 The final item of business this evening is a members business debate on motion 8590, in the name of Rhoda Grant, on the clearances again. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would invite members wishing to participate to press the request to speak buttons, now or as soon as possible. I call on Rhoda Grant to open the debate around seven minutes, Ms Grant. Thank you Presiding Officer. I also want to thank the MSPs who signed my motion allowing this debate to take place, and I make no apology for bringing the issue back to the floor of the Parliament. The impact that this is going to have on the whole of my region is unprecedented, and the Scottish Government must listen to and, more importantly, hear those concerns. It's a signal of these concerns that Donald Francis McNeill and Skipanish's song The Clearances Again has achieved such success. I also understand that it was a rolling success of the concert coinciding with the Scottish fishing expo in Aberdeen last weekend. The song spells out the dismay of our fishing communities regarding distant decision makers destroying their livelihoods and incomes at the stroke of a pen. The economy of much of the highlands is dependent on the sea, however every aspect of their life in our islands is governed by the sea. The economy and its connections to the mainland and the fishing community are obviously dismayed. The impact of each PMAs could have are devastating, even the most sustainable and environmentally friendly forms of fishing would be affected. We are quoted the success of the no-take zones in Lam Lash Bay and yet the Clyde Fisherman's Association, who were actually instrumental in setting up the no-take zone, tell us that that success goes unmeasured. There has been no comparative studies to show whether or not the policy has worked, and we also have the no-take zones in broad bake, which has not worked well at all. Therefore, we must have robust science to guide our management of the sea. Those who work in it, yes. She gets to absolutely the crux of the point. I am sure that she agrees with me here. The whole point is that if we are going to have a policy that is effective, we must understand the science behind it. The effect of PMAs has not even been looked at. Until such times as the Governments prepare to gather evidence together and take communities with them, that will be a bad policy. I agree absolutely with that. It is also important that those who live and work on the sea have their evidence recorded as well, because they have a huge amount of anecdotal evidence to add to the debate. They need to manage their fishing to maximise their catch while ensuring that they are leaving enough behind to make sure that they have an income and indeed employment for the future. Those communities have, by their own initiative, taken measures to conserve stocks. For example, the V notching of spawning lobsters in order to protect females from being harvested. Those are not people who damage the environment. They are people who need to work with it and to protect it. With the member's support, you have been talking about low-impact fisheries. I wonder if the member would support establishing area-based fisheries management zones, including low-impact only areas alongside HBMAs. Rory Grant. I think that what is important is that those measures are taken in with the agreement and consultation of local communities who know their own seas. Many communities have said to me that they want to have the management of their own fishing grounds and indeed their marine environment devolved to them. I think that that is something that we should be doing rather than having this very top-down policy that is causing fear and alarm within communities. The Government must revisit it. They cannot impose HBMAs on communities and say that the only communities that will be exempted are those that are vehemently imposed, because that actually ramps up the pressure rather than calms it down to be able to negotiate with communities and find out what is workable. I am most grateful. Does Rory Grant agree that every single local authority in the Highlands and Islands is opposed? The whole seafood industry is opposed entirely. The whole marine tourism industry is opposed. Therefore, it does appear that there is vehement opposition at least throughout the whole of the Highlands and Islands. On the First Minister's own logic, that surely means that he has already agreed that there can be no HBMAs because of that vehement opposition. Indeed, I agree that there is vehement opposition throughout the Highlands and Islands and indeed beyond. However, it is asking communities to demonstrate that vehement opposition rather than sitting down and working with them is the real issue, because we should be spending this time looking at how we protect our seas rather than demonstrating vehement opposition. Fergus Ewing mentioned a number of organisations there and numbers of industries, because most of the debates surrounding that have been about fishing, but it is about much more than that, because, as he says, there are other industries equally dismayed. For