discussion with a wide range of stakeholders. The impact of those regulations wasn't universally popular then, and I'm aware that it's not universally popular now, but as Richard Lochhead, who introduced them first, stated to the then rural affairs committee that we need to manage the exploitation of salmon not just because it's a protected species under the habitat directive but because it is the right thing to do. Salmon is synonymous with Scotland, but it's a good reminder that it is a protected species under the habitat directive. The regulations being considered today are the third set of measures being brought forward this time for the 2018 fishing season, and they reflect on a great deal of work in consultation with stakeholders around the country. That's work to develop and improve the scientific model and the quality of data used in that model. They also reflect the fact that the numbers of salmon returning to our rivers to spawn is still showing a downward trend year on year. The percentage of returning adults has reduced from around 25 per cent to 5 per cent, and while there's a clear need for additional research into the various and complex range of factors involved in this, we've got to take decisive action. I believe therefore that it is imperative that we take a precautionary approach to determining whether and where stocks can be exploited. If we don't follow such an approach, there's a real danger that yet again we will face infraction proceedings because we are failing to protect and to demonstrate that we are protecting our special areas of conservation. Doing nothing is not an option. We're never going to have a perfect model because scientific modelling doesn't work that way. There will always be uncertainties, and what we try to do is to minimise the uncertainties, improve the assessment process year on year, where possible, and ensure that we're taking a sensible approach to protecting our salmon stocks for future generations of anglers. I'm confident that we are using the best available data and scientific advice. For the 2018 season, we have assessed more than 45,000 kilometres of Scottish waters, over 171 rivers and river groupings. We've had catch returns from more fisheries than ever before. We've made improvements to the modelling process in discussion with fisheries interests. We've consulted over 1,500 stakeholders, had representations from 192 of them, and as in previous years we have responded to concerns raised and indeed made adjustments to river gradings in a small number of cases where that was shown to be appropriate. Can the modelling be further improved? Yes, I think that it probably can. We will continue to invest in the coming financial year to help in terms of the assessments, and we will consult with local biologists on the complementary model in spring 2019. We need to be clear that the responsible management approach that we are taking is not unique to Scotland. Nor are we alone in being so concerned about the health of our salmon stocks. Earlier this month, the Environment Agency launched a consultation on proposals to bring in mandatory catch and release on 32 of the 42 salmon rivers in England. Their proposal would bring in bylaws lasting for 10 years, and Ireland has taken the decision to close fishing entirely on a number of their salmon rivers. We've not taken that decision. The conservation measures allow rod and line fishing to continue in all of Scotland's salmon rivers. However, what they require is that any salmon caught should be returned to the water immediately, where that is indicated in a local area. Anglos can continue to fish, but they simply cannot kill the fish on 122 rivers in Scotland. I know that there is a challenge for anglos and fisheries managers alike, particularly when it comes to grade 3 rivers, but we have to protect fish ahead of fisheries, because otherwise what we are doing is counter-intuitive. Effectively, in the longer term, it jeopardises angling in a far greater way. That approach gives our salmon the best chance. We continue the research, continue to tackle the wide range of pressures that are impacting our stocks, and it is the right approach, and it is the precautionary approach. That precautionary approach is one that the committee would urge me to take across an entire range of my portfolio quite rightly. Indeed. Why is there no formal right of appeal against the decisions that are reached in this area? We did not feel that there was a necessity to introduce that in that we would take on board any extra data or scientific input such as a difference in wetted area. Those are the anything that can be brought to bear. Any evidence that is brought to bear, we look at that and discuss that with the local stakeholders. At some initial proposals, in respect of the regulations for this year, were amended before we got to the stage of drafting the regulations. There were some original proposals for rivers to be categorised in a particular way, and there were changes made to that, so that process is on-going. There is the satisfaction out there. There are perhaps predictable dissatisfactions. People are not going to be happy about some of those decisions. Would not it be helpful in diffusing some of that if there was a formal process available with very strict criteria to be followed, i.e. you could not object because you just did not like the decision, you had to have a scientific basis for objecting? Is that not something that is worth looking at going forward? My initial response to that is to remind the committee members that for us this is an annual process, so you would almost be doing that on an annual basis. I just indicated that, for example, the consultation for England is to bring in bylaws that would subsist for 10 years, and that is not what our process is. Perhaps just worth clarifying as well, we discussed the model with local biologists representing all of the regions of Scotland. We have on-going meetings with them, and we will meet them at least three times each year with the sole purpose of discussing the modelling process, the data that we have, and trying to enhance it. That is why we refer to, in the last evidence session, changes to a national egg target and trying to have regional egg targets. That is through discussion with the local biologists. This year's model, the local biologists said to us that they were far more confident with the outcome of the model for the 2018 season than they were for the model for the 2017 season. The local biologists, what you might call the scientific experts, are signalling to us that the model has moved forward, but acknowledging that they would like it to move forward one crucial step further, so about egg targets, as well as separately, to have a juvenile model. We are responding to both of those asks. As you noted in evidence last week, the other thing that came up last week was the issue of peer review, and it was indicated that that was being looked at. Cabinet Secretary, could you expand on that in any way? I think that I saw something coming in last night in respect to that, and I think that we are happy to build that into the process, that peer review into the process, if that makes people feel happier about the way forward. That is an improvement of what is the current process, and I think that that would be something that we would be prepared to do. I will open it up to colleagues. Alex Rowley followed by Finlay Carson. Can I say, Cabinet Secretary, that the picture that you painted is pretty bleak in many ways in terms of the waters in Scotland and Welsh Salmon? The problem, I think, was that, certainly, I did not get the feeling last week from the committee evidence that was taking place that we are on top of that. There seem to be quite a number of failings, one being the engagement with the organisations, the Anglin fishing organisations that are running and managing those areas and those waters. It almost seems to be such a top-down process that has been adopted that I am not sure that it is the right way forward. One would have to assume that none of those organisations would want to allow fishing to take place on their waters. It would end up with no salmon in them whatsoever. However, those organisations have been indicating through writing to members of the committee their unhappiness about the whole process. There are questions there and the impact that that decision can have on the wider management of those waterways. You have said yourself that there is a need for better data to be able to be provided. I certainly was not left confident last week that the steps that were being proposed were going to achieve the outcomes that were being suggested. However, that question is engaging more closely with the organisations that are responsible for the day-to-day management in running with those waterways and rivers and being able to give them a greater say. That question is a top-down approach. That is how we are going to tackle the problem, which, by your own admission, we are not tackling