 Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2018 of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Could I ask everyone please to make sure that their mobile phones are on silent? No apologies have been received, so we'll move straight on to the agenda item one, which is the Implications for Scotland of the UK leaving the EU, you know, in relation to agriculture and fisheries. We're going to be taking evidence from two panels. The Llywodraeth Cymru wedi ei ddweud bod cysylltu'r rhaglenju am gynnwys Funysol. Fe wnaeth hynny'ch cael eu cyfrifiadau. Felly wnaeth ychydig arill i'i ddod o试fyddiol ac iddo i'n ddefnyddio'r ddysgu arall. Mae'n sicr hynny'n gwybod am y nghymru, First of All, Martin Kennedy, bod mae'r Fyles Genedig yng Nghymru i Ddylo'r Inau South wnaeth sorgfaith. Andrew Midgeley, newspaper ynghylch gyfydigol i'r gyflymau ynghylch gyflymfawr ond yn ei dddefnydd. Scotland and the States, Vicky Swales, the head of land use policy at RSPB, Dr Cormann Hubbard, senior lecturer of agriculture at Newcastle University and Professor Michael Keating, the Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen. We have a number of themes and members of the committee are going to lead off on each theme, so I'm not going to introduce them. The themes are just to ask the member to introduce them. If you want to speak, just to remind you, if you could try and catch my eye, you don't feel you have to answer or come in every time, otherwise we'll never get to the end of the nine themes to give you a clue of how many we've got to go through by the end of it. So if you want to say something, catch my eye and I'll bring you in. Could I also just also remind you that if you are speaking, just to keep looking at me occasionally, I might give you a sign to reduce the length of your answer without reducing the content of it. It's just a question of managing it, so I'd try not to interrupt you. For those that haven't given evidence before, which I think you all have, don't worry about any of the control panel in front of you, that will all be done for you and your microphones will be activated when you need to. The first theme is going to be introduced by John Finnie. I want to talk about champions and advisers, and as ever, there's a great deal happening. We've got the agricultural champions in their interim discussion document that was produced in November of last year. Professor Griggs in his work on the greening group and a discussion paper produced fairly recently the National Council for Rural Advisers and their interim report published last year. Could you maybe just give me your general comments on the roles of all of those people and whether, indeed, their interim reports and discussion documents are a sound and consistent basis for the development of detailed agricultural policy for Scotland? Vicky, you were the first one to put your hand up, so everyone else looked to each other to see who was going first. Vicky, you start off. Anyone else, just catch my eye. Thank you, convener. I should say that I'm also here wearing a Scottish Environment Link hat, the umbrella body for environmental NGOs. I was also a member of the greening group, chaired by Professor Russell Griggs. I was very pleased to have that opportunity, and we've come forward with a paper that I hope sets out what we feel are some cogent arguments and ideas about the way forward for policy to deliver environmental outcomes in Scotland. Obviously, we've been following the working of the other groups, the agriculture champions and their interim report and responded to that, and the national council of rural advisers. I think that it's sometimes a little difficult to see how all of those groups are going to join up and where all their conclusions are going to come to in terms of where we go next. Obviously, that is something for the future. I think that we feel that we do need to move quite quickly now to get on the front foot to start to spell out the sense of direction for agriculture policy in Scotland going forward. I think that there's a lot of commonality across those groups. I think that there's a lot of shared conclusions in terms of some of the problems, some of the challenges and also, I think, in terms of some of the solutions that we need to put in place in terms of some of the policy mechanisms and payments and measures going forward. My message is, I think, let's get on the front foot, let's start to agree what we agree on and start to work out some of the detail. Admittedly, there are lots of uncertainties and issues that we don't yet know the conclusions of in terms of trade agreements and all those things, but I do think that we can start to spell out what we want to see in terms of the future for agriculture and the environment in Scotland. Andrew John, do you want to add to that? I support what Vicky says. I think that we need to see some action. We need to see the Government grasping hold of the agenda. Unfortunately, with the greatest respect to the groups, because the groups are populated by eminent people doing a job that they've been asked to do, our issue is more with the Government in terms of if we want to see the Government take hold of and move forward on these agendas more quickly, like Vicky says. If we go back through some of the policy developments in, say, if you take the agriculture champions area, you've had various reports from 2001, 2006, with the forward strategy next steps. There was a vision document in 2010. There was the national discussion document that was in 2015. That then opened a year of discussion about where we should go for Scottish agriculture. The Scottish Government then produced a document in 2016 summarising that. That document basically said that the findings was that the vision was sound. There should be a focus on priorities. Instead of trying to achieve everything, focus on what's the real priorities. The priorities are enhancing profitability of Scottish agriculture and enhancing environmental sustainability. Six months later, the Government creates a group to look at the issue again. There's an element of frustration in that we want to see progress and at the moment we're still talking. There's a feeling that we're behind the curve in the wider debates about where agriculture is going in the context of Brexit. Action is a key thing. In terms of the content, the agriculture champions report, there's one element that we'd like to see. It's a concerning element, which is that agriculture and the debates about the future of agriculture tend to be taken forward separate from the debates about agricultural holdings. Agricultural holdings, farm tendency gets forced through a prism of land reform and yet all the future of agriculture tends to have its own debate elsewhere. It seems unfortunate that we're not talking about how do we create the best circumstances for agriculture to succeed when we've got a big chunk of the industry being dealt with somewhere else. I want to bring Martin in. John, if you want to push back, because Carmen would like to come in as well, so maybe you've got a follow-up question that's coming in. Martin, if you can come in on that. Thank you, convener. To echo Andrew's points to a certain extent, we need to move on now. With regard to being in the front foot, NFU Scotland was, at last year, when we launched our change document, we were aware of the priorities that we need to focus on. We understand that we need to move slightly where agriculture is at the present time, and our three priorities were productivity improvements, environmental benefits and still having that stability payment. We took that lead last year. With regard to the question on how we feel the National Council of Rural Advisers and the Champions, the Greg's Review group's reports were, we were actually quite happy with the direction that they were going in, because we thought it kind of backed up our argument to a certain extent. With regard to their reports so far, we were quite happy with that, and we want to take back to echo Andrew's point of view. We need to move on now, because time will catch up on this very quickly, but with regard to our priorities when we launch the change document, we do recognise that we need to look more towards environment, seek environmental benefits that we can provide, because bearing in mind agriculture, farmers and crofters across the country are looking after farming and crofting 73 per cent of the land mass in Scotland. We are absolutely key, as grass-root members, to deliver those outcomes, and we feel that we can do that. John, do you want to come back in there, or do you? I do sense Mr Midslith's frustration there. The extent to which all of this is completely changed by the uncertainty around Brexit is the suggestion that there should be a consolidation of those reports. In different circumstances, people might be critical of a Government that set a course of direction on ensure of arrangements with the EU. Can I bring Carmen in on that, and then maybe come back to Andrew or who else? Do you want to come in on that? Yes, I do believe that consolidation of the reports will actually make sense. When I was reading the documents that were provided, particularly the document for the champions, I thought that there is a lot of common sense there. There are some very good points with the champions made within the report, which, as an academic, I felt that it fits very well with my own thinking. One of the points is about the change in the mindset of the farmers, the business models, and also the fact that public support is not an automatic right. We all need to think that if we want to make our voice heard and we want to get public support, how we can actually encourage consumers and taxpayers to support us, but I do believe very much into the consolidation of the report. Something I would like to mention is about the fact that wherever we go, where I'm going around, I can hear about self-sufficiency. I think that from our point of view, I mean the UK level, this will be very difficult to be achieved, and that is because we don't have a comparative advantage when it comes to agriculture. We are doing, I think, very well, but we should actually focus on those things which we think we can be competitive and will bring us a profit. I'm going to bring Andrew in and then Vicky and then come back to John, if I may. Andrew? Yes, Brexit clearly changes a great deal. It presents an entirely new context, but the fundamental issues remain. We have a good handle on what those issues are because they have been recurring themes through all those different policy documents that have looked at the future of agriculture around productivity, enhancing profitability, around the difficulties associated with the nature of the land in Scotland, around the environmental improvements that we need to deliver, those sorts of things. We have a pretty good handle on what we need to do. Yes, Brexit does present a new context, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have a clear idea of the sorts of things that we still need to do anyway. Vicky, do you want to come in on that? Yes. I think that, whilst there are all these uncertainties as a result of Brexit and the on-going negotiations, we can say what we want for Scotland, and we can set out at least the broad structure of the policy that is needed to take us forward. We can look to what is also happening in Europe in relation to common agricultural policy. We have had two communications now from the commission setting out the direction for that, which one way or another, depending upon the outcomes of the Brexit negotiations, may well continue to frame what we think we need to do here as well. We should look to that. That is talking about a much more outcomes-led policy, with much more to use the EU jargon subsidiary or Arity for the member states and regions to define the policy that best delivers for the outcomes that we are all looking for, be they on the economic front, the environmental or the social. I think that we absolutely should be shaping that. I would say that Scotland often leads in many respects. It has some world leading legislation and policy. I sense that, as a UK organisation, my colleagues in Wales, Northern Ireland and England, their Governments are moving quite quickly to shape what they want to see in terms of future policy, and it does rather feel that Scotland is a little bit behind the curve at this point in time. Thank you, John. That leads us neatly on theme 2. That is going to be Mike Rumbles. Thank you very much, convener. It is about the future of agricultural policy, and it just follows quite neatly, in fact, just from what Vicky has been saying. Just to put this into context, back in January last year, Parliament unanimously passed a motion calling on ministers to establish an independent group involving stakeholders to provide advice to the principles and policies that should underpin options for rural support beyond 2020. The committee has heard from the agricultural champions that this is not them, and it seems that neither is the National Council of Rural Advisers