 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2018 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Could I ask people pleased to make sure that their mobile phones are on silent? I'd like to welcome Donald Cameron as a reporter from the ECCLR committee on the salmon farming in Scotland inquiry. The first agenda item will be on salmon farming, which may be contrary to what some people imagined with that this meeting was scheduled to talk about crofting reform, but the cabinet secretary has been called away to represent the Government today and therefore was unable to attend, so that meeting has been rescheduled I think for the 2 May. I'd like to turn to agenda item 1 on salmon farming in Scotland, and I'd like to invite members after I have done so to declare any interests they have in this. I have declared my interest at the beginning of this inquiry and would also refer members to my register of interest in that I have an interest in a wild salmon fishery. Does anyone else wish to make a declaration, Donald? Yes, thank you. Can I also refer back to the meeting I think in March, on March 4, I think it was, and refer to my register of interest, where I have an interest both in fish farming and in a wild fishery. Thank you. This is our third evidence session on the committee's salmon farming in Scotland inquiry, and the committee will take evidence today from the regulatory bodies. I'd like to welcome Anne Anderson, the chief officer for compliance and beyond portfolio, is that right? The regulatory side of our business. Thank you for the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. Mark Harvie, the team leader of the Development and Infrastructure Services, the Highland Council, Alex Hage and the Acro-Cultural Operations Manager for the Crown of State Scotland, and Kathy Tilbur at the Unit Manager, Coastal and Marine Ecosystems and Youth Scottish Natural Heritage. I'm sure you've all given evidence before at the committee. If you haven't, just to say please don't touch any of the buttons in front of you. When you catch my eye and I call you in, your microphone will be made live. Could I ask you if you want to come in on a particular question, please, to make sure that you do catch my eye? If everyone looks away at the same time, then I will just catch one of your eyes, but invariably people do want to come in. And could I also say that once you start talking, could you just occasionally glance at me because if you are expanding beyond the remit of where I think you're going on the question that may cover another question, I may ask you to hold that back. I think that that is it. The first question today is from the deputy convener, Gail Ross. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. You'll know that our sister committee, the Environment Committee, has done quite a comprehensive report about the environmental concerns that various people have about fish farms, but I wanted to start off, we're obviously the rural economy committee, and we've taken evidence on the benefits of fish farming to the rural economy. In evidence to our committee on 7 March, Steve Westbrooke said, not only is salmon farming an important employer in terms of the total, but the types of jobs have been very suitable for people in rural areas who might not have had other opportunities, particularly with the number of farming and fishing jobs going down in many areas. From your point of view, can you tell us how important the aquaculture industry is to the rural economy in the highlands and in other local authorities and what benefits it brings? Everyone is looking at me at that stage. Who would like to lead off? Mark, would you like to go on that? It's quite present. I was at committee, our planning committee, yesterday, where we approved two fish farm applications. Both of them were in an area of sky, which is regarded as fragile, and quite definitely a weighty material consideration for committee members in that case was the social and economic benefits. What was being said at the committee was that it's not so much the number of jobs that per farmer was relatively small. It's the fact that they are so often being located in a rural area, an isolated area, and in this case a designated fragile area in terms of employment, population retention, that sort of thing. In those circumstances, fish farm represents a relatively unique employment opportunity because it is arriving for other factors, of course, for other operational factors arriving in areas that are not supporting employment growth in many other aspects. John Scott, you want to ask a question and I'll come back to you again. Thanks for that, Mr Haveley. I wonder the extent to which, indeed, the understandable wish to see employment in fragile areas. Is that entwined on to planning considerations disproportionately or inappropriately at all? Well, that's a good question to a planner. As a planner, I'd say I would hope not, but you're absolutely right, of course. It is part of the mix, part of the planning committee, part of the job of planning officers, of course, is to weigh up all the material considerations of which that is one and place it against the other considerations that are also pressed into that particular application. I have to say, with agriculture applications, it's quite a mix. Yesterday we were looking at landscape close to a national scenic area. We were looking at wild fish interactions. There was a freshwater pearl mussel issue that was relevant to the site, so all of those things weighed up. The answer is, I hope not because that shouldn't be happening with any consideration. They should be weighed up in an appropriate manner, and that really is the planning system at work. John. I'm not sure, but it may well be that I'm an objective to that particular application, so I think it's appropriate that I say that. I have no further question. Cathy, do you want to comment on that, the interaction between the environment and employment? It would seem to be something that SNH might have to balance. It is part of the balancing duty that we take into account when we provide our advice to local authorities on agriculture applications. We certainly recognise the social economic importance of agriculture as an industry, particularly in the fragile communities that have been discussed, but our core purpose is to consider the impacts on biodiversity and landscape. We would provide advice and take into consideration the social economic factors, but the main players in terms of weighing up those factors are the local authority. Peter. Just a follow-up to yourself, Cathy. How often or has SNH ever objected to a plant increase or a new fish farm? Has that ever happened in your experience? Yes. We have objected to a number of planning applications for new farms or for increases or changes depending on what we consider to be the natural heritage impacts of those developments, but we go through a very careful process in terms of coming to that decision, and we don't take it lightly. I just wanted to ask, probably Mark, that I took advantage of the lovely weather up west last week and visited a fish farm. One of the things that they told me and also members of the local community in that area around Lochcharr and Shielding, Torridon, was that there are plenty of jobs but not so many houses? Is that a planning consideration that you would take into account when a fish farm goes in, or is that completely separate? If it is, how can we marry the two up? It is separate. It is relevant to all applications that we deal with. If it creates employment, we want to make sure that there aren't other factors. We should be bringing jobs and housing and other services together. That falls into the other side of planning, the development planning side, the strategic planning side, where one would hope that the local plan was making provision for enough housing to support a reasonable number of jobs. In terms of aquaculture, it is probably fair to say that the emphasis at the moment is very heavily on, from a planning point of view, development management. Aquaculture is very much focused on planning applications, so they are individually assessed and so forth. We lack an overall framework, something that would indicate an area that has been particularly suitable for aquaculture, an area that was not so suitable for aquaculture. That would enable the planning system, of course, to match more closely potential future housing demand to potential future job creation. At the moment, it is all a bit by application, per application, which is not the development planning system in operation. It is difficult to plan ahead on that basis. When considering applications for new fish farms, I was following the Highland Council from a couple of days ago, were there any issues in the Eclare report that were considered in the planning application, or would be considered going forward in any new applications for fish farms? Yes, the report was highly relevant to the issues that we were dealing with at the time. I think that it certainly hit the target in terms of identifying the things that we are struggling with a little bit when it comes to applications, particularly those issues of a lack of background information on some environmental issues, the wild fish issue being the key one. I think that it covers the ground, but perhaps it obviously wasn't coming up with the answers that would enable us to overcome those problems at the moment yet. I think that would be fair to say. I wonder, Cathy, if you want to comment on that, because it seems to tie in the Eclare report that the forthright would be a summary of it. Has SNH been mindful of that report when they are considering fish farm applications? I think that it picks up on a lot of the things that we already are raising in our advice that we provide on fish farm applications. The report is a very good summary of the key issues that we are currently grappling with, and I think that Mark is right that I do not think that we have quite yet got the answers to all of those issues, particularly in relation to, I think, from our perspective, wild salmonids and also ADDs. We find that a very helpful summary of issues that we would like to see bottomed out with good solutions. Thank you. Just to go back and to tie up the economy side of it, how important is aquaculture to the economy, not only to the highlands and the rural economy, but the economy of Scotland as a whole? Mark. That was not a look of—I cannot answer that question directly, but we are aware that it is an important export industry. I think that there is also an issue with salmon being a iconic Scottish product. It sits alongside some other iconic Scottish issues. It came up yesterday and someone said to me, really, what Scotland needs to be doing is making sure that salmon is considered the best salmon available worldwide. It has a premium product side to it. In those circumstances, of course, it would become an important part of Scotland's export economy. Which leads neatly on to the next question from Mike Rumbles. I want to focus on regulations and regulatory regime. We are all well aware of what the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee said about this. If I can just start by quoting it, the committee is not convinced that SEPA or any other agency is effectively monitoring the environmental impact of salmon fisheries. The committee is also not convinced that the regulations, protocols and options for enforcement and prosecution for the sector are appropriate and are being appropriately deployed. That is quite a strong criticism. I would like you to be able to respond to that, but I would also like to ask you, in your own view and across the panel, what elements of the regulatory system work well from your view? Could you respond to the specific criticism of the Environment Committee and tell us what you think works well to balance that? Absolutely. In terms of the environmental regime that SEPA is responsible for, we undertake a process of application assessment, identification and, clearly, doolink into the planning process as a statutory consultee. It is based on scientific evidence, as is all environmental decisions, or wherever possible. There are also high gaps in the evidence, and I think that the paper and the report identified that. In terms of the regulatory controls, fish farm regulation and application is under the controlled activities regime, which is a direct link-in from the water framework directive and controls the discharges at the present time to the water environment. Our sampling and monitoring exercises then evidence of any environmental harm, and it is a predictive use of models, which is very common and is the approach taken in the majority of the environmental arena globally when assessing applications in any media. The marine environment is not unique in the use of models and then identifying and using the monitoring and regulatory controls to best explain truth to track the model, to predict and