because less fish are, less salmon are coming back and there is less and less salmon every year. I just feel that there is actually an urgency to this that what is being proposed here today is not going to tackle. First off, I did indicate that we had consulted over 1,500 stakeholders. From that group of 1,500 there were representations from 192 of them directly. That was supportive and non-supportive. I think that that is pretty extensive. Was there a difference between consultation and proper engagement? What would you propose that should be in place of that? I would suggest, for example, that those organisations that are running, who are responsible for the day-to-day management of those rivers, need to be engaged more so that they are becoming part of the solution, not objecting to the proposals that have been put forward. I would say that we are engaging directly with some of the organisations that you refer to. For example, on the River Enderich, we have both met with the Angling Association, a Lotloman Angling Improvement Association, on several occasions, and had several meetings with the Lotloman Fisheries Trust. The Lotloman Fisheries Trust is the trust that has the biologists, and we have discussed with their biologist in detail the situation. From a biological perspective, she is content with the grading that we are proposing, albeit having concerns with wider factors, but on the specific model, she is content. I have met with a lot of Angling clubs up at the ONS on the Cromity tonight. I go from meeting at Folkirk at 8 o'clock tonight to meet with that Angling club and have discussions. We take every opportunity. The balance is between talking clearly and getting feedback and actually addressing the issues. We feel that with the merger fund we have announced that the £500,000 of funding for the wild sector fisheries management tool, we have a lot of very positive activity going on at the moment. I think that it is also worth reminding people that when we are doing these regulations each year, that is on five years' data. It is a rolling five years' data that we are looking at here. We are not simply looking at the situation between last year and this year, we are looking at the five years. We just need folk to remember that and to understand that that signs. A lot of the data that we base that on is data that is meant to come in any case from the organisations. The actual catch data comes from the organisations directly. A good year dropped off and a bad year came in. That may continue to be the situation. I think that my understanding is, and again I can be corrected by the people who are the actual experts here, that it will be 2020 before that problem period starts to face back out again. When we talk about the wild fisheries stocks in total, that is only one aspect of trying to deal with the conservation issues. There are loads of other aspects to it. Wild salmon is under a whole range of pressures. We need to tackle across a whole range of pressures. For instance, last week or the week before, we announced money to go into the north-east rivers to help with goose under predation. People do not normally think about that kind of predation as being part of the problem, but it is, and we are funding work on that as well. There is a huge range of pressures. At the end of the day, it then gets felt in terms of fish numbers in the rivers. This is one aspect of what was a range of conservation measures that we are trying to work across in order to get the fish stocks into a healthier state. Not the least of which would be the banning of netting, as has happened in some parts of the country. When we introduced those measures in 2016, we also introduced a prohibition on the retention of salmon in coastal waters, which meant that coastal netsmen effectively could not operate. We have been paying compensation to them for a three-year period while we review the science and the prohibition. First of all, I stress that my colleagues take salmon health very seriously. We do not need to remind them that we are all here to look after the salmon population. However, why is it that the Scottish Government has not made, in its own admission, satisfactory progress or investment in data collection, which would go some way to addressing the concerns that we have today? Well, because data collection is something that we are continuing to improve. Some of the data collection depends on the returns from the rivers themselves, and that is getting better. I think that I am right in saying that in the last year, there were a higher level of returns from rivers, and it may simply be because of the heightened discussion that people are more inclined to fill in the returns than they were previously, but that is getting a lot better. We depend on that sort of return coming in. Is there not a lot more to it than that? It is not just about rod catches. For example, there are some rivers where the number of fish caught has gone down and the rivers have been revised up the way, so we are not just talking about rod catching. We went back in 2015, the Royal Affairs Committee suggested and tried to stress how important better scientific data was, and that has failed to come about. We are sitting in the same position here in 2018 where there are real concerns that the regulations that are being brought in are not on sound scientific basis. I do not think that that is true. I think that the science has been getting more effective over the years. I think that Dr John Armstrong is probably the right person to talk about the details of the science, but it has been getting better. Data collection has been getting better. I indicated that there is not a perfect model. We continue to refine the way that we look at this, and we continue to engage right across the board on that. Do you want to come in, Dr John? The model that is used is very sophisticated, even by international standards. It is so because we collect a lot of data in Scotland. We have done it for many decades. Indeed, it was in the 50s and 60s when we started exercises of tagging smalts going out on the North Esk and looking at adult returns, developing fish counters. We have some traps on tributaries on the River D, where we count fish out and we look at fish coming back in. We have a very deep understanding of the population dynamics of salmon. That is why we are in a position where we can apply these models. Without that science, what option would we have to stop exploitation if one was being precautionary? There is always some uncertainty in biological models, but we can get a reasonable idea of where we have stops that are sufficient to allow some exploitation. I think that it is because of the science that we have that we can run the system. As not to say it, it cannot get better. It is not a model that is peculiar to Scotland, either. We have not somehow invented our own model to suit our own purposes. I think that Norway is broadly the same novel modelling system. We have not created a vehicle that is only for Scotland. We are sharing that expertise, which is important to say. Okay. I have a number of members who wish to come in. Mark Ruskell will be followed by Donald Cameron. I just wanted to ask about the evolution of that model, away from catch data. There has been a bit of criticism around catch data and the variability of that. Angle is going out in the rain, for example. I have had all sorts of points that have been raised directly with me through letters. It has been useful to have those. On moving the model forward to one that is based on egg targets and monitoring of juveniles, and the welcome commitment around peer review of that, so that it can be tested to destruction, will that be in place for next year? I think that the intention is that it will be able to inform next year's assessment. I do not know whether the minister wants to make more detail of that. I think that what we would want to do is to construct that model. We certainly need some data to go into it. As my colleague has said, there is a fund that will enable some collection of appropriate data, so that has to happen. We do internally peer review in a sense within Scotland, because we have the salmon liaison group, which has representative biologists from River Trust around Scotland, and that they certainly have an intense look at what is happening. The right process would be for them to have a look at the proposed models, and we would then discuss to make sure that they were happy with that. I think that there is that peer review. We would have to see how we could then best apply it. That is the process that I was in visiting. I said earlier that the approach that we are using is a standard process that is used elsewhere, for example, in Norway. That has been peer reviewed in a number of places, and it might be helpful, I suppose, while we are looking at peer reviewing the tweaked version for Scotland, that we perhaps can track down some of the peer reviews of the standard model as used, for example, in Norway, if that would