instance, fish farming. Will current fish farms be allowed to stay where they are? Will they be given exemptions such as Scotland sites or will they have to move from their current sites? If they have to move, what timeframe will they be given to receive the consents that they need to be able to move to another site? What impact will that have on fishing in that new area? It will also impact on seaweed harvesting, again an important industry supporting rural economies and jobs. If it is also bang, do we lose prime Scottish brands like Ischga and Hebridean seaweed? Will they no longer be able to harvest seaweed for their products? Less well known in the use of seaweed than other products is the way that it is being looked at to replace plastics with a more environmentally friendly substance. We also use seaweed as fertiliser, and that practice is well known in the Crofton communities. Indeed, the Scottish Crofton Federation response to the consultation pointed that out. However, now there are large sustainable industries providing fertiliser worldwide, such as Hebridean seaweed. Given what is happening to supplies of fertiliser around the world due to the war in Ukraine, we cannot view that policy in isolation. Tourism is also promoted throughout our coastal communities, a growing industry. However, that policy impacts on that too. Those proposals go as far as to suggest that swimming could be banned in some areas. I take that to include canoeing, kayaking and wildlife boat trips. They impact us huge. It also begs the question, if you cannot swim, will you be allowed to run a ferry there? That might, of course, be the object of the exercise, given the lack of ferries and the daily disruption. Simply to ban them might provide the Government with a valid excuse for the lack of ferries at the moment. However, not all areas will be designated. That means that we will be funneling activity into smaller and smaller areas. The culmination of that activity in small areas will be to create damage, and that impact needs to be assessed. Donald Francis in Skippenish's song talks about the clearances once again. The clearances are not something that is easily evoked in the Highlands and Islands, but yet in this instance it is valid. People are already selling up. Any investment has been shelled and families are already moving out. That will cause depopulation and will clear people of the land. People will not accept that. Donald Francis comes from Vattersea, an island that was made famous just over 100 years ago when his forefathers fought for their land. The Vattersea raiders were jailed for their temerity in cultivating the land and building homes there. Despite being imprisoned, their actions led to the Government of the day buying the land for crofting. They were among the very early land reformers fighting for their right to survival. The song evokes this. My people, my language, my island, the rights that our forefathers won to remain on the soil of our homeland will by the sweep of a pen be gone. Surely it should not take modern day Vattersea raiders to overturn that decision. I warmly commend Rhoda Grant for bringing this to the chamber again and for the eloquent expression that she gave to the anger felt by the proposals around our fishing communities. Last week I talked about our fishing communities. Tonight I want to focus on the impacts of our newer industry of aquaculture. Aquaculture is a tremendous success story supported by the main parties in this chamber, providing 2,500 direct jobs and no less than 10,000 indirect, with a turnover of a staggering £1,000 million a year. Our salmon has attracted the accolade, rarely handed out by the French incidentally, the labelle rouge, and provides no less than 850 million high protein healthy, enjoyable, nutritious, rich meals a year. At a time of burgeoning growth of this planet's population, with no chance of more agri-land coming available on shore, the world sea should surely be used over the rest of this century to help feed the world, particularly the poor. Fish farms are going to be fewer in number in future and, as with Norway, they are going to move from the estuaries out into deeper waters, and each PMA shouldn't hamper and prejudice this environmentally friendly development. The industry is indeed characterised now by innovation, high-quality marine engineering and higher standards of fish welfare and health, and its supports are growing on shore supply chain. In my constituency alone, we have Galeforce Marine, Acva, Benchmark and Farmac, all significant Inverness employers, but not just on our coast in Inverness and on our islands, but all throughout Scotland, Presiding Officer. We see many jobs, good jobs, well-paid jobs sustained by aquaculture, DFDS, with 150 staff in Larkhall, McDale Smolts at Bonner Bridge, Moewe, 1,000 people in Rassai. The industry, like others, needs to see sustainable growth. Here is what Sam and Scotland have said. First, the industry supports marine protection, but only based on evidence and science, and those PMA proposals are based on neither. The industry wholly opposes the proposals. They believe