going to provide those options. I am particularly taking what Vicky just said. What we should be doing is getting the producers, the environmentalists, the consumers more particularly, and getting every stakeholder involved to design and input that to the Scottish Government so that we can get a system that everybody can buy into. By buying into it, will we actually get it when that succeeds? A lot of people have been saying that to me, and I was wondering whether you would agree with that. Is that the future forward? Have we missed a trick over the last 18 months? I want to bring in a comment. I think that there is one group that you said that we have missed out, which was the politicians side of it. I would like to get the professor in at some stage during this debate on it and say, come on, would you like to go first on that? Yes, thank you. Absolutely. Some years ago I have done a lot of work on island. I was looking at the structural changes of the agricultural and rural development island since the beginning of the republic and even before. One thing that came out of the report was very clear that the relationship between the public, private and the government sector actually made a difference. Of course, they had a national strategy, a regional strategy, there are other things. Of course, they got a lot of subsidies from the European Union. However, I think that bringing together people at the table does make a difference. It is not only about the stakeholders, but it is about everybody. We really need also to get farmers to work within the supply chain. I think that that will be crucial, but everybody should actually be involved. I am allowed to say that when it comes to rural, our voice is maybe less heard and probably rural doesn't really appear in documents around Westminster. It is true that we talk about agriculture, but agriculture, which is the centre of the rural community and everything comes around. I think that is crucial. The question was, should there be the process involving everyone? I would say yes, there needs to be a process, but I think the government needs to galvanise the process. We could create a process that grows arms and legs, but we need speed, so the government needs to take the lead. I fully support that. The point that I was going to make, I think, genuinely is a broad range of stakeholders around the table, farming, rural, environmental and consumers. One trick that we often miss is connecting the farming policy with our food system and our food policy. We have a commitment to a good food nation, Bill. We need an agriculture policy and a food policy now that delivers, in the broader sense, for society in terms of our food production. I would like to see that joining up happen as part of that process. Michael, do you want to add something at this stage? I would like to go back to Mike, because I think there are other questions that will then allow me to bring in Martin. I start up with a general comment about policymaking in Scotland after devolution, which is that we have not really been very good at social partnership or joining up previously separate policy areas. This is the will of the wisp of public policymaking, how you can join things up. We are very good in Scotland about consultation, but that is quite a different matter altogether. Particularly in changing policy fields, because we used to have agricultural policy, and then it is rural policy. Rural policy has an economic dimension, environmental dimension, a social dimension, even a cultural dimension. We are not quite caught up with this. We are not very good at managing change in Scotland either. We have a consensual model of policymaking, which in some respects is very good, but does not really enable us to face up to the challenge of change. Agricultural policy and rural policy are going to change irrespective of Brexit. We all know that it is changing. The old model is changing. Brexit may give us that shock and force people to do it, but it is not happening fast enough, because Brexit is forcing the timetable. I would entirely concur with what my fellow witnesses have said here. We have not really got up to speed with this, facing decisions that have got to be taken in the very near future, which may have long-term consequences. I am going to bring Mike back in. I will come to you, Martin. Do not worry. I am not forgetting you. I am very much seeing your wanting to come in. Putting this into context, of course, for many years, the £500 million or so that has gone into our rural economy every year has not really been challenged amongst ministers, because if we have not used it for the European programmes, we would not be able to use it at all. But when we leave the European Union, this money could be up for grabs. The whole process of support to rural Scotland could be questioned, unless, in my view—if you would comment on that—the Government comes forward, having discussed this with all the stakeholders, with a bespoke system that is suitable for Scotland, which is perfectly defensible from all the aspects of producers, consumers and everybody else. By defensible, among other competing arguments from the health service or education service, it has not been exposed to now. This is going to be a major issue when we leave the European Union. I would just like to hear your views about the view that I am expressing. I am going to go to Martin and then Vicky. Thanks, convener. I think what you have said, Mike, is absolutely spot on about having a bespoke system for Scotland. That is absolutely vital, because we are different from the rest of the UK, and we need to have that going forward. To comment what Carmen said about having the rural voice heard, that has probably been missed quite a lot to a certain degree. I think that we have been in a number of meetings—I for one was in one last year where there were 27 people around the table talking about the future of agricultural policy and support. I was actually the only farmer that was there, but I was the one that was going to be facing the consequences of the decisions that was going to be made. To hear the rural voice and what is actually going to fit on the ground, we have talked about supply chains there already. The supply chain system is not working from a grassroot farmer and crofter's perspective, so we need to have a system. There is £500 million coming into Scotland that, as you say, is up for grabs. We need to make sure that that is actually a ring-fenced agriculture, because a lower £500 million comes in agriculture spending £2.8 billion back out into the economy. That is actually the catalyst for the food and drink sector in Scotland, and that is the largest part of the economy. We need to make sure that we do listen to the rural voice and who that this is actually going to affect most. That is actually the farmers and crofters that are on the ground. Andrew R.T. I am going to bring you in, and then I am going to briefly bring Jamie in before I go back to Mike for a further question. Andrew first. Thank you, convener. Sorry, I have got that completely wrong. Andrew, I am going to put you on pause and Vicky you are right to catch my attention, because you asked first, it is Vicky first, and then I am going to bring Jamie in and then Andrew. You will all get your chance. I am sorry, I do not want to cause disruption in the panel. Vicky, you were first, and I will bring you in now. Thank you, convener. I think Andrew and I are actually on the same page on a lot of things, but anyway. Last March Scottish Environment Link produced our paper renewing Scotland's rural areas, and we set out some ideas about future policy. We said some things that I think are very pertinent to this question. We are absolutely clear that we need to retain at least the current levels of investment that we currently get from the cap in our rural areas in agriculture in delivering environmental outcomes, but I think that you are absolutely right. We are going to have to fight hard and make some very cogent convincing arguments to the taxpayer and the people who are stomping up this money as to why we should spend that money and what outcomes it is delivering. Link thinks that we should keep that money, but we should reshape and reframe how we spend it. We think that one of the strongest arguments is that we use that money, public money, to deliver public goods, that we should underpin agricultural land management and deliver the environmental and other outcomes that we are looking for. We should use that money to make investments to facilitate change, to help farming businesses to adapt and become better able and better placed to benefit from the market and to explore opportunities out there, and we need to invest in supporting activities, in training, advice, education and research that underpins all of that. Three broad areas. By doing that, we think that we can reshape the outcomes that we are getting and get more bang for our buck from the money that taxpayers are stomping up. That is where we need to get to and get to quite quickly. Jamie, do you want to come in briefly there? Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Given that we have relied on membership of the CAP and given that farming is quite a heavily subsidised industry in the UK, as it is across much of Europe, and whilst there might be some political to and fro around funding commitments as we move forward post Brexit, does anyone in the panel have any view on whether they think the Scottish Government at the moment has a solid plan for creating the bespoke system that Mr Rumbles was talking about? I am not saying this to make any political points, because I think that it is important as a committee what we are here to do is see what the industry thinks. If we are prepared not withstanding the financial settlement that may or may not occur between the various Governments, but, from a policy point of view, in developing the future of Scottish farming, are we in a good place at the moment? Andrew R.T., do you want to answer that? I am going to come back to Mike Rumbles. I know that Richard R.T. wants to say something as well. Is there a plan? Not that I am aware of. Are we in a good place? Not really. I think that we have quite a long way to go to get into that better place. That is why we need the speed and the development of that position quickly. We entirely support on the point of creating a defensible system. We entirely support and have stated that we are keen to see a move or change in the support so that it is much more defensible. That means probably moving towards a greater emphasis on the delivery of public goods, so that if you are using public money people can see what they are getting in return. We accept that. I would pick up on Martyn's point on a bespoke system. Absolutely, that is really important. One reason why it is really important is because of the nature of the land use in Scotland being slightly different to England and Wales. What I have in mind is forestry. We are talking about agriculture policy, but rural land use is going to change. Forestry has a role in that rural land use and is supported through the same funding streams. We have to think carefully around how we might want to use the land and how different policy areas fit together. Yes, we want to support agriculture, but we also want to support forestry. We need to be intelligent about that, so we need to create something in Scotland that is bespoke for us that enables those things to work together. I want to be fair here because I want to put the counter argument that I have just been putting. When we had the cabinet secretary here before and I have asked him that very same question because I feel that this is where we should be going. He said, I cannot do that because we do not know what the level of funding is going to be. How can I design a system if I do not know what the level of funding is going to be? So far, that has been the cabinet secretary's response to this line of questioning. I wondered what your reaction is to that response. In other words, I cannot do that. I cannot set the bespoke system until I know how much money we are getting. What is your view on that? Carmen, would you like to say something on that? Martin, I noticed you immediately raised your hand up. I am just trying to think of all the questions because I would have started with the question about not being about politics. Politics always prevails and I would ask everybody and I think I would say the same in the Westminster. I think we really have to come together. Whatever party, we really need to have a voice if we really want to make Brexit a success for everybody. I am a Romanian as well, but I am here for about 18 years. I think we should really start working together. You are right, probably we don't have a plan, but there is no plan at Westminster for the moment. We have accepted what Mr Goff said in the speech at Oxford. The other question will be related. Public money for public goods, but what are public goods? It's not yet a definition and we don't have any idea how this will work in practice and how