be helpful, because that has been peer reviewed. Just another very quick supplementary on the back of some of the concerns raised by Alex Rowley, and it is really about how we support fisheries trusts and associations going forward. It has been raised with me, for example, that the fourth fisheries trust cannot get access to SRDP funding, although it is doing a lot of fantastic work in riparian areas on non-native invasive species. I raised that as an issue in terms of eligibility for grant funding and the suitability of some of those grants to support the excellent work that both the trusts and associations do. That is a wider point. Given that we have had an ironed something talking about the likelihood in not very many years' time, there will be no SRDP funding. We would have to depend entirely on what the new funding set-up is and what kind of money there might be able to be made available. However, the issue of supporting people through the process is something that we constantly look at. We made money, and I know that Finlay Carson was not particularly happy with the fish pall process, but there was money made available there, as I indicated. I put money into north-east fisheries in respect of work that they are trying to do and support work that they are doing there, so it is not that we do not. It comes back to our friend the budget issue of just how much money is available to do that. As was indicated, there is a category of salmon fishermen whose practices have been stopped completely, so there is money going there to compensate them for what is effectively the end of an economic activity that they were doing. Yes, we can go away and have a look at whether there are other potential funding sources or other ways in which local groups can think about maybe tweaking some of what they do to bring it into a category for a different grant or fund. At the end of the day, we will end up in a situation where there will be a finite amount of money and decisions would have to be made then about where best to spend it. I suppose that we all accept and want to protect salmon and their rivers and their habitats. It has already been acknowledged that salmon are under a whole range of pressures, in my view, the least of which is angling. Of course, we share your concerns, but I feel that the instrument is flawed and it is based on poor science. No one appears to have confidence in the science that has not been peer reviewed, and it might not stand up to that level of scrutiny. That is the whole point about peer review. Even witnesses at the Wreck Committee last week were unhappy when that was brought up in the margins about the quality of the science. Of course, we support the intention of the instrument, but we feel that the process demonstrates the need. The cabinet secretary has admitted that it is insufficient and inadequate by her own admission. That should have almost been an affirmative instrument. I appreciate that the process is not there to allow that process to be brought forward, but given the level of discussion, the debate around it, the uncertainty and the untested science that appears around it, notwithstanding the protective principle that we all adhere to on this committee, we feel that the whole thing is utterly flawed. I do not have to respond to that. The fact of the matter is that it is one thing in a range of things that we are trying to do in respect of salmon numbers. I would not pretend that this could be an only solution. Of course, it cannot be the only solution, but there are some figures that the committee perhaps just needs to think about. In 2016, around five and a half thousand salmon were retained by anglers, but in the preceding five-year period, the average was around 15,500. That is a significant reduction. The fact is that I accept that a lot of anglers will not be happy at not being able to take a fish or take more fish, but they are by this mechanism making a contribution to salmon survival. They are not going to, on their own, solve the problem any more than those regulations. The categorisation of the rivers is going to solve the problem, but I do not think that we have ever put this forward as a single solution to the problem of salmon numbers. I am very well aware that there are many pressures on salmon. I have indicated already in my evidence, in some cases, to where we have put money to deal with other pressures on salmon. The issue is trying to address the pressures, yes, but also taking steps that will reduce the pressure in the short term in order to ensure that, in the longer term, there are healthy fish stocks for everybody, including anglers. That is where we are. I am not a scientist, so I have to rely on the advice of scientists. The advice of the scientists is that this is the way forward. This is happening in Norway. The situation in England is likely to be even more restrictive. As I indicated in Ireland, they have shut rivers to fishing completely because of the scenario that we are looking at. In actual fact, what we are doing in Scotland is a lesser compared to that. Ultimately, that may be where we ended up if we were not going to do that as we have done it. I notice that Collie is going to be agitated to get in here. I will get to everyone to ask questions, but I have a rather long list in front of me. Joan McAlpine would be followed by Jackie Baillie. Thank you very much, convener. There are two very quick points. First of all, I say that I was very pleased that the Nith is a category 1 this year. I was very pleased to open the salmon season there by toasting the river. It will continue to practice, catch and release. She will be very pleased to hear. That is testament to the management on that river. Unfortunately, parts of the Nith are further downstream, and the Annan is our category 3. When I wrote to you last year, you said that you were in discussions with the fisheries boards of those two rivers to talk about a bid for money for a fish counter to cover both the rivers. I wonder if you could give us an update on that. The Annan and the Nith were unable to come together a joint proposal to bid for fish counters to cover both catchment areas. The Nith are proceeding on their own, and I understand that they have a bid in with the local flag to get funding through that route. Thank you very much. My second question is about half netting. Half netting is a unique form of fishing practice by very few people on the Solway. If we talk about salmon being endangered, half netters are probably even more endangered than salmon. The First Minister in 2016 made a commitment that half netting on the Annan would become a historic fishery. I know that in Scotland's implementation plan for the 2013-2018 NASCO guidelines, you say that consideration will be given to the herited value of fisheries, where fish methods are unique to a small number of locations. In those circumstances, consideration would be given to retaining a residual fishery and permitting a very small level of catch. Given the commitment that the First Minister made and the unique nature of half netting, I wonder if you could give us an update on where we are with ensuring that the unique practice that dates back to Viking times can continue? We have provided grant funding to the Royal Bar of Annan common good fund to help them to promote half netting as a cultural activity. Under the current legislation, yes, it is only permitted in the Solway area half netting. It does not go beyond that. All fishermen are having to take a share of the effort involved in the work that we are currently doing to try to conserve salmon, so that includes all kinds of fishery. We are promoting helping them to promote half netting as a cultural activity, but the issue is still about ultimately killing fish. Those regulations do not ban angling, but they ban killing the fish in certain rivers, and that is what it comes down to. Do you want to continue? I could just go in very quickly. Obviously, all fishermen, whether they are anglers or netters or half netters, are affected, but we concede, as your own guidelines concede and as the First Minister conceded, that half netting affects a very small number of people who date back to Viking times from a cultural point of view in terms of Scottish culture and intangible cultural heritage under the UNESCO definition of intangible cultural heritage. That kind of human activity is worth preserving as well, and money is going into that. Ki Bielwy, to be followed by Richard Lyle. I think that it's fair to say that the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association waited a considerable period, something like 18 months to two years before there was any engagement by the Scottish Government and what it has amounted to appears to be a tick box exercise. I think that, last time around, Mr Dryden acknowledged that the data is incomplete and, even despite a meeting with the Loch Lomond Fisheries Trust, the Government is unable to identify all proprietors. They don't know the catch data because there