 Felly, Mi wneud i chi gael eu cyffredinol sydd wedi gyfer Mhagrefiaidol 18 yn gyflawniME gwell i gyflawniME, deu chael yw hefyd y gwedd i eich cyflawniME i ei unigai? Erdw i'n dduch i'rhowys Baradwyr Richard Lyleau, mae gael i gael i Gatheffordd Cate i gael i gael i gael ei gael i gael i Gailgoedd digon a'r cyffredinol i gael i Gael. I gael i gael i gael i gael i gael i gael i Ffulton MacGregor i gael i mewn well, he will be missed but I'm sure Kate will stand well for him." Kate, as it is your first committee meeting, I would like to invite you as a new member to declare any interest relevant to the committee's remit. That was in accordance with section 3 of the code of conduct for members. Do you have any interest in declaring it? Thank you very much, convener, and I have no relevant interest in declaring it. Felly, wrth gwrs, we will move straight on to agenda item 2, which is a session with transport and passenger representatives. Before I introduce the panel, could I ask if there are any members of the committee who would like to declare any interests in relation to this? Stuart McMillan. I am the honorary president of the Scottish Association of Public Transport and honorary vice-president of rail future UK. I have a senior rail card—a senior bus pass. I do have a senior rail card as well, yes. John Swinney. I am a member of the cross-party group in rail and I am a member of the RFT parliamentary group. I am not sure that you have to declare cross-party groups, but I thank you for that. Gail Anandjan. I am the honorary vice-president of Friends of the Far North line. John Swinney. As cross-party groups have been mentioned, I am the co-convener of the cross-party group on rail. I am not sure in future that we need to worry about cross-party groups declarations, but I thank you for doing that. As we are going to take evidence on transport issues from passenger representatives, I would like to introduce the panel. First of all, Sheila Fletcher, who is a mobility and access committee, a member of the mobility and access committee for Scotland, has said in Patra who is again a member of mobility and access committee for Scotland, Robert Sampson, who is a senior stakeholder manager for transport focus and Gavin Booth, the director for Scotland bus users, and also a special welcome to anyone watching this transport session on Facebook live. For witnesses to the committee, what I would do is that each of the committee members will have questions for you. You do not need to push any of the buttons on your panels, that will all be done for you. If you would like to answer a particular question, if you raise your hand, I will pick the appropriate moment to bring you in and I will ask you to keep your answers as brief as possible. That saves me trying to interrupt you if I am worried about time. I think that the first question is from Mike Rumbles. I want to focus my question on bus transport and, for the first time, bus passenger numbers have fallen before the 400 million journeys a year for the first time since we have got the records for. Why do you think that this is happening? I am also conscious, if I can ask a second part of that question, that the Scottish Government has a review of the free bus pass for the over-60s at the moment, considering that we are trying to get more people out of their cars and to use buses. Why do you think that bus journeys have fallen into the 400 million mark? What should we be doing about it? I will start off with Gavin. This is not just a Scottish phenomenon, it is something that is happening across the UK. People's buying habits, people's travel habits are changing. We see a lot of passengers that would normally be travelling commuting, for instance, are home working, and that obviously has an impact on passenger numbers. Online shopping particularly, we see as one of the problems that is leading to a reduction in numbers. People are choosing to shop online rather than go into the high streets, and we see in the high streets the result of that as well. These are the two most obvious explanations, if you like, for the fallen numbers. What do you think we can do about increasing bus transport, considering that almost half the revenue is public money? How can we increase bus use across Scotland? If you don't answer that, I will bring in Robert, and maybe I will bring in Stuart to follow up. I think that there are ways, there are examples around Scotland where partnerships between bus companies, between bus companies and local authorities have resulted in stabilising of the passenger loss and an increase in passenger numbers in particular areas. The pattern is different in the east of Scotland. The fall in passenger numbers is much less than in the west of Scotland than in other parts of Scotland. This is to a degree because of the work that has been done when one of the major bus operators withdrew from the borders and from East Lothian, local bus operators, both large ones and small local independent operators, got down, sat down together with the local authorities and planned what would happen as a result. The result is that there are good services being provided, new buses being bought, so partnership of that kind to my mind is the way forward if that can be replicated throughout Scotland. Robert? Yes. We did a piece of research, though it was in England, but it was in rural areas and urban areas as well. One of the reasons why bus patronage was falling was that the buses weren't running at the time that suited the passengers going to work for nights out. There are also issues around the length of journey, the journey time, and we have done another piece of research with young people in bus 14 to 19-year-olds who are a fear of not knowing the system. If you are going into a bus for the first time, how do you actually go about it? A lot of people ask their parents, but it is a generation of parents who do not actually have the experience of using a bus service. There are a lot of barriers to overcome, but research showed that if services are improved, there is 28 per cent of infrequent or non-users in the areas in England that we surveyed. I think that it is parallel to Scotland. We would support or consider using a bus service, so what we would say in the forthcoming transport bill that is going through Parliament later this year is that whatever structure we are not really interested in structures of consumer organisation, we are interested in outcomes for passengers, but there should be a strategy where it is a franchise, an alliance, partnership with local authorities and bus operators. How do we actually grow the market? How is the strategy to get non-users and first-time users on to the bus services? That should be an integral part of the transport bill to try and look at ways of addressing the balance and getting it back up to more than 400 million passengers. I just wanted to pick up on what Gavin Booth said about home working and online shopping as contributors to reduced patronage. I can see the logic of what was said, but why are those factors not appearing to have the same effect on rail journeys that continue to rise quite steeply? I merely make another suggestion, which I invite to a response to. For my part, I never used to use the bus until I got the bus bus, and the reason was that I did not know what the exact fare was. Therefore, when I got on a bus on occasion, I found that I simply did not have the right money. I have always thought that that is an immense disincentive for starting to use the bus. Once you are an experienced user, it is not a disincentive, but when you are any experienced in frequent user, it is almost a no entry sign to be blunt about it. Is that a fair comment to me and the other one on rail? I possibly cannot comment—Robert is possibly better to comment on the rail part of it—there are barriers to bus use that have to be broken down. I totally understand what you are saying. The fairest thing is something that I have jumped up and down about for years. Going on a bus is one of the few things that you do without knowing exactly what it is going to cost you. You go into Marks and Spencers, you buy something, you know what it is going to cost you before you hand your money over. On a bus, very often you do not know. Bus companies are not very good at publicising fares, particularly when they are a complex series of fares depending on where you are going to. I have been bashing my head against the bus companies to persuade them to include some sort of fares information just to make it easier for all passengers to know how much money they need, £2 or £5 to make this journey. It also ties in with information that is great unknown about bus travel. People have access electronically to lots of information, but at the bus stop bus companies are not always very good at publicising their bus services at giving actual times. Many bus stops in Scotland have no information at them, so a potential new passenger would turn up at the bus stop and say, I do not want to know and get a taxi, catch a train, walk, take the car. There is a lot to be done in terms of removing the barriers, in terms of fares and information to attract more people to use buses. I am going to bring Sheila in and then I think we maybe go on to the next question, which probably leads on. Say Sheila, sorry. I am here speaking on behalf of disabled people because I am on the mobility and access committee, but also a large number of elderly and older people have mobility problems and they are the traditional bus users. I accept the change in your home working and not commuting any longer is having quite an effect on bus usage, because people in the categories that I have mentioned only travel occasionally, they do not travel every day. What we have been seeing, and I am from my own community, we have been seeing reductions in the bus service, and this is partly because the local authority budget for bus services has completely collapsed, and they are registering school buses. School buses are generally coaches, which have steps and anybody with a mobility problem will have a big problem getting on and off one of those vehicles. They are also operating at times that are not really convenient, because school times—I will give you an example there to Tain—the bus leaves at 8 o'clock. We have had issues with people having to stand around and Tain for a considerable length of time in the cold, waiting for the dentist or the doctor's surgery to open, or for the connection to get the bus to the hospital in Inverness. Those are all things. We seem to have lost track of integration of services, and generally people that travel—and I am a frequent bus user—we like to be confident that the bus service is going to be there in time, that we are going to make the connection, and that the biggest issue is that a lot of people will be able to get back home again after whatever we have done. There has been a focus on digital, and I am afraid that the people that I am speaking for today really do not have access to digital communication, and there are a number of factors for that. I am going to bring in his sign in there. Just to pick up on Gavin's point about information, he mentioned that information is often available electronically, and that is true. Very often, that information itself is not produced with the considerations of disabled access in mind. Times tables are still very complicated. Very often, they use obscure codes. Very often, they are formatted in a way that does not work for people using access technology. Also, leaving bus stops aside for a moment, bus stations are also quite often very inaccessible places, and in particular often it is very difficult to find members of staff to identify people who are working for bus companies to get information in person. For many disabled people, it is about person-to-person contact, which really matters, and it gives them the confidence, the information and the ability to use bus transport. A balanced approach is required here, and there are clearly some gaps in terms of connectivity and gaps in terms of the way in which we communicate with passengers that are contributing to that. I think that we are going to come on to a whole section on accessibility towards the end of the session, because I think that it is a key issue, but thank you very much for highlighting those. The next question is from John Mason. It is really building on the questions that you have already had from Mike Rumbles and Stuart Stevenson and why the numbers are falling. Do you think that there is a status thing with how people travel, that people's ideal for many people is to have their own car and go where they want? If they cannot manage that, the second choice is probably the train, and bus is only a third choice if you are really stuck. I wonder whether that would be particularly the case in Strathclyde, where maybe people have a bit more choice and can get the train? Sheila, you shook your head there, so come on in. I think that there is a misunderstanding on the way people use buses. Older people generally use a bus, a trip, to meet up with friends. They do that, they do not actually arrange to do that, they actually go to the bus stop and meet the friends and then travel with them, and have a great time on the bus having a conversation about everything. So when people say that bus is a means to an end, I do not actually think it is. I think that the social aspect of bus travel is really important and it enables people in the local community to bond with each other and know what is going on. To keep that going, we really have to have a lot of the traditional means of knowing about busies running. I will give you an example. In my village, we have liners coming in Tindra Gordon. Very often on days when the liners are in, we cannot get on the buses. Somebody very cleverly has put a list of the liner dates in the bus stop so that we are aware that we might not be able to travel on those days. It is a lot of things like that that probably are not national things that need to be done. A lot of bus travel is very, very local. I have struggled to use the buses in Strathclyde because the system is not as good as the Lothian community transport where they have a little map that tells you where the route is going. They have a little map that shows you where the route is going, so it is really helpful to have information like that. That is helpful. Mr Booth, I was going to come back to you as well. You talked about partnerships. In theory, Strathclyde partnership for transport is there and should be a good model. Yet, in Edinburgh, I see the fares that are on the bus stop. They are not in Strathclyde. There is a kind of diagram where the bus is going, exactly Ms Fletcher's point, in Edinburgh, but they are not in Strathclyde. Are there other differences? We are seeing bus usage falling in Strathclyde, Glasgow area and increasing in Edinburgh? There certainly are. Edinburgh is always held up as a good example. It has an advantage in that there are very few fares in Edinburgh. There is a flat fare throughout all of Edinburgh, so it is fairly easy to explain and sell to people. In Glasgow and other places, there is a series of fares depending on where you are going to. Selling the fares is a lot easier in Edinburgh. I am sorry, I am forgetting the rest of your question. Just any differences there might be between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Another one in Glasgow is, for example, the pedestrian precincts. The buses have to do incredibly roundabout routes to get round the pedestrian precincts. The pedestrian precincts are a good thing, but it makes the bus journey a lot slower and a lot longer. It does. I think bus operators view pedestrian precincts with mixed feelings. I think there are arguments for allowing buses but nothing else into certain areas because pedestrian precincts tend to be where people want to be. If they have a considerable walk from the bus to get to where the shop is, that is going to perhaps discourage them. I think there is a sort of social thing to between Edinburgh and Glasgow. I think in Edinburgh there has been a lot of investment in the bus fleet, in Edinburgh, the Lothian fleet. There is a sort of mention, the sort of social thing. Edinburgh buses are used by everybody from the poorest people to the richest people in the city. That is unusual around the country. It happens in London, it happens in Edinburgh and maybe it happens in one or two other places, but there is no social stigma about travelling by bus. It is something that everybody does because we are lucky in Edinburgh to have a very good bus service. In Glasgow, I think there is a much more difficult area to manage. I would like to see the same commitment to investment in vehicles and partnership between the bus operators and the local authority to produce what we have here in Edinburgh. I am going to bring Robert in and then I am going to move on to the next question. I had a meeting with First Glasgow on Monday afternoon discussing our latest bus passengers survey results. What the passengers are telling us in Glasgow is one of the things that they dislike about the bus travel in Glasgow and one of the problems is road congestion. That is the main barrier for punctuality. Value for money. Although weekly tickets and longer passes have a better value for money, passenger rating for value money is higher for the single tickets, which are less expensive than £2 