implementation means. We may end up with more red tape that maybe we have probably now depending on how we would like to assess what's actually happened on the ground. I would like to come to your question. When it comes to funding, I think we have to think about why do we give this funding, what's the purpose, whom will be the beneficiary and how they will benefit actually from this money. I strongly believe that subsidies so far under the cup have been misused and we all know that larger farmers benefited and I have figures on the capitalisation of land following the decouple payments and even the reform which was done after 2013, a new paper which actually came out just a few months ago, which showed that actually more than half of the farming support actually goes into the value of the land. It's quite important. Funding should be targeted to those who are actually in need and are vulnerable and probably will need to identify who are they and why they need it and how they will benefit from. The other point I want to make is that we have to think about that based on Ricardo's theory, any form of support which is related to land use will always be capitalised in the value of the land. Whatever subsidies we give, which are related to land use to a lesser or greater extent, will be capitalised on the value of the land. I'll let you think about the ownership. I'm going to bring Martin in and then I'm going to bring Richard in briefly. On the first point, do we think that the Scottish Government has a plan to echo what Andrew said? No, I don't think they do. On the second point, should we wait or should we wait until we find out what the budget is? I honestly don't think that that's the way forward because if we wait until we have clarity on what the budget is going to be, it's going to be too late. I think that if we're smart enough and I think we can do it as we devise a system that will be relevant to whatever budget is going to be achievable in the future. I think that that's absolutely vital because we have to get it to again say what Carmen said. It needs to be targeted at the correct people. In December, when we spoke to George Eustice, he recognised that the area-based system has not been maybe the best way forward and possibly been a mistake in the past. I think that going forward we'll have a great opportunity now to target those who actually are in need of this support mechanism and highlight what we are getting from that support. Whether it's environmental benefits, whether it's productivity and improvements, whether it's going to be supporting agriculture in rural areas that's keeping people in these areas because people are very, very important in this whole outcome. We need to keep people in our rural areas for environmental benefits and for tourism benefits as well. I think that we'll have an opportunity now that we can actually grasp that we might not get another chance for a long time but the system's not worked so far and it needs to be targeted far better that those that are providing environmental benefits and doing what we can do for the economy in Scotland. Okay, I'm going to briefly bring in Richard. Yeah, I'm a little surprised at what Martin Kennedy just said there but maybe refreshing but come on to the point that Vicky Swales was saying. So you may say there's now an opportunity to fully review the payment system but when you change a system you effectively do someone out of money and we're going to have a lot of farmers who are not going to be happy campers if we effectively take someone's getting £100,000 and tomorrow they're only getting £50,000. So you know, hear what you're saying Martin but well to me it sounds as though you were but to get to the point that Vicky Swales do you agree that we have to review, refresh the system and if we do are we not going to have a lot of people who are going to be unhappy? Vicky you can answer that and then I'm going to come, I've got a particular question for Michael if I may say Vicky if you'd like to answer that. Well inevitably there will be change and it's often talked about in relation to cap you know when you change things there are winners and there are losers I'm not sure that's always the right way to look at it back to the point this is taxpayers money what is it delivering. I think critical to this will be about transition and we may come on to this I mean none of us I think are arguing that we go from one system to another so please don't dwell on to it overnight that people have to have time to adapt but they need clarity of what the end point is and I think if they know where we're going and what the new system is going to look like people can adapt their businesses and look at what the new opportunities might be but there will be change there will be restructuring within the agriculture sector and the land use sectors I think that is an inevitable consequence of what we are facing. Okay thank you I would like to ask Michael a question but before I do I'm going to have to admit as a convener I was remiss at the beginning of the meeting not to ask members to declare any interests they have and it should go on record that there are members with interests and I'm going to do the first declaration in that in my register of interests I am a member of a farming partnership and I suspect there may be other members might like to declare an interest at this stage Peter you've caught my eye I was going to declare an interest convener as a partner in a farming business in Aberdeenshire absolutely and Stuart you are going to caught my eye I have a very small agricultural holding from which I derive neither support nor income and I'm glad we got those out of the way before any of the three people on the members of the committee asked a question which means that I can now ask a question Michael is that the two two old sayings that I heard I've heard in the past is too much analysis leads to paralysis and don't bring me a problem bring me a solution that seems to be what what I've been hearing this morning and and kind of what you said is is that your principle on on the this section that we've been nearing yes and and nobody would disagree with that the difficulty is how you do it and as I said I've been critical of the way that policy making is developed in Scotland since the devolution because of the lack of innovation we carry out policies quite well we consult we keep people happy but there's not a lot of innovation and new thinking there and this is even more true in agriculture than in other areas and I think somebody said was it Mike Rumbles that we've had all this money coming from the CAP so this was an excuse not to not to innovate not to think about change so suddenly we've got to do things very very quickly governments are overstretched the UK government is massively overstretched by brexit it's unable really to think about other policies the Scottish government is extremely overstretched as as well so that new thinking has got to come from somewhere else there are plenty of ideas around there but we need to do it very very quickly and of course politics is inevitable it's naive to say like take the politics out of it because politics is all about making public policies that's what politics is about and it's about winners and losers and it's about making tough decisions so at some point government is going to have to make some strategic decisions I should say we shouldn't underestimate the difficulties that the government has got because we don't know how much money there will be we don't know what strings will be attached we don't know what free trade deals there will be negotiated all of this will affect agricultural policy but at least Scotland has an opportunity here to declare what it wants and in the various negotiations that will take place around for example the forthcoming agriculture bill it will be important that Scotland has a clear position to go into those negotiations and discussions okay I think we'll move on to theme three which is peter thank you convener and good morning panel my theme is about the transition to a future a agricultural policy now the UK government has set out some some meet on the bone some timing for the transition to a new UK agricultural policy for farm support in england and I stress that it is in england because Michael Gove has been very clear to me anyway that Scotland has the responsibility to to design the system for Scotland going forward so the the timetable in england is 2018 bps is normal 2018 2019 bps is normal and then you're in a transition period current cash funds are guaranteed until 2022 and going forward there in england there's proposing a cap or a sliding scale of reductions on on payments and then post 2024 we're in a new environment of land management system and you know being paid public money for public goods now that's roughly where we are as far as I understand it with what Michael Gove said is going to happen in england what is a panel clear the direction for business in scotland being provided about what do we expect during a transition period and beyond with regard to transition going forward I think it also still comes back to stability going forward because post 2024 we don't know what budgets are going to be but we still need to highlight why Scotland is totally different from england I know Michael Gove's speeches up to the Oxford farming conference and again and if he confirms yesterday is highlighting particularly to do with england now scotland does have to have this bespoke system going forward so with regard transition we would realistically need time until we can have that future arrangements going into place so to our mind we will be looking at something similar until we can actually put in place something post brexit post 2024 in fact but beyond 2019 I see the best position we could be in is having a similar scenario until we get to post 2022 but we need this time we actually need this time to devise a system that will suit scotland time will catch up on this very we've known in the past during previous cap reforms how it's come down to the 11th hour and that's very very dangerous because sometimes it doesn't actually deliver what we're trying to achieve Vicky do you want to come in on that I mean I've already said I think transition is important I concur there with what Martin's just said we very quickly need to decide where it is we're trying to get to and then we have this period of time where to me it makes sense that as far as possible and with the money that has been committed and appears to be on the table to 2022 that we we use that time to be thinking about the next the next policy what it looks like designing it and actually even maybe taking some opportunity to trial and pilot some things and there may be some new approaches some new ways of doing things and there's lots of talk about results based environmental schemes compared to the more prescriptive schemes that we have we think probably a mix of those two things might be sensible but but let's be thinking about what we want and let's use this time which is actually really quite short to try and do that and and also obviously the just the the IT and the administration of new systems takes a lot of time to set up and we do know that from from past systems so it may sound you know saying we've got four years or whatever might sound like a lot of time but it's not at all and that's why we need that clarity right now about where it is we're trying to get to so we can start to work out the detail of how we get there. I want to bring Stuart in and then come to you, Andrew. I just wanted to pick up a little thing on what Martin Kennedy said. I've only read press reports not the original speech but I understand Michael Gove referred to LFA in Wales and in Scotland being a fundamentally different aspect of agriculture. Would you agree with me that's mildly encouraging because I think I haven't heard Michael Gove previously make any specific reference to LFA which underpins the essentially geographic differences and the need for a different support regime and that that might be an early indication that the UK Government has that as part of the thinking. Martin I'll let you answer that then I'm going to Andrew. Yes it is encouraging to hear that because as I'm sure we're all aware we're 85% less favoured areas in Scotland you know down across the border it's only 17% that's why the bespoke system is absolutely vital and it's encouraging to hear that he does recognise because that's the largest part of Scotland it does need support to keep again coming back to people people are really really important in Scotland in rural areas so it's yes the degree it's encouraging to hear. Okay Andrew if you'd like to. I think the answer to the question is actually we don't know in terms of you know plans for transition but like the other panel members we are supportive we recognise that if we are going to change and we think there does need to be change we can't do it in one step so we need that process but and therefore we need to set out where we're going but the point I wanted to make