then to respond to it. We are currently commenced a review in February of last year into agriculture. It is part of our changing approach as a regulator, environmental regulator, accepting the changing planetary aspects in terms of environment and climate change. Part of that is that wider suite of review around controls in the conditions for any individual licence and in terms of access and availability to monitoring, including new monitoring techniques and new models. We are coming to the end of that process due to be reporting on that by end of June this year. Eminently, in terms of concluding that, I am years worth of review into agriculture. Our regulatory regime allows a large scope. It is the interpretation and use of conditions to improve and to innovate both within regulatory adoption of legislation and our manner in which we use it, but also to encourage operators, be they marine or elsewhere, to innovate and to keep up with the best available technologies using the two processes of control, condition and baseline legislation. I may not have answered your question. You are specifically identified along with other agencies, but you did not really tell me what you thought was working well and whether the whole system is working well. Are you working in isolation? Across time, I would like to hear the other contributors as well, because one of the questions is, should there be one overall regulatory body to oversee this rather than the four of you, for instance, here? So, what is working well and is the criticism unfair or fair? Anne, I am going to ask you to come back in, but I will come to each member of the panel to ask where they have had concerns, whether they have monitored those concerns on developments to try and answer Mike's question. Anne, if you would like to start off, and then I will start with Kathy and work that way along back to Anne. I think that there are elements that work well, as with every regulation, we always want to improve. That was the purpose of that review exercise, and increasing monitoring is a key part of that, using every available bit of monitoring. The work that is done by not just colleagues who sit here, but other regulators, in this case, Marine Scotland. Joining up and having access to all of that data, there is always room for improvement. I think that that was most definitely recognised in the report, the ability for the regulatory partners to work more collaboratively to join up some of the gaps. There are a number of joint research projects that have been under way for a number of years. Significantly new cases working in partnership with industry and academics is a key component to that, and commissioning additional research. We are very much pulling together the Government funding to target any research work that we do to fill those gaps in knowledge. It is really important that we get that evidence. I made reference to us being an evidence-led regulator that we need to be able to demonstrate harm. Part of that piece is to increase the level of evidence, so increasing the volume of monitoring that is undertaken by operators and by the entirety of those partners that have that component as part of the remit. It is really significant to joining it up and then having the ability to access, use and to regulate to it. That is part of the suite of things. There are questions around our depositional zone consultation and the conclusion of that. That process is very much about encouraging movement into areas of the marine environment that have not been previously accessible due to limitations on older models. Making use of new technology, models and continually to refresh is something that, as a regulatory component, we have to do. I think that there is always room for that, but we are working from a solid basis on that approach. Our new model that was introduced by Marine Scotland supports, but it is only one aspect of the use of modelling and March reference to the ability to assess that total impact. It relates to cumulative impact modelling and use of hydrodynamic models, which are now available and which we have been piloting and testing over this last year to ensure that our regulatory changes, as part of that innovation, as an environmental organisation, are able then to be delivered evidence-based, backed up and used in court. There are packages of work that are under way to deliver a stronger suite of regulations, and that very much is about joining up the regulatory partners. Kathy, do you want to come in? Specifically in relation to your question about what works well at the moment, I would maybe pick out that there has been a much greater move in recent years to focus on pre-application discussion. That for us has been really helpful and we have certainly embraced that. We have tried to put a lot of our resource now into that pre-app discussion with industry partners. I think that the key thing there is trying to, at the very early stage, identify what the constraints might be about, maybe hopefully more than one site that they are considering at that point, so that we can steer developers away from the sites where we think they are likely to be the most environmental problems. At ties in with what Mark was saying about, ideally we would like to see better strategic planning from the outset, identifying where are them with suitable locations, so that we are not having to have that discussion about that is a really bad site at the individual application stage that we have gone through that process. There is useful work. Marine Scotland has been doing some good work on heat mapping, so once that is out there and in the public domain, I think that that will help. Having some form of better strategic planning to steer developers to good sites will really help, but certainly that pre-app phase has been good. We think that that is certainly probably leading to a decrease in the number of applications coming into the system where we do have big problems with things and where we might have to raise an objection. Issues that I think we still feel are problematic, you mentioned monitoring. SNH does not have a role in post-consent monitoring, but I think that there are issues there. In the Eichle report, it referred to the kind of evidence of damage, particularly within MPAs or to priority marine features. In relation to MPAs, our role is on site condition monitoring, monitoring the condition of the features within protected areas, but we do that on quite a long cycle just because of the resourcing costs of going and doing marine monitoring is very expensive to do. We do not have a lot of resource to go and monitor those sites on a very regular basis. We deliberately select the stations for the survey points for monitoring away from the likes of a fish farm because, obviously, that is not going to be very representative of the site as a whole. Therefore, it is very unlikely that our routine site condition monitoring on that lengthy cycle will pick up issues relating to change and damage to features from a fish farm. I think that there is something there about better use of the routine monitoring that other partners like CEPRO are doing and linking that back into better understanding of what the impacts are on sensitive features such as moral beds, which were mentioned in the Eichle report, so that we have a better understanding of what are the long-term impacts, what might be recovery rates, and how much can we actually say about damage on a wider area from the direct footprint of fish cages. There is probably quite a lot in there that we need to come back to. There are a few questions lining up, but I am going to go right down the panel and then maybe bring questions in at the end. Alex, do you want to make a comment on that? Thank you. What is wrong with the regulatory framework? I do not think that it really recognises the circumstances under which fish farming is being undertaken. Most of fish farming like other marine businesses, the issues arise through interactions, both with the natural heritage and with other users. At the moment, there is too much of a development focus rather than a management focus in the scrutiny that is applied. I think that that needs to come forward. Part of that, as Ann says, is increased monitoring and improved monitoring. The other aspect on that is that you have to look at the framework in which that operates. The good things about the regulatory framework are that we probably recognise the issues. I do not think that we have the right tools necessary to properly address them. What we have heard of previously is increasing focus on things such as adaptive management. Taking into account what Kathy said about pre-application conversations is a very important part of that. As far as we can see, no real means of on-going accountability throughout the term of a business for undertakings given at a pre-application stage. The point about those undertakings is that those circumstances are likely to change. The marine environment is very dynamic. It is changing. We have long-term and short-term seasonal changes. The undertakings or the means by which they might be achieved will vary and change over time. How can you review and maintain scrutiny on accountability that these are being properly undertaken according to what was spoken of at the pre-application stage? I think that we have the right bits and pieces. They have just not been put together in the right order, if you like. I think that we need an overarching framework that governs the relationship between the agencies, and we need a framework that acknowledges the uncertainties and the unpredictability of the environment that we have and that the focus is on management rather than development. Mark, do you want to make a comment? I will come back to Mike Rumbles and then take one or two other questions. Mark. I would not disagree with anything that has been said. I would say, speaking from a planner's point of view, that we have the overarching framework and that is the planning system. We just don't use it very well. We are talking about multiple regulation. Multiple regulation, I don't think, is unusual. If you build a house, you will need planning permission. You will need building standards approval. You might need other licenses and approvals as well. Any one of those could stop you with building the house, but none of them stand in the way of each other. I do not think that multiple regulation necessarily is a problem. There is always a danger if you create one huge regulator that, because its front left leg cannot move forward for one reason, the whole body does not move forward. Whereas where we are at the moment, we could grant planning permission even though further down the line there might well be a car licence issue, which hopefully could be resolved, but if not, would stop the farm going ahead. I do not think that multiple regulation is necessarily a problem. Elements that work very well are not forgetting most plans. Most fish farm applications come in as EIA developments that come associated with an environmental statement. That is a fairly high level of environmental control that most planning applications do not have to go through. It is not being regulated. I think we can deal comfortably with issues of landscape, for example, in the planning system. I think we are comfortable in using consultee responses. I think we are happy with those consultee responses we get. Where we are weak is that we seem to somehow, 30 years, 40 years into the fish farming industry, still lack information about some fundamental aspects of its interaction with the natural environment. Wildfish, sea lice and wildfish would be the classic example. I came into this job sort of two years ago and I will admit that I am a critic of the current situation. I think probably we all are because all our organisations are looking at ways of improving it. The previous committee's report picked up on that culture, that movement that is going on. We find ourselves at the moment, and this was true yesterday at committee, with issuing planning commissions with an environmental management plan attached to them. Fundamentally, that is about allowing the authority a role within monitoring the sea lice numbers within the farm and coupling that with a requirement on the operator to carry out some level of wildfish monitoring and possibly knock on effects freshwater pearl mussel monitoring and so forth. I think that is a positive move, but I do recognise that it is a very piecemeal approach to what is more of a general environmental problem. I would regard that as both the strength and the weakness. We are addressing the issue, but I do not think that we are addressing it terribly well. It could be done better. Alex is in response. We are playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order, as is usually Eric Morkham's analogy. On a serious point, I would like to ask Mark in particular, Highland Council has to deal with applications, as I understand it, as they