for a single journey. That is a link between the level of income and the upfront cost of £17 or £14 for a weekly ticket, although the value for that is the distinction in the passengers' mind. There is a link between value for money and road congestion, specifically in Glasgow. Thanks, Robert. That neatly leads us into the next question, which is John Finnie. Good morning, panel. As ever, there are plenty of statistics about, and if I just give you some of them please, bus fares in Scotland have increased by 5 per cent in real terms in the last five years, and that compares with a GB increase of 3 per cent. In current prices, viewing fares in that way that a consumer would have, fares have risen by 18 per cent in the last five years. What impact have those increased bus fares had on bus passengers and bus use more generally? That is an old Scotland figure, and sadly, as we know, there are huge variations. There is no common standard throughout Scotland in terms of the fares that are charged or the distance that you can travel for a particular amount of money. I am sorry to keep coming back to Edinburgh, but Edinburgh people know that they can travel fairly far for a very reasonable fare. In other cities in Scotland, Aberdeen, I believe, the fares are proportionately that bit higher, and that must be contributing towards the rise. Bus companies will tell you that they are having to invest in new vehicles, they are having the same fuel costs, they are having the same maintenance costs, and those are increasing all the time, so they have to increase fares. I accept that that is a practical reason, but I think that bus companies could probably do more to simplify and to make bus fares more attractive to get more passengers on board. John, do you want to lead on to your next question, and then maybe I'll bring Robert in as well at the same time? Thank you. Gavin touched on it there, and that is the ticketing options that have been alluded to. How could they be improved? Is there a role for the Scottish Government in ensuring improvement? Robert, I'll bring you in after Gavin. Gavin, if you'd like to lead off on that. Bus companies have been moving pretty fast on contactless ticketing, and that is spreading throughout Scotland. Within a year or so, it should be pretty well universal for passengers using bank cards just to tap in their bus fare. That is making bus travel that bit easier for a lot of people. A lot of people, such as Stuart Seames and myself, who have senior bus cards and fares do not go through our minds quite as much as they do for a lot of passengers. However, our age group makes up a large proportion of bus passengers in Scotland, and bus companies are reimbursed for every journey that I make and every journey that Stuart Seames makes. However, the amount of reimbursement has been cut over the years, and therefore they are receiving less reimbursement for my journey than they did a year ago, two years ago or three years ago. That has an impact on their costings and their, I imagine, having to increase fares to make up for that difference. Robert, I'll bring you in. I think that, if I remember rightly, I may be corrected, but the budget for concessionary travel has gone up each year, and it's never all been completely used. I think that's the evidence that we've heard, so that's your comment in light of that. It's quite interesting. Robert, do you want to come in and then I think we'll move on to Cade? Two points. We ask a value for money question on my bus passenger survey, but it's only of fair paying passengers, not the others with concessions. It has a 65 per cent rating of passenger satisfaction overall, which is higher than the rail sector. Also, what we find with other pieces of research is that there needs to be an improvement in fares and ticketing for an easy to understand system. A lot of time when people come first to the bus network, the knowledge of the fare tickets, the fare and ticketing system isn't there, it's by word of mouth we're actually engaging with the bus driver. There has to be a part of the transport bill, some kind of central source that looks after all passengers' needs to actually give what are the fares and ticketing systems that are available in an easy to understand format that actually attracts people to that mode of transport. It can be done. Very briefly, John, if I may. In fact, I'll leave it in, it'll probably be very quickly. Thank you very much. I wonder if Robert, on behalf of Transport Focus, could outline the key Scottish results from the bus passenger survey 2017. If I could open it to the rest of the panel to talk about regional drivers of satisfaction or dissatisfaction looking at rural areas and urban areas. Okay, who'd like to start on that? Robert, looks like you'll prepared. I'll start now. Overall, across Scotland, 89 per cent overall satisfaction with passengers. There are different survey methodologies. What we do when we do it in Glasgow subway, we do it in rail. We ask passengers to actually rate the particular journey they're taking that day. Not what do you think of bus journeys overall. It's a snapshot survey of how is that experience from start to finish. There are regional differences. When we last surveyed woven buses, for instance, I think it was in 2015, they had the highest value-for-money rating in Great Britain at 80 per cent value-for-money. The lowest rating for value-for-money is in Aberdeen. There are regional variations. The link to value-for-money when we ask passengers is why do you give that rating both positive and negative. It's looking at other modes of transport, they compare it with rail, they compare it with the cost of a car journey and they actually compare it with cost of everyday items. That is the reason why they give those ratings for value-for-money. It's the cost of travel, the cost of the distance travelled and also relating it to the cost of everyday items in their general spend. Cost is key. Would that be echoed by other panel members? Community, I don't think it is because they generally have a pass to using a bus. The problem is access to that transport. I think that we are coming back to access later on, so I don't really want to go on too much about that. Access to information is another issue. As we said earlier, confusion about how you pay, I'm thinking about school children becoming adults who then commute and they've always just got on a bus and haven't had to pay a fare. And they're really not very bus-wise. So I think that's something that we need to improve amongst our youngsters if we're going to have them travelling by bus in the future. I'm going to bring you Gavin briefly in, if I may. I'm mindful of the time and there are a lot of issues that we'd like to get through, say, if I can take Gavin and then I'll perhaps move on, Gavin. I'd just say that bus users in Scotland, we handle help to resolve complaints, we have bus compliance people who are out in the field throughout Scotland travelling incognito on buses, so we're measuring things in all sorts of ways, we hold events where passengers come to us, but one area that we decided not to get involved with was fares because these are commercial decisions by bus companies as to what they charge, so we tend to step back from complaints about fares and refer them to the bus company. But my own experience travelling around is that there is too much of a variance between different parts of Scotland and it would be good to see people travelling around and paying the fares that they would expect to pay, although most people generally only travel in their own areas, so they maybe don't understand the differences in the way that we do. I think that that's useful. I'm afraid that we are pushed for time, so I'm going to move straight to Gail Ross for the next question. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Sheila, you've touched on it already and I do want to move on to mobility and the problems that disabled people have on public transport. You touched on a couple of different things, integrated timetables, the lack of access to information, but also the access to the buses themselves is possibly an issue. How can it be easier for people to access the bus services and access the actual buses? I know that there are a few new buses coming in on different routes, maybe not in our area so much. If you could comment on the new buses and comment on the buses that are already in use and the difficulties that people have, are there difficulties between switching between modes of transport? You talked about maybe integrating timetables a little bit better. I think that the first thing is that there are two types of vehicle use. There are buses, which generally have to be the low floor now, and there are coaches. For a lot of our rural areas, coaches are the local transport and coaches have a series of steps. They are wheelchair-accessible, but the bus companies have been quite slow at accepting that some people can't climb the steps. For example, if you had somebody and we have somebody on the committee who can transfer from our chair onto a seat, they want them just to sit in the wheelchair space, in the wheelchair for the entire journey. They will not load people in a wheelchair using a lift onto a bus and then store the wheelchair underneath. There are a few things that would help. The biggest issue for disabled people is that they don't want to feel different from other people. They want to have services that enable them to travel easily and not to be flagged up as having to take extra time to do things. The Government and I have been to see and haven't seen the bus in action yet, but there is a new type of coach that is going to have for the wheelchair and several seats on a low floor level, which is about to be introduced in Fife in a few weeks' time. It will take a considerable length of time for that to reach all the parts that we are involved in, but it is a big move towards improvement. On the integration issue, it is hugely important, because if you are disabled, you might not be able to walk very far. Rail has passenger assist and there is nothing similar in bus. You have to ask specifically for help. In some cases—and I trouble by megabus quite a lot—the message has not got from the head office to the bus that there is going to be somebody who is going to be in a wheelchair and they turn up and then it is a crisis as to how they deal with it. We are not really moving forward far enough and fast enough. The other issue is the distance that people have to walk between modes of transport. Although the act of dravels being promoted for quite a lot of disabled people, they can only walk very short distances, so we have to bear that in mind as well. I will bring in Robert first. I will give a quick point on that on a positive note. In 2017, we met with Explored on Day to go over the bus passenger service results. About only 80 per cent of passengers with a disability had overall satisfaction. Working on those results, they had a period of training with a driver's various disability awareness training. In this year, when we went back with the results, 94 per cent of passengers with a disability were overall satisfied with the service, provided an uplift of quite a significant 12-13 per cent. There are areas where the bus company can actually work proactively with the drivers. At the end of the day, it is different from the rail network. The only contact of passengers who will have the bus company nine times out of 10 is going to be with the driver. Specific training can actually help in that regard. It is not the be-all on end all but it is. For people with disability who are using the network, the satisfaction improves. It is a good find. I will bring in Gail Ross and then we will move on to the next question. Do you have any comment from your particular angle of accessing bus and and rail transport? Absolutely. A large part of the issues that are involved with accessing buses is down to awareness on the part of drivers and the part of bus company staff. It appears to be in different areas, different levels of training, different levels of any kind of certification or checks and balances to make sure that the training drivers are receiving is cognisant of the different disabilities and the issues that people may have, particularly with regard to hidden disabilities, where that person may have access challenges that are not immediately visible. Sheila also mentioned the point about integration, which is a very valid point. One thing that is not always taken into account is the length of time that it takes. Even though the distance between transit points may be relatively short, it may take that passenger a significant amount of time to get there. Finally, communication between bus companies itself. Sheila, a colleague, mentioned passenger assist, which will provide you with assistance from your original point of departure to your final point of arrival, including any changes on route by train. No such system exists for buses, and very often passengers are left to fend for themselves. Quite often, if the transit point is in a remote area, for example, at an out-of-town bus park or a lay-by, that may be difficult and there may be nobody there. There are no immediate ways of contacting the bus company for help or to get in touch with the driver if that becomes necessary. That is very helpful, thank you. We are going to move on to the next question, which is, Stuart. I recognise that Robert Samson earlier never said that he was interested in outcomes rather than structures, so I am going to disappoint him by asking a bit about structures. However, I think that there are options in this area that can contribute negatively or positively to outcomes. Has anyone got any particular changes to regulatory frameworks or ways in which we approach things that seem to deliver on the experience and feedback? That could be an open and ended question, which could allow you to completely rewrite the regulations. I am afraid that we will not have time for that. If you could keep the answers probably to succinct points, that would be very helpful. Robert, I will bring you in to start with. Just on the structures, we do a lot of work thanks to funding of the bus companies, regional transport partnerships and Transport Scotland on bus, but we do not have a statutory remit. In England, we do have a statutory remit when the Transport, Bulk and Transport Act went through the Westminster Parliament. We asked passengers, what structure do you want to see? How should bus services be operated? 75 per cent of passengers did not know how they actually operated and, frankly, did not really care. At the end, when we asked the passengers, the bus companies, on all levels of government, be it national or local government, should work together and deliver the service that we actually want, regardless of the structure. I have sent to the committee and all MSPs, we have prepared 10 action points that would fit the existing system, would fit re-regulation, would fit franchising, would fit partnerships, alliances and quality contracts. That actually puts passengers at the heart of this. Based on our research, what passengers actually want in terms of boosting the role of the driver, driving training, customer care and satisfaction, improving fares and ticketing, ensuring frequency stability of service and things about timetable changes where the timetables can change in the moments noticed in the bus industry. Passengers want to be consulted on timetable changes that affects their lives, that affects where they used to live in a village, that affects where they actually cannot get to my job anywhere because they have changed the bus service. No, these things will put passengers at the heart of it, regardless of the structure, so make sure that those 10 points are in so that passengers actually get the service that they deserve. I will actually drive up passenger numbers to over £400 million. Just before we move on, can I go back to Mr Samson? The previous Labour Liberal Executive, when they legislated for transport, introduced voluntary and statutory bus partnerships. There have been virtually no statutory bus partnerships and very comparatively few voluntary ones. Does that seem to be a structure where public policy more directly controls how the buses are delivered and could take a look at the boxes? Do you have any views on why they have not been used, apart from creating some administrative buttons for local authorities, which I think is probably the reason in my view? That was a very long question. Robert, I will let you come back with a shorter answer. We sit in a number of bodies in English metropolitan areas, partnerships, alliances, where the passenger voice is central to it. Whatever structure you devise, make sure that passengers have a seat at the table and can actually influence the structure. That is the key thing. I think that that is probably the right place to… Sheila, I will bring you in. I will make a quick point about bus registration. Local authorities are notified of bus changes and withdrawals 70 days before it happens. I think that it is a four-week period in which they can talk to bus companies. The following period is an opportunity for them to talk to local people. The Mobility and Acts Committee would like to see equality impact assessments done on any change or withdrawal. We would like to see disabled people included in the discussion before it