that they have been driven by politics, not rational analysis and evidence. They fundamentally agree with the glib and bald assertion that salmon farms are incompatible with marine protection, and neither the Bute House agreement nor the consultation document even attempts to consider the economic impact on all of these industries. Indeed, the potential of our aquaculture sector is perhaps illustrated by saying in Norway that it is a belief current there, which is that fish is the new oil. That is the extent of the opportunity that we have in Scotland. The opposition to the HPMA is very strong. I do believe that it covers the whole of the Highlands of the Islands and the whole country. My recommendation is to go back to the drawing board to review the existing MPA structure, which Mr Whittle mentioned quite rightly, because that process is regarded with mistrust by fishermen around the country for good reason. In conclusion, in the short time that I have available, I ask myself at the end of the day, what is Parliament for? What is the purpose of our being here in this centrally heated pleasant chamber, with our salaries and our perks? It is to give voice to the views of the people. I believe that that voice is loud and clear. Go back to the drawing board, go and speak to the people, go and speak to the fishermen. Listen carefully. They know, as Rhoda Grant has said, how to manage things best. If we do not do that, Presiding Officer, do we really continue to be worthy of the name for this institution as the Scottish Parliament and the honour of being a member here? Thank you very much. I now call Finlay Carson to be full of a Beatrice Wishart around four minutes, Mr Carson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Firstly, can I congratulate Rhoda Grant on securing this member's debate on what is still and will continue to be an extremely concerning topic? Some will possibly remember. I also mentioned the clearences song again, the clearences again when I spoke in the chamber last week. Can I also congratulate Donald, Frances, MacNeill and Skipnish on their chart success? The verse I read was, A may day call we cry. We stand for the rights of our children. We will not let our island die. Powerful and emotive lyrics and be grateful that I chose not to sing them. I'm sure my son would have volunteered being a big fan and I know we'll all look forward to hearing Skipnish perform the song live at the Highlands show next month. We also learned that Donald Frances is a life-long inshore fisherman who has fished around mingalearned islands to the south of the island of Barra his whole life. Like many others, he fears that if the Scottish Government presses ahead with its controversial proposals to introduce HPMAs in 10 per cent of Scotland's seas, it will spell the end for many coastal communities scattered the length of this country. If 10 per cent HPMAs are put in place by 2026, an early indication certainly suggests that the SNP will allow its extremist green coalition partners to dictate this issue, regardless of the undoubted damage that it will cause. HPMAs will see a significant area of Scotland's coastal and inshore waters closed off to all fishing, aquaculture and infrastructure developments, where already spatial pressures are causing issues for our coastal communities. Quite why so many nationalist MSPs seem so hell bent in pushing through those highly contentious proposals, given that such a large number of have fishing interests on their own doorsteps just indicates how dysfunctional this SNP and the backbenters have become with the green tail wagging the yellow dog. As someone else said, the SNP are in government but they are certainly not in power. For coastal MSPs, voting in favour of this is almost like signing their own P45, because make no mistake, people in the fishing sector in coastal communities have long memories. Only a few have shown the courage of their convictions, ignoring the party who have been put the interests of their constituents first by voting against this mad cap plan. Indeed, perhaps the most dramatic intervention came from Fergus Ewing, who ripped up the consultation paper describing it as a notice of execution, a notice of execution for the fishing industry, but also a notice of eviction for those SNP MPs at the next election. Members right across the chamber and across the Scottish fishing fleet, who for generations of fish sustainably recognise the need for targeted specific conservation measures and working together, there have been successes without the need for sledge hammer legislation with stakeholders coming together to agree measures to protect stocks and habitats. How Mary Gusion and Mary McCallan can argue that MPAs are needed in 10% of her waters when there is not a shred of scientific evidence to support this blanket approach? These draconian plans have already united the seafood sector and some NGOs in opposing the Government's approach, undermining any sense of working together for the common good. Only last Friday at the fishing industry's conference in Aberdeen, Elswith MacDonald of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation warned that the conservation zones are too big a price for fishermen to pay when they are being introduced for political rather than ecological reasons. What has to be remembered is that the fishing industry has long been committed to nature conservation, founded on evidence, properly and carefully developed, with the genuine involvement of stakeholders and balanced alongside sustainable use. On the contrary, there is no evidence or transparency that the establishment of 10 per cent of HPMAs will guarantee the ecosystem regeneration that is sought. In fact, there is a significant danger of the exact opposite being achieved, with the potential increase of predator stocks impacting on other species. Our fishermen are already subject to our ever-tightening spatial squeeze, and further reductions of the areas that are available to fish will certainly drive many amount of business. The Scottish Crofters Federation has also warned that it will have a devastating impact on crofting. There is still time for the nationalists to do the right thing and ditch their approach to the HPMAs, even if it means a messy divorce from the Greens. Surely now they must listen to the widespread opposition from the Fishermen's Association Shetland, Orkney, Clyde and Galloway. I would strongly urge them to rip up their current commitment and start afresh with our fishers at the heart of the debate. I thank Rhoda Grant for bringing this important debate to the chamber this evening. I congratulate and ensure Fisherman Donald Francis McNeill and skip Inish on the protest on the clearances again. To have made it into the top 10 download charts within just 24 hours of being released indicates the strength of feeling of people in the Highlands and Islands and across Scotland who agree with the sentiments expressed about the Scottish Government's HPMA proposals. As an islander myself, albeit from northern waters, I understand the threat to the way of life the song so eloquently and passionately describes. But do not make the mistake of thinking that this is about looking through rose-tinted glasses at some romantic notion of how life used to be and is yearned for again. We have strong links to our seas and we want to ensure that they are healthy and sustainable for future generations. I should also congratulate the SNP Scottish Government too, Presiding Officer, as it has managed to unite coastal and island communities around Scotland in vehement opposition to what has been presented with astonishing insensitivity. It is not that there is opposition to sustainable and responsible management of the marine environment to tackle biodiversity loss and the climate emergency far from it, but the proposals as they stand have the potential to decimate communities, businesses, livelihoods and see people move away from what are often the most fragile of areas. The policy, a blunt instrument, as Shetland's only green councillor described it, appears to have been drawn up on the basis of political demands without any understanding of the interconnectivity between land and sea. Indeed, Donald MacKinnon, chair of the Scottish Crofting Federation, has pointed out that the impact of the proposals extend beyond the shoreline and inward through crofting counties. Crofters are often fishermen too. The no-take zone at Lamlash Bay is frequently highlighted during discussion about HPMAs, despite the lack of clarity about whether there has been a positive impact across all species. Lamlash, an area of just one square mile, cannot be used solely as the basis for no-take zones around the rest of the coastline. Different areas have different marine habitats and environments and should be considered alongside marine spatial planning. Look at the evidenced base work over the last 23 years of the Shetland Shelfish Management Organisation, which, incidentally, won the annual fishing news sustainability award on Friday night in Aberdeen. When we talk about fishing and aquaculture, what we mean is the provision of high quality and nutritious food and high value exports beyond our shores. It means business investment and jobs, often well-paid skilled jobs through direct and indirect employment, the catchers of fish, crabs, langoustines, scallops, the growers of salmon and mussels, the processors, hauliers, marine engineers, the net makers and feed suppliers and many more through the supply chain, as Fergus Ewing described. Communities that are viable because of fishing and aquaculture, keeping working-age families there that keep the school roll-up and the local shop open, the Government missed the opportunity to bring communities along with them by not engaging at the beginning of the process and seemed surprised at the reaction to the top-down policy. They have lost the trust of island and coastal communities. We already have marine protected areas covering almost 40 per cent of Scotland's seas. HPMAs could add 10 per cent more to that, and with offshore winds the impact on fishermen and fish farming is undeniable. As Elsbeth MacDonald of the Scottish Fishing Federation pointed out at the Scottish Skipper Expo in Aberdeen