come in and deal with the application. Isn't there a concern, though a lot of the criticism is based, that the whole industry is out there and should there not be an overarching plan or an overarching approach to fish farming development across the Highlands rather than taking, as you have to do now, individual applications and give a yes or a no to that? Yes. A concise yes-no answer being yes. It is perfect. I have two specific questions. The first is for Ann. You talked about the DZR model that you are preparing to change, but the Eclare Committee has said that they are concerned that the development of the new model has not been peer reviewed. They are also unclear how the model takes impacts beyond deposition on the seabed into account. They have written to SEAP by seeking further information. Do you know if that further information has been provided to the committee yet? Yes, it has. We have responded. It has a date of 28 March, and we have answered the various questions. The DZR proposal is for a very small part of it. I say that in the wider context of marine fish farming. It relates to organic loading. The model and the reference that I was making around the use of the new auto depo model is the facility that has been assessed ran by Marine Scotland. We have our own in-house modelling team, who have been part of that reviewing and assessment process. The actual truthing of models links to real monitoring, grab sampling analysis in a laboratory and then testing back in. The hydrodynamic model, which does not feature and did not feature in the depositional zone regulation but is an available tool to use, has and will be part of the future assessment process going forward. This is a particular tool that, in answer to the concerns raised, we have been testing and identifying what capabilities there are. I have made reference to continuing to innovate as regulators and to keep up with technology ourselves, whilst we require businesses to do so. Hydrodynamic modelling gives an additional layer that helps to inform the more information we have, the better decisions we can make. Hydrodynamic modelling allows us to determine the cumulative impact. In the case of locations wherever they happen to be within the Scottish coastal waters, assessing the total impact of 10 sites within a one-farm management zone and then modelling and monitoring hotspots, which again can be predicted and truthed. That is a key aspect of going forward when we talk about enhanced monitoring and additional controls and building more information. That is also on the basis of having new analytical methodology and the ability to use DNA assessment and technology for organic loading. Trials and two years into a project that will allow for the same amount of one sample, we will get 10 samples for the same cost and instantly change the ability to get more information on what is happening, not just within the vicinity of marine cage fish farms, but be able to predict where the tides and the shifting sands will move organic load. I will just look at you. If I am jiggling my pen like that, it is probably— I will stop. I will make sure that I shall do that, Edward. Okay, if you watch the pen. A really quick, second question to Cathy. MPAs are set up for a number of different reasons around the coast. Do you believe that there should be more regulation and monitoring of fish farms that are in MPAs? I think that we would like to see a better linkage back to understanding, as I said, a better link up between the post-consent monitoring that Anne and Sipa are doing and others are doing, so that we can better understand those impacts. At the moment, I think that we are quite good at liasing with the regulators local authorities and Sipa about whether it is appropriate to site a fish farm in an MPA, depending on the sensitivity of the features for that MPA. In some cases, there may not be any problem in having a fish farm within an MPA. If the features within that MPA are not sensitive to the type of pressures that fish farming causes. On other occasions, we would suggest micro-citing the farm to avoid those features, but I think that probably what we need to get better at doing now is particularly with the new modelling that Anne is talking about, just checking that we are correct in the assumptions that we are making about where the deposition from the fish farm is ending up. Are we right in suggesting that by having a farm located in a particular area, we have avoided impacts on the moral bed, for example long-term impacts, particularly for those slow-growing features like moral? Do we know enough about over a long term whether we can detect changes and impacts that might relate to the pressures from a fish farm? There are issues there, but it is not a blanket. We do not think that there should ever be fish farming within protected areas. It is not as simple as that. Again, specifically at the island and sepa issue, you spoke about regularly changes earlier on into your earlier answer. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that in its fish farm manual of 2005, sepa acknowledged that it had a role to protect salmon and sea trout from the impact of sea lice. More recently, sepa has denied having any such irresponsibility for that. Why has there been such a fundamental change in sepa's position on the sea lice issue? The introduction of the water framework directive led to change and make reference to the controlled activities regulations, which is the suite of regulations that we use. Previous legislation came under COPA, the Controlled Pollution Act. Part of the agreements and arrangements and trying to ensure who does what and takes leads on in terms of areas meant that, when that shift changed occurred in 2005, March made reference to his two-year introduction to aquaculture. I am a year in a bit into aquaculture, so identifying the 2005 process and decisions back 10, 13 years. Essentially, we have interpreted the activity under the controlled activities regulations as the discharge into the marine environment. In that interpretation, it is relating to the organic load and any chemicals in medicines. The activity of the fish farming has how it interacts with that wider environment. We have a biodiversity role, and we assess that. In terms of the context, we have a 2010 working arrangements document that sets out the responsibilities and interactions by the regulators in Scotland when it comes to assessing and participating in. Marine Scotland has the lead wild fish assessment in marine waters. Under WFD, we have the freshwater assessment, and we stop at that line. I see the pen moving. Before we move on, I would just like to ask a quick question to Annan, Cathy perhaps, a direct question, a yes or no question. The question is, has the regulatory framework that is in place at the moment protected or enhanced the environment in which salmon farms operate? Has it protected and enhanced the environment? Yes or no? Cathy, do you want to answer that and Annan? Yes or no? I do not think that I can answer that, yes or no. I could not say that it had enhanced. I think that, to the most extent, it has degraded it because we have safeguards in place, but I think that there are some issues that we have touched on that still need to be improved. Sorry, that was nowhere near a yes or no answer. Annan is going to prove you wrong and say yes or no. I think that Cathy is actually quite right. There is not something as simple as a yes or no when it comes to this particular question. I am afraid. Thank you very much, convener. We have talked about the present regulatory environment, and you have all said that there are strengths and issues that we might want to work on. I want to think about whether we are going to develop or if this industry is going to develop and say that we are going to have twice as many salmon, twice as many fish farms, going forward or more or thereabouts, but a fairly sizable increase. What is the impact of that then on top of what you have already said? For example, as I understand it, Crown Estate would get twice as much income, so if you have any costs, you can double up your staff or whatever it is, but I am not sure if SNH, if the fish farms double, do you get extra income? I am guessing not. If you have already said that your resources are maybe a bit thin at times to inspect, would that mean that you could only put in effectively half the effort if there are twice as many farms per farm? SIPA has been suggesting that there is not a lot of unexpected visits to farms, so would that mean that if there were more farms, you would even do proportionately less? Or have you got a way of handling that? So it is basically how do you react? What is your reaction to the idea that the whole thing could double? Alex, the suggestion is that he is the one beneficiary. Alex, if you go first, then we will take Cathy, Mark and then Annan. The first thing that I will say is that we are managers rather than owners, so the increased funds from a doubling of the industry or anything approaching that would be going to the Scottish Consolidated Fund rather than necessarily ourselves. Would that be net of any expenses that you have? Net of expenses, of course. I think that if you are looking at it, you have got to ask whether we are going to have that doubling and that increase on the basis of what we are going to have simply more of the same or can we achieve that through a different means? I think that this then feeds into the questions earlier about the regulatory framework in the way in which we monitor it. Our view is that we need to maybe take a closer look at what marine industries historically have done to regulate themselves or to exert some kind of control. That is again coming back to this focus on management and management plans and accountability that allows for a transparent accountability that allows for undertakings to be seen to be met, but also it can offer up an agility and the flexibility to move with changing circumstances that you get in the marine environment. The fundamental part of a management plan is review. I think that if you look at the regime that we have now, permissions are granted in the case of planning is in perpetuity, seepers are reviewable, but I think that in perpetuity, by and large, hours of 25 years, we need to have some form of review that can address the fact that circumstances do change. Can we check that the farmers out there are recognising and acknowledging and adapting to those particular changes? I think that we can achieve a certain increase, I don't know whether it will double or not, but it has to be with a greater degree of accountability, but alongside that accountability, giving the flexibility for the farmers themselves to undertake the necessary changes to ensure that they remain sustainable. In short, it will be more money for the Crown Estate, and that will in turn be passed on to the Scottish public purse, but more importantly, can we expect the industry to maintain its economic and environmental performance alongside all of that? That is where we really need to look at what we are doing. There needs to be a central pillar focused on management plans. That is how other marine industries work. You work on reviewable management plans, and we need to somehow incorporate that in to give everybody the assurance and accountability that things are being done properly. Not necessarily a mistake, but the fact that the industry will want to have the assurance that if it does go to the trouble of doing things properly and is seen to be accountable, it confers an assurance on itself and you can get a confidence that can underpin investment on that side as well. SNH supports the sustainable development of the aquaculture industry in Scotland. However, we are concerned about growth targets that are set in accordance with the environmental capacity. I think that what we said before about trying to get a better handle on how much scope there is out there for locations, for expansion, for new farms that would be able to be developed without the environmental risks that we have talked about. We need that understanding before we can set targets that are meaningful and can be delivered without risk to the Scottish environment. Are you saying that nobody knows what the capacity for fish farms is? I think that we are quite a long way from really knowing that, but the other part of that is that, as Alex was saying, with innovation to overcome some of those issues, there might be much more scope for expansion. There is an issue there about identifying what capacity there is under the current arrangements and with the current practice. Whose role is that? I think that it is a combination between all of us sitting here with government and with industry. We are doing this already and industry is doing a lot on innovation, but we really need to tackle some of those issues and find solutions to the sea life issues and some of the other issues that have been identified. That will then