happens. At the moment, there is a reluctance for council officers and councillors to tell the local people that their bus service is going to be changed because they are going to be under pressure to go back to the bus company and offer some money to try and keep it going. As Robert Wightley said, quite a lot of those services involve commuter journeys and people not being able to continue in their jobs and not being able to get to doctors, in some cases. We need to have a more robust system of informing people of what is happening. I have got a second question. I know, and I was going to say a brief one that would be useful. At the risk of big answers, the question is very simply. The concessionary travel scheme, which a couple of us are members of, is being looked at at the moment. Is there any—this has to be brief—things that must not happen to it or any things that really should happen to it? Gavin and then Sheena. As a beneficiary of the scheme, I would hate to see it changed in any way particularly. I would be sorry to see the lower age range rising, as it has done in England. I understand the sums involved in all of this, but it is a tremendously useful thing for us holder people. It gives us mobility, helps our health and it is something that I applaud the Scottish Government for introducing it and for maintaining it at the level that it is, so I would hate to see any change. And your vested interest is noted, Sheena. I also have a vested interest, so I have to admit that. I, too, would really struggle with any changes, because I think that what we have at the moment is an excellent system that enables people to get out and about. It is combating loneliness and isolation, so it is really important that we try to keep it as it is. Thank you for that. Robert, do you want to add something briefly to that, or do you think that that's— Just briefly on the concessionary, when we surveyed passengers, it's worth bearing in mind that it's over the last four years we've surveyed over 20,000 passengers. The three pass holders, we don't survey and value for money, obviously, but overall satisfaction, they're far higher than fair payers, as you would expect. Also, about 49 per cent of the concessionary travel holders we surveyed say they travel by bus because they don't have any other option. Regarding that, it's still a lifeline service in many ways. Some are making up leisure journeys, but for about 50 per cent of the people who are entitled to concessionary passes, it's the only option that they still have to travel, so that's worth bearing in mind as an aside. That's a very valid point. Peter. Speaking mainly about bus travel, I'm going to move on to rail travel. ScotRail Alliance announced on 30 March that it commissioned an independent rail expert to produce an improvement plan. Are you satisfied with how ScotRail Alliance communicates with passengers about planned and unexpected service disruption? If not, what changes would you like to see introduced? I would also ask you what impact does bus replacement of rail services have on passengers, particularly those with limited mobility, when the railway doesn't go and you're on a bus, which you didn't expect to be on. I think that's mainly for Hussain and Sheila particularly. Thank you for the question. I think that, largely, communication is absolutely pivotal to anyone, but particularly disabled folk having information about not only what is happening, but any additional steps that may be necessary to allow them to complete their journey. If we take the recent winter weather and the major disruption that that caused across the country as an example, ScotRail, to be fair, did a lot to communicate using electronic means, social media, email and text messaging for those who were subscribed to that. However, we have to bear in mind that there is a sizable proportion of the population that is not gigically connected, and there are also people who may be gigically connected but cannot access the channels through which this information is provided. I've always said what I'd like to see is greater use of mass media, so terrestrial, television and radio, to communicate messages about what is happening. Going back to playing on simple telephone, passenger assist is extremely beneficial to passengers, but we, certainly as a committee and through our experiences, have yet to find a single instance where ScotRail used a telephone to advise somebody who had booked assistance that their service was cancelled, their service was disrupted, or indeed a lot of people have mobile phones these days to tell them if their journey had been curtailed and there was bus replacement transport. To focus on the bus transport side of things, there is, of course, accessibility of vehicles in many places that are not taken into account at all, leading to very long taxi journeys and additional stress and anxiety for passengers. It is also not always clear as to where stopping places are for bus services. Sometimes they are not outside the station, and that communication is generally quite patchy. Very often it is left to the passengers to try and work out where their bus is, which bus is going where. Sometimes buses will skip intermediate stops, so which bus do you get on? How does that whole system work? I think that things have slightly improved because on rail services where they are using bus replacements, I think that they are generally now trying to use stations that are accessible. I have been off the train in the past and put a lottery to use a bus, and you have to cross over the steps that go over the railway, which is a common thing in Highland. Many people cannot do that, and in some stations there is no access to the other platform. There has been awareness that when people are travelling, they may not have disclosed that they are disabled, but they may have mobility problems, and they may have problems that, as Hussain said earlier about hidden disabilities, they need them to be told quite clearly what is happening. That is something that we need to improve on. On the particular issue of performance, we met with Nick Donovan, who compiled the report on improving performance. We went through the passenger issues. What we found with the report is that it is detailed and gives you 20 action points to work on, but there is no silver billet to improve performance and focusing on the assets and the day job and getting those things right to improve the main driver of satisfaction for passengers, which is true and reliability. You are not really confident that Nick Donovan's piece of work is going to help? I think that it will help, but it will give a focus. What we find and what ScotRail are finding is that we do the national passengers, the national rail passenger service, and it gives you overall satisfaction, but if you actually break that down, as we did for passengers in Straff, Clyde's young passengers under the age of 25, satisfied with ticket-buying facilities, satisfied with the station environment, satisfied with interaction with staff, satisfied with train cleanliness, overall satisfaction, fairly dissatisfied. Why? My train was five minutes late getting into Glasgow Central. It has a major impact. ScotRail and the Lions have to focus on performance and actually crack that to get overall satisfaction, because there is a clear correlation. You can have everything else right, but if my train is late and I am late for my work, my boss might not be understanding, so there is a clear correlation. The report focuses on the day tasks that need to get that management attention to actually improve performance back up to over 90 plus per cent. John John, do you want to come in briefly? Thank you, convener. I have a very brief question to Sheila. That is in relation to the difficulties that you talked about on the train for people with mobility issues. Do you be of the view as I am that the safety critical second person on the train, the guard on the train, is a vital aid? Absolutely. They are very, very important. I found out recently that quite a lot of them are much more customer focused than they used to be, and they are very, very good at sysing out if somebody actually needs a little bit of help. That is a plus point for ScotRail. I think that it is really good that they have done that. I would hate to see the second person on the train. We actually have incidents where people, some of our committee, have been going places to view things. Fortunately, at Waverley, they were told not to get on the train. One of them was in a wheelchair because there was no assistant on the train to use the ramp to get them off at the station that they wanted to get off at. That is a key issue that we have on one-man trains. We might not, especially on one-man stations, be there to deploy the ramp. Peter, you have a full-art question, and then we are going to move on to Jenny Green. Consumer Group, which has recently raised concerns about how ScotRail deals with passenger compensation claims during periods of disruption, do you share those concerns? If so, what changes would you like to see made to the compensation arrangements? Who would like to go on that? I am going to ask you all to be as brief as possible, because I say it, Robert. The new franchise agreement has delivered a pay. There is a threshold, but it is actually—we researched up with passengers. About 50 per cent of passengers do not claim for the compensation that they are entitled to. It is about building up trust and improving the customer experience between ScotRail and the passenger. When the train is late, why not make an announcement asking to tell passengers that they are entitled to compensation? Remind to put in a form or various mechanisms on how to get the compensation. Staff at the barriers can engage with passengers and say that they are entitled to compensation when they improve trust between the operator and the passenger. It has got to be better to communicate what passengers are entitled to. That does not apply with ScotRail. It applies equally to cross-border train operators as well. I noticed that you all nodding in agreement. You said that I will bring you in, and then I will move on to the next question. Just a very short operational point with regard to the threshold for delay and repay. How do you know what time your train has arrived at the station? Is that the time at which the train physically stops, or is that the time at which you get off onto the platform? That has never been made clear to me as a passenger in the past seven years of travelling. That has the potential for many people to put in claims that are either not valid or, indeed, the opposite way around. The issue of communication and passenger ignoring what to do, when to do it, how to do it and what happens once they submit a good claim really needs to be looked into to make sure that people are doing things correctly and getting what they deserve. I hope that ScotRail will be listening to the broadcast and will be reading the transcript and will come up with an answer to that, but I think that it is a very valid point. Moving on to some of the other issues, which I think that the Donovan report flagged, which seemed to be of concern to commuters, two specific issues. One is overcrowding on trains. I think that it is probably better in some areas and worse in others, especially in areas in which there have been delays to the delivery of new services or a reduction in the amount of carriages on a specific service. Is it your impression that overcrowding has got better or worse or stayed the same? Who would like to lead off on that? One of the problems is that there is going to be more capacity on the rail network. The introduction of class 385s, the introduction of the new HSTs, but one of the bug bears for passengers was actually announced in 2014 when the franchise actually changed hands and four years later we are still sitting here waiting on the new trains. When we do research for passengers, passenger priorities, one of the top priorities is always being able to get a seat on the train. That is a problem, particularly at commuter times, at morning and evening peaks. There is going to be an uplift in capacity of between 25 and 50 per cent extra seats on some routes if not more. I will alleviate those problems, but we want the trains as soon as possible to actually do that and generate passenger growth. Jeremy, do you have a full art to that? Yes. One of the other issues that frequently comes up is the issue of stop-skipping. On services, one of the key recommendations of Donovan was that this should be stopped unless absolutely necessary. I think that there was a promise made by the ScotRail to that very effect. Can you explain to me perhaps your view on whether you think that that is improving? How much confidence do you have in the promises that it will be eliminated or any other views on that particular practice? We have had meetings with ScotRail on the process of skip-stopping, and we are confident that it will get better and hopefully stop entirely. Passengers want the timetable to be delivered in its entirety. One of the problems with skip-stopping that has happened on occasion is that if you are standing at the station and you get advised in advance, it is frustrating, but you can cope with that. If you are actually sitting on the train and announcement as it is missing your stop, passengers will be incandescent and rightly so, but it is up to the rail industry to actually deliver the timetable in its entirety so that all stations are served. That leads probably nicely into the final question, which is around the performance improvement programme, which is coming out of the key 20 recommendations from Donovan's review. I think that Robert Ewing said that they are all very welcome improvements, but it is not a magic bullet. What is the magic bullet then? If this will not do it and the previous 249-point plan did not do it, where are we heading in terms of the industry on improving the service to passengers? What is the magic solution then? Robert, I would encourage you to respond, but shortly. The magic bullet is that the plan has been agreed and implemented as watched in the monthly reporting figures, the moving annual average to actually see improvement. We have to give the plan 69 months to actually bear fruition, to actually see improvement along each period so that performance goes back up into the mid 90 per cent. There is no magic bullet, it is actually working hard on the day job to actually deliver the 20-point plan in its entirety. The next question is from Colin, Sheila and who said that it will be the main recipients, I suspect, for those questions. Thank you very much indeed, convener, that very much will be because this is regarding some of the recommendations in the Motability and Access Committee's annual report for 2016-17. The report highlighted a number of concerns about accessibility to and from some of the recently remodelled stations such as Haymarket and the taxi ranks at Wavelay, for example. How might those issues have been avoided and what do you think the lessons are that can be learned for future projects? A key concept, and as a committee we are now pushing this where we can, is that accessibility should be a consideration at the conceptual stage for any project before any work commences and before the plan is even signed off. What we are finding, especially with some of the retrofix that is now going on, is that, because accessibility has been an afterthought or has been something that has not been fully consulted with stakeholders, there has been a lot of investment going into remodelling, having to redo things, to make things compliant, to make things accessible, and that is then causing a physical disruption, additional anxiety and stress for passengers. So accessibility is something that should be integral to every project and something that starts at day one rather than at the point where the plan is implemented. Thank you, Sheila. I would really like to. Haymarket is a very good example because Maxx was very involved with that. We have moved away from being involved in specific stations now because we simply just do not have the time to do it. The big issue at Haymarket is where the taxi ranks are, and I think that that is going to be an issue at all stations. Actually, a misunderstanding about how easy it is for blind people or people with a mobility issue to get from the station to the taxi rank, and if it is a distance, that is going to be a very big barrier for them. Passenger assist helps to the door of the station. Technically, they are not allowed to go beyond that. Some of them are very good at helping people to get to a taxi rank, but technically at Haymarket they are not allowed to cross the road and take them down to the taxi rank. That is a big issue because of the distance from the station. John, you want to come in briefly and then I will come back to Colin. In relation to that, we would understand that, ideally, everyone would work together to ensure that that happens. Perhaps there are other issues if you are involved in the local authority or the roads network. In relation to a new station, for instance, such as Forrest, do you feel that there was the necessary consultation and provision put in place there? It certainly seemed to me that that was the case. I would agree that I was involved in the consultation on Forrest through other, or not to do with Max, but on another panel I