was actually links back to the degree of change that we could experience. Now it's really hard to know but there is a potential prospect for quite significant structural change in the industry and that when that's a kind of a a misnomer actually that means people going out of business people losing their jobs and moving away that sort of thing and there's a really strong human element to what we're talking about here which I think probably has to be built into any thinking about transition to accept that there is going to be a lot of change and find a way of trying to mitigate some of that potential harm. Peter do you want to follow up? Yeah well I mean it's vitally important that we never lose sight of what farmers are about farmers are about producing high quality food to feed the nation let's get that right but we're moving away from supporting them directly like that we're moving away at the public money for public goods that's the phrase that comes out nowadays but I'm just asking the question given that that's the way that we're moving does the panel endorse what I'm saying that we have to recognise first and foremost it's about producing food and we can do the environmental bit around that and it's not mutually exclusive in any way of shape or form. I'll bring Martin in Vicky and Carmen did you want to come in first? Yeah without doubt what farmers and crofters right across the country are all about is about food production and that's probably part of the thing that we sometimes don't we take it for granted you know 50 60 years ago we're spending around 40 percent of our income on food now it's about eight and a half nine percent so that shows you the value but we need to remember what we're actually producing to such a high quality and a high degree it's maybe not a public good but it's probably a public right to have good quality food grown and reared to high welfare standards so that is a benefit to the consumer ultimately but we need to yes definitely recognise that food production is still at the core of agriculture in Scotland. Vicky may give us an alternative view on the fact that the RSPB aren't all about food production but well I'd actually like to just read if I may something that was in the Griggs report which we all agreed on and it says agriculture should be seen and treated as different from other industries it is a multi output multi benefit business with non-market outputs wildlife landscapes clean water etc as important to society as its traditional market products of food and fibre these outputs are referred to as public goods and services future policies should start from this premise and be designed to support encourage and sustain the delivery of these non-market outputs as well as equipping farmers to benefit more from market opportunities and I would add on the food that they produce so it isn't either or actually farming is a multi output business and all these things matter to all of us food as much as clean water a stable climate and all these other things they're all part and parcel and they're intrinsically linked Carmen do you want to come in on that probably you would not like my answer because this is an economist answer there we should not think about farming always through the lens of public support I and we know there are countries who actually can produce very good quality food and very healthy food without subsidies I said you would not like my answer because it is an economist answer and you will ask you know why would you give subsidies for and why should we actually pay for it I do think that if we give subsidies they have to be targeted to those who are really in need otherwise I do not think why we should not allow farmers to be to be like to be like any other business where they they compete and they are they produce goods and services based on what the based on the market opportunity and actually what we want come on can I just ask a question on that I mean some would argue and I've heard it argued that subsidies to farmers keeps the price of food down is that something that you subscribe to or don't subscribe to subsidies keeping the food price down yes depends on the type of the subsidies because initially the under the cap keeping subsidies no it it actually subsidies means a transfer from consumer or taxpayers to producers that's what it is a subsidy it's even a transfer from a consumer or taxpayer or from both so within the within I would say that our food is cheaper now because we are in a market of over 500 million million people that's why I think it our food is cheaper within within the EU but actually subsidies not necessarily keep the prices down okay um martin you sort of indicated and then Michael if you want to come in I'm happy to bring you in Mike Martin just just briefly on the supply chain I think if the supply chain worked correctly and we were receiving the amount of money for the effort that's going into providing high quality food there would be less reliance on support and that's what we would all like to be but at the present time when the average income of a farmer in Scotland is £12,000 it's actually extremely difficult to do any of these jobs without support and other countries do have the advantage they don't have the such a high cost structure is what we do our cost structure relevant to what we're getting from what we produce we're kind of sandwiched in the middle and that's the relevance of us spending so little of our income now on food Michael I'm happy to bring you in if there's something I mean the next theme may may be more focused on you okay okay so I would like to move on to the next theme which is Fulton MacGregor. The next theme is on frameworks and given the GMC meeting in October last year do you think that there should be a common UK framework for agriculture and what scope and forum should this take and as the convener said a professor Keating I think with our briefing papers I've actually got a quote from yourself in sort but I'll start with yourself. Michael would you like to go on that? Yeah it's generally agreed now that there should be frameworks when I came to another committee here that I was advising a year ago there wasn't that agreement but now there is for two areas what one is about regulation because a lot of regulation of agriculture is devolved but it's Europeanised and there's broad support for the idea that there should be the same regulations across the UK now a lot of stakeholders think the European regulations would be the best ones to adopt for that purpose because then it would have access to European markets if we sign free trade agreements including agriculture with third countries then that creates difficulties for attaining those European frameworks so that's a big issue there and the second is about funding how much funding there should be how it should be distributed and what strings should be attached to funding whether it should go into the block grant or whether it should be a separate agricultural fund if there's a second agricultural fund that already is ring fencing that money would there be further ring fencing of that money the difficulty is how those frameworks are going to be achieved and the withdrawal bill which is still before parliament and may yet be amended in its famous clause 11 says the answer to that is essentially to take all these competencies back to Westminster to re reserve them which gives Westminster the last say now that's highly problematic for a number of reasons can I understand where you're going on the withdrawal bill but we're going to deal with that specifically okay so if you could go to the frameworks then I'll just conclude on the frameworks issue then the question is frameworks is is how constraining they would be and secondly how would they be negotiated imposed from Westminster or negotiated amongst the four nations of the UK okay uh Fiki you're next followed by Andrew thank you um we think there will be a need for some kind of commonly agreed UK framework um Michael's outline some of the areas in which that might touch in relation to trade and regulations and standards but I think there are some environmental arguments for why um that might be needed as well if we think about very many of our environmental challenges which arise from agriculture in the way we use land those are trans boundary um so um it's I think important for us to think about how agriculture across the UK and in all parts of the UK um operates to high standards in order to address uh climate change issues to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture to protect our water resources which are often shared and go across our jurisdictional boundaries um to halt the loss of biodiversity which all parts of the UK are signed up to and and have committed to doing to maintaining healthy soils etc and to to meet our international obligations beyond those European Union ones so we can see some argument for why there may we may want to see some kind of commonly agreed sort of high level principles and objectives around environmental ambition in in a commonly agreed framework that relates to agriculture okay street you have a particular question on the environment side of that yes thank you vicky just mentioned greenhouse gases and that's of course an important issue and I just wondered if the fact that the appointments to the climate change committee have to be agreed by all four jurisdictions in other words anyone can veto an appointment is a model that might be useful in politically being able to draw up policy frameworks as an alternative to perhaps other ways of doing things it may not be the only way of doing it but it would be a perfectly practical way if she agrees with me yeah well I mean I don't I don't think we have a as environmental NGOs a necessarily fixed view we think there are different models and different ways potentially of doing this that may be one that you've just cited there are others for example the marine policy statement and the way in which the four parts of the UK come together to agree the broad level objectives for the marine environment and then it's enacted by devolved policy and legislation so there are definitely different models and ways in which this this could be done from sort of very legislative fixed basis on the one hand to memorandums of understanding to commitments in legislation to set up bodies or institutions that fulfil certain functions so we don't necessarily have a fixed view of what the right way of doing that is but we would like to see progress in thinking about that and coming up with an answer to it so that we can have this sort of constructive joint working across our jurisdictions. Yes, and what will you favour in a collaborative model? Yes. Thank you. Andrew, I'm going to come to you and then Martin and then back to Fulton if you've got a full art question for Andrew. Thank you, convener. We came out fairly early on in support of developing common frameworks and we did so because we were concerned that we could potentially go down a route where we had such a degree of policy divergence that it could have consequences for the market within the UK and potentially consequences for developing trade deals and potentially consequences for the funding settlement so how the budget for agriculture is delivered to Scotland and the concern there is around whether it came through the block grant or through separate agriculture funding. Now, we're very aware that that does create the problems, the sort of devolution problems but what we have in mind when we talk about frameworks is not some sort of imposed system. We definitely do want something that is developed together. Also, what we don't have in mind is a system which is imposed from Westminster. It has to be something that is sort of very much a collaborative process and the sort of the issue is around how that happens and what that framework looks like. From our point of view, it's setting out the broad objectives, setting out the principles but then allowing Scotland the ability at least as much but potentially more than it has now under the current framework that we operate within. We have never envisaged it to be sort of eroing back from where we are. We've always envisaged us to maintain at least what we have but potentially more and so that's a key thing is the framework has to be sort of a high level setting out of a sort of direction of travel potentially in there and this is the critical issue that is yet to be resolved is funding so the support structures that we work within at the moment a lot of that is sort of determined within the European Union and we implement. There's a question about how far we have to go down that route within the UK. Scottish Government will say that actually we have lots of divergence already so potentially we can just do our own thing. The unresolved question for us is well how much divergence can you have before it becomes a problem and we're unclear on that so our common sense approach was well let's go for a framework but keep it broadly similar to what we have now so that we can still do as much as we