free up potentially other locations that we currently would be concerned about, but if we have got those safeguards in place, they might be fine for expansions or new farms. There are issues to do with containment, which would resolve most of the issues that we are concerned about. There are other things happening and are being investigated in other parts of the world that we would like to see more trials and looking into those forms of innovation to see whether some of the issues can be resolved. That might free up potential for much more growth, but at the moment it is difficult to look at growth targets without understanding what the environmental issues would be for trying to fire ahead with that kind of level of growth. Would there be a resource issue for SNH if there is a lot more work to do? Well, there would be a resource issue in terms of dealing with the applications. As I say, we do not link our monitoring specifically to consents and to fish farm development, so it is not that we would necessarily be expected to do more monitoring, but we would obviously need to consider the time involved in commenting on applications, but that is just something that we would have to try to factor in. Mark, what do you want to know? Yes, more applications will be more planning fees, but the big issue for us at the moment of course is that planning fees are not ring-fenced, even within the planning service, and the local government is quite hungry for resources at the moment. It is a concern. The fact that we are setting ourselves up to do more monitoring through our environmental management plan conditions at the moment is also a concern. We are giving ourselves more work to do there, so an expansion. I am sorry, am I right in saying that you therefore do not get any resources specifically for that? You get the lump sum for the planning application, but if you have got on-going costs, there is no more income. That is correct, yes. Monitoring is always an issue for planning authorities and enforcement being the obvious example. I would reiterate what Cathy was sort of saying. The industry has set up a challenge to themselves and everybody else by saying that we would really like to double capacity, but there is no—nobody knows—the capacity of Scottish waters to absorb that level of fish farming activity. We have a strange situation, I think, and I have not really ever received a proper answer to this. Of course, we have three coasts to Scotland, where it is north and east. North and east have a moratorium on fish farming. There are not many moratoriums in the planning system because it is not really what the planning system is about—fragging nuclear power stations. I do not know many others. I have never really received an explanation of why that continues to exist within Scottish planning policy, but it does mean that, of course, everything is focused on the west coast. Should that be reviewed at some point, do you think? I think that it should be reviewed by Government before it is reviewed by industry, because, of course, the planning system would give industry the opportunity to challenge that if they wanted to. It is a policy position, and that can be challenged, of course, perhaps through an application. I think that there is an uncomfortableness for us, and that basic work has not been done. I think that what has come up a couple of times here is the need for a more strategic plan. I was quite struck by the Norwegian model, where they came up with a traffic light approach, which was green, amber and red. Interestingly enough, green was go—green, green was—yes, this is suitable for further permissions. Amber was probably not suitable for further permissions, and red was not just stop, but red was actually drawback. Red was reduce the biomass in this area. That strikes me as probably very relevant to the Scottish experience, because I suspect there are parts on the west coast of Scotland where we actually have too great a loading already of fish farms. We have red areas, as it were, and we need to try and move that biomass to areas where we might be categorising them as green, but there's a huge amount of work to be done there. As I said before, my feeling for two years into this job is that we're about 30 years too late. We have an awful lot of catching up to do. The industry has been around for a long time, and really in 2018 we probably should have these answers already, and we know we're near. There's a lot of work to get there. John Finnie and then come to Cathy and then back to John, so I'm conscious of the time. I mean, it is interesting. We're on question 5. There's probably about 20 questions to go, and I have badly managed the time, so I'd trust everyone if they could keep their answers as concise as possible. Ann, followed by John Finnie. I'm going to try and speed that up by saying that we were asked, and our submission of 28 March, questions 5 and 6 relate to a determination of unannounced visits in simplicity, so I'm going to do the question 5 visits. John, I think you'd asked around the impacts of 2030 resource and visits was what I had scribbled down, so question 5 of that response provides a more detailed answer, but it is important to reflect that this is a life species with disinfection and disease protocols. It's also facilities that don't always have individuals at them, and there is health and safety aspects, so it's a multiple approach for physical inspection. Regulatory control, though, is more than just physically turning up at facility. An oversight and regulatory conditions within licences to enable a different way of assessing and ensuring compliance feature within our environmental suite, and increasingly looking to do and use that as an increasing aspect as we move forward in our own changing innovation as a regulator for this industry. Question 5 for visits. Sorry, it's our letter of response published by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee on 28 March 2018, and there are specific responses to that. In respect to resource, unlike SNH and local authority, we charge for applications to recover our costs and increasingly trying to be more effective at recovering our costs, so that our grant and aids does not in any way be utilised in that regard. We also charge for inspection and regulatory effort, and we have a published charging scheme that relates to the entirety of our actions. We also do charge and can charge for monitoring, so our ability to up our resource is directly linked to any increase within any sector—more applications, more visits, more monitoring, all of which we can charge for and recover across. The Regulatory Reform Act introduced our new enforcement measures, two of which have the ability for us to recover costs when we undertake enforcement action, and we are now starting to commend the use of those tools. In terms of our ability to increase resource, to manage any industry growth, industry will be paying for our ability to regulate them and to monitor them. When I say enhanced monitoring, I am reasonably confident that our ability to get response and charging back on that basis. I am going to bring John Finnie in now, and then Kathy, you are probably going to get the first chance to answer this question. It is a very brief question to Mr Harvie. It is interesting your comments on the moratorium and particularly the references to the Norwegian system. You alluded to the fact that there are areas off the west coast that are in that red zone in your opinion. Do you like to give us a determination where some of those areas are on the west coast that would fit into a red zone using the Norwegian system, Mr Harvie? I would not, because I do not think that we have done the work. The supposition is that we have concentrations and it would help the industry if we were able to identify—it is rather more important—the green areas, where we feel that development should take place and the support that might be able to be provided to support that situation. I think that, just to follow it up, for a green area there is nothing to stop an environmental impact assessment being carried out. I suspect that this may include another question, but I was specifically interested in the red zone and the analogy with the system in Norway. You said that you are aware of concentrations. Are you able to see where those concentrations are, then, please? Surely that is just a matter of fact, rather than an opinion. I do not think that I can, actually. There are areas off the west coast where we have a large number of farms. They would obviously be a focus of attention, but, of course, they do not necessarily— Just for the record, where are these areas, then? Oh, well, we certainly have a concentration of fish farms in the south of Skye, for example, which actually was subject to a recent refusal, but on landscape impact grounds. Now, that is an area that perhaps would be worth looking at further to see what capacity in environmental terms that area has, notwithstanding the landscape issue. But there are also areas off the west coast that have not received a large number of fish farm applications for a variety of reasons—operational reasons, I suspect, mostly—maybe lease reasons as well. That would also be a useful piece of information. Thanks very much indeed. Come in briefly, and then I need to move to the next question. Yes, just very briefly, really, in relation to the point that Mark made about the moratorium. I think that the moratorium, as I understand it, was there because of the importance of some of the salmon rivers on the east coast, the north coast, and I think that, again, it would be worth looking at that. Again, if there were good innovation that would restrict the issues relating to escapes and sea lice, then, yes, there would be no reason to not open that up again. Without that, I think that it would be quite risky to open up a whole new area where we know that there are sensitivities there from a wild fish perspective without those kind of safeguards in place. I am going to move straight to the next question then. Thank you, Richard Lyle. Welcome. We basically have quite a number of fish farms. It is a growing business. We want to double it, but we have a problem. The problem is the capture and the beneficial use of the waste. I am a member of the clear committee of which I understand the volume of waste, untreated waste and the discharge from fish farms into the marine environment. It is half the volume of human, treated effluent of Scotland. My comment is that if any other organisation was dumping sews in the sea on this scale, there would be a national outcry. I turn to Ann Anderson. One aspect of SEPA's forthcoming sector plan, which she spoke about, is increasing the capture and the beneficial use of the waste. How will that be done? What action will be taken? What action can be taken on established sites? How can we resolve it in five minutes? It is quite possible. First, I think that it is important that you are opening a point there, Richard, around the human waste and the fish waste. In the totality of it, it is apples and oranges in terms of how we control. Using a combination of dilute and disperse and breakdown by animals and bacteria in the environment, fish farms and exposed dynamic locations, there are different controls. I will certainly not be able to give you the detail in five minutes, but I will certainly give you a written response to that. In terms of the ability to move and to change, Kathy referenced—in fact, perhaps I have all done—about technical innovation and solutions. There are and across the globe opportunities that are proving to be able to capture solids, organic loads. We assess on the basis of the environmental capacity to sustain. That is absolutely critical when we are looking at it. Protecting environment and biodiversity by ensuring that the fish production is managed and matched to the environmental capacity in which it operates. Where we have scenarios in reference to locations that may not be better suited, there may well be technologies that allow those locations to be used, such as if you capture organic load. There are trials globally, and I think that learning and testing is still going on, in reference to containment technology, and concluding on that, the balance of total environmental impact. Those are all questions that require evidence before we push an instruct and do. Consequences of one particular environmental impact may lead to other consequences, and it is about testing those technologies and trials that are occurring. We are also discussing them and exploring the use of them within Scottish coastal waters, which is the key, because trials get to a certain point. Let us see what the difference then makes, particularly in locations in which we are more concerned by. Kathy, do you want to comment on that? I do not think so. I think that Anne has covered the key points that you were asking about. If I can turn to the subject of wild fish, on the protection of wild