isn't data on all returns and the improving model and methodology amounts, it appears to me, to be guesswork, and three hand-drawn maps that I have to say probably look as if they've been done by a five-year-old. I really struggle that this is evidence-based. I wonder whether I could put to the cabinet secretary the Loch Lomond Association provided catch returns dating back to 1956. Those show one fish less caught than was recorded in 2016, but in 1956 there were double the number of members there and there wasn't seen to be a shortage. Could the cabinet secretary or perhaps Dr Armstrong explain that? I think that Dr Armstrong is probably in a better position to explain it than I am, whether he can is another matter. I obviously have to have a look at the data to see the detail of it. It's difficult to say just from that what the situation is. Okay, so you accept that in the 50s there was considered to be a lot of salmon, a lot more members fishing, yet the catch return is equivalent to what it is today? I'd say that just as a point, in the 1950s we had a strong coastal netting fishery, so that was catching a lot of the salmon that were returning to rivers. So when you take away that coastal netting fishery you would have anticipated that the catch numbers, if we still had high returns, would have gone up and we haven't seen that. Okay, let me put the reverse position to you and this was something raised by Gail Ross, one of our colleagues, about the River Leven at the Rural Economy, Committee, not my River Leven but a River Leven elsewhere, where everybody agrees that catches have substantially declined. Evidence given to the committee states that there were not salmon caught there over a number of years, but because last year one Pacific salmon was caught, that's now graded as a grade one. Does that not seem, in the words of one witness, entirely bizarre? I hope that I can answer that. Firstly, the 2017 season's catches haven't been published yet and they don't go into the model. So if the River Leven has had a very poor season this season that won't be reflected in the model and I understand and saw the evidence that John Gibb gave. What's interesting, perhaps, will help understand is that the River Leven in Venesia, its catchment area, is very small. So comparatively, if I use the River Hendrix, catchment area is an example, the River Leven's catchment area of just over 26,000 metres squared is only 6% of the Hendrix system. So it's a very small system. What we saw in the last five years, four out of the last five years in the assessment, our model says that it's 100% likelihood of reaching its conservation limit and in one year in 2015 they had zero catch. So you have four years at 100%, one year at 0%. That gives you an average over the five years of 80%. Now in 2016, just 38 salmon, roughly, I think, were caught. What we're saying is that that represents just about 10% of the salmon that went up the river. So approximately between 350 and 400 salmon, our model was saying, would have gone up the river in 2016. That does represent enough salmon to meet the egg target, and our model says with 100% certainty. Those figures are a lot less, 38 is a low number of salmon, but it's because the wetted area is so, so small. I think that your model flies in the face of local experience and local expertise, which is the thing that's concerning people. Could I move on to my final question on the equality impact assessment? There's a letter from a constituent, Peter Lyons, who's been shared with the committee. He's disabled, he's got severe mobility problems, he fishes in the Loch Lomond River system and is unable to fish elsewhere. He's clearly described the problems that he's encountered. I wonder, could the cabinet secretary tell me or somebody tell me who completed the equality impact assessment? When did they do it? Who did they consult in doing it, or was it simply a desk-based exercise? I don't think that there is a formal equality impact assessment done for these regulations, and it was decided. I think that notwithstanding the expression of surprise on Jackie Baillie's face, I think that she probably already knew that. There isn't a formal equality impact assessment process done for this, although equalities are taken into consideration. Can I just remind everybody that the actual practice of angling is not barred? It's taking the fish that is stopped. In the case that I have supplied to the committee, the taking of the fishes is something that this constituent requires to do, otherwise he will end up capsized and in the water because he only has one arm. There are very specific protected characteristics here that have not been considered. We were led to believe by your predecessor and, indeed, by the officials that there was an equality impact assessment, so clearly one has not been done. It's not a formal one, but it doesn't go through the normal process for equality impact assessment, if I'm correct. Perhaps I'm misleading the committee. Qualities are looked at, but not in the formal sense of inequality impact assessment. Well, Mr Dryden, is that the case? Yes. We have not been able to find the equality impact assessment that was said to have been done at the time of the 2016 regulations, but as a result of the comments by Ms Baillie, we have looked at the equality impact assessment for the 2018 regulations. The process is that you identify whether you believe that it is necessary to carry one out. We have looked at the situation, as the cabinet secretary has said, and said that on balance we do not believe that we need to follow through the process. We get to stage 1 and that stage 1 allows us to say, right, we've looked at this, we do not believe that we need to take it further. Richard Lyle to be followed by Claudia Beamish. In John Scott's point, I can count how many people are in a room. I can count possibly how many sheep are in a field, but I would suggest it's very hard to count how many fish are in the sea or how many fish are in a river at the end of the day. No one can disagree that while salmon is under pressure, no-one likes change, but we have to change. If we don't agree with this today, how many rivers does this affect? How many people have objected and could we possibly exclude the objectors to let them fish in? I get the point that the cabinet secretary said, bear with me, that they are catching the fish, they are not taking it home to eat, they are putting it back in the river. So why are people objecting? I suppose that if they are accustomed to doing something in a certain way over a long period, it is proposed to change that, folk in general terms find that quite challenging. In a lot of the rivers that we are talking about, you will speak to anglers who will openly say to you, yes, they know that there are issues and for that reason they have been doing a sort of voluntary catch and release and maybe only taking one fish in a season themselves just as a nominal thing. My response would be that anglers are frequently in a position where it is the actual activity of the angling rather than the killing of the fish, which is important. I go back to what I said, unlike in some other jurisdictions where fishing was not stopping the actual killing and in many places that might only be one fish that an angler might have taken over a season. I understand if it is a sport that many people enjoy, like many other sports and for those who are in the areas where their local rivers are the ones that are categorised effectively as no take zones, it is difficult, but at the end of the day this is about the longer term and it is about the anglers of the future as well. It is about having a decently stocked salmon rivers in Scotland for all anglers in the future and I really at the end of the day that is what it comes back down to. The point that I am trying to make is that if we do not pass this today, we could affect every river in Scotland. I am on your side, by the way. No, I understand. The point that I am making is that if we do not pass this today, every river in Scotland will be affected. We have only, to my mind, a few rivers who are a few anglers associations who are objecting. My question is, could we exclude them? I know that I get the science, I get that we need to do something, I get that basically I have never fished a day in my life but I get the excitement of catching a fish and then releasing it back into the... That should give people satisfaction. You are conserving and you are also still maintaining your sport. Why can't we do that? Or can we do that? Can we exclude the objectors so that we do not affect every other river in Scotland? With the national governance, if you say that all that has to happen in a particular area is that somebody objects and that means that that area gets excluded, I suspect that this year would be the only year in which a handful of objections were affected. Next year, everybody would object everywhere and we would be back to square one. I do not think that from a national governance