was on. It is crucially important that local people are involved all the way through. Colin, do you want to come back briefly? I was keen—we have talked about accessibility to the stations themselves. Are there any other issues that Max has related to rail travel and accessibility? I know that the report talks about issues around concessory travel and on-chain assistance, the particular concerns that you have. There are a number of very specific issues that have come up recently. One of them is the plus ones for blind people and the difficulty of booking tickets. The person with the card can actually go up to Barrier and get through, but if they have to have a companion with them, a ticket has to be bought for the companion. It is very much based on local authority concessionary fare schemes, and there is a difference across the country, so a standardisation of that nationwide view would be very useful. Thank you. Unless there are any other points on that, I think that that is a natural conclusion. If I could just say at this stage that ScotRail is due to come in in front of the committee on 9 May, how appropriate is that, and the minister on 16 May. A lot of the points that have been raised here today will be picked up by the committee members at those meetings. It has been an extremely useful meeting for us this morning. I would like to thank the witnesses for the evidence that they have given to the committee. I would also like to thank the viewers that are on Facebook who have been watching this for their attendance. I am now briefly going to suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to change. Thank you. I would now like to reconvene the meeting and move on to agenda item 3, which is salmon farming in Scotland. I would like to welcome Donald Cameron as the reporter for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee on the salmon farming inquiry in Scotland. I would like to ask Members if they would like to declare any interest. I am going to start that off by declaring the interest in a wild salmon fishery full declaration that I gave at the beginning of the inquiry. Would anyone else, Donald? Yes, thank you. I would also like to repeat the declaration of interest that I made on 5 March in relation to both fish farm and a wild fishery. Thank you. This is our fourth evidence session on the committee's salmon farming in Scotland inquiry. First of all, we had a very useful session last night on a video conference with the Agriculture Stewardship Council, which the brief notes from that meeting will be made available and put on the website. It was an extremely informative meeting in which the committee members took part. I would also like to point out a disappointing fact that the committee has not been able yet to identify any retailers of product in Scotland who are prepared to come before the committee in person to give evidence. I am told that they are giving written evidence. I think that it is disappointing that they are not coming to the committee in person despite invitations to do so. Having made that point, the committee will now take evidence today from bodies with an interest in the development of farm salmon sector. I would like to welcome James Withers, the chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink. I would like to welcome Elaine Jemison, the head of Food and Drink, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and Heather Jones, the chief executive of Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre. The first question today will be from John Finnie John. Thank you, convener. I share your view about the retailers. These are retailers who have no doubt will quote, and good morning, panel members, a phrase that is in their papers here. That is pristine waters in the visually dramatic Highlands and Island lock settings. How important is Scotland's natural environment to the market for Scottish farm salmon, please? Who would like to head off on that? James, it looks like you are ready to go on that one. It is critically important not just to the agriculture industry but to all of Scotland's brand. Certainly, when we look at the market here, which is growing, and the market that is growing overseas, a large part of that is about Scotland's broader provenance story. There are a number of parts to that. It is about a mixture of heritage and tradition, but it is also about innovation and family businesses. It is absolutely about environmental integrity. The only strong future that will be for our agriculture industry is embracing well-class standards of environmental stewardship, animal welfare and husbandry. If we do not do that, we will not keep building the brand that has been of the last years, which has driven a doubling of food exports over the past 10 years from Scotland. I think that it is important to remember the context in which Scottish salmon is going to the global market. Compared to other farm species, such as Ecuadorian shrimp, Vietnamese Pangasius, Chinese carp, sea bass and sea bream from the Mediterranean, the quality of the provenance and the standards of environmental monitoring in Scotland are very high and are widely regarded by a number of other countries, including very developed countries, as the best in the world. The New Zealand Government wrote a comparative study on environmental quality standards, and it held up the Scottish regulatory system as one of the best. John, do you want to come back? Yes, just to look at our very negative area, what would the consequences be of a failure to retain that position? Of quality that is connected with the environment? From a customer point of view, we are dealing with a customer base. It is different in different countries, but for most of the countries that we are looking at as markets and our home market here, who are increasingly environmental conscious, they want to understand the regulatory system to sit behind it. They are not going to go into the detail, but they want to have faith that we are operating through production systems that work in harmony with the environment and enhance it where possible. Scotland's growth in food and drink has been a large part about reputation and about building that reputation and building that story, as well as the quality of the products themselves. Anything that had a detrimental impact on that would be hugely damaging. As Heather alluded to, we have an agriculture industry at the moment where perceptions of the lack of that product, both the quality and the standards of production, are extremely high. I will bring in John Mason very briefly on that and then maybe come back to you. I was interested by Heather Jones' comment just now that Scotland's reputation is very good, because last night we had a video link with the ACS. They really felt that Scotland was pretty poor in comparison to say Norway. We will come on to Lice later, but the standards—they felt that Scotland was relying on things like we have a beautiful visual climate, as that wording says, but the reality is that we are not as strict as South American countries, Canada, Norway, etc. That was their view. I am certainly very surprised to hear that they think that chilling husbandry standards are higher than Scotland. Scotland is widely regarded as one of the most tightly regulated places in the world for salmon production. Certainly, in relation to other species, salmon is literally the king of fish in terms of the way in which it is monitored, it is researched and that the environmental impact is a recognised factor. Has that been approved by some third party internationally, or is that just our opinion in Scotland? As I said, it is certainly the opinion of a report written by the New Zealand Government where it looked at comparative systems and thought that the Scottish system was one of the strongest. Different systems have different strengths, but I have seen little evidence in reality to suggest that Scotland is in a poor place. I think that the point that was being made by the ASC last night was that some of the companies have certification through their scheme in other countries such as Norway and Chile, the very same companies that operate in Scotland. However, there were no farms in Scotland that had the certification that they have for other farms across the world. I think that that is the point that was being made. Heather, do you want to come back on that? I suppose that I was just to observe that there are a number of different certification schemes that the certification bodies trade and market as a way of creating value for themselves and their products. I will pick up your point about the retailers with some of the contacts that we have in our industry consortium. The UK retail market sets very high standards. As you think about M&S's plan A, all the major retailers specify fish health quality, water quality, stocking density and all those other things. The whole foods in the US and the German retailers are starting to copy what is being established in the UK market. James is right to say that the standards of what consumers get here is very high. John, do you want to come back? Peter Scott has a question as well. I am sure that the providence of produce is important across the range, but specifically with regard to the issue that we are looking at here, do Highlands Islands Enterprise have a view about the issues that we have just been discussing? We look for sustainable growth across all of our sectors, the key sectors in Scotland, including tourism and food and drink. We look to the regulatory bodies and Heather and her friends in the science and academic community to lead the scientific work around positive environmental management and positive environmental stewardship. From the point of view of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, we support businesses to be innovative in the practices that they have to have very positive outcomes. If we look at tourism, for example, that is another sector that relies very heavily on our natural environment. We have seen that both the aquaculture sector and the wind farming sector in particular have both been able to grow significantly over recent years. Although I appreciate that environmental impacts are not all aesthetic, there are no perceived impacts by people who are appreciating our assets from that point of view. Peter, I am not going to bring you in because I did bring Stuart in first, so a correction there is Stuart and then Peter. A comparatively small point, I think, purely for Heather Jones. In terms of regulation, it has been argued that Chile has better regulations than Scotland. However, and the big but is that the monitoring and implementation of them is extremely poor. In other words, the regulation is not... I am inviting you to agree. In particular, we have seen in Chile that the industry has been shut down on several occasions for a period of time because of the poor monitoring and management of health issues. Even though a theoretical look at the regulations would tell you a very different story. Is it fair to say that we have got to look at the outcomes that come from it rather than simply what might be in the legal framework? Absolutely, Mr Steams. That is a very good point. Chile has had multiple major health challenges that have caused hundreds of thousands of fish losses because they have allowed untrammeled growth, high intensity and high density growth, and that has put pressure on the fish stocks, which causes disease challenge and health risk. As a result, all the fish die. A lot of the Norwegian multinationals have been disinvesting from Chile because they are just losing money, because the regulatory system does not work successfully. In order for companies to have confidence to invest in Scotland, they need to know that a regulatory system will be stable, steady and quantified. Given the certainty around the system that we have, we can incentivise or disincentivise foreign international direct investment. I was keen to explore a wee bit more about how the industry is certified in Scotland, because, as we heard last night, the ASC does not certify any fish farms, as far as we are aware, in Scotland. What drives the certification system here? Is it driven by retailers? Is that the system that we have here? I will start a little bit. I am not an expert on food certification systems. I know that the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation has an independent company called Acura, which is headquartered in Edinburgh. Acura is one of the major certification bodies for marine standards for capture fisheries, other food production and salmon production. I also know that each of the retailers specifies in their contracts to their suppliers minimum standards that have to be applied around withdrawal times for medicines, stocking density, the way in which the fish are brought to market. The consumer pressure creates as much demand on producers as any other, and that is effectively funneled through the retailers. There is very little like that. It is Acura that delivers a lot of the quality assurance schemes when we are talking about land farming. The Scottish beef quality assurance scheme, Scottish land, especially at Port Acura, delivers a lot of the quality assurance there, so there are some parallels between farming the land and farming the season on that point of view. To emphasise a point that is a committee that is well aware, and I suppose that it is a shame that the retailers might not be sat in front of you to make this point, but the demands that they have in terms of regulation are complex, they are ever-changing, and in most cases, I am sure that they will go well beyond the legal minimum. I am pleased to hear that. I do know that the retailers are pretty strict in all their supply chains. They always are, no matter whether it is beef, lamb, pork or salmon, I would imagine, but we were not clear what that process looked like or how it was driven. A wee bit more on that would be useful, I think, for the committee. I think that maybe SSPO, who I am not sure have given evidence yet, but from those directly involved in the industry in both production and processing, we are the best place to answer that. It is the same with wildcatch fishing between MSC and MCS. There is a whole variety of certification schemes that exist out there. I think that we will move on to the next question. Just an observation, I think, La Belle Rouge. If the French endured something, it has got to be good. That might not be based in reality, based on perception, but no comment. The issue that Heather Jones raised in relation to Chile is one that I want to develop on. In other words, if you get your expansion too fast and you do not have appropriate regulatory and oversight, you are in difficulty. Are we in a position where the environmental interaction between fish farming and pristine waters is one that we need to manage more tightly as we expand the industry or expect it? That is really for everybody. Who wants to start off on that? You are all looking at each other. That means that I get to nominate. James, you can start and we will work to your right. The question is really about regulation, whether the interaction of regulatory bodies on the industry itself needs tightening. Is that fair summary? I sit here just to be clear, particularly in the context of the proposed expansion. That is going to be critically important because we have an industry that, in production terms, is relatively static. When I started in this role in Scotland, six years ago, Scotland had about 11 or 12 per cent of the world's market share in Atlantic farm, so we are now down to about seven. I am concerned about, as demand rises, that we would not be able to capitalise on that opportunity in Scotland. However, growth needs carefully managed. As the question from Mr Finnie was initially, our environmental integrity and our pristine waters are a key asset. How we grow the industry in value terms—as much as volume terms, I think—and how we do that collectively with environmental agencies will be critical. My hope lies, I have to say, is that, if you would ask me that question even 18 months ago, I would have said, I am not sure that we have good enough relationships between the industry itself and the regulatory bodies, both from a day-to-day operational point of view, but in terms of proactive management of that growth. I think that there has been a real sea change from that point of view. There is an industry leadership group that is now established. We have the senior representatives from SEPA, from Marine Scotland, from SNH, who are involved around that table on managing that growth agenda. I think that the relationships are stronger now, and I think that the kind of collaboration and partnership that has been marked, for example, in the Scotch whisky industry in terms of its environmental performance, could now be mirrored in the agriculture industry. I am much more hopeful that that kind of partnership and collaboration can underpin a growth journey over the next few years and one that is done sustainably. Just before we move on, you talked about that forum where there are quite a lot of people involved in regulation. Are there too many bodies for the regulation to be affected? Because I think that there is some evidence that the committee has received that leads us to that position. I am very happy to let you answer that, Stuart. You are going to have to make your piece with Mr Rumbles later, because