want and still have some policy divergence within the UK because it's within that envelope of a common framework. Martin? Andrews kind of covered most of what I was going to say but I think we're of a similar opinion an overarching UK wide framework would be important when it comes to particularly when it comes to trade back and forward I think it's really important because we've got welfare standards and pesticide regulation all these things that would have an effect on trade I think it's important we do have that UK framework but again echo what Andrews said within that we need to have that bespoke situation and with regard to the funding at the current time we receive about 16.3% of the total ag support system that comes into the UK and we would certainly be hoping that we can maintain that at least with the convergence argument backing that up of course but going forward we need to be able to have a bespoke system within an overarching framework. That overarching framework needs to be as vital for trade because it's UK that's going to be trading although we have our own trade within Scotland we need to have a UK trade so we can deal with our countries. Okay Fulton I come on I know you want to come in I'd like to bring Fulton in just with a full art question then probably come to you. Yeah thanks again convener. Based on what you've said there I think it seems safe to assume that you wish stakeholders and the devolved nations and others to be involved in the development of the framework how do you think this could best be achieved to make sure that all relevant voices are heard. Carmen do you want to lead on that? I'm not sure if I have your non-exact answer but I assume a common framework is necessary because some will argue it is about a level playing field for everybody however I think that it is very important that the all devolved administration actually come together and try to work with Westminster. I think it's very because I feel my mind but it's just you know what I think. I think the power it still lies with Westminster and I think it's not only about Scotland I think it's also about the Northern Ireland and I also think it is about Wales so I think that devolved administration really need to work together so to counter out if you like the power in Westminster. I hope I don't sound you know I'm against England I live in England but I do think that it has to be a level playing field for everybody but you have to fight. I'm going to bring Andrew in and then I think we may move on to the next theme Andrew. So yes we want to be involved in the development of a framework and in like most policy development like this we'll be seeking to try and engage in that debate but I think this draws us back to a previous sort of element of discussion which is around the role of Scottish Government and when we're talking about Scottish Government being behind the curve this is why it's so important because at the moment that discussion going on down in Westminster is being led by DEFRA and we need the Scottish Government to be at the table with the voice for Scotland as strongly as possible and they can listen to us we can try and influence them but that's where the debate is happening at the moment and we can try and influence through different routes we work with our sister organisation in England Wales and so we we sort of try to sort of engage in that process but at the moment when we're talking about frameworks it's going to come down to the government so we need the Scottish Government to be at that table. Vicky I know you want to come in you can come in very briefly. It's just that we we do think there will need to be some new kind of intergovernmental machinery put in place to do this stuff and that the current arrangements we have under the joint ministerial committee are clearly not functioning as we might hope that they might and there've been a number of reports which have criticised that and said you know they're not operating properly there's ad hoc meetings it's not participatory properly of the the four parts of the UK so having a new intergovernmental machinery on a statutory basis and being very clear about how that operates is probably going to be something that's needed as we go forward to make sure that these frameworks and other things work properly. Okay thank you I think we'll move on to the next theme which is Richard Lyle and Michael I think you'll be first up on this one. Yeah I think basically this is where we come to another argument European Union withdrawal bill you know and the point that's just been made by Vicky Swales and I comment made by my one my colleague John Finney it takes two to dangle and basically we've got a situation where the UK government is not accepted any amendments prior to the bill going to the lords from the Scottish Government and now they're saying that it'll be fixed when it goes to the lords we've now got a situation and I'll come back to you with the greatest respect to Martin I may have misunderstood him earlier but basically we've got a situation where we're coming out the EU we're coming out the common agricultural policy we're going back 40 years basically pre 1970 I can remember those years in your opinion in the longer short term Martin I come to you first I think and then the other panel members what are the implications of the EU withdrawal bill as it stands for Scottish agriculture what systems should be put in place you know and with the greatest respect if we don't know what money we're going to get we don't know what amendments are going to be we can't talk to the UK government or they won't talk to us we can't put in amendments you know where are we we basically don't know and the point I want to ask you is what should be put in place for farmers how can this government help Scottish farmers have a good system to ensure that there's not anarchy after we come out the EU Martin before you answer I would actually like to stick with the way I was going to do it and come to Michael first and then come to you Martin so Michael if you'd like to kick off on this because you were actually talking about withdrawal bill in the last bit and I curtailed you sorry yeah there are two concerns with the withdrawal bill one is about an issue of constitutional principle whether it is right for the UK parliament to use brexit as an opportunity to change the constitutional settlement and people will have different views about this I think it's highly problematic from the constitutional perspective and then there's the question about legislative consent which the Scottish and Welsh governments are recommending should be withheld and how that is going to be worked out we really don't know but the second one problem is that it has a blanket reservation on existing EU laws and then says well certain powers will be released afterwards back to the devolved levels if they're not needed for UK purposes and that's problematic because it makes it very difficult to get coherent policy making with whatever bits and pieces are going to be released in fact the language of releasing is problematic from a constitutional perspective as well and I think the UK government seems to have taken that on board it has accepted that would need to be legislative consent under the SEAL convention it hasn't said what will happen if it doesn't get it we just don't know and I just promised amendments but we don't know what those amendments are and I've suggested that the powers in clause 11 are simply unnecessary if we're going to have frameworks we don't need to reserve the powers if you have a framework that's an alternative to reservation reserving the powers and then negotiating frameworks would mean the UK government is effectively negotiating with itself because they're no longer devolved powers so I think it would be much more clearer if the UK were to make clear its position on this and say that clause 11 which is about the blanket reservation were to go the devolved level could retain their own powers and then you could get into negotiation just a final point about frameworks after that there is a difference it seems to me in the emphasis of the Scottish government because the Scottish government seems to see frameworks as providing parameters for separate policies whereas the Welsh government seems to be more keen on joint policies joint UK wide policies but that's something that would work out in the in the long run in the immediate future both Wales and Scotland are agreed that the re-centralisation of these competencies is highly problematic how can you how can you negotiate with someone if they want to negotiate with you how can you discuss anything if they won't give you what they they are thinking you know where are we going to go in this is it going to go right up to the wire if you want to give a broad answer to that I don't know but it does seem to me that the UK government has has indicated that it appreciates there is a problem here now I don't know what the outcome is going to be so if you don't know the answer you know which answers anyone else got maybe in the fullness of time maybe I'm gonna get I'm gonna rain this back and go to martin because I think the original question and I may have picked you up wrong when I want to I want to totally you know we want to work with farmers we want to ensure that we have the best food as we have in Scotland how what do we do give us your your options first point in the withdrawal bill obviously we see the withdrawal bill as being absolutely vital so that the wheels don't basically fall off the cap that's I think that's absolutely vital because without that legislation coming over basically cut and paste we need to keep things running as is so that we don't we've often talked about all the uncertainties that's been highlighted already the uncertainties that are out there if it goes completely wrong we're going to fall off a cliff edge and from a farming perspective that's just not on them and farming is a long-term project it's a long-term occupation you know you're farming for years ahead and it's the best way to do that to look after the land so when it comes to what the Scottish government can do this is where transitional arrangements is absolutely vital and we need that time budget security going forward and beyond so that we actually know that we've got security and stability in the industry because unless farmers are actually investing in their businesses it can't actually you know go on and provide more for the environment address climate change issues which we are we are certainly looking at and we can do that okay sorry Richard I'm sorry I'm going to leave that one there because I think we've taken that one about as far as we can we have another three four themes to get through I'd like to move on to the next theme which is john's thanks very much I think minecraft follows on because we've talked about frameworks we've talked about the withdrawal bill so what about the UK white paper and the UK agriculture bill that we're expecting I mean what should be in it what would you like to see in it or conversely what should not be in it what would you not want to see in it okay um while you're pondering your answers um if I could just say we are quite tight of time so if you could select the subjects that you can carefully and succinctly I'd be very grateful. Martin do you want to kick off with that? Andrew I think with regard to the white paper or command paper I think they're calling it now it's been pushed back we've been assured that that was going to be coming I think in January earlier on it's now pushed back to the spring that's obviously going to be the precursor to the agricultural bill I think the the biggest thing about the command paper is it has to have the tools are allowed to have the tools in the toolbox to allow Scottish Government to do within reason what they want to do to create this bespoke policy agricultural policy going forward so it's absolutely vital that the command paper has that in it it we need to have that flexibility if that flexibility is not in the command paper and then going on to the agricultural bill then it'll limit to the extent what bespoke system Scottish Government can actually implement. I'm going to work down the panel because I think you've all sort of indicated you want to speak on that so I'll go to Andrew and then pick your next. Thank you convener. I mean essentially it seems to make sense that it would follow from the withdrawal bill because the discussions about the relationships between what gets reserved and whether and how you develop conframeworks then has consequences for what goes into a command paper for agriculture and until we get past the withdrawal bill it would seem really difficult. I agree with Martin that we do need to have it formalised that Scotland is able to that that governance arrangement is able to sort of implement in ways that it sees fit and if we can't have that then there's an issue there. Okay Vicky. I think my comments are in a similar vein and very much following on from what the outcomes of the withdrawal bill are we might