last week, the industry feels under threat like never before, because of both the rapid development of offshore wind farms and HPMAs. She said, and I quote, Let us be in no doubt while the energy sector rushes to show its green credentials in energy transition, these will be massive industrial developments in our own waters. Very little is known about the long-term effect. The problem with being ambitious to be global leader in offshore wind also means that you are the global guinea pig. Those offshore wind farms will become vast no-take zones for fishing vessels, increasing spatial squeeze pressures on the fleet. In conclusion, I repeat my call to the Scottish Government to rethink its current HPMA proposals. There are a number of points that I would like to address. First, I believe that it is irresponsible, inflammatory and misleading to compare HPMAs to the high-end clearances. If the member truly believed that this policy was so damaging, why did she and her Labour colleague stand on a manifesto to introduce HPMAs, covering 20 per cent of Scotland's seas? The truth is that Labour cares more about political point-scoring than they do our coastal communities. In the ecological and climate crisis delay matters, acting quickly is vital to restoring our oceans' productivity and resilience. Fish biomass in a holy protective marine reserve is on average 670 per cent greater than in unprotected areas. I have very little time and I want to get all my points across. This policy is about protecting our fish nurseries and allowing key areas of our seabed to recover to increase the abundance of our seas so that they support more fishers, fishing more fish and the ecosystem for all of us. That is what this policy aims to do, but we need to work with those on the ground who know the waters intimately. I urge all low-impact and static gear fishers to work with the Scottish Government and the Greens to make that work for you, the stocks that you fish and your community. Most of our crewlers and divers are, as the Skippanish song says, at one with the oceans and nature. It does a great disservice to conflate these responsible members of coastal communities with the big businesses that is trawl and dredge industries. Trawler gear is not at one with nature. They are destroying nature in our seabed, vital fish nurseries and other blue carbon habitats. Most of the dredge fleet is not based in the community where they fish. Bar Shetland, the majority of the dredge fleet is nomadic. Low-impact fishers are almost always linked to the patch that they fish and harvest our seas responsibly. I must keep going. Ms Burgess, could you resume your seat just for a second? The member has made it clear that she is not likely to take an intervention. That is not an invitation, Mr Carson, to shout from a certain position. There will be respect within this chamber, irrespective of whether or not you agree with the views being expressed. Ms Burgess, and I can give you the time back. I am very much appreciated. Clarences were operated through violence and force. The Scottish Government's HPMAs could not be more different. Coastal communities have always been central to the designation process, with the plan to bring stakeholders together with maps to draw out sites collectively, mitigating impact and looking at how to provide a just transition are a crucial part of this early consultation. The First Minister has even promised the HPMAs that fish nurseries will not go where communities are opposed to them. The clearances were driven by profit. They moved the majority of their land to boost profits for a privileged view. HPMAs, fish nurseries, are not driven by profit. They are driven by science, by the need to protect our environment and boost fish stocks to supply our communities and our economy, especially our coastal communities. They are used to be a time when Scottish Labour supported the many and not the few. It is seen that those days are long gone to help coastal communities thrive and build community wealth. I want young people to have ample opportunity to stay in their community. We must deliver housing that local people can afford and to invest in the good green jobs that they want to do and enable sustainable fishing. We need to support the local initiatives that are painstakingly restoring coastal habitats after decades of damage, creating jobs in the process. Protecting a mere 10 per cent of our marine commons from all forms of fishing is not a big ask for biodiversity and our ecosystem services. Let's listen to fishers, especially creelers and divers, but let's also amplify the voices of our coastal communities at large who may want a small slice of their coastal zone set aside for nature and biodiversity. Thank you, Ms Burgess. I now call the final speaker and open debate, Michael Marra, around four minutes, Mr Marra. I begin by saying to the member of the Green Party who spent most of her speech attacking the Labour Party for this that the comparison being made here between the HBMAs and the clearances is not from the mouths of the Labour Party, it is directly from the mouths of the community. It