you have asked his questions. I am very happy to let Heather answer that question, to be honest. I think that there is a better handle on that. Much like many areas of Scottish industry and regulation, there are a number of different bodies. I think that their remits are quite clear and quite distinct, but I might have a better place to comment on that. Is that okay? Let's work on that. I would say that aquaculture in terms of regulation, like any other sector in Scotland, when you look at growth, it has to be sustainable and it has to be well managed. Aquaculture is no different from other sectors. In fact, maybe ahead of other sectors, the industry, the partners in the public sector and the wider stakeholder partners, are quite cognisant of some of the challenges that they face. That is very important. As James has described, the Aquaculture Industry Leadership Group is a very powerful group of people who are joined up, open and collaborative in their thinking. Collaboration is absolutely key. At a more tactical and operational level, when we look at supporting the industry to grow, we very much now in Scotland have a Team Scotland approach, which sees industry working very much as a critical friend to both challenges and supports businesses and the sector to grow on multiple aspects, using that opulent synergy of knowledge that we bring to the table, be it through economic development agencies, the innovation and academic community and through the regulators. I think that there are some very good examples of the integrated approach between regulators, which I would defer to Heather to give you more detail in places where I live, for example, in the islands, where we see regulators and local authorities working very well. Heather, I will bring in Mike to ask some of the other questions that he might have on us. To answer the question, have we got too many regulatory bodies and is it confused? My answer to that would be no. That is because each body has a specific role, and as long as it sticks to having opinion and evidence on its area of expertise, then it is quite clear what that role is. For example, the Crown Estate is a landlord, so you pay them a rent to anchor your nets to the seabed, and that is effectively the role. SNH's role is to protect and preserve species and habitats under threat or on European protected lists, so that is about impacts on other environments. Marine Scotland's role is specifically about the health and welfare and the hospitality of the fish, so in the same way that the rural land animal chief vet would have responsibilities around how our animals cared for, what kinds of medical treatments can you give them, how do you make sure that they flourish, so that is the responsibility of Marine Scotland science. Finally, SEPA is responsible for what is the impact on the environment on the seabed and the water column in terms of either waste deposits or any other effluence into the system, which would be just the same as agricultural systems, where you are growing cows and sheep and you have effluent and you have treatments that then go into the environment. Mike, would you like to come in now? Thank you, convener. Your evidence today is very welcome, but it is in contradiction to a lot of the other evidence that we have received, so it is very interesting to hear it, because there has been severe criticism of the regulatory bodies involved in all of this process. If I can just focus on something that perhaps the evidence given to us from the Highland Council gave us when we asked them this, planning applications, to give you an example, for fish farms, are taken on individual basis. A developer comes along, puts an application in and Highland Council, for instance, has to deal with that specific application. When we put that evidence to Highland Council, they said that it would be a good thing if there was a more strategic view of the whole process of fish farming in Highland region. They were quite clear that they thought that it would be a very effective way of rather than dealing with piecemeal as the law stands at the moment. My question really is going on. What are the main problems with the planning process for fish farming from your perspective? Are there any? He would like to head off on that. If none of you jump forward, it means that I have to find a volunteer, James. I suppose that SSPO would be my go-to people in terms of commenting on the planning process. What I would say is that a more strategic overview and framework for how we grow the sector on a national basis would be very helpful. From my point of view, at a local planning level, individual planning applications are taken on their individual basis, and I understand that. I think that they are subject to significant tests and environmental assessments, and I think that there are still applications that run into real difficulty, despite having approval from CPET, SNH and all the regulatory authorities. The chief planner sits around the industry leadership group table that I mentioned, and if we could get into a position where the industry has developed a strategic framework for how it wants to go forward, if we could have a planning system that could, on a national basis, demonstrate how it could support that development with all the checks and balances that the planning system would need, it would make it easy for the industry to think about how it invests in the future and how it grows going forward. I suspect that that is not just an issue for the agriculture industry. That is probably a comment on the planning system, per se, but I am not sure that the planning system is fully functional. My committee colleagues seem to be making me want to work for my living by jumping around the questions that they indicated that they wanted to ask, because that will bring John Finnie in with some of his questions. Elaine, do you want to answer on planning, and then I would like to bring John Finnie in on some of the planning issues and then maybe try and come back to the issue of the status quo, which is where we started, if I can. Elaine, do you want to come in on the planning aspect of it? I should say that from an economic and community development agency, I am not an expert in planning, but I agree with the comments that Heather has made. However, there are some good examples that we could look at where the regulators work effectively together, and planning is effective. In Shetland, for example, they have a very good integrated approach in which they balance a broad range of issues that are both about the environment, about the businesses and about the community. However, at the heart of planning, the issue has to be around the sustainable growth, and the conversation needs to be between the public sector very much and the private sector as well to look at what true sustainable growth will look like into the future, and to have some clear direction and some clear vision over the medium to long term. John Finnie, would you like to? Maybe just roll a few issues together around this particular point. Perhaps the role that the local development plan should play in all of this. Who should lead? Clearly, we want communities involved as well. Whether that should be looked at in splendid isolation or integrated as part of other reforms, because, Heather, you, if I noted you correctly, talked about the distinct role that everyone has. If that is a high-level vision, how is that all wrapped together so that, for instance, local people are not disenfranchised and there is open and transparency about the whole process? I was quite surprised to see that a planner from Highland Council suggested that a kind of macro body could make decisions because it seems to me the essence of local democracy that decisions are taken as close to the communities as possible. If we take Shetland as an example, there was a disease outbreak there in 2009 called infectious salmon anemia, which is another disease that has devastated Chile. Since that time, the number of sites that are being actively farmed has been significantly reduced. The productivity might still be the same, but the companies have rationalised where they are putting the fish and they have changed the dynamics of that and the density of it so that, in Scotland, there are probably 300 planning permission sites, but only 200 of them are actually used. The point that I am making here is that the industry becomes self-regulating, as does the environment, in that if you have too many sites and you farm them too intensively, you will get a disease outbreak. Therefore, if you pick and choose to come back to the question about expansion, how do you expand efficiently? One thing is that you reduce your losses. Another thing is that you optimise the production in your existing sites. Another thing is that you see if you can expand the size of existing sites. The fourth thing is that you might develop new sites. Those are all things that the Norwegian Government has done in the past 15 years. When people talk about Scotland being in a perilous position just now, our growth is about the same as it was 15 years ago. Norway has gone from about that number to 1.2 million tonnes. Norway has a bigger coastline, but, coming back to the planning question, in Norway, the local authorities and local communities get a dividend from the investment of the companies, but there is also a strategic national plan that the Government approves in the Parliament that says that we would like to see our industry grow by five times by 2050, which is their espoused goal. We would like to see that they have a deliberate policy of encouraging expansion in areas of low population. In the north of Norway, they say that we are going to issue more licences in those regions because we want to keep communities active there. That is one of the points that is relevant to Shetland, the West Nile and Orkney. Without aquaculture jobs, some of those communities would not be able to keep existing. Briefly, I will bring in Gail Ross, deputy convener, and then I will come back to you, John Finnie Gail. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. You spoke about Norway's coastline, but we have a lot of coastline that we are not using currently for fish farms, specifically in the north and the east. If we were able to expand all the way around our coastline, do you think that that would have a positive impact on what we are trying to do? At the moment, everything is concentrated in the west. Heather, I am going to let you answer that. I think that there is a very clear and wise reason why there is not fish farming on the east coast. It is almost a bit like in Iceland where they have farming areas and they have no farming areas. Scotland has farming areas and it has no farming areas. 90 per cent of our wild salmon stocks are productive wild rivers. The te, the tweed, the de, the dawn, they all filter into the North Sea. They are all very productive because they have a much larger river catchment area. The risk would be if you were to change the balance at the moment. You have effectively protection for all your west coast fisheries because there are no fish farms there. That is one factor. One of the reasons that fish farms are located in the west coast and the west coast of Norway is that they look for sheltered locations. In general, the North Sea is less sheltered than sea locks on the west coast. That is partly about caring for your fish, but it is also the same thing about putting humans that work for your companies out into the North Sea into very exposed hostile environments that companies have a welfare responsibility to their employees as well as to the food production system. I want to push on the planning issue. There was talk of macro-policy and local democracy, and sometimes it is very good to have attention and focus minds. If I reach an extract from the Scottish Aquaculture, a view towards 2030, it states in a quote, regulations and planning should move to a more proactive—sorry. Regulations and planning move to more proactive in support—I do not think that this is good English, one way or another, but no matter what. It is maybe not me after all. John, why did not you make your input English and get the point across? The suggestion is that regulations and planning should move to be more proactive in supporting good growth rather than, and this is the telling phrase, rather than passively enforcing standards. If we are having standards, surely it is vital that they are enforced. Are we getting the balance right between decision making at local level, where there seems to be a lot of pressure on local authorities to play their part in contributing to this target? Is there undue pressure? I suppose that I had interpreted the phrase passive to mean that the regulations were not being enforced. All regulations in Scotland are enforced. The point of that phrase in that document is saying, if we want to grow the industry, it will only happen if we actively do something to encourage it to happen. If we do not, it will just be the status quo. As I said before, in terms of global markets, demand is increasing. People in Dubai, China and the US are wanting to buy salmon full stop, including Scottish salmon. Production has doubled or tripled in Norway, it has doubled or tripled in Chile, it is increasing vastly in Canada, it is growing at a 10 per cent a year in Faroes, it is flat in Scotland. Scotland is not taking any of that global market opportunity. It is a judgment for the people of Scotland whether we want it to or not, but the industry certainly feels that there is an opportunity to reinvest in the communities of Scotland and reinvest in the opportunity of the coastline of Scotland, because there are very few countries of the world that have the right climatic conditions to grow salmon and Scotland happens to be one of them. John, I am going to let you come back with a full up and then move on to that repeated list, Heather. If that could be viewed as heeping some pressure on local planners who already feel under pressure, because if someone who represents a number of people here do rural areas, of course we want employment in rural areas, but we want the environment protected as well and we want the highest standards of welfare for creatures as well. There is a lot to be done there. Do you think that excessive pressure is being applied to local authorities? I am not in a position to know that. Are you applying pressure then? Not in the slightest. Our role is to support investment in research. I am going to move on, if I may, to Gail and then I will try to bring us back on track where we left from. Gail? Thanks. I do not know if you are going to be able to answer this question, but I am going to ask it anyway. It is something that we have not really touched on in all of our evidence sessions, and Heather, you mentioned global markets, specifically the US. However, how are we going to continue to expand into American markets if we keep shooting seals? I know that that is something that they are not very keen on. Who would like to… Heather, is that you? I suspect that it is me, yes. The US market is planning to bring in new regulations in 2022, and every salmon producing company will have to adhere to that, whether it is Chile where they have sea lions, which are much bigger and much more aggressive at attacking fish in cages than in Scotland or whether it is Norway where, as you know, shooting is a national sport. Yes, there are issues around how do you protect the stocks of your fish in the same way that farmers would have the same issue about the risk of attacks of their sheep by, in my case, the family labrador. We recognise that, if you are a farmer, you have a right to protect your stock that you have invested in and that you are caring for. There is a risk of predators, and by and large a lot of work is done in Scotland to use something called acoustic deterrent devices, and there is a great deal of research and expertise at the University of St Andrews and the sea mammal research unit there to make sure that those ADDs are using frequencies and patterns of noise that are effective and not harmful. There have been many research projects done and innovation. There is a Scottish company called Ace Aquatech that just won the Queen's award for export, who makes an acoustic deterrent device. Those are devices that, if they can make them successfully in Scotland, they can sell them to every fish farming operation anywhere in the world, including Chile with their sea lions. Unfortunately, Stewart, who asked the original question, has left. I will have to see if I can bring that back in. Stewart asked the question relating to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee's report. I am sure that you will have all read the report. That report, and there are two members of the committee who was on the committee and Donald who is still on the committee who participated in that report. I am struggling a little bit at this stage to understand exactly your views on that report. Perhaps you could just clarify to the committee whether you recognise that report and the criticisms that were within that report, or whether you do not recognise that report as being a view of where the industry is at the moment. Maybe, James, you could start that off. My take would be that this is quite a young industry. If you compare it to land farming and agriculture, which we have known for hundreds and thousands of years, whether