fish, the chief I have said that we are in the process of exploring with other regulators, in particular Marine Scotland, how we can contribute. That includes reviewing how the different policy and regulatory frameworks, including their own wide regulatory powers, can be used to better effect. What is the panel's view on what aspects of wild fish interaction does each member of the panel address in the consenting and regulatory regime? Is there any aspects that have not been addressed adequately? How will proposed changes improve the consideration of wild-fish-farm-fish interactions? Lastly, how are those changes to practice being made? Mark, you took an intake of breath, so I am assuming that you wanted to answer that. The reason that we are now using the environmental management plan conditions, which basically means that we are involved, aware of the sea lice numbers within the farm. That is one set of data. Recent announcements suggest that that data is likely to become public knowledge during the course of this year, so that is something that we would have anyway. At the same time, there are requirements for the operator of the individual fish farm to carry out relevant wild-fish monitoring. This is wild salmonid monitoring that is relevant to that particular fish farm. It enables us to look for any correlations that may occur between sea lice numbers on the farm and issues with wild-fish health, depending on the monitoring. At the moment, we feel the best that we can achieve. One of the things that was mentioned in the previous report was the use of the precautionary principle. Within the planning system, of course, we do not have enough evidence to refuse the application. Before we refuse an application within a development management context, we have to decide that there are not conditions that are suitable to mitigate the issue in question. We have come to the conclusion, and I would have to say that the DPEA and their reporters have also come to the conclusion that this level of monitoring, or a conditional requirement for a level of monitoring of wild-fish, meets that requirement. We do not have to refuse the application, but we do need to ensure that the monitoring is carried out. That is where we are at the moment with wild-fish monitoring. It is very piecemeal because of the nature of planning applications. That is its problem. We were developing a much more holistic database on wild-fish numbers, interactions, activity and movements for the whole of the west coast. That would help to support this overall planning picture that we have referenced before. It would be an integral part of that. I hope that that answers some of the questions that you put forward. One of the questions that I would love to ask and get an answer to from everybody is can wild-fish and salmon farms coexist? We seem to be—it is a bit like America a number of years ago—cows and sheep. Cow guys did not like the sheep farmers and they had a war. It seems sometimes a bit like this and this subject. Can they coexist? My job is to ensure that they can. That is what we do. We are balancing development against the environmental pressures. The issue, of course, is simply that in the natural environment on the west coast, there was something in the region of 500 to a million wild fish, we think, somewhere in that region historically. We now have 65 million farmed fish in the water. The interaction is complicated by the numbers and those numbers are likely to increase. It is a question that the interaction and the effect is inevitable. Our job is to try and work out how we can minimise the effect of one on the other. Raise sea-lice numbers are an issue. Alex, I am not sure whether you want to come in. Can I just say to all of you when you are addressing this? When we talk about salmon and Richard taught salmon, it should take into account sea trout as well, which is slightly different. Alex, if you would like to come in and follow by Kathy and then Annan. Yes, thank you. Just to address the last question, can they coexist? Yes, but it depends on the amount of management focus and effort applied. That is probably what is lacking. The interaction at the moment and the debate around it lacks focus. The first thing to look at is what can salmon farmers be held accountable for? What is the effect? It is a significant increase in the lice burden on wild fish in the locality. That would not otherwise be there if the farm was not there. The argument drifts off into survival and population status in rivers and everything else and then you are off into correlations. It becomes very polarised. A focus needs to be brought back to certainly monitoring the lice burdens on wild fish because that is the other side of the interaction. If you focus simply on the numbers of lice on farmed fish, it is meaningless and has been said before I think in front of the eclair committee that it is meaningless. If you take the recommendations that are available, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council recommends point one adult female. Marine Harvest's manual advocates point two adult females. A project in Norway in the Hadangafjord several years ago advocated point three. Our own legislation advocates point five, point fours, three at the moment. So it is all over the shop. You have to look at what is happening on this side and the other being the wild fish lice burden. Integral to that needs to be well what are you going to do about it? How does that information feed back into the management of the farm? What is the trend analysis and it will be trend analysis? I think the thing to recognise is that there is probably not a solution to this. It is an ongoing management issue because there is a huge complexity involved with a farm population, a wild population, the ecological dynamics of the parasite involved and all the environmental fluctuations around it. It is close monitoring effective management. Now, that is absent at the moment or it has been left to corporate business, the shizziness to be made. That needs to be brought into the regulatory framework through management planning that I spoke about earlier. Yes, thanks. At the clock behind, so short answers. Okay. I completely agree with everything Alex has said there. We have come at this from the perspective of needing to give advice from a habitats regulation perspective for natura sites, so for SACs that are either for wild salmonids or for freshwater power muscle which are dependent on wild salmonids. In the absence of a kind of key regulator for looking at the interests of wild fish and really before that the whole idea of environmental management plans was coming up through the local authorities, we kind of came to a very similar solution from the point of view of safeguarding SACs which was the need for a technical group to be set up to oversee monitoring and that included the sweet netting monitoring of sea lice burdens on wild fish. That really being the crux of this. But then referring that back to if an issue was identified in terms of elevation of sea lice numbers on wild fish, then looking at the farms in the area to see what's happening in those farms and is there a problem there. And then needing to have a some form of management plan that can then make changes to the way that those farms are being managed to cut the sea lice burden. We're getting some, it's taken some while to get to this place but the group, the SAC technical group to oversee that discussion has now been convened by Marine Scotland. There is work going on to start to scope out the monitoring that's needed to hopefully give the kind of wider picture certainly in terms of juvenile salmonid populations. We need to up the ante on the sweet netting on the wild fish and work out how that's going to be managed and who's going to pay for that. Industry are already stepping forward in some cases to look at how they take that forward. But it is a complicated sort of process to tie all this together and I also think there's something there about looking at the areas that we need to look at because it's not necessarily easy to relate the sea lice burden on the wild fish back to individual farms. We need farms to be thinking collectively on an area basis perhaps at the sea lock level about how they collectively provide a burden of sea lice that then might interact with the wild fish in that area. We are making progress but we've still got quite a long way to go and to make sure that it's regulatory, enforceable as well. Was that the tripartite agreement rehashed? It's moved from that, I think, but yeah, very kind in mind, yeah. I agree with what Alex and the work that Kathy has stated. I can't say a quick yes and no yes in terms of that final question by Richard around can they coexist, but it is with that range of appropriate practices to manage the sea lice burden and it is not just the chemical solution, it is the multiple preventative and practical management and some of the technologies that have been raised and expressed before. Ensuring that that is consistently done by the industry at the earliest opportunity, so the references that Alex was making to the points of when you then instruct a treatment and ensuring that that is then delivered across every site in the same fashion such that one treatment at one pen, never mind a multiple site, at the first response to manage the situation within that wider area. Practical monitoring and management, but yes, coexistence is possible and should be the case that it is with all those other factors in under play. Thank you. John, yours is the next question. I'll make it brief, convener, or brifar, because much of what's been touched on, and the reference has been made to the cumulative effect of various things, and I was going to list three, and that's the Marine Scotland Science Fish Health Improvement, excuse me, inspectorate, revised policy and control of sea lice, which has been referred to in its due for review in July. The commitment, given by the producers, a voluntary commitment connected with sea lice counts, and the third one was CEPAS developing sector plan. Excuse me, and it was to ask if you believe that these are sufficient to regulate industry effectively going forward, and if not, what issues will remain a challenge? Now, I appreciate much of what's been touched on, but I don't think that there's been reference previously to the voluntary changes that's been announced by the producers. I don't know who'd like to lead off on that. I mean, it seems the first question's a yes or no one, and then a short list afterwards, maybe I'm too hopeful. Ann? So, in respect to the remit, which I'm responsible for, I think yes, to the short question around the ability to do and the sector plan approach and the work that we've got under way, and our ability then to regulate and control it, because we've done the truthing and evidence on those pilot situations, and so the aspect of cumulative effect and the ability to expand that across the entirety of the marine coastal waters, that's a resource challenge because it's a costly process, again, of a reference ability to charge, but far better for all regulators and industry and the academics to collaboratively work together to get it done quicker would be the suggestion, and it certainly then is usable material for planning authorities and other regulators to identify a gozone or a nozone in respect to fish farming. The second part of the question, John. I talked about the SEPA's sector plan and the producer's voluntary undertaking. So the producers have voluntarily agreed to release the information, and that will be occurring. It's the detail. Both the salmon and trout industry will be providing that information, ensuring that those two different provision pieces marry up, because they do collect slightly differently. It's a volunteer. What if they don't provide that information? They don't provide—well, there is a provision, there is a certain amount of information that is provided, having it publicly available and consistent, so that it can then be compared is the key point, and that is under way, whether that is the under-regulation— Sorry, that's a point. What if they don't? What about a producer? I'm not going to publish. We do not ask for sea license information, because we don't monitor fish health. Is fish health inspected and controls there? Should it be regulated as a regulator to change behaviours? One thing to ensure that it happens is that you put it into regulation, whether it's in a licensing regime or whether it's in statutory baseline legislation. Does anyone else want to add to that? Or Kathy briefly, and then we'll move on to Stuart. Very briefly just to say that obviously the fish health inspectorate thresholds are set on the basis of the health of the farmed fish, so I think we just wanted to still make that link to—and obviously local authorities have picked up the mantle on this issue because there wasn't really another regulator with a clear mandate for taking that