perspective that is a particularly helpful way forward and it may be that Richard Lyle is deliberately being provocative and putting that forward as a solution so that I have to say that that does not really work. You have got it in one. Claudia Beamish will be followed by Liz Smith and Finway Kate Forbes. Thank you convener and good morning again cabinet secretary, good morning to your officials. In terms, I have got five questions and I will try to be brief because some of them have been partly covered already but I want to highlight points within them. In relation to the scale of concerns that we had a response which we were appreciative of as a committee from last week's evidence taking, with regard to the content of the concerns received, many sought to criticise the general modelling and I quote further, and this is my question, many of the issues have been addressed at the time the conservation measures were first introduced. In view of the fact that I was a member of that committee, could somebody please highlight for me what those issues were that were addressed at the time in 2016? Unfortunately I wasn't the cabinet secretary at the time so I'm afraid I wasn't intimately involved in the first set of regulations coming through. I don't know if either of my two colleagues here were part of that conversation, that is always one of the difficulties Simon, were you? I have an attempt at describing what I believe we've addressed. The first is to move from regional areas, which was the first, we had a lot of regions the first time we moved to assess 171 groups, which means that we have far more granularity in it. From what, sorry, you've moved to 171? To 171 and forgive me, I don't... Roughly, a ballpark. This was my next question so it would answer it, we'd be down to only three. It is really important to understand because this came before us two years ago and one of the reassurances that we were given by the officials was that there would be more granularity. Okay, I have got those figures, sorry. So in 2016 we did approximately 100 regions. I can't on my math, isn't good enough to exact number, that's all right. And then in 2017 we moved to more granularity and that looks like 150 in round figures and then in this season we've moved to 171. So is this work in progress? Is there a lot more that needs to be done? That not a lot more, there are still some, we used the phrase rivers and assessment groups because there are some groups and I'm sorry within this 171 I think we are less than a dozen groups. Okay, so the vast majority I'm saying at round about 160 are we're assessing at an individual river level. Okay, thank you that's helpful, was that that needed clarity? My own view, it's a personal view, I have been salmon fishing with a fly but I never caught anything since my father died so there we go, that was a long time ago but I have a limited knowledge of it but I understand there are a lot of rivers whatever grade they are even if they're grade one who do practice catch and release as well but what worries me partly is taking stakeholders with us and as I say it's only a personal view but my view is that there is a really quite poor improvement in the the science and data arrangements and modelling since 2016. I find that disappointing in terms of the gaps in the science and in terms of two points that I would make one of which has already been made so I'll be very brief on that but the egg estimates and I do understand that Marine Scotland science is looking and I quote for to develop a more focused regional targets for egg deposition taking account of local habitat and conditions which will provide a more accurate estimate of the abundance in future years I mean we've had two years on that and I welcome response on that but just to cover the other points fishing effort has been highlighted to me particularly and how has that been taken into account also I had hoped two years ago that the issues around juvenile fish would have been developed much more than they have as I understand it up to now there's um fish counters have only moved from six fish counters to eight and so on the science I really do have concerns about the lack of progress so could there be comment on any of that please from yourself sure yeah um where shall I start with the fish counters um these are large structures that go in rivers might cost in the order of a hundred thousand pound to install and take a lot of effort to run um so it's a major undertaking to put in fish counters but we certainly will be having a look to see what opportunities there are but what look have you had so far from six to eight I understand that there has to be planning commission I understand it's complex I understand you know how far can the salmon leap and all that but it seems it's not much of an improvement in two years what that bringing in those extra counters has been having a look at what's already available in Scotland so we need to it will be a major leap to go forward to a network of counters and that will require substantial planning and finance to get an understanding of this to what extent you're removing barriers for salmon on some rivers to what extent the counters present barriers is there a conflict there on the two approaches there is one has to be very careful because you need to obstruct salmon to some extent to count them we're working with seaper and with snh having a look at existing barriers to see what potential there might be for installing counters in barriers that might well be removed so that would give us a balance if you like between improving things by taking a barrier out but also putting a counter in to take the opportunity to get more information right no thank you are there any other comments on the my perception and understanding personally that the science progress is disappointing sure I'll come on to the the juveniles um the the models being used for using juveniles juveniles again are very sophisticated and and there isn't anything in existence at the moment that would do the the proper job for Scotland our team has been developing models using GIS geographic information systems coupled with population dynamics models and that is very well advanced in fact I would anticipate that we'll be publishing or peer reviewing that this year that's that's well underway so that I think we're we're pleased with the progress on that um and I'm afraid it does it does take time these are not easy things to deal with in terms of the more general adult model um there's been quite a lot of developments looking at how we can better understand the relationship between flows and catches which reduces quite a lot of uncertainty um and we now have uh methods where we can account for fish that are coming into rivers out of season which was an issue that was particular concern on the urn for example so there's there's quite substantial developments um and I think the team we've been working on this of putting a huge amount of effort I think is I understand that if you're not involved in the technical side uh one imagines things can probably happen at a faster pace than this is realistic but I can assure you there's been a lot of progress and in relation to effort could you just um comment on that one of you please yes I mean that affects the yeah I think it's uh where one has counters and catch data one can best deal with the the issue of effort changing we we have tried to collect effort from fisheries but it's an extremely difficult thing to do in any realistic way so I I don't disagree at all that having additional counters will improve the quality of the modelling and my last um two questions are indeed very brief um but the the ownership issues um this is a real concern that was raised um by committee members last week and uh can you give some clarification as to repairing owners and why this hasn't been able to be addressed for instance um uh but I know that in um my friend and colleague Jackie Baillie's constituency this has been issued and I believe it has been elsewhere yes because this really does make for flaws in the in in the assessments yeah yes and I'm sorry I didn't pick up on the term like at the last committee here riparian owners uh the uh the heriful salmon fishing rights don't don't necessarily reside with the riparian owner with the owner of the riverbank as indeed the I think we put in our response to the committee the association the association lot loan and improvement association has some ownership of uh heriful anglin rights so so uh we find ourselves literally saying well we don't uh we can approach the local landowner but when they say they're not don't have the rights then it's an open book where where do we go uh we have uh may stop you though you is that seriously the case that that a landowner wouldn't know who who had the rights to the fishing I find that very puzzling yes because I think because when they when they buy the property of the land that they're often salmon rights might not be uh discussed or part of it so now yeah I'm not