there remain real challenges around animal health. If you look at the sheep industry, whether there is a percentage of lambs born in Scotland each year that will never make the food change due to disease and the weather and various environmental factors, 20 to 30 per cent of cattle will present the slaughter with liver fluke, a disease of the liver. Raising animals is tough, and it is difficult because you deal with biological factors and environmental factors. I do not think that any sector of the food and drink industry has a future without embracing almost a zero tolerance of mortality, of any kind of disease issue. There should be a continual appetite to improve. If the individual company was sat here, are they content with where we are on mortality as an example? I would expect that they would say no. I would certainly hope that they would say no. I do not think that the industry is perfect. I do not think that the industry itself would say that it is perfect. I believe that, from having worked with them, they are absolutely up for embracing well-class standards of production. I think that they absolutely accept that there are improvements to be made. I think that the interests in achieving those improvements are no more stark than they are for the companies and the industry itself. Ultimately, losses cost money, they affect reputation, and we have talked about the importance of brand. Scotland and Scottish salmon sells on its brand food quality and environmental credentials. I think that there are challenges that the industry has, but my sense is that they recognise them. My sense is that there is a desire for improvement. I think that the investment that they are putting into innovation and the fact that we have an agriculture innovation centre that Heather represents today is a signal that there is a desire to do better. Do you recognise the report and the contents of that report? Yes, I do. Before you cut me off. I absolutely recognise the contents of the report. However, to put that in context, I think that in Scotland we have a spirit and a desire to embrace well-class standards of production. My overarching point would be that the one thing that we know for certain is that demand is increasing, demand for global protein is increasing and demand for Scottish salmon is increasing. Today and every day this week and the rest of the year, we will eat a million meals involving salmon in the UK. Far rather, we met that demand from systems in Scotland, which we can control and where we can add the economic value here, then have that demand met elsewhere. If, for example, we had a moratorium or we stopped producing, that demand will not go away. We have merely met from systems that we have no control over. I do not think that that is what the report suggested. Elaine, do you want to answer that? A brief answer would be because I know now that members of that committee would like to come in on the back of that. I very much agree with the comments that James has made. I would like to say that I do not think that any growth of any sector and the development of any sector can be viewed in isolation. It should be viewed holistically in terms of growth for the economy and for regions within the economy in an evidence fact-based manner. It is very fair to say that, having spoke to industry extensively yesterday at SifuExpo Global, it is cognisant of the challenges that were highlighted in the report. Work is well under way to address some of the challenges that are highlighted. I recognise a number of issues that the report covers. I have a slight issue with the underlying premise, which appears to be that Scottish salmon farming is in and of itself bad and has a negative effect on the environment. That does not seem to me the right mindset to approach things. The industry would say that it fully owns and recognises that it is responsible for optimal fish growth and welfare minimising impacts. That is partly why, in the three and a half years that sex has been in existence, it has invested with us in 23 different research projects, largely focused on dealing with some of the issues that the environment report talks about. Of our £34 million worth of projects, £22 million of that is industry-hard cash. It is putting significant millions of pounds of investment into Scottish universities to help solve the problems that it is experiencing in Scottish waters. That seems to me a sign of a mature and responsible industry that wants to tackle the problems that it is facing. As the convener said, I am the reporter from the Eichler committee. Just in terms of what you have just said, Heather, I have to, with the greatest respect, sort of disagree with your characterisation of the report. I think that what the report in fairness says is that agriculture has to operate to the highest environmental standards and, at present, it is not. Underlying the report and the concerns of the committee is the projected expansion of doubling from 160,000 tonnes to double that in, I think, 15 years. I think that to put the concerns of the Eichler committee on record, our concerns are effectively that, if that expansion happens and the industry is currently not operating to the highest environmental standards, then frankly we have a problem. I do not know if Kate Forbes is sure that she would add to that, but it is important to put the Eichler committee's views on the report and the summary letter that I think enshrines those views. My own question, I suppose, to you is what do you not agree that it is in the interest of the product to be produced to the highest environmental standards, that people want to eat salmon that they know is produced to the highest environmental standards? Yes. That is a very straightforward answer. In some ways it comes back to the point that we made earlier about consumer retail and perceptions, and scrutiny will drive more improvements than anything. We have seen it in the realms of food waste. Plastics is obviously a huge issue just now. A large part of the sale issue is about consumer assurance and welfare. The growth that I would certainly like to see, and I want to see the agriculture industry grow in Scotland, has huge potential benefits. The social and economic sustainability are as important fact as the environmental sustainability, but that should only happen on the basis of supporting companies that embrace the highest standards of regulation. I would encourage, as a consumer and someone who lives in Scotland and values its landscape and its natural heritage, I would only want to see that growth if it meets not just their minimum standards but world-leading standards, and that will help us to sell in Brussels as they are doing, just now in Singapore as they are doing later on this week. That will help to sell the product. James, you started off very well with a very short answer and then it got extremely long. I would like to bring Kate in and then I will come to you, Elaine, if I may. Thank you very much. I just want to focus on one particular area, and that is mortalities, which James Wethers has already referenced. You have obviously said that the industry is not satisfied with the current level of mortality. Do you believe that the current level of mortality is acceptable in light of the level of mortality that you would accept in any other food source? Secondly, everybody is quite happy to say that something is not acceptable, but what should be done and by whom to address it? Not only does that mortality rate have a negative impact on the environment but on investors and consumers. I do not know who would like to start on that. James, do you want to go on that or Elaine? Elaine, I said that I would let you come in first, so I probably should. Do you want to answer that particular question? The short answer is that I am quite confident that the industry is not satisfied with the current mortality rate, and that is evident through the innovation activity that both producers and businesses in the upstream supply chain are making, the strides that they are making forward around mortalities and the very significant investments that even SMEs, not necessarily all our large businesses, are making. Yesterday, I had a conversation with one of our salmon-producing companies, and they spoke about a very proactive approach that they have taken with at least two other farming companies in a very specific geographical location to address mortalities. I understand that, quite often, when you have mortality events, it creates a sense of urgency and a sense to act, but what those businesses are doing is stepping back from large productivity numbers in order to address short-term challenges to look at that longer-term growth opportunity. They are working together around some very localised, for example, fish management operations, and they are synchronising treatments, for example. The question around are businesses happy with mortality rates, I think that the answer to that is no. I think that they are proactively addressing that. If we look at the fish health welfare work that is going on that Heather will be able to speak much more eloquently than I about, I think that that is a very good example of industry leading the way supported by the public sector and wider stakeholders to take ownership for improving the current situation. The causes of mortality in fish farming come from bacteria in the environment, viruses in the environment, parasites in the environment, potentially insufficient or poor nutrition and feeding, potentially human error or physical trauma where you have a big storm and the fish all get slashed against, slammed against a net and get bruised. There are lots of different causes of mortality and I think that every farming company that I know of is seeking to minimise their mortalities because that is lost profits. It costs them significant amounts of lost profit in having mortalities. What can we do about mortalities? Well, we can improve water quality because fish thrive in a highly oxygenated environment. We can vaccinate against some of the diseases that have been identified that fish have that then have led to research to develop a vaccine, so there is something called bacterial kidney disease, pancreatic disease. There are a number of different vaccines in pharmaceutical companies that have worked with industry to help identify what are the causes of mortality and how can we then prevent them. We know that in human populations vaccination is a very successful strategy. We can have the best possible management on husbandry to minimise the risk of disease outbreak and that is through your stocking densities. It is through how often you handle the fish and you want to do that as little as possible because they suffer stress in the same way that we would suffer stress and if you crowd them too much, their performance goes down, their eating quality goes down, so the retailers will specify all manner of aspects of how the fish farming companies have to try and make sure that their fish are as healthy and ready for market as possible. They want every fish that they put to sea to come back out again. Are there too many mortalities? Yes, there are, but people are doing everything that they can to bring them down. Sorry, just before I come back to Kate, do you want to just quantify those mortalities as a percentage of fish that go to sea? Can you do that? I do not have that data, but I am sure that the SFU would do that. I have read in the press somewhere that it is between 20 and 25 per cent. Does that sound about right? Sorry, Kate. I was just going to say that we are moving fast enough on that. If mortality rates are hitting record highs in 2016, I would imagine an absolute outcry if mortality rates in any other form of agriculture hit those same rates. We would just not stand for it, so why is fish farming any different and do you think that we are moving fast enough in terms of the innovation to reduce that? It looks like that is you again. There has been a significant trend in the past five years of increased mortalities because of disease problems, partly correlated to rising seawater temperatures, partly correlated to viruses and diseases becoming evident in Scottish waters that were not previously. There are diseases that started in Tasmania and then went to Ireland and somehow have come to Scotland. Once you have them in your environment, you cannot get rid of them. What can we do about that? That is a perfectly fair question. One of the biggest causes of mortality in the past couple of years has been something called complex skill disease, so that is about how the fish breathe. There was an international conference in Galway two weeks ago that the industry was at, Scottish researchers were at and members of the Scottish Innovation Centre were at, looking at how to find answers to those complex skill issues. One of the things that Scotland would like to do is to become the host and the expert of that international forum so that we do as much research as we possibly can to solve the problems that we know are happening here but are also happening around the world. That is one of the things that comes through in terms of academic and industry and international research collaborations that you need to draw on the expertise of what the Tasmanians learned about skill disease, how do we apply it to Scotland, how do we make the best possible interventions to minimise mortality rate? Just before we leave that, if I may, just ask one further question on that skill disease is that when it starts to develop, I certainly attended the eclair committee and asked the question, is there anything that they can do once the disease starts to develop and the answer was to harvest the fish before the fish die from the disease? Do you think that that hides the actual true depth of the problem? Is it bigger than the 20 or 25 per cent mortality? And maybe just to put that into context, I'm going to declare an interest in that, I'm a farmer and sadly when you're carving for example you will accept a small mortality in the region of 4 per cent which is probably a reasonable level which there's nothing you can do about it. We're talking about a figure in excess of four or five times this in the salmon farming industry, so maybe you could just explain that skill disease and do you think that it's bigger than the industries there because they're harvesting fish earlier? I simply don't know the answer to that question. I suppose that I would just make one observation which I learned from having a conversation with the Scottish Government's chief vet in terms of the comparison of mortality rates between land-based animals and fish. The way that fish spawn is that they generate 100,000 eggs per fish and not 100,000 eggs of those fish are going to become wild salmon from wild salmon rivers or any other grown-up fish, whereas cows have one calf or possibly two. The mortality rates of fish are not analogous to the mortality rates of wild animals, according to Scotland's chief vet. I'm sure that there are subtle differences between fish and animals and I'm sure that we'll accept that, John. Perhaps you'd like to move on with your next question. Yes, I think that follows on quite well because we've just talked about mortality and Ms Johns gave us a very wide range of reasons for that, but one of our fascinations on this committee is sea lice and I'm amazed that we've got as far through the committee so far without too much mention of them. I'm really looking first of all for a general comment as to what your views are on sea lice. Again, we've heard that some farms are doing extremely well. We've heard in other countries that they have stricter controls. Again, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council was suggesting that their normal limit is 0.1 female lice per fish, which seems quite low and I think lower than we are achieving. Are you content with the policy as it is at the moment? Should we be tightening up? Should we be copying Norway a bit more? I'm keen to give Heather a break because I think that she's been under the microscope. Does anyone else on the panel wish to come in on that or do I have to by default go to Heather to answer that? Elaine? I can give Heather a few minutes' respite but not too much because Heather is the expert on the panel in that area. It is fair to say that producing companies with the support of innovative businesses in the supply chain are deploying a wide range of strategies to tackle sea lice. Although treatments remain an option, there are an increasing number of options such as baths, thermalizers and hydrolyzers. We have ambitious supply chain companies coming through and working very much hand in glove with producers to look at some of those solutions. When we meet industry, although we are an economic and community development agency, we are always keen to understand their challenges as much as we are to understand their opportunities and how we can work with the industry going forward. One of the companies in Scotland, who has had localised but very challenging problems with sea lice and who have deployed not one or two but multiple approaches to tackling sea lice and who have been working in collaboration with their neighbours in the geographies in which they operate, were telling me yesterday that, from March 2017 to March 2018, they had seen an 87 per cent reduction in adult female lice per salmon. Could you give us what that figure was and is? Not