forward, but I think probably there is still a gap there in terms of who's really setting that level for the wild fish and how we're managing that within the system. Thank you. Stuart, the next question is yours. Thank you. I'm going to try and fairly briefly to just close off the issue of wild farm-farm fish interactions. Before giving you the detail, I wonder—and this is not a yes-no, it's a yes-no or your question is hopelessly oversimplified answer—would the panel agree that correlation is not indicative of causation? In other words, if you have a correlation between two things happening in two domains, it can be an interaction between those domains or it can be a further external factor that they share between the two. So correlation does not tell you that there's an interaction, it's not a causation. Is that a correct statement? Yes, I'm getting nodding heads, convener, so I'll just simply move on because I think that's quite an important point in where we are. The panel all nodded, yes. You're quite right. Kathy didn't. Kathy's just something. No, I did nod, but can I just say that that is the case? We wouldn't say that because we'd identified an issue, we would automatically link it to a specific cause, but I think that a lot of what we're doing in terms of advice is taking into account precaution and risk in relation to the obligations that we have. Therefore, we don't necessarily have to have complete proof that something is linked, but we have to have some management measures there to avoid harm and to take into account that risk. That's true, and I'm not trying to suggest that there is not an interaction. It's just about the language in how we deal with all this. Can I just move on, though? One of the difficulties it seems to me about this whole issue and the different players that there are—we've just had the first reference to who's responsible for health, for example, in today's panel—seem to be three sets of people who would have an interest in the interaction. The farms and the customers for all the farms who want to sell with a good environmental message—wild fish interests, obviously—and local communities and communities more widely. For each of them, is it clear to them how they can find out about wild fish, farm fish interactions? I suspect that it's not at all clear, especially, as we've heard from the panel, that there are gaps in the knowledge anyway. For those particular stakeholders, would it be clear where to go and get definitive answers to the questions that they might have? No, not clear. That is across too many different layers. The information gap is there, so not even would you find every question being capable of being answered, I think, is probably in terms of evidence on wild fish and interaction. Can I just add to that slightly off where the question was going? We do recognise that, of course, it's in everyone's interests that sea lice are kept to a minimum. There's no body involved in this debate that doesn't care about the sea lice burden. It's a big issue for the producer, it's a big issue for the consumer, a big issue for the retailer, a big issue for the planning authority, a big issue for consultees and environmental protection bodies. I think that it's important to recognise that everyone is working the way in the industry of spending a fortune on new methods of controlling sea lice. The issue probably is that the degree of success in controlling that sea lice is the issue that gives us our measure of risk in terms of wild fish interactions. So we're quite comfortable, everyone's working together in the same way. It's much more the degree of success that's being achieved that lends the sort of edge to the regulatory need because at the moment it's not always very successful and that is causing issues of an environmental nature. Alex, you want to comment? Yes, thank you. It's just to add to the comment about do people know what's happening. I think it's also important that people know what efforts are being made because we are dealing with the uncertainties and the unpredictabilities. Just because there isn't necessarily a good outcome doesn't mean that there hasn't been a sincere and determined attempt to achieve that. I think that's important to be recognised and it's not to say that that industry should or shouldn't be let off the hook but coming back to the very first question, the challenge for the regulatory regime is to enable those efforts to be properly directed not only to achieve the outcomes but also to have adequate accountability and reporting for the people who are interested. Just can I pick up on precisely what you said there that everybody acting in good heart to address the problem is not in and of itself the point, it's the outcome. So in other words, sincere efforts made to address the problem are not enough to influence how we regulate and manage the industry. I'm getting a nodding head to that. I think that covers everything that I want to. If you keep it short. I would just say that it is one aspect and I think that it is important that you open by asking the correlation and causation. It is one pressure without a doubt on picture but I've made reference to changing climate and other pressures in other industries and it's important not to look at the totality of potential pressures on the situation in respect to wild fish, beery, salmon or trout. I think that it is really important that there is clarity on that range and that each of those aspects are being handled, tracked and addressed such that the totality because there is no definitive one or other, it's the combination of. Thank you for indulging me Edward. I won't always have none. Jamie, yours is the next question. Thank you, convener, and good morning panel. I'm acutely aware that we're only halfway through our line of questions so I'll try and consolidate the theme of where I'd like to go next and that's around oversight of the industry and by that I mean growth plans for the industry, the speed of growth and the locations of growth. Can I ask the panel briefly individually who do you currently think provides oversight of the industry's expansion at the moment and secondly who do you think should be in charge of oversight of the industry's expansion? I'm going to give you each chance to answer that question so but I would ask you to keep it as brief as possible. Alex, do you want to start on that and then I'll go to Mark Ann and come back to Kathy at the end? I think at the moment it's tricky because of the fragmented nature of the regulatory framework that we're working with. Arguably Mark and his colleagues in local authorities have a lead role in determining what can happen where. I think there needs to be a better dialogue between regulators, government and the industry itself. I don't think at the moment there's a little bit too much of an us and them relationship between regulators and industry and I think that needs to be brought closer together to address frankly all of the uncertainties and all the questions we want answered a lot of which will only be able to come from industry in terms of their ambitions, the kind of innovations that they are looking at, the investment opportunities and ambitions that have there as well. So I don't think it's a single party who can do it. It needs to be a collaborative conversation and the industry need to be a central part of that. Ultimately you would expect the likes of government to be close and involved in the local authorities but ultimately it's all the stakeholders. Whether you choose a lead authority or whether you have it more as a dialogue between a number of parties, I don't quite know yet. I think the only thing that we need to do though is not ensure that industry is part of that and it is not left simply to the regulatory authorities because we need that input from the industry side. Mark, I'm going to encourage you all to concise answers if I may Mark. I think the appropriate system is the planning system. We've got it in place already. We need to use its spatial aspects to a greater extent to identify suitable areas. I slightly disagree with Alex, but only because, going back to my point, it's late in the day. This is a process that probably should have begun a long time ago. It may be that local authorities need to step forward and provide that regulatory clarity at this stage. Yes, we obviously need to talk to the industry and so forth, but we don't want to get into a five-year discussion period where nothing is done for another long period of time. I think that I just referred to some of the previous answers around the cumulative effect aspects. Each part of the regulatory landscape is looking at the impact in that wider context. The heat mapping that Marine Scotland is doing in terms of lice to get to ever closer to the point of that red amber green approach that is undertaken in Norway, which is sea lice and sea lice monitoring. One of those aspects is the layering of that total picture, and that definitely features the comment that Mark made around spatial planning, having the ability then to be able to identify clearly viable, effective, efficient and sustainable places to farm fish in its context with those other commercial and recreational users, and protection of the habitat within the environment. It is managing the totality of that, including the commons. It is getting to that point not just site by site, but totality, because it has to be taken in its full holistic context. It is informing that piece in terms of that spatial planning approach. Kathy, do you want to come in briefly? Very briefly. I would agree with the others that it is down to planning. However, Mark is referring more to terrestrial planning, because that is the way we mostly deal with aquaculture at the moment. I would mention marine planning in terms of the other uses of the marine environment. I really managed through that mechanism, and I think that we need to get better integrating the way we deal with aquaculture through the marine planning system as that evolves. We have got the national marine plan. We are now evolving our regional marine plans. We need to make sure that aquaculture is a part of that dialogue in working out how those regional marine plans will set out such spatial areas for different uses. If I could thank the panel for those answers. I think that what worries me and what strikes me from the responses is the concept that planning is somehow at the centre of all of this. Planning is a reactive duty. It is reacting to applications from the commercial sector to the private sector. What I am getting at and what nobody answered really is who should have oversight of the future direction of the industry in terms of its growth strategy and its locations, where the growth will be and the speed and rate of growth. If we look, for example, to—this is my second question—the Norway model, where it has taken a far more top-down approach with the Aquaculture Act, which basically creates the introduction of the licensing scheme. I think that others will have questions on the benefits of that or how it could work in Scotland. However, do you think that there should be a more top-down approach in Scotland from government level in terms of legislation or strategy or a single government agency that leads the charge, as opposed to this very disparate and, in fact, quite difficult to pin down in agreement any particular agency that should have oversight of the industry? I am still struggling to see who is leading the charge in terms of the strategy. I am going to bring Mark in and then maybe ask if one of the other panel members would like to probably argue the counter, which is the national one. I will bring Alex in on the basis that Mark is probably going to argue local. Mark. I was going to clarify. Do not forget within the planning system, there are two aspects to the Scottish planning system. One is the bit that I work with and you are quite right, the reactive applications part, but you will have upset an awful lot of my colleagues back in Inverness who work on the development plan side. That is the strategic spatial part of planning and many would argue is the heart of the planning system in Scotland. We are putting forward that that could take a much strong role and would provide the co-ordinating national local authority by local authority area picture. In national terms, obviously national legislation, national policy feeds into that process. I would agree with you that I would follow your comment that I think perhaps more could be done at a national level. It does help when national policy kicks off policies that the local authority can follow at its own level. But no, I think it is the other part of planning. It is the development plan side that needs to be brought forward into this. Alex. I would just say that I think we need to be careful about the focus on spatial elements here. The marine environment is one that already businesses based on coexistence because the impacts and the effects and the