expect that there will be some areas where a UK bill deals with UK issues and may well say something about frameworks and how these things are set up but our understanding is that largely that bill will then deal with England and Michael Gove has been very specific about talking about a policy for England and presumably will require primary legislation to be able to do the mechanics for enacting that policy in England so I would imagine a large part of it will be relating to that but there will obviously be some UK elements one would imagine of that bill. I mean I'm kind of puzzled I suppose because if it's very free ranging and allows a lot of freedom I don't know how the money gets split up it might actually then say in this bill 16 percent will go to Scotland but on the other hand if it's a UK cap version which is quite tight and specific and says that money will go for clean water then it wouldn't specifically mention the finances but that would lead on to Scotland having a certain proportion so it just seems to me there's a lot of uncertainty around this the more certainty that goes in the bill the more we all know the less certainty in the bill the less one knows that is that is that fair is that unfair Michael do you want to come and come and I'd like to bring in on this but I was going to make a very similar point is this going to be a UK bill or an England bill they should be consistent is there going to be a legislative consent the UK government says yes for the UK wide matters but then how far is it going to prescribe policies and particularly funding because we're talking too much about competencies and not a lot about funding if it is said yes there will be UK wide agricultural priorities A, B and C they will have funding attached to them then you may not be reserving the competencies but you're reserving control effectively that's absolutely critical and so far we we don't really know and there's a danger if this happens that agricultural policy will effectively be driven by policy in England even though in a formal sense the competencies are still devolved come and would you like to come in on that and then we'll move on to our next theme I don't think I have any specific to add but I do agree with Michael very much okay so the next theme is Jamie I'd like to move on to the discussion to talk about trade and future trade it's obviously an intrinsic part of the brexit process and today obviously at this point we've got no idea what relationship the UK will have with the EU post brexit or any interim periods and indeed any relationships that we may have with other third-party countries outside of the EU in terms of trading relationships so I guess what I'd like to explore briefly is the panel's views on any A opportunities that this unique situation presents is but be any specific or known risks that it also creates for the agricultural industry in Scotland at the moment I will give you all a chance to come in I mean I'm going to take Martin and then Carmen okay thank you convener there are a lot of risks and there are a lot of opportunities the greatest risk we have trade is absolutely paramount trade if trade deals go in our favour that will have the biggest relevance to Scottish farmers and crofters in Scotland because if trade deals go in our favour it will make a huge difference if they go against us and when I say go against us I mean by making trade deals we actually export our own welfare standards by importing whether it be substandard product whether it's you know hormone fed beef whether it's how animals are raised how feed is grown in other countries not just in the EU I think it's going to be probably the biggest biggest relevance to the prosperity of Scottish agriculture and we have got some I'm not saying the highest standards in the world but some of the highest standards in the world when it comes to welfare standards for animals and growing standards for our crops and if we make deals and this is comes back to a comment I made earlier on we need to be very very wary of unintended consequences of wrong decisions and I think that's why the industry need to be really taken on board of what of in recognition of what we're actually providing within Scottish agriculture so trade is absolutely trade is absolutely paramount there are opportunities though as well so if we can see opportunities where we can export to other countries what we need to remember in Scotland is 80 percent of our produce just goes across the border but when it comes to lamb over 90 percent of our export of lamb goes into the EU so it's absolutely vital we can have that friction free trade within the EU that's that's vital because we're in a very perishable commodity you know it's not like we can have a vehicle sitting somewhere for three months and it won't make any difference we've got perishable commodities stuck because of customs issues that's that's a big challenge so there are a number of risks there and you know industry need to be involved with and consulted on when it comes to making trade deals I'm going to bring Carmen in and Jamie if you want to then add something and then I'll bring the other panel members in so Carmen if you'd if you'd like to say yeah no you you lead on Carmen I do have a lot on trade but I I just try to summarise maybe I should say that I I am I'm leading a big project so which is funded by the economic and research council in England which actually looks at the impact of brexit at the sector level but also at the farm level and it covers all countries so we look at the UK but also the different the different countries and we look at impact on production consumption changing in prices import exports we also try to look at the profitability of farms and also we will try to identify those sectors which are actually most vulnerable we have done already some work I brought with me some some some papers which I can leave it with you but this was the results here are preliminary and they were done in November since then we progress a lot but just try to summarize so we we run three scenarios on trade and also we run scenarios in which we eliminate direct payments or we keep direct payments the scenarios are probably as you may expect is a free trade agreement with the EU it's a W default and also we have a very extreme scenario which I call it extreme liberalisation in which the UK liberalised its its its trade with with the EU and the rest of the country with the rest of the world but actually will face tariffs for its exports and our results show that so far probably as expected that a free trade agreement with the EU will have marginal changes for production prices the value of output but then WTO when you look at Scotland actually is not as bad as some of people may think about it under the WTO I would like to think that it's the it's WTO actually without direct payments I should have said that what do you think it's important when we analyse trade you have to think about the trade status net import net importer versus net exporters that will make a difference that will make a difference to the sector and based on that status then you have different different different impacts so without direct payments everybody of course will be affected under WTO I don't think it's as bad as as people may think about with the exception probably with beef and ship sectors but probably you expect that but what I think it's interesting is actually the dairy sector in in in Scotland might not do as bad as we as we as we think except under the unilateral trade agreement I do have some my graphs and I have some things which I can probably share with you and we do have to have something done by the end of June and in September we will present our results in in a joint event with the agriculture and horticulture development board in England. Thank you very much you made offer of some papers there what I'd say is the clerks will contact you after the committee meeting and arrange to get copies of those so they can be circulated to the committee. I'm very nervous about time and Vicky I'll bring you in very briefly and then Michael if he wants to come in. So it's just to say we'd also commissioned some research looking at the impacts of Brexit and trade scenarios for farmers but then the knock on consequences for farmland wildlife and that was a UK study and we'd be happy to make that available. Clearly there are some sectors which are vulnerable depending upon the trade agreements we end up with particularly in terms of beef and sheep and in the LFA. We're really concerned about that from an environmental perspective because that's our high nature value farming areas where some of our most important species and habitats reside and their future is very dependent on the future of those farming and crofting systems. So in a sense our domestic policy will need to be a response to those trade agreements that we strike and the regimes we follow and the impacts of those then have and we may well need to ameliorate some of the effects of that through domestic policy including supporting farmers for the public goods that they deliver particularly it's one of the that the their strengths as it were as opposed to perhaps in some cases some of the market outputs from those systems. Michael I'm happy to bring you in briefly before we move on to the next theme. Yeah well trade of course is constitutionally reserved so that will be a UK responsibility but it impacts on the devolved levels. Very few trade agreements have free trade in agriculture because it tends to be protected and regulated separately. There is a big difference between those who would want global free trade in agriculture no tariffs which would have enormous impacts upon sectors within the UK and within Scotland and those who want to keep support. And finally whatever free trade agreements we negotiate in agriculture will have in them elements and agreements about regulation and support that is not just a domestic matter because our trading partners would want to know we have the same standards and they would want to know we have a level playing field and are not subsidising our producers more than subsidising theirs. So the two are intimately connected. I'm going to leave that there thank you. The next question is from the deputy convener gal Ross. Thank you convener good morning panel I want to talk about standards and we've already touched on these Martin you mentioned it with regard to trade and Vicky you talked about some shared conclusions between the two reports that we were talking about and the interim report from the National Council of Rural Advisers and also the Greening Group discussion paper Professor Russell Greggs mentioned the legislation that's already in place with regards to standards things like natural capital animal plant and product standards and the environmental protections that we have for our soil air water and biodiversity. So with regards to these I know that we are short on time if you want to limit it to maybe two that you would like to see remain as being very important and any ones that you would like to see changed. Okay thank you gail and and and let me help you you would like to limit it to two that you'd like to keep and two that you'd like to change so I don't know who'd like to to kick off on that martin we'll work down the line then martin yeah thanks given I don't know if we need to limited to two I think all our standards is absolutely critical and and I think that's part of where we get our trade deals from because of the standards we actually have that's a feather in our cap when it comes to making trade deals and I think it's something we want to hold on to as soon as we start dropping some of our standards there are some regulations there I need to add that that could be changed but with regard to standards I think it's our highest selling point and it's something that you know we talk about you know you know a good British product well we see the Scottish product as being premium British to be quite honest and and I think it's something we need to hold on to it's the biggest part of our our selling point when it comes to trade so standards I think we need to actually at least maintain okay that was a politician's answer you're not dropping any standards and and andryd you want to add anything to that very similar we as an organisation we basically came out and in a pragmatic stance and said that in order to achieve any transition towards a new sort of post brexit regime we should maintain where we are and then once we've got through that that transition then we should start thinking about that but I agree in terms of the selling point that standards are. Vicky do you want to? Well absolutely our high standards underpin Scotland's brand we actually welcome the existing statements which have already been made by the Scottish Government around maintaining environmental standards in particular but also to important principles that the EU sets in terms of polluter pays and the precautionary principle which we think should also come come back into our domestic legislation. If I had to