in my brief notes. I received a presentation from them yesterday, which unfortunately I do not have with them. I would suggest that next week, when you receive evidence from some of the producers, they will be able to give you much more detailed information on what they are actually doing in their businesses on this. I am just getting a little bit of an impression of quite a laissez-faire, if you like, or that the producers are taking all this very seriously, not just from yourself, Mr Jimison, but from everyone. Whereas in Norway, again, we get the impression that it is much more proactive, and they have got these green and yellow and red zones. If I understand it correctly, if you get too many lice per fish you go over the Norwegian limit, you are in the red zone that you have to automatically reduce the amount of stock that you have, and they will not allow more farms in that area. That suggests that, rather than leaving it to the individual producer, they will benefit with less lice, that the Government or someone should be coming in or could be coming in and imposing more. Are you in favour of that? I do not think that I am in a position to comment on that. I think that that rests with the industry. I will send that to Ms Johns after I have just mentioned it. Heather, it looks like you have had a chance to gather your thoughts. I will do my very best. The Norwegian system is being introduced rather than has been implemented up till now. The industry has its own code of good practice on when treatment should happen. There are treatment thresholds that are below that, and there are times when you want to treat at an individual net-pen level rather than just monitoring at the whole farm level. The way in which the industry has improved its control of lice is to change some of its sampling protocols, to intervene earlier and to minimise the risk of the exponential growth that you get in this devastatingly devious parasite that we have not yet found a way to bang on the head. It is worth saying that salmon go to sea completely devoid of lice. They are utterly clean, they come out of freshwater hatcheries and they are pristine. They get lice just like Labrador's when you go walking in the countryside from wild, in my case wild deer, you get ticks on your dog and you get wild fish that carry lice that then go into the farmed environment. I am just making the observation that, in the same way that smolks go to sea from rivers, they are clear of lice as well. Their passage through the fish farm areas, as you know, is relatively short and when they come back it may be their passage through is short as well. It is a natural occurring parasite and I do not think that it would be right Heather to blame it on either side just as an outset. Sorry, what I am saying is that it is a parasite that is endemic and pervasive and highly prevalent in the water column. It is in the environment, so if you put fish into a seawater environment there will always be a risk that they will get lice. I think that the point is that companies want to treat in a way that minimises lice and minimises the impact of the lice on their fish and on their mortalities and therefore the potential impact on other species. There have been some studies done on the impact of sea lice on wild salmon from farm fish. The most persuasive study that I have seen is from Irish academics. It says that, of all the causes of reduced mortality of wild salmon, sea lice is possibly 1 per cent of the cause. Yes, it is an effect, but it is one of many other effects that cause a decline in wild salmon stocks. There are many things that can be done to improve the return rates of wild salmon stocks and there are many things that we cannot do anything about to return the return rate of salmon stocks. We cannot change sea water temperatures rising of pharaohs in Iceland and we cannot change the fact that what they predate on is not as available to them. We cannot change the fact that lots and lots of wild seals eat lots and lots of wild salmon. What we can do is try to minimise the impacts and that is what the industry tries to do. I suppose that, in a sense, there are two questions here. There is the question of the good of the fish and the return that the farm can get. I am also concerned, having referred already to the agriculture stewardship council and similar, that even if their limit was a bit arbitrary at 0.1 per fish, if that became widely accepted in supermarkets in Germany, in America and in lots of places, is there a danger that we miss that? We do not have ASC or any other accreditation. I think that the committee is going to do some more work on that bit. To protect the Scottish industry, we, as a whole, as a society, need to do more. For example, SEPA has been criticised for not visiting often enough unannounced visits. Am I right? I am just thinking that that is a kind of worry as well at the site. I think that the only way to answer the question of what point should you intervene is to have some really good science that tells you that the best time to intervene is either at 0.5 of an invigorous female or 0.2 or whatever it might be. Just because ASC has 0.1 and Norway has some other number, it will depend on the way in which you are farming, the location, the sea water temperatures, the currents and all sorts of other factors. There are plenty of locations in Scotland that do not suffer from any sea lice problems whatsoever, and then there are other individual sites that are very prone to sea lice pressures. That is about where you site the farms. Again, you can think about expanding growth, for example, in Orkney, where you get incredible tidal flow exchanges between the North Sea and the Atlantic, and you do not have a lice problem. Can I just ask Mr Withers then about this issue? How does he see the supermarkets, especially internationally, going on this? Are they going to be looking for ASC accreditation or some other accreditation? Will they take into account the number of lice, so that even though there are reasons why lice should be different in different areas, I suspect that the supermarket in Germany might not understand that fully and would just have a very fixed line? Accreditation is a gateway into the retail industry, whether it is British retail consortium accreditation at processing level, whether it is the code of good practice that SSPO has, whether it is the likes of MSC accreditation. Accreditation will be a given. I think that the challenge for them is that there is a lot of accreditation out there beyond the fact that the retailers have their own as well. On the specific of the lice, I honestly do not know whether that will become a factor in the future. Do most of the retailers tend to have their own accreditation, or are they relying on other people to do their accreditation? It often tends to be a combination of both. It is something like British retail consortium as part of GFSI, which is a global food standards set that is recognised globally. BRC is part of that. That is your entry point. I do not know as much about the fish side, but if you are a vegetable producer and you supply in the major retailers, you will have to be BRC accredited, and you will almost certainly get an inspection and a different system from every single individual retailer as well. You may have four or five unannounced inspections. I do not know a number of the retailers who inspect salmon farms themselves. That is great. Thanks so much. John, I will briefly bring you in. It is a very brief point, and it is to James. I welcome your comments there. If I were sitting where you had been sitting earlier, I would not have wanted to talk on this, because given your role, this is clearly a very negative thing. Public perception is hugely important. Even the term lice is not a term that we want to talk about. Do you not have deep concerns about even the fact that we are having to discuss this? No, I think that it is an issue. Mortality is an issue, and it is an issue in every form of animal production. My own view is that the industry will benefit in the long term if it is open about the fact that it has production challenges and it wants to seek to address them. I think that the alternative is saying that it is not an issue and we try and bury it has and hope no one talks about it. My expectation would be that it is not going to be a particularly helpful strategy in the long term and that it will almost certainly come back and bite us. The debate that we are having now about not if there is a problem but how do we tackle it is a pretty healthy one. The question that I have is a specific question around the recommendation of the Environment Committee on the role of Marine Scotland. The committee report stated, and I will quote from the report, that an examination of the role of Marine Scotland as both regulator and policy advocate for development should take place. There is an opportunity to align with other food and drink sectors in Scotland by moving the development role into the Scottish Government's food, drink and rural communities division. Can I ask the panel if you have a view on this recommendation or any thoughts on the pros and cons of this particular recommendation? Who would like to start with that? Heather, a volunteer. I will be brief. I think that it has already happened. I think that there are people working in the food and drink division within the agricultural directorate that are responsible for the food promotion side of salmon and that the Marine Scotland side is about regulation, as far as I understand. So there is no policy development work taking place by Marine Scotland at the moment and that is all being moved into the Scottish Government? Sorry, the policy work that is being done in the food and drink division is about the case for food and drink and salmon being part of the expansion of Scotland's food production system. There is a lot of policy thinking going on between the Government and the industry around a farm fish health framework, which I know that Mr Ewing is very keen to see developed and delivered, but it is about improving the performance of the industry in terms of how it creates value for Scotland. Gail, you have got to follow on to that. Yeah, it is the same report, James. It is the Aquaculture Growth to 2030 report. One of the recommendations is the introduction of innovation sites. Do we have any progress on that? The bad news for Heather is that that is probably one for Heather at the Agriculture and Innovation Centre, but there were certain recommendations that were the top tier ones, and that was right up there in Bright Lights. Heather would be the best place, so I think that she is technically the body responsible for the delivery of that particular recommendation in the report. So the industry has had a number of discussions with Government about the scope for innovation around sites and equipment. We have been doing some funding of new equipment and new technologies that might improve the performance of production. That piece of work is on-going, and there is some action with the Government to consider what would be permissible within the regulatory framework that we operate under. The next question is from Peter. Right, thanks, convener. I am going to focus on a wee bit about SEPA's role. I recognise that we have not a SEPA representative here, but, nevertheless, SEPA is in the process of changing their approach to regulation, because they recognise that the status quo is not an option. One of the issues that they are looking at is protecting the environment and biodiversity by ensuring that first production is matched to the environmental capacity. They are also looking at increasing the capture and beneficial use of waste, reducing medicine release into the environment and supporting action to protect wild fish, among others. Will the changes that SEPA is proposing in their sector plan improve regulation of the sector, and are further changes needed and dealt with by some of the ones that I have mentioned? If so, what? I am feeling sorry for you, Heather, in the sense that everyone looks away or looks at you. I am trying to give you a chance to gather your thoughts as well. One of the points that we perhaps have not touched on is increasing the capture of beneficial use of waste that you might like to pick up on. As you have now had a chance to gather your thoughts, would you like to start off on that? I do not think that I am particularly well placed to comment on what SEPA's role should and should not be and how well they are doing it, because I do not have the insight to really offer a view on that. I am very sure that the work that they are doing with the industry is about better regulation and better outcomes. Whatever changes they are trying to make, we have heard Terry Ahearn talk about the one-planet vision and that is very much what SEPA is committed to. I think that Ann Anderson that you saw last week has a title as chief of going beyond compliance, so that set of discussions and that thinking is going on between the regulator and the industry. Does anyone else want to come in on that? Heather, you did not touch on the capture and beneficial use of waste. Do you want to talk about that as an innovation? I confess that I do not know anything about it. I do recognise that SEPA does not represent the fear, so I do realise that it is difficult. Have you any thoughts on what environmental data should SEPA licenses be based on? Is that something that you could comment on? I think that we may be struggling on these questions, so James was delighted to bring you in on that. Just an observation that I would make about the relationship between SEPA and the industry, which I think is suboptimal, would be a good description of it in recent years. I have seen examples in other sectors where that was the case as well. I would probably agriculture with one, but whisky would be another. Probably if you went back 10 to 15 years ago and you asked SEPA what sector you have a concern about, whisky might well be up there, but SEPA has developed a strong relationship with that industry body. The SWA, the Scottish Welfare Association, made the forefront of writing a proactive plan, so a partnership developed. SEPA moved away from a model in which SEPA simply acts as a policeman, but rather acts as a partner in improvement. My sense is, both from Terry Hernd's leadership and those who are directly involved, that there is much greater scope for developing that kind of partnership approach. Whereas before, I think that you had industry here, SEPA, where the policemen will come and look and come in force if necessary. That is an old-world model that needs consign to the dustbin, to be honest, and a much more proactive approach can be taken. There are good examples, whether it is bathing waters in terms of agriculture, whether it is the whisky industry and the use of water and resources that can be used as a model for agriculture. That is starting to happen. I think that we will move on to the next set of questions. Jamie Greene, that is you. Thank you, convener, and good morning, panel. I have kept very quiet for this whole session listening, great intent. It has been a fascinating discussion. I will touch briefly on the point that I was asked to look at, and that is around research, development and innovation in the industry. I will maybe conclude with just one final question, which is more of an overview on the future of the industry. I am looking for some commentary on that. On research and development, it seems to be that much of the research is very technically led, so it is around addressing specific production issues that we are aware of, it is around the environmental aspects of production, etc. Very little is spoken around innovation in the industry in terms of the economic or management aspects of it. I wonder whether anyone had any comments or views on how research and innovation could better help to facilitate the effective growth of the industry that is not just focused on the technical aspects of how growth can take place. I think that there is a huge area of innovation beyond simply addressing some of the biological challenges that there are. They are the same that are relevant across a whole number of sectors in the food and drink industry, from sustainable packaging through to improvements in logistics. I am quite hopeful on that front in the sense that there are two initiatives that have developed over the last wee while that offer some hope about Scotland being the home of real innovation right through the supply chain in aquaculture, as well as just the primary production piece. One is a project called Make Innovation Happen, which is bringing together what was previously about 150 different support tools that existed for food businesses that are going to innovate under one roof, one website, one phone number. The second is a bit more tangential, but the coming together of Scotland's research institutes under the safari collaboration, so the likes of the Rowett Institute leading on nutrition, the Morden Institute, which has just been about livestock production and animal health on land, as well as the James Hutton Institute, SRUC. The Morden Institute, coming together, offers a real hope to better translate some of the research that we have down onto the ground, either in farm or in processing. Some of the work that has gone on into endemic production diseases in livestock, in terms of feed