sure why they they would necessarily well I suppose the fact is that when we do ask on a land accessing it through their land and you know it doesn't seem to be but yes if indeed that's happening and then they stop and say to that angler who did do you have the salmon rights here or please can you tell me who you've got permission from to come and fish fish this if indeed you did get permission uh you know I don't we don't have circumstance that's done the register of Scotland when they were taking the ownership rights and putting them on electronic systems we've established that the salmon rights weren't transferred so what we need to do if we're going to register of Scotland is we need to need to get out the paper records to identify who has the salmon rights right I just think in terms of stakeholder confidence that might be useful because there are gaps obviously and and that doesn't help with the collection of robust scientific data I would suggest could I just ask you finally about the brea in terms of costs and mitigations just for the record what you've highlighted the anon common good which is in my area and also Joan McAlpine's area there have been concerns raised about what was it raised in 2016 about the possibilities of of that and again in terms of stakeholder confidence I think that is an important issue if you could perhaps highlight what has been done to suspect the question is how much money has been spent on doing things in the last two years is that what you're to support those who like the common good fund in annan who have highlighted to me that they have lost they've lost money because of the situation with their grading in 2016 for instance are there any others you could highlight to us as well I think it's all right count secretary I say the several things have happened with with the grading on the financial side the crown estate have reduced the lease levels to for their fisheries that are being leased by angling clubs to take account of grade three the national assessors have four netting stations that are in a grade three area have zero rated their stations so that they don't any more pay salmon levy we've just announced this month to 500 an additional £500,000 for this coming financial year to accelerate both research into the pressures on to salmon stocks and to do substantive activities in river to try and improve the situation so a significant proportion of that funding will go to local trusts to to enable them to collect and supply us with with data thank you thank you and the ever patient was smith thank you again winner and i'm very grateful for the opportunity to put on the record why i've been unhappy about this instrument and my comments very much reflect the considerable engagement i've had with anglers and fish experts in my own area of mid scotland in five which have persuaded me that the model dataset that is being used to determine the categorisation of rivers is flawed and i listened very carefully to your committee last Tuesday and also to the committee session at the rural affairs and connectivity committee last wednesday and i do believe that this is a general concern across scotland and i think it goes across the political parties can i stress at the outset that i think the angling community recognises its responsibilities with fish conservation very much in line with the EU habitats directive and they also recognise the very important responsibility that the scottish government has in this respect and exactly in the way that rosanna cunningham said at the outset there is no doubt that protection of fish species is vital and i think it's very important to put that on the record secondly i think the cabinet secretary is quite right when she says that it would never be possible to have perfect knowledge of every single river across scotland but that said the overriding concern is the absence of sufficiently robust scientific analysis to underpin policy making an analysis which can provide a comprehensive overview of the river system in scotland which can stand the test when it comes to peer review and which can be objectively used as a basis for the right to appeal policy decisions i think the anglers are very quick to recognise the very important evidence that's being produced by the biologists relating to egg deposition something that marine scotland asserts is a very established methodology and it's obviously employed in other countries like norway and ireland england and wales but in relation to the claim that was made by marine scotland that there is a very important scottish dimension to be considered the anglers are very clear indeed that the current assessment of sustainability in scottish rivers depends on two sources of data on numbers of fish returning to rivers that are unsound they make the point that the existence of only eight river counters which have had data counters put on them makes it very difficult to extrapolate results for other rivers and that the current marine scotland method of analysis only complicates things further and secondly there is very much the issue of the rod catches which apply only during the fishing season and therefore they don't take account of fish runs before or after these dates or of uncaught fish during the season as i understand matters assurances have been provided to the angling community on several different occasions including in 2016 that there would be improvements made to the modelling but i think the angling community feels quite strongly that this has not been in any way significant there have been delays in engaging with angling bodies which including jockey Bailey two other members have agreed has been a problem and i was also aware of the circumstances in january 2017 when in the minutes of the salmon liaison group stated that action was being taken to convene a productivity habitat quality group to develop individual river targets but that didn't happen in the way that was intended convener at the last week's session of the committee there was an admission a very strong admission from rain scotland that there are significant inadequacies within the modelling process something that was put to them on the 23 of september 2015 at the formal rural affairs committee under extensive questioning by my former colleague alex ferguson and also by mike russell so i don't think anybody should be surprised in any way by the current concerns just to sum up these concerns go well beyond our rivers they relate to the sustainability of local economies to tourism to the leisure and sporting industries and of course to the declining membership of our angling clubs it is vital that these concerns have to be balanced against the important needs to conserve fish stocks perhaps not easily reconciled but surely we'd be better placed to make that judgment if the data and the methods on which policy is based is on international science and it is open to quality peer review marine scotland has acknowledged that there are very significant issues still to be addressed so it is my contention that this instrument is a real problem and i think we need urgent action to address the situation so that policy is put on a sure footing for the future thank you we i can't have you just hold that thought miss smith was a little bit ahead of us so we haven't actually moved to the haven't moved any yet that's fine can we hold that thought or do you wish to respond at this stage well i think we can go over and over and over again on the issues about science about you know the changes that are already being made will continue to be made the fact that the model is not a one-off model for scotland it is you know a similar model to being used elsewhere i hear what people are saying but uh you know the the effectively and i don't want to leap over into the next bit but effectively we we have to take action and you know i've said right from the outset it's nothing perfect about this i doubt whether we'll ever have a perfect system but it continues to be refined and it will continue to be refined thank you okay we now move to the consideration of motion s5m 11020 which asks the committee to annul the conservation of salmon scotland amendment regulations 2018 ssi 2018 forward slash 37 it should be noted that the Scottish government officials cannot take part in the formal debate i remind the committee that substitute members of the right to vote well none committee members can't vote they can speak in the debate the motion will be moved with an opportunity for a formal debate on the ssi which can procedurally last up to 90 minutes i invite liz smith to speak to and move the motion thank you convener i move the motion and i move it on the basis of the comments that i've just provided to the committee thank you very much miss mith do any members wish to speak on this issue richard liol yeah i'm certainly against uh with the greatest respect to my colleague i'm against us you know so what do we do do we sit and count every salmon that goes up and down a river it's been suggested that we