pick two things that I think comes from European legislation which is vitally important I would probably pick the birds and habitats directive in the water framework directive as fundamentally underpinning protecting our most important species and habitats and ensuring that we tackle problems such as diffused pollution and ensure we have good quality drinking water and our rivers and locks are clean. I absolutely agree with everything has been told so far just to add probably we should not lose the geographical indication so the indicators related to the product designating of origins and the others related to geographical indications are very important for the UK as a whole and particularly for Scotland. Okay thank you for that. As we didn't get a specific answer and we were keeping all the standards I think Vicky you did give us a specific answer so thank you. We can move on to the final theme which is Collins. Excuse me within cap that the Scottish Government are obviously part of a current EU audit process that obviously protects farmers from fraudulent claims and sets clear rules for government. What do you think should replace that EU audit process? Audit. Who would like to start on that? Martin? I think that when it comes down to audit every government should be held accountable for whatever happens. Post-Brexit, as I understand it, we already have a UK-wide audit committee so am I getting the right thing on this? So when it comes to going forward and we have our own policy direction I think there needs to be an overarching audit that over all four home nations that actually makes sure that none of us are actually stepping it a line but when it says none of us I mean governments because it needs to be audited that whatever delivery process happens in future agricultural policy is audited correctly. One thing we need to make sure and we talked about earlier on about having bespoke systems that bespoke system has a hopefully a wide variance but not to the detriment of UK intra UK trade so it needs to be that audit needs to overratch that process of looking after delivery of future agricultural policy and keeping an element of intra UK trade free and accessible. Sorry just to help that that's on quite a high level thing. I thought you might somebody might want to mention auditing right down to the lower level so Andrew bearing that in mind I'm going to go down the panel Andrew do you want to? In a similar way to my answer to the last question in terms of standards with audit we have taken a position again that we probably need to maintain the status quo in the short to medium term in order to just keep sort of things moving with systems that we're familiar with. We also I think have to be realistic in terms of if we want to have frictionless trade with the EU we will probably have to maintain certain audit standards that meet their requirements so even if we think that there might be opportunities to reduce audit burden then we still actually need to maintain those markets. As we move to a new system further in the future there may be opportunities but it will all be critically dependent on the sort of system we create so there are certain sorts of things that happen at field level in terms of inspections and so on which offer opportunities but until we know more about the structure through which we intend to support farming it will be difficult to then design an audit system that provides less of a burden unless we start with it in that. If you start with reducing the burden in the first place and then try and work that way then you can create one sort of policy but we need to work from what do we want the public money to deliver to make it defensible and you need the audit requirements so in some respects all I'm saying is we have to accept there will be an audit burden there may be some opportunities to reduce that burden but we'll have to see as we develop the systems in the future. Okay Vicky I notice your nodding so before I let you answer that I'm going to let Colin come back with a follow-up and then maybe bring you in coming in. You may wish to touch on but do you think as the replacement is brought forward we will require new institutions for example to check on environmental compliance? Okay I'll come to that specific if I may just just generally then obviously if we're spending public money in order to deliver certain outputs we need to have inspection and compliance regimes to make sure we're delivering those outcomes so I agree with Andrew there's an inevitable burden there although we can obviously I think do a lot to improve on some of the current frustrations that that we have as part of the cap system and I think there will be I mentioned earlier new ways and new approaches we can test there's a lot of interesting results based approaches to environmental schemes for example and engaging farmers more in the process of monitoring and evaluation and testing what's happening on the farm I mean in terms of more broadly in terms of accountability and enforcement of our laws and legislations then clearly there is a governance gap as things come back from the EU the EU institutions fulfil certain roles at the moment through the commission the parliament the European Court of Justice in terms of holding member states to account and ensuring that they are enforcing and enacting European legislation and the question is where does that sit when it comes back and again it's a little bit like the frameworks issue it's quite likely there will be a need we think for a body or bodies or institution or institutions to replace those functions and to be able to to hold governments in a sense to account and ensure that we're not infringing the laws that we're setting ourselves now clearly there's a role for parliament in that but but that's a big job in itself and I'm sure it's beyond the time and resources of members such as yourselves to kind of do that level of scrutiny so something is probably going to have to be put in place I think to replace some of the functions that are currently done by EU institutions thank you vikia and I'm going to let Carmen if you'd like to have the note thank you for the comment so vicky you have had the last word on that I'm afraid we have run out of time well martin if you really quickly I can break you very briefly just to talk about well I did talk about that sort of higher level audit but when it comes to down to farm level audit I mean farmers are audited fairly heftily at the present time and whether we need a replacement sort of audit body above what we have at the present time I really don't think so I think I would agree with Andrew what we have in place at the present time would suffice okay well that's probably a consensual point to end it so thank you very much martin Andrew vicky and Carmen for giving evidence this morning we I think the fact that the session has been pushed for time shows the the interest in the subject so thank you very much for your time and I'm briefly going to suspend the meeting now to allow the change over at the panels thank you thank you I'm now going to reconvene the meeting with the second panel this morning to discuss fisheries I'd like to welcome Simon Collins representing the Scottish Fishmen's Federation James Cook the director of Scottish Creel Fishmen's Federation Dr James Harrison senior lecturer in the international law the University of Edinburgh Callum Duncan the head of conservation Scotland marine conservation society and Andrew Charles the vice chair Scottish seafood association we have a number of themes that we're going to run through which will be introduced by the members of the committee and if those of you who've done this before know that you don't have to push any of the buttons on the machinery in front of you it will happen automatically what you do have to do that is to catch my eye and if you catch my eye I will I will bring you in to speak I will try and bring everyone in it's a question of managing the situation to make sure that everyone gets a fair chance so the first theme is from Stuart thank you very much chair convener and I want to ask the panel specifically about the the coming out of the common fisheries policy other themes will cover what happens after that and I think it'd be fair to say that the fishermen who fish beyond the 12 mile limit out to 200 miles are perhaps the area of our community who have the most obvious opportunity for benefit but it isn't unconditional and I just want to ask some some questions around that in particular about quota and how that might work across the transition Iceland has 10 percent of its catch caught by non Icelandic boats, Norway is 16 percent but we have 60 percent and the 10 percent and 16 percent Iceland Norway of course is traded off for the benefit of fishing whereas our 60 percent it's not clear we get any particular benefit from that and I just wonder in the first instance what process should be put in place for coming out of the CFP to manage that particular aspect knowing that the Scottish Fishermen Federation are very clear that the starting position has to be 100 percent of the quota is owned and controlled by Scotland that may not be the view of everyone. Simon, do you want to start off on that? Thanks again, I'm glad you're here because Stuart was one of the you might remember one of the first people he came forward with the debate in the Scottish Parliament on the sea of opportunity as well so he was the first really to one of the first to recognise the opportunity for that part of the catching sector. Our position the Scottish Fishermen Federation is that the control is essential and that means control over access because without that we're not in a strong position in any reasonable time frame to wrestle fairer shares of internationally agreed quotas back for our vessels. Access because a lot of the species we're talking about almost all in fact the EU fleet that catches them that arrives at the 60 percent that is taken out of our waters by them because they in most cases are unable to catch it anywhere else by and large they need access in order to fill their quotas. If we retain control of access then when a strong position extremely strong position then demand that if any of them require access and of course they do then they should be prepared to give up some of their quota in order to have it. Now you could have an extreme position where you say the access which we insist should be 100 percent in our control are we therefore going to require all of the quota that falls within our waters in the long term that's a reasonable objective it's our natural resource after all in the medium term of course there are good arguments political arguments mainly for saying well maybe you shouldn't have an adjustment that's not immediate so you can imagine a situation where EU vessels are continued to allowed back into our waters in return for some handover if you like of quota for example to our vessels as you like as an expedient but that is nothing to do with ceding the principle of control that's absolutely essential that is why we're getting nervy or we get nervous sometimes around talk of transition periods where there is an implication sometimes that control should be part of that or conceding control or conceding long-term shares of access long-term quota shares all that should be part of some deal we don't want any part of that we insist that control comes back to us because at that point we can be as generous or as aggressive as we like with quota the important thing is we stick within the overall pot how much of it we claim is a political choice which is made in annual talks as it is in Norway Iceland Faro and many other places so not 100% of the quota on day one that would be unreasonable but 100% of the control that's extremely important to us others views can I just ask for some clarity because I mean slight doubt that the Scottish Fishermen's Federation is looking at the transition point being aligned with the end of the A calendar year because that is the point that relates to negotiations that currently exist and in the first year 2019 year three months in broadly nine months out that really the best time is at the end of that negotiating period is that the SFF's current position that that is absolutely correct because the annual quota cycle is year end to year end and there's a whole cycle of talks with not just within the EU but with third countries that set opportunities for the following year for the sake of business stability above everything else it doesn't make sense for a deal struck on quota at the end of this year 2018 to be torn up three months into the fishing year apart from anything else apart from the damage that does we don't know even if our vessels wouldn't know what they're up to after that apart from the damage that that would cause the fact is that if we even were to say well we're going to renegotiate a whole bunch of quota from the end of March 2019 onwards the timing of it in any case should run pretty much to the end of 2019 anyway so you might as well the sake of stability for clarity for