interests of various businesses usually extend way beyond their development footprint. If you start to get to and above on spatial elements, you rapidly run out of space. So marine planning is probably going to be more a function of managing coexistence and managing interactions than it is ever going to be about spatial abortion. The other point about long-term planning for an industry as dynamic as aquaculture means home farming is that the rate of innovative change can often make plans redundant very quickly. The industry's technological development proceeds at a far greater pace than reviews of plans and agencies and things like that. You could look back 30 or 30 years to develop the industry and see where are sites then, why were they there, where are they now and why are they here now. Would we have foreseen that 20 years ago or 10 years ago? How long is the plan going to be that we want to put in place? I think there's always an element of evolutionary change associated with marine business as part because of the nature of the environment, the extent of the interests and the impacts that you're talking about but also again the rapid rate of development of the businesses themselves. Just something to be wary of. It's more of an observation as a final point as it is worth noting though that the Norwegian Atlantic salmon farm ministry grew by 115 per cent over the same period as we grew at 20 odd percent so there is disparity there. So notwithstanding the rate of technological change that you refer to, there still is a fundamental flaw in how the market has developed in Scotland and what we're trying to achieve as a committee here is to look at how we can avoid those pitfalls in the future so that we can facilitate adequate and respectful growth. I want to look at what we can learn possibly from other countries and I think that Norway has to be the focus of much of that. We've got to recognise that their industry is eight times the size of our industry. It's rapidly growing. It's growing a million tonnes in the last 10 years from one and a quarter million tonnes production to two and a quarter million tonnes production. So it is huge in comparison and yet they seem to manage to regulate it better than we do. We're told that no fish farms are located near wild fish migratory routes. Fish farms that lose escaped fish must be caught in the Norwegian situation and we've already heard a wee bit from Mark about the traffic-like system. My question is, what can we learn from particularly the Norway experience and maybe pharaohs in other areas as well that we could use to more effectively regulate the industry in Scotland? I'm going to start off with Anne and maybe ask if you could limit it to a couple of points each if you want to come in on that and then if there's any we've missed out we'll pick them up at the end. The risk of repeating myself, the review that we've been undertaking within SEPA has included all global fish farming and ensuring that they're informed not just by other regulators wherever they happen to be in the hemisphere but taking the aspects of fish farming, being very closely watching what happens within Norway, within Canada, within Chile, within pharaoh islands and within Iceland, so close to home in terms of the European and specific species, but also looking at what fish farming in the global context and identifying the practices, exchanging information and that has included study and field trips to better inform our future regulatory controls in this area. Again, there are locational specific aspects, temperature specific aspects, so what is usable and transferable and what is the best fit, that dialogue has been continuing for a number of years so it's not certainly something that is just new to our approach but certainly over this last year we have done an intensive assessment globally to ensure that we are ensuring that Scotland's regulatory approach is keeping and pushing and better, yeah, leading in terms of regulatory and environmental protection controls. Having said all that, what specifically have you learned or what specifically are you good to do different in the near future because of what you've just been outlining and you've been looking at? It would be wrong of me to be able to, you know, I'm waiting for final policy decisions and legal checks and balances and that's the process of imminent. I did indicate we're going to be publishing at the end of June so I am literally days away from getting formal confirmation of some of those points and thereafter we will then be announcing that regulatory framework. It is a years-long work and therefore we're right at the end of it, the process that leads us to today commends midway through that process. One of the key things is actually ensuring what are the lessons that have worked to lend itself to a better environmental outcome and therefore are they directly transferable and usable within Scotland, made reference to use of technologies elsewhere and testing them within Scottish waters, how do we enable that, how do we encourage it and that is very much the process that we're undertaking. Mark. I would reiterate the big lesson that seems to be from the international examples I've seen is this question of providing an industry with a clearer map of where they should concentrate their activities. I think that would be hugely helpful to the regulator as well. It doesn't stop and this is perhaps where we have an advantage. We do have the application part of the planning system as well. If the industry wants to challenge it, that's the route they go down. You make an application in an area that perhaps we've indicated we're not so comfortable with and make their case, that can still happen. But generally I think we're going to be huge benefit to have done some of the environmental mapping as it were that identified those areas which are acceptable and those aren't. Cathy mentioned the SAC areas on the west coast. I mean we know the north and east coast have got some wonderful rivers that we don't want to have any impact on but on the west coast we have our SAC rivers as well. We think they should be protected also. I'll just make the observation for clarity there are our SAC rivers on the east coast as well as the west coast. In fact a lot of the rivers on the east coast are SAC either for species in river or within the Firth from seals to per mussels to other species as well. Alex and then Cathy if I could ask you to be brief. Very briefly. What can we learn bespoke legislation rather than the somewhat hodgepodge that we have here at the moment? Effective review and a management focus therefore they can accommodate changes and issues as they arise. We have to remember that planning can only address the activity not the manner in which that activity is undertaken and it is the management of activity usually that either makes it harmful or less harmful into environmental terms. So you can't always plan on the basis of the activity. You need to be able to review the way in which the activity has been undertaken. That is key and that I think is emphasised far more in the Norwegian system than we have it here. Cathy. Well from my understanding of things that are happening in Norway I would say one one that we were interested in is the way that they at a kind of regional level identify good sites that's a spatial planning aspect that we were talking about before. I think they look for good sites and then they basically offer those sites up for leasing to companies who then compete with each other to get to choose those suitable sites. So I think that that's something we could look at here. It would need a change to the way we currently operate but it might be beneficial. Innovation, they do a lot with sort of eco green licensing and we've been hearing within our organisations about some of the things that Norway are doing and now are thinking about trying to bring to some of their Scottish sites on the likes of closed containment on offshore barge type structures so you're still farming at sea but you are completely contained. Then there's also something around community benefits in terms of the way that the communities get funding back from the leasing arrangements and I think that that again is something that would be interesting to look at in Scotland. Thank you. Peter does that answer your question? I would just ask Cathy to focus in a wee bit on how they control sea lice numbers. I mean, they seem to be more successful. Their target levels are a lot lower than our target levels and they seem to be able to achieve that. Have you any comment as to how they do that differently? I'm not close to the actual arrangements that they make but I wonder whether by having a strict target that's just driving the innovation and the practice essentially but I'd probably be better to ask someone from Marine Scotland that question. Colin, yours is the next question. Thanks very much, convener. Can I turn now to the issue of funding for research and can I ask each of you if you could let the committee know what funding your organisation provides for research and innovation projects relating to salmon farming, including assessments of wild fish stocks? If I may, I could say, could I just target you to make those generic comments, not to go through each individual modelling process that's been funded, say, just a generic process of what you're doing because otherwise I think it would be short of time. Sorry, Cathy, would you like to start and we'll work along the… Well, for example, we've been a partner and director on the Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum for many years. Just over the last five years, we've contributed around £140,000 towards projects looking into different aspects of sustainable development of the industry. Unfortunately, that group is coming towards an end. We're looking into how we can channel that collaborative research going forward. We obviously do other work we're currently contributing. We're about to contribute to the work that I mentioned earlier on juvenile salmon monitoring along with SEPA and Marine Scotland. There's quite a lot. We can provide more detail if you would like individual examples of the sort of work that we're doing. I think that would be helpful. Alex? Yes, we contribute funding for research across the scope of the aquaculture sectors. We participate on the Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum, but we also contribute and fund individual projects. We like to co-fund and collaborate often with industry or other agencies, and the scope can be anything from community benefit through to wealth bond fish interactions and technical aspects. The key thing for us is enabling. It's looking at opportunities that will have a commercial legacy and then can be taken up by further funding by other agencies or by industry itself. Other than officer time taken in monitoring and so forth, we don't fund research. We have a very limited amount of money to fund research. We do have the intellectual property and the laboratory analysis, so it tends to be in kind support. There are, and like Kathy stated, happy to provide you with the details of the various projects, some of which I have made reference to, which are under way with collaboration with both industry and other regulators and academic institutions. You've mentioned collaboration with the industry, but do you think that fish farm operators in Scotland should contribute more towards research? If so, how do you think that would work in practical terms? There is a high level of research contribution on SAIC, and I believe that it is in front of you next week. It has a high component of industry funding to identify. I think that the most successful projects include that combination of factor, regulator, business and academic to give a better and stronger and more evidence-based outcome. That is really important. The Norwegian model has some interesting expectations built into innovation that directly requires the drive for, and that is led by the Government. There are other processes globally that are used that we do not use in Scotland. Can you just touch on that? The Norwegian model is to have a contribution to agriculture research fund. Do you think that there is sufficient investment in research in Scotland at the moment? I am not in a position to be able to say a yes and no to that. There is a range of it, and I think that it is ensuring that it is joined up and highly visible. Importantly, what money is then being used is not being duplicated. I would not want to be able to give a yes or no response to that. I would probably give it a no answer in terms of whether there is enough money. The Eclair report has very helpfully highlighted a huge long list of evidence gaps, most of which we would recognise as being high priorities. I do not think that between ourselves here we have anything like the amount of resource that is needed to try to prioritise those and start to tackle those. I think that