annul this sub ledge i just love conservationists but when it comes down to the local area they're against conservation let's be clear we vote this instrument down we'll put wild salmon at risk in scotland rivers and we'll be tied as when anglers have nothing to fish i move against this anomaly thank you mr liol thank you for your brevity jackie bailey i will try to be equally as brief but i suspect i might fail convener let me just say that you know all rivers are different and i don't think a one size solution fits all is is where we should be can i just refute richard liol's comments all of the anglers that i have spoken to are conservationists they absolutely understand the need to conserve salmon stocks and i think everybody around this table would agree with that sentiment too but what they would argue is that we should do it properly and it should be based on evidence now it strikes me we have successive Scottish governments telling us that evidence-based policymaking is the thing it's important but the evidence in the case of Loch Lomond and the endric system is entirely lacking there's been limited late engagement i've described it previously as the 11th hour 59th minute i'm probably being kind but it's an indication that people are not serious about the categorisation that has been arrived at and we are faced with people with decades of experience witnesses to the rural economy committee local anglers who understand their river systems all saying that the science is flawed and it is depressing convener that two years on we're back here having the same arguments as we had previously because the matter has not been fixed now to me the so-called improving model and methodology amounts in the case of Loch Lomond and the endric to guesswork if you look at the endric there's no data on catch returns that unable to identify all proprietors and as i indicated earlier we are relying as science on hand drawn maps that frankly a five-year-old could have done better it is also clear convener that there is been no equality impact assessment thought through a tool recognition from mr driden that no consideration has been given to those with protected characteristics because the process stopped at the very first stage and it was clearly a death bound process peter lions evidence submitted to this committee his case perfectly describes the lack of consideration given to equalities and this is in my view a fatal flaw on a parliament that prides itself equally on taking equalities into consideration so overall i would regard it as disappointing i would urge committee members i don't have a vote but i would encourage them to support the motion to annul Loch Lomond Angling Association has been around for a hundred and eighteen years more than this parliament has certainly been around they engage in a low cost activity it's predominantly engaged in by working class men 40 percent of who have protected characteristics they care passionately about conservation but they reject the categorisation because it's based on flawed science there's little consultation there's a lack of data on catch returns that unable to identify the owners and we have hand-drawn maps actually you know i would urge the Scottish Government to take the time to do this right to work with the local anglers like at Loch Lomond who would happily work with the Scottish Government it's not about making sure we get it perfect but it is surely about making sure we get it more accurate and better and that requires evidence which is not there thank you i too i'm going to support an element today with a heavy heart i believe in the precautionary principle very strongly and i completely acknowledge the the respect for anglers and others involved who believe in conservation as well however i'm not reassured about the level of science-based evidence and i do find that i have a concern about the lack of peer review i acknowledge that these are difficult issues but i don't think it's moved for fast enough and i understand that we would revert to the the previous ssi in the meantime so we wouldn't be leaving scotland without the serious protection it does need i think we if that is correct i think i'm i'm prepared to be corrected on that but if that's correct i think it's important that we do move forward taking stakeholders with us and that there is a great deal to do thank you mark roscol thanks cabina and i'd like to thank jackie bailey and liz smith and the associations for coming to committee and really really providing a lot of the detail here which has enabled us to test this this order to destruction i think to a certain extent we are where we are with the state of the salmon stocks and our rivers in scotland and i think you know even on rivers which have a particularly high grading grade one rivers the vast majority of anglers are still catching and releasing so on that basis i think it's important that the gradings of these rivers are accurate they do actually reflect the science and you know it's been i think heartening to hear how the scientific model is improving particularly the you know the evolution of the model to include better and more data on eggs and juveniles and the i think the important commitment given today that there will be robust peer review of this particularly being brought in place for next year i think it's disappointing that we still have a situation where we don't know who actually owns the salmon rights on a lot of the rivers i think i think that is a concern indeed could be a barrier to to making the science even more robust if you can't get access to the to the rivers to improve the model i think that at the end of the day the precautionary principle has to win out here because of the state of the stocks that we have in our rivers in scotland and on that basis i won't be voting for the motion to a null angus mcdonald okay thanks convener i can certainly understand the concerns of a number of angling clubs that have been raised this morning and in previous correspondence however i also understand the Scottish Government stance and i'm sure it's it isn't taking these conservation measures for the fun of it or to be awkward for me this is a no pain no gain scenario and it's and let's not forget there was a very real and imminent threat in 2016 it's important to remember why we're here and at this stage action had to be taken to avoid EU infraction proceedings as the cabinet secretary stated in our opening remarks now granted there's an argument to say it was rushed to a degree in 2016 but the Scottish Government was effectively bounced into taking the measure if the motion to a null this instrument is passed today will we not just be back to square one and we're putting previous conservation measures at risk and of course let's not forget the salient point that was made last week that salmon numbers will increase if as a result of downgradings of category one or two to category three so to pick up on one of the cabinet secretary's earlier points to paraphrase i think we have to be careful what we wish for otherwise we may end up in a situation like Ireland and that surely not what anybody wants so i'll be voting to oppose the motion to a null thank you Alex Rowley whether the motions passed or not i do hope that the cabinet secretary will recognise that there has been a fair bit of concern raised here last week based on evidence and this week and there is a wider concern out there i think we would all take the issue seriously in terms of Scotland's rivers and the health in this salmon but i do think i do think that there needs to be far better engagement with anglers and the associations they cannot be seen as the problem they've got to be surely seen as part of the solution and i think there is a real weakness here i think it's important that we get that message out that's why i will support the the motion that's come brought forward today but either way no matter how that goes i do think there's a real message here and more needs to be done and if that means we need more resources then then you need to be saying so but but i think the committee generally has not been happy with the evidence last week and the discussions today thank you very much i've got a great deal of sympathy with anglin clubs around Scotland i've got a lot of anglers and other fishermen in my own area but as i said in my comments to the minister it works both ways that the nith has resulted in it's got a category one as a result of its catch and release policy and indeed i believe in terms of his improved modelling and counting methods and management and if this was annulled today the nith would go back to being a category two and i know that the a lot of the expectations of local people about the improvements in tourism and the strong message that being a category one sends out would be lost and it also seems to me that if you go back to the previous ssi if your arguments are that you have concerns about the data now why would you go back to the previous situation when you presumably by the