is in the name of the title of the song that is quoted in the motion tonight, written by an islander, written and listened to by people across the highlands and islands as being testified to by other members across the chamber tonight. It is that member and this Government who are refusing to listen. I would say that it is right to highlight the role of protest song at this point in time, because when rights are lost and when community is threatened and when parts do yearn for justice for their communities, they call to our common humanity in song and in poetry, they ask us to listen to them. I have heard the words of families of fathers and mothers in these communities saying that they see no future for their children. If the member wants to listen to them, she would do well to hear them properly and to revisit these proposals. The work of Donald Francis McNeill does call to mind, I think, directly the poetry of the clearances and land agitation of the early 19th century that was first collected by Donald Meek. Tua is Tierno, the name of his collection. That means tenants and landlords. In this situation, people know who the tenants are and they know who the landlords are. That is how people feel they are being treated, that the land is not their own, that the seas are not their own. They are being granted permission to be there rather than owning and living in their own communities. No, thank you, sir. The landlords are, as they ever were, the elite of Edinburgh, telling those people exactly how to live their lives and what they should do. The current debate over the HMAs, frankly, is just the latest example in a litany of policies. Certainly, sir. I would like to thank Michael Marra for taking the intervention. Would Michael and the Labour Party not accept the fact that we are only at consultation stage and that the point is that the minister is going to go around the country and speak to those self-same communities? The member would do well to listen to all of these communities right now. The member sitting next to him has highlighted that very well, the unanimous voice that is around there. I am sure that the minister will, as she tours the country, hear this loud and clear in the coming months. We know already that to have an axe hanging over the necks of these communities, every coastal community, is a very poor way to develop policy and it is receiving the reaction that you would expect. When we think about the ferries that do not sail, the breakdown of crossing regulation, delays in extending broadband provision, housing policies that are pushing families out of villages and the tokenistic commitment to the Gaelic language, this Government's myopic focus on the central belt policies has served our island and coastal communities poorly for 16 years. It has betrayed them. Listening earlier today to the statement from this Government regarding the ferries, the people listening in these communities would be appalled. The temerity of the cabinet secretary is attempting to make a virtue out of the very disaster that has happened. I feel that the tone of that speaks to the very problem that we see in front of us today. We need to maintain and build sustainable communities in the highlands and islands. That can only be done by growing these economies, creating more jobs, giving people reasons to stay with their families or to move to the highlands and the islands. Success for this protest song will not be measured, Presiding Officer. This cry for justice will not be measured on iTunes or Spotify. It can only be measured as to whether this cabinet secretary or minister and this cabinet actually listen to it, hear it and change their own tune. I want to thank you and I want to thank all members who have taken part in today's debate. I think that the fact that we are back discussing this topic again is testament to the importance of the issue. As others have, I should like to begin by commending Skipinishon, Donald Francis MacNeill, for so evocatively capturing the strength of feeling among some in relation to this issue. It represents, I think, one of two great things about our nation. Firstly, how politically engaged Scotland's polity is, and secondly, how we often express our political views through our culture and through the arts. It is a beautiful and important way to express ourselves, and it often communicates issues in a way that is more accessible. It also has longevity. When debates are over, when consultations are complete or ripped up in the case of Fergus Ewing, songs about people and culture will endure. With all that, I want to repeat what I have said before to those who are concerned about the proposals that we have consulted on. Firstly, I care. Secondly, I sympathise. I am a rural MSP. I have probably done more days working the land than most people in this chamber. I understand the connection with the land in a way that coastal and island communities feel connected to coast and sea. Lastly, I am listening. As I said, when I launched this initial consultation— I will very briefly use it. I appreciate you taking intervention, but when you say that you are