conversion, biological efficiency and land animals is transferrable over into the water. A lot of the innovation will be about market-led innovation, so around nutrition and health, people wanting to improve their dietary balance, their food intake, as well as thinking about wider things like sustainable packaging. There is a lot of innovation happening there. I think that your point is important that we do not just focus on some of the production challenges, but on the wider market and efficiency opportunities that there are. At Highlands and Islands Enterprise, we are very ambitious alongside our businesses for growth through innovation across the breadth of the supply chain, and we are looking upstream and downstream. Innovation is not only about capturing challenges, but it is about creating high-value opportunities in the economy, particularly in my role in the rural economy, and capturing as much value in Scotland as we possibly can. Innovation takes many forms at the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre. It is focused on business-to-academy partnerships, but we also look at business-to-business collaborations, not only to solve challenges that are here and now, but to look further ahead and into the future. We also support businesses individually. I can give you one example that is very live at the moment and is taking up quite a bit of my colleagues' time. It is a project called Aquasense, and it is focused on—it is very much at the conceptual stage at the moment—and it is taking the aquaculture industry as a whole. We are looking at both fin fish and shellfish production in Shetland, but we are working across three innovation centres—Sake, iBio and DataLab—to look at how we can use many things that capture real-time data to inform real-time activity. We can view what is happening remotely and make some very well-informed decisions on what you do in your fin fish or your shellfish farm so that you can become much more predictive in your approach to business over the medium-to-long term and so that you have a very robust set of data over the longer term that is a very hard evidence-based that is capturing as much information as possible holistically about what is happening in a region. At the moment, as I say, we are working with a range of stakeholders. We are being led very much by industry. We are working with SOXA from the University of Stath Clide and the satellite catapult to develop this, and we are submitting a bid to the industrial structural challenge fund for a sizable amount of money to help to bring this forward. That is around some of our wider ambition around innovation and what is going on at the moment. I think that what is key to innovation is skills and training as well and having people in our country with the right level of skills and knowledge, be that acquired through the academic pathway or through the vocational pathway. There is a lot of work going on across industry and across the public sector partnership and stakeholders to empower people in Scotland so that the aquaculture sector is a positive career destination and it is also a very progressive career destination and it is accessible to all. There is work to be done and underway in touching school leavers, for example, or young people and the people who influence young people, but also making the industry accessible to more mature entrants. A very good example of that is the SVQ level 4 in fish farm management, which allows people to learn, to develop and to make a very positive contribution to the sector at a later stage in their life. I'm going to give Heather a bigger break because I'm going to bring Gail in because she's got a question on the track. Gail, your question. I know in the HIE report that said that attracting staff is difficult. I was up the west coast to my constituency a couple of weeks ago and spoke to a number of people that said that the jobs are there, the people want the jobs, but it's access to housing that's preventing them in a lot of small communities and I just wonder if you had a comment on that. I'm going to give that to Elaine and then I'm going to come back to Heather to answer the rest of the question. Elaine? I'm not going to disagree with you on that at all. We hear that from our businesses. It's more challenging in some areas of the Highlands and Islands than it is in other areas. I think that infrastructure is key to a successful sector and I think that we'll see in Norway for example if we look at roads infrastructure, IT infrastructure, they are further ahead than we are and there are some challenges for us there because if we set aside housing as an infrastructure challenge, actually attracting people to work in our remote and rural areas or attracting our young people back to our remote and rural areas, they expect to be able to use a mobile phone, they expect to be able to get on the internet. One actually quite positive thing from the aquaculture industry specifically is that they are accelerating the speed of some infrastructure developments in the region, so if I go back to the aquacense project, there may be an opportunity to improve mobile connectivity in some remote and rural areas and if we look at the Isle of Mull for example where Scottish seafarms actually needed very good broadband connectivity, they went ahead and did it but that's now a community asset that people can use. So to answer your question about housing, yes it is a problem but infrastructure is something that we need to consider as well. Thank you Heather, you've had a good break marshal your thoughts to go back to Jamie's question. Heather? So there's a lot of technological development going on around the crunching of big data, the use of sensors and imaging systems, so subsea cameras. We've actually sponsored a project that's looking at the DNA grab of the sediment below sea cages so that you can do a sample of that and you get much quicker responses to finding out what the impacts are. So there's an awful lot of new technology that's being applied into the industry. As Elaine said they would like to see they're being strong broadband so that an internet of things allows better farm management and it's the same in land-based agriculture of agritech really transforming the information that farmers have so that they can optimise their feeding regimes, their treatment regimes, so all of that I think is coming through and there are some quite innovative young Scottish companies that are contributing to that. Jamie? That's very health, very comprehensive answers and very different types of answers, I appreciate those. It sounds like some great work being done especially using technology to advance research but I guess as we're approaching the end of the session if I could take a step back to summarise a theme that's come through many of these sessions and that's squaring the circle of how we achieve quite significant growth in the industry that many people are looking for but yet still address the very valid and substantive concerns around the environmental impact that growth may come and that's reflected in the Eichler committee because if we know that demand is not going away and if we don't meet that demand someone else will as Mr Wither has said but one thing that I've never been clear on throughout these evidence sessions is who should be responsible for that, is it industry itself, is it government, if we look at the Norway approach where he took a more top-down government approach through legislation and policy to really control the planning, the regulation, the innovation, the growth on one sense but here there seems to be so much wide discourse as to around who's responsible, which agency, which bit of government, which bit of industry, which bit of academia and that's really never been clear to me. Does anyone have a view on who should spearhead that growth and how it can be done in a sustainable way? I think you're all looking as though you're wanting to answer that question, so let's do a completely different order. We'll start off with Elaine, we'll go to Heather and then we'll finish with James. I'm not actually going to directly answer your question and say who should spearhead it but an observation of mine is that the industry, all parties, all stakeholders in the industry have become increasingly collaborative. I'm a great believer in industries, should be led by industries. Industry drives economy and not the public sector, we are here to support them so I would be very keen to see industry come forward with some solutions and a call to action to the public sector as to how we should support them. I think as the industry, which is becoming increasingly sophisticated I should add, continues to move forward, we all have a responsibility in charting that path and in supporting that path and that we should be ambitious for growth and not at the expense of environmental sustainability, not at the expense of rural communities and not at the expense of our position in a global marketplace. I think that the opulent synergy is having voices at the table who can both be critical friends to one another in the sense that we challenge and that we support that discussion to go forward. I think that there's a big piece about process here and I think that there's a big piece about being focused on outcomes who should lead that. I don't feel happy to comment on that. I think that the industry set out a vision for seeing an opportunity to grow the Scottish economy by expanding production but in a sustainable way and that's very much captured in one of the infographics in that report, which is three overlapping circles in a Vendagram that came from the UN programme about how do you get the optimum solution between economic growth, social benefit and environmental protection and the industry's ambition is to grow within those three parameters. I think that this discourse is really helpful because it's throwing up issues that people want to tease out and want to understand and want to inform Government policy on where things go next. I suppose that the flip side is that if you decide you don't want growth then that has ramifications for economies like Elaine's and it also has ramifications for the foreign investment that might or might not come to Scotland or it might go to Canada or the Faro's and that comes back to James's point which is global demand will be there, will Scotland benefit from it and will Scotland's communities benefit from it without crashing the environment? Nobody at all, least of all farmers, wants to trash the environment. I think that it's actually the nature of politics to try and find that answer. Perhaps before James answers, I could comment though that that organic growth has not happened. The production levels are relatively flat in Scotland compared to the substantial growth levels that have happened in other markets. Whilst I hear that it is down to industry, I still don't see that in reality. Is that actually what's happened when you leave it to industry? We hear a lot about the precautionary approach and I would say that the DEPAMOD model that SIPA has used for the past 20 years has been so precautionary that it has limited growth that could have happened that wouldn't have had damaging effects. That's not what the perception is, the perception is the opposite. However, if you were to ground truth, and this is where taking hard data from the past 20 years of SIPA, looking at what the impacts were, their model forecast of the impact was going to be this and the impact was actually that. That amount of growth that you could have had, because this is your bad growth, this is your bad impact, wasn't achieved because the model said, no, no, we have to kind of keep it down here. Sorry, the model underestimated the capacity of the environment rather than the other way around. In some cases, it's not in others, so that's why you need feedback loops and data to tell you where you can sustainably grow and where you can, which I guess comes back to the kind of Norwegian red amber green idea, but I suppose my point here would be there hasn't been growth in Scotland because there's been a great deal of precaution and nervousness that if you were to ground truth, the models wouldn't be proven. James? Industry public sector partnership, for me, is the single most important answer to that question. I would argue strongly that food and drinks being an economic success soil over the last 10 years. If you strip everything away, what's the single biggest reason for that is that there has been an industry and public sector partnership. It doesn't mean it's always comfortable, it doesn't mean it's a cosy relationship. Industry challenges Government and Government challenges industry, but ultimately industry identified an opportunity, a growth opportunity. It believed that there would be benefits from that growth opportunity and agriculture has now done the same and the document has been referred to a couple of times. What happens is that a system is created, a partnership is created, which doesn't debate should this industry grow, is it important, but how do we help it to grow? It needs to grow carefully and sustainably, but that partnership, what makes it happen, from a wider food and drink point of view, we rejected the idea of creating a single body that would spearhead and do it all. We thought that we would lose three to five years of our lives debating structures and pension liabilities and all sorts. Instead, we get a partnership form where each individual party has a specific role, but they are built around an agreed objective and opportunity. For me, that is the opportunity in agriculture and that will mean that we create a form where we can talk about difficult stuff such as guild disease and talk about lice, but do it in a way that we want to try to fix it so that we have a stronger platform to grow. I think that that is all the questions that we have. Sorry, I am looking around the committee members. John. I thought that you were soliciting a question there. Anyone listening in on this would think that you are obsessed with growth. Growth is the phrase that is repeated. Surely, when there are the challenges that are there, what you would want to do is consolidate and make good. Is enough? Is enough not enough sometimes? What is the obsession with growth? I am obsessed with growth. I will confess to be a signed-up obsessive of growth because I think that we add value. When does that stop? We add jobs. It stops if there is environmental damage, if you are causing undue pressure on communities, on social structures. I think that you have both regulatory limits and natural limits, but what I see in this sector and elsewhere is demand growing and an opportunity for Scotland to tap into that demand. I think that the natural protection that is built into this is that we will only grow and we will only tap into that demand if we have all the kind of environmental safeguards that we have talked about. I think that one thing that we have not touched on here today that is of key interest to me is community sustainability and community development across the rural economy. As one of our distinct regional opportunities for the Scottish economy at the moment, driven by demand and driven by all of the work that is being done by the industry and by those of us who support the industry, we should not underestimate what this sector does for the social fabric, particularly in our rural economies for Scotland. I would welcome the opportunity to take that into the debate. What might not necessarily be apparent at the beginning is the valuable contribution that the very existence of those businesses in our rural economy and the increased investment, innovation and the higher quality jobs bring to the social fabric of Scotland. That is not about growth, that is about inclusive growth and that is about sustainability of our communities. If I can pick out just a few very random and probably disconnected examples to give you a peppering, if we look at food and drink, salaries sit around the minimum and to the living wage. That is a challenge that James and I and our colleagues in the food and drink partnership are working hard to address. Elaine, can I stop you there? Growth in everything except terms and conditions for the people who are delivering it. How is that a challenge? That is something that should be worn. I was about to say that in aquaculture we are seeing significant growth in the type of quality of employment opportunities that people have in the career pathways that they have and in the opportunities that they have. We are also saying it within the communities that they live. Growth is much more than the business growth. Growth is about in the rural economy and the communities that live there. For the avoidance of doubt, Highlands and Island enterprise is committed to growing the wages and terms and conditions of workers in the aquaculture sector. In all sectors, absolutely all sectors, but this is a sector where we see success. We can work together on that. I think that that is a point of consensus that probably would end that line of questioning, John Elaine. I think that we actually have come to the end of our question. I would like to thank James, Elaine and Heather for coming along to the committee today and giving evidence. It has been a very interesting session and thank you for your time. That concludes our meeting today, so I would like to conclude the meeting there. Thank you.