same logic the data was worse i mean i accept that data needs to improve we've had a wide-ranging discussion around that today i don't think the way is to go back the way i think we need to continue the engagement continue to improve modelling but for those reasons i will be voting against the annullment today thank you john scott um thank you very much uh convener and i speaking support of the motion to annull this instrument i support the precautionary principle and all that mark ruskell has said in this regard but i'm afraid i don't feel that the science is sufficiently robust and it affects too many lives there's an awful lot of decisions and lives affected by this essentially almost arbitrary decision so in my view i think we should annull this instrument i think we should re-examine the data and come back with another instrument based on perhaps a different perhaps even a better interpretation of the science available to us but perhaps a more realistic understanding and evaluation of the inadequate science that's available to us thank you mr scott kate forbs just to add a few points um whilst i appreciate the evidence that jackie billiard and lis Smith have provided i think it's worth remembering that as somebody who represents quite a lot of rivers none of the well very few of whom have actually raised concerns that it is just a few rivers that have serious concerns about this or at least have flagged it which is why i would be far more in favour of tightening up the process for appeals and looking at the methodology for next year than supporting the motion to annull the legislation i think that those concerns that have been raised are legitimate and who knows what rivers will be concerned in subsequent years but as it stands i do think that it is a small number of rivers that have raised specific concerns that have been raised at this committee does any other member wish to comment finlay cars just want to put on record this this is a very difficult decision because obviously it will have an impact on some of my constituents both on the nith but equally so on the bladner where they're going to move to category three the status quo is absolutely not acceptable where we have angling clubs in effect almost competing for a river characterisation which is not based on what most angling and river boards consider as poor science something needs to change the difficult thing is how we send that message out i would like to have had some more guarantees from the scottish government of how we're going to move forward but on the basis of the evidence that i've heard from anglin associations and around the table today i'll be moving i'll be supporting the moment okay thank you okay um like like others i have concerns about the level of data informing these categorisations but i remind colleagues these are conservation measures one of a number being utilised and like mar crosco i i do believe the precautionary principle overrides everything the committee in its recent report on the environmental impacts of salmon farming bemoaned the apparent absence of the precautionary principle being at play as that sector expanded and called on that to be front and center going forward whatever legitimate reservations we have about the accuracy of some of the the basis for the decision contained in this instrument surely that approach needs to apply here also it's also the case that these proposals do not stop angling they merely stop the killing of fish pick up and keep forbes this point i note that there are a number of rivers that have gone from grade one to grade three and appear to have accepted this i think the vast majority of anglers get that these measures are needed given that and the commitments we've had around the changes in the approach to the science and around peer reviewing i would not support the motion to annul however picking up on alec rowley's point about if the decision of the committee is not to support the motion to annul we do need to see improvement in approach going forward and like Kate Forbes i would like to see and place us on the record as the science and the data improves so we eventually establish a formal right of appeal because i think that brings more equity greater equity to this whole process albeit it will have to be founded in the science so on that note cabinet secretary can i invite you to respond to the debate yes i don't want to rehearse all the discussions that have taken place about the development of the science over a number of years the development of the model over a number of years and both of those things will continue to to happen and i find it difficult don't come from the science background being drawn into discussions about science at this level i'm impressed and surprised at the level of scientific knowledge claimed by so many committee members can i just gently point out that with science other scientific opinions are always available and it is always a balance between those and and that is just that something that will never change i have indicated that i will provide the existing peer review data that we have for the generalized model that we use because we know that there is peer review data for that i hear and acknowledge and will make sure that peer review data for the more specific tweaked version is also available but i think having the background peer review information is also going to be very good i should say that i utterly refute the notion that somehow this is an arbitrary exercise there's nothing arbitrary about the exercise at all the decisions are are made on what we take to be the real understanding of what is happening in our rivers and the changes that are taking place in our rivers i'd just reiterate what i've said on a number of occasions this morning angling is not banned on any river angling can continue it is the taking of a fish and killing it that may be banned on some rivers so i think we just need to be clear what it is we're actually talking about i also want to confirm that if these regulations were to be annulled then we would simply revert to the position for the 2017 season and that would mean that the killing of fish could take place on 49 rivers where we believe that it is not sustainable and could damage the health of salmon on that river anglers would be able to kill and keep salmon caught in four special areas of conservation which we consider should be catch and release fisheries so there are some real issues there in terms of uh uh habitats directive and annullment would unfairly impact rivers systems where the gradings have risen for 2018 as they would remain catch and release despite the fact that our assessment is that the the health of those rivers had gotten to a point where they could go to a grade one and that's the river Clyde the north us lochs and we've already heard about the river Nith as well so people need to understand what the reality of this means if these regulations this year are annulled and i would strongly request that the committee do not proceed down that road. Liz Smith to wind up and indicate whether you wish to press or withdraw the motion. Thank you, convener. I would like to say that I think the first job of any committee in the Parliament is to ensure that we scrutinise policy decision making and that obviously the most important part of that is to ensure that we have a good evidence base and I must congratulate this committee on the fact that I think you have worked very hard to ensure that the evidence base is accurate. I followed this with considerable interest not just because of the approaches that I've had in the in my local area but like the cabinet secretary I'm not a scientist but I have gone into very considerable detail on some of the points that have been issued to me by people who I consider to be experts in the field and I think it's very clear that they are pointing out to very significant problems within the data that it is not sufficiently scientifically robust and I think whether or not the motion to annull is successful or not I think that's the key point there are very considerable issues about the data that is being used but I would like to press my annulment. The question therefore is that motion S5M-11020 in the name of Liz Smith is agreed are we all agreed we are not agreed there will therefore be a division all those in favour of the motion to annull indicate please those against the motion to annull has there any abstentions and no abstentions the result is five votes in favour for the motion to annull six votes against that's the result can I seek the agreement from the committee for the convener to approve the final report to parliament recording that thank you I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for their attendance at its next meeting on 27 March the committee will take oral evidence from the committee on climate change and we'll also hear from stakeholders on the Scottish Crown estate bill I the committee will now move into private session and I ask at the public gallery to be cleared