listening, why— Through the chair, please, Mr Constable. I would like to ask the cabinet secretary why Elspeth from the Scottish Fisherman's Federation suggested that she was sorry to say that her recent experience in engaging with the Government on HPMAs has been far from meaningful. If anybody feels that way, then I am determined to work to make sure that everybody who engages with my department, with me and the Government, realises that I appreciate it and feels that it is meaningful. If that is the way she feels, I am determined to work on that. People are telling me today—Cabinet secretary—go back to the drawing board. The truth is that I never left the drawing board. We are at the drawing board. I have invited rightly Scotland's communities to the drawing board with me. I will take one more intervention. Brian Whittle is very grateful for the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. She has mentioned before that some 4,000 replies to the consultation that she has initiated. If she is listening and is going to go through all those 4,000 replies to the consultation, how can you possibly, before you have read through all them, come to a nominal number of 10 per cent of HPMAs prior to reading all the consultation replies? The consultation was on the proposal. You have to put something on the table on which to consult. That is just how policy is developed. However, rather than consulting on predetermined areas at the end, what would have been a top-down model, we have instead consulted early and on principles, including what might constitute HPMAs, what people thought of the 10 per cent figure, how they felt about the timeline. Those are exactly the questions that we asked and the questions that I will now take one more. You are a rodegrant. The cabinet secretary says that she is consulting on the 10 per cent level. That 10 per cent is included in the bute house agreement and is it up for negotiation or is it set in stone? Every aspect on which I have asked questions in the consultation, I will be considering the responses to that. Obviously, I am working with my green colleagues on whatever we are told, but we have been very clear right from the start. We took our proposal to communities, we invited them around the drawing board with us and we will now very carefully consider what they have told us about it. Having confirmed that I will do that, I want to take this opportunity to address some inaccuracies, some of which have been repeated here this afternoon. Those are causing people concern. Contrary to what this motion says, our proposals would not ban inshore fishing and certainly not on marine activities. Our proposals that we have consulted on are that certain activities could be restricted in carefully selected locations throughout Scotland seas, both inshore and offshore. We suggested that those sites would be selected based on best scientific evidence, rigorous socioeconomic assessment. Fergus Ewing cannot have read the consultation if he thinks that there was no socioeconomic assessment built into that. It is like a thread through the consultation. We committed to doing that in close collaboration with stakeholders in order to understand how it would impact businesses, individuals and communities. I just take the opportunity to reiterate that we are at the very earliest stages of developing HPMAs no sites have been selected. They have not even been proposed. All of that is happening on the backdrop of a strong track record that the Scottish Government, the Scottish fishing industry and coastal communities have on working together to meet shared challenges, delivering mutual benefit and extruding sustainable co-management. Of course, sometimes we hold different views on individual issues, but we have had great success when we work in partnership and on a pragmatic basis, and my commitment to a partnership approach is absolutely resolute. In the time that I have left, I would like to remind the chamber that we cannot forget why we have to take action here. We are in the midst of a climate and nature emergency. Our oceans are absolutely critical to the sequestering and the storing of carbon and to supporting ecosystems and species, the abundance of which is directly tied to how healthy our natural world is. We have to protect our oceans so that it can protect us, but I am absolutely determined, and I will say this time and time again, to reassure people who I know are worried and I do not want them to be worried. I am absolutely determined that, as we take the actions that we must take in response to the climate and nature emergency, it will be done via a just transition. It will be done hand in hand with communities and, in particular, with those who could be affected by proposals. That is the task that is incumbent on me. As a minister, I do not have the ability to politically posture about this. I have to be serious about this, but I give my commitment to communities throughout Scotland that that balanced approach is exactly what I will take. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. That concludes the debate, and I close this meeting of Parliament.