there is an issue there in terms of funding to answer some of those really key research gaps that we keep coming back to. It would be great to try to make some progress. Should that extra funding come from the industry itself? As Anne said, the industry is already putting money into research, but I think that perhaps it would be useful to try to think about how we make the best use of that funding that is there and what are the key evidence gaps that we really need to focus on now. Mark, do you want to add to that, or are you happy to leave it at that? We had a response from the Scottish Government on recent applications, just to highlight where we are with the research. It comes out of the clear stone, salmonac culture can result in elevating numbers of sea lights in open water, hence in some circumstances, is likely to have an adverse effect on populations However, the magnitude of any impact from sea lights arising from farms in relation to the overall mortality levels of sea trout or salmon populations is not known. That is from the Scottish Government. It just strikes me that that indicates that there is quite a serious dearth of data this far on into Scotland's salmon industry history, as it were, an activity. It is a fairly fundamental piece of research, which obviously has not occurred, it is not possible for Government officials to assist a planning authority in providing any information on that important material consideration for us. I would suggest that funding is needed industry-government combination possibly in order to bridge that sort of a gap, but I think that that is quite a glaring gap within the current situation given that it is 2018. In relation to what Mark has said, there are some fairly substantial sums floating around, because a lot of the research is being undertaken by a company servicing the industry as well, so if you add up the totality of what is being spent, I suspect that it is fairly significant. There is, I would agree though, possibly a direction more towards the technical side rather than the management side. Things like the Wildfish and Farming Interaction that we keep coming back to, I am not convinced that there is a solution as such that research will address, but what we can certainly look to do is to put greater funding towards piloting management practices, novel practices, innovative relationship and collaboration, improving the relationship between the industry and its stakeholders through interactive pilots and things like that. I think that there has been a gap there that could do with it a bit more so. Thank you. That is probably a good place to leave that and move on to the next set of questions, which is Fulton MacGregor. Thanks for being on that question about the funding of regulation. I would just like to start by asking the fish farm operator payments for licences in your opinion cover the costs that your organisation accrue in regulating sector? It sounds like a yes or no answer. Get me shot here. The maximum fee for a fish farm application is approaching £20,000. That is the application fee, the planning application fee, which sounds a considerable amount of money. It probably covers the initial cost of determining the application. The point was made earlier, does it cover on-going monitoring? I cannot answer that question then because I am not sure what level of monitoring is required, but there is no other fee that can be drawn on for that, so that £20,000 will have to cover on-going monitoring for the planning authority as well. That is a reasonably positive answer, but perhaps we are at the negative tail end. Again, we have a published charging scheme. The intent is for us to be able to balance the effort that we expend in the industry, so that the more volume of applications that the higher the fee component is, and each individual process put right down to inspection and, as I referenced earlier, our ability to recover some of our enforcement actions, which is a new ability under two different powers, under the new enforcement suite of tools that we have. We have cost recovery, and the industry pays for that. Likewise, that is the case in undertaking monitoring and our ability to charge for those activities. I will ask Anne, because it is probably for herself one of the other questions that I have inspired. Why are there currently no SEPA-monitored firms, if you like? Do you think that that affects the compliance? I am sorry, I didn't... SEPA-monitored firms? What why is unknown of them specifically? We undertake a process of risk assessment, where we target our monitoring effort. Companies, regardless of the regime in which they are operating, undertake and report their own monitoring. Part of our regulatory control is advising when they are going to undertake particular studies, such that we have the ability to go and regulate the actual monitoring exercise and capturing data. The use of laboratory analysis is all under accredited schemes. Validation of results occurs in that process, too. It is a combination of operator and modelling, and then oversight, audit and compliance and enforcement, led to monitoring by ourselves as a regulator. Alex, do you want to answer as far as the fees that are raised in relation to your licences? Yes. We are a different organisation. We are not a regulator. We are acting in land owning capacity and we grant rights once all the necessary consents have been secured. As such, we do not charge for an application fee for release, but we charge an on-going rent. That rent is derived from an independent review carried out at a sector level every five years. It is currently £27.50 per harvest. It got a weight ton for fish farmed in the mainland. There is a 10 per cent discount on that if fish are farmed in the outer aisles. It is on-going annual charge. It covers our costs, but that is the purpose of returning revenues to the Scottish Consolidated Fund. To round off, I wonder if the panel gives an answer on how they feel that regulators in Scotland could work more effectively together. When you are giving an answer, if you think it is appropriate, you can make reference to your thoughts on assisting them with auction licences such as in Norway. I am happy for the panel that has given a point on that. That is my final question. Who would like to kick off on that? Mark, you look the other way, so that must mean that you want to. To be honest, on the licences, I really do not think there is much I can say. The first question was about how regulators would work effectively together. There was one point that just came from what Alex and Anne and Kathy have been saying. Perhaps an area where we do need to look at for improvement is that we have all talked about monitoring. Alex pointed out that that may be a really important part of future regulation. At the moment, we are probably quite weak on coordinating monitoring of individual farms, because obviously our interest in them tends to be drawn to our particular attention at a particular time. I think perhaps that there is a need for us to look at what each other body is doing in respect of an individual farm to make sure that our approaches are absolutely co-ordinated. It is quite early days on that front, though, I have to say. Collaboration in terms of sharing of information and data sets. When we undertake our surface and last year was a focus in the Shetland area of fish farming, those conclusions and reports are published, so they are available in terms of those bigger, wider surveys. Individual sites and individual information provided by site is submitted to ourselves. We publish the results of those assessments and sharing and linking those pieces together is actively being progressed at the moment. It is about making sure that everybody has access to help to inform their particular regulatory actions. There is also the need to have, and Cathy indicated, some of the joint study work this year, a campaign that is a study of electrofishing across Scotland, undertaken by Marine Scotland, led by Marine Scotland, but active tripartite delivery with SNH and SIPA. That, again, having every bit of data available for each individual regulator and, of course, for the public to have access to see is very much part of the industry being part of that, too. Cathy, do you want to say anything? I am not sure, Ann or Mark, that you covered the issue that Fulton asked about auctioning licences from a… I might give you a chance to think that one through and come back. Cathy, do you want to come? I think that that is similar to what I was mentioning that we had heard about from the Norwegian experience. I think that it needs a lot more thinking in terms of how that might operate in Scotland, but certainly the basis for that would be having that clearer picture of where the suitable locations are and having that joint discussion between industry and all the regulators and communities as well at a very early stage before you identify what those lease areas might be. However, I can see benefits in that. I would just take a bit of thinking about how that would tie in with the ability to regulate. We have looked through lots of pieces of work recently at the regulatory regime, whether we had the independent consensus review, looking at ways that that process could be streamlined. I think that it was pretty hard to find major changes to the way we do things in Norway. They obviously have similar numbers of bodies contributing, but they just have a sort of front-facing main body that the application goes to, and then they do the consultation behind a door, as it were. I do not think that that is really that different in terms of the way that the system works. One thing that I mentioned earlier that I think would be good to consider again, it might need some changes, but it relates back to monitoring again, but how we collaborate in relation to the area management of fish farms. Thinking about, say, a sea-lock scale or an area and all the fish farms within that area, what is the monitoring telling us? What does that mean for the management of those individual farms within an area? Maybe we need to think about how we can do that better as a group of regulators and advisers. I am going to be very brief, and I will give you each chance to come in on the auctioning of licences. If I may just very quickly, on the regulatory side, Norway has an overarching piece of legislation, the Aquaculture Act, which brings all the... It is multiagency, but the relationship is governed by the terms of that Aquaculture Act. That is what we are missing here. Kathy mentioned the independent consent review that was undertaken in 2016. That refers to that, and there is proposed solution in that regard. Coming to the auctioning of licences, it depends on the value that you put on leases and licences. In our case, we look to have the rent that we charge on a lease reflect the business that is undertaken across the ground. If you start to auction off leases or licences, are you still reflecting the value of the business that is going to be undertaken, or are you creating a separate asset market in its own right that will be subject to its own supply and demand? At the moment, there is a huge demand for new sites in Scotland. With that, would you get a property price explosion in terms of the prices that are going to be offered for those? Does that necessarily reflect the value of the business? What is important in reflecting the value of the business is that free and fair to all those who might wish to undertake it? Obviously, if the prices go up, we are talking about the bigger companies being in the game and others being excluded. We are dealing with a consolidated industry that is largely composed of large multinational companies, but not exclusively so. We have to be careful that the regulators by adopting such a measure do not automatically start consolidating in their own right. That is up to industry to work itself. We need to make sure that we are fair in reflecting the value of what is being offered in terms of what is being charged for it. A brief comment, Mark. You do not have to. I think that the auction system has to be supported by certainty for the industry. You have to know what you are bidding for. In fish farming, you need to know that you are bidding for a site that is going to end up as producing fish. We are not there at the moment by some degree, I would suggest. I would agree with what has been said by my colleagues. Fulton, that brings us to the end of our questions. I would like to thank each member of the panel for giving us such detailed answers. There is still the opportunity, if you want, to feed into the inquiry that the committee has had to submit written evidence. I think that the date is 28 April and the date is the last date for evidence. There is some flexibility on that, but I would encourage you to do that. I would like to thank you all for the evidence session this morning. I would now, as that concludes committee business, formally close the meeting.