everyone just say as long as we the UK and therefore Scotland gets a good deal at the end of year talks to this year when we're part of the EU then there's no reason why we could run that arrangement that agreement for 2019 right to the end of the calendar year 2019 it just fits in with the science it fits in with the annual the annual cycle of talks it's not a concession which we don't call it a transition arrangement or anything like that we just call it a bridge because that's all that that's all it is it's business stability issue i'm zin if i'm a please oh hold on sorry wrong james all right now i have to call you dot to james all we're going to get further confusion say or i could say james on my left i think i would agree with that to some extent but this really depends upon the nature of the stock and where the stocks are located and who can fish them i mean many of the stocks are trans boundary some of our stocks even straddle into the high seas and for those sorts of stocks you really need some kind of agreement on a quota in order for a fisheries management system to work we've had situations in the northeast atlantic over a number of years where coastal states have been unable to agree on a quota or the share of a quota and that's led to unilateralism and overfishing and that's not good for for anybody uh now international law and that's what i teach and research at the university in Edinburgh uh imposes a duty of co-operation on states to to try and agree on total allowable catches and quotas doesn't prescribe how they should do that and there are clearly different views among the EU and the UK about how quotas should be allocated and that's going to be one of the most difficult issues coming up there there's no common practice around the world on allocating quota and there's a big difference between using historical catches um which is what's been done under relative stability in the EU and so called zonal attachment neither has a priority and it's going to be a matter of compromise okay does that does anyone else want to come in on that um sorry yeah uh Callum um thank you just to back up the the point of principle there which is that the um the opportunity here is to uh it's must be seized to make fishing even more sustainable and fisheries management even more sustainable and the important the things that we'd like to focus on are the important principles to ensure that which is to follow the science and and James is alighted on those points talking about straddling stocks and I said to the committee almost a year ago similarly talking about the other side of that ecological equation where you've got the most valuable stock in scotland is macro and that spawns off of Ireland elsewhere in the EU and there'll be lots of other examples as well um so you know our our chief concern is that the uh uh you know all all fisheries management is is done based on on sound science uh following the principles that we heard my colleague vicky talk about earlier in terms of the precautionary principle uh and uh the ecosystem-based principles as well so you know fish and shellfish it's easy to get into the quota and people people start thinking about them as a you know a bar and a chart but these are these are these are wild animals that happen to be tasty you know so they're part of the ecosystem so what we're coming at it from is that the um you know the opportunities there to to improve uh fisheries management um must be uh you know within the context of securing good environmental status uh for example within within the wider marine environment so we have you know we have to look at we you know we have to look at that wider picture and then allocate stock quota effort according to um the carrying capacity of of the marine ecosystem and the the um you know where the fish and shellfish spawn where they where the different parts of their life history are um where they feed and breed and uh and provide protection as well as part of that so um the other thought just while we're talking on quota is not that I'm missing advocating this but it's interesting to look at what they're doing the pharaohs where they're asserting that um uh you know fish the fish belong fish and shellfish belong to the people of the pharaoh islands and uh you know there's some interesting examples we should look at from other countries as well um going forward. Stuart can I bring you back in there? Yeah I've got a small point to make now we will cover trade and we will cover the London Fisheries Convention later in our our sequence but I just wanted to ask the creelers in particular who are largely inside the 12 mile limit and therefore largely detached directly from the CFP whether there are any issues related to the leaving uh leaving aside as I say London Fisheries and Trade which I think is probably a primary concern. James Cook that's definitely you. Yes indeed I think a speaker on behalf of a inshore group that it's it's not really applicable to them there's only my old issues around langistine for creel cot langistine which um they don't really actually catch that quota anyway because it's a high value product and it's a low volume product um but nevertheless it's a it's a very big big component of um Scottish exports. I think we we would fully support that SFF you know fight for 100 percent of quota because I think that that's a very logical stance to to improve everybody's opportunities within the fishing community. There are a few which I think Anzu will probably illuminate you on later on there's frustrations that if this fishery does grow that in Scotland we won't be able to exploit that fully because of lack of investment in processors but to get back to the main issue um we only have a marginal amount of creostatic gear fishermen that now fish outside the 12 mile limit they have no real quota restrictions at the moment so they're free to fish as and when required and there's no there's no any TAC for lobster or brown crab so um you know I think um going forward um it's something that does need to address but we would fully support the SFF in their quest to gain 100 percent. Andrew this is your chance to to follow that on yes from a processing perspective 100 percent of the quota would be the right avenue to go. I would never go down the road though of excluding the European boats from our waters completely but if a Scottish fisherman wishes to buy quota they pay for it and I think this is a wonderful opportunity to take your revenue stream from the European fleets and then reinvest it back into the industry I think you've got a massive opportunity here to do that and that would be a great way to manage it by slowly then hopefully taking more and more back over a long period of time. Okay I think we'll move on to the next theme um that's it seems the logical place Mike. Thank you convener um my theme is really the well we know there's a UK fisheries bill expected soon UK wide so enable to enable the UK to exercise responsibility for access to fisheries and the management of our waters so my question really is what what does the panel have any concerns about what will be or what will not be in the forthcoming bill who'd like to uh Simon you seem prepared for that one yes thank you thank you thank you convener yet if the fisheries bill we we were told as we were all told in the queen speech that it would be pretty much limited to high-level principles the legal powers to control access to our waters or what will become our waters which of course for us is very important and equally important the powers the legal powers to set fishing opportunities which in the end roll down to quotas in in our view it would be very very important that the fisheries bill sticks to that I'm there's I'm sure there's a very wide measure of consensus about the high-level principles governing fisheries management but I'd be very very wary of the UK parliament delving into anything more and adding bits on because they sound like a good idea at the time those responsibilities and the federation who said that in this in this parliament on many occasions those responsibilities we are convinced rightfully belong here it makes sense of fisheries management to have as much of the day-to-day stuff as possible being devolved to Scotland the last thing you want in a fisheries bill to have no end of what sound like good ideas appended to this very simple structure so our plea would be keep it simple and to the point and let after that let the devolved administrations take their responsibilities afterwards so I'm looking down the line to see if anyone no one's really catching my James Harrison is Andrew I don't know if you are you trying I would like to see in a bill that the highlighting the importance of fish processing it's a unique industry it's one of our last industries that actually processes a wild product and it is unique it's not like engineering it's not like manufacturing and it's certainly not like oil factories in in in central cities and it does have it does need to be nurtured and it's important if you're going to have and maximise the full value of what we're about to get here which it's possibly potentially a much larger share of the cake that we do have the processing facilities to maximise that profit in our regions and breathe life back into our coastal communities if we don't it's an opportunity lost sorry thank you Andrew James Harrison do you want to I would just add that as as important as a fisheries bill is the way that any what will become retained EU law under the EU withdrawal bill is adapted I mean there's a constitution question of who should be responsible for adapting retained EU law which we can put aside but how that is adapted how the existing common fisheries framework in Europe is then somehow amended to make sense for the UK is just as important if not more important than what's going to be in a framework fisheries bill before the UK parliament Mike do you want to follow that up or sorry Callum and James okay I'll take you Callum and then James could thank you I'd echo what the last two speakers said and similar to what Simon was saying we prefer the fisheries bill to be simple and in primary legislation to avoid the potential lack of parliamentary scrutiny that secretary legislation might lead to so simple and in primary legislation but again as we've just heard it's really important and as I said to committee before to have that four country agreement around how we manage fisheries so that at the very least must respect the current devolution settlement and there's obviously scope to go further than that as well and you know I think we're hearing similar from other witnesses and if I can just take the opportunity to highlight some of the principles that we'd like to see that legislation reflect that I'd be grateful I touched on one before Fisher a public resource must be managed for long-term sustainability using precautionary ecosystem based approaches fishing limits must be set in line with best available science to make sure stocks are managed below MSY fishing opportunities allocated on the basis of transparent and objective environmental social and environmental criteria and inclusive transparent and robust governments framework to deliver fully documented fisheries just a couple and just one more and high environmental standards the legislation should secure for everybody fishing in UK waters but also UK vessels fishing elsewhere in non UK waters as well so those are the key things that we'd like to see from the legislation. Callum just before we move on. Sorry just for clarification could you maybe tell the committee what MSY means? Thank you. That's maximum sustainable yield so pardon the jargon. Fisheries science is very complex so it's not an exact science so if you're trying to aim for what science thinks is the maximum sustainable yield you risk overshooting it so the best thing to do is have enough be comfortable that your stock biomass is big enough and that your fishing mortality is low enough that you can be sure you're within that maximum sustainable yield. James you'd like to come in there? Yes well I agree with my colleagues here but one one area that we would like to focus on is that the ensure fisheries seem to be lost in the focus for the bigger fisheries we would like some recognition of their contribution given the limited amount of fishing opportunities that they get and we've underlined this in several papers that given more access to more waters without gear conflict they would give a much better contribution to the economy especially on the west coast of Scotland I think this is more paramount to their opportunities and fishing opportunities and also we would like to some recognition of the fact without producers organisations we have no access to quota which means that we can't access some of the key species that are in the fishing grounds key times of year they're not all year round fisheries but there's opportunities historically on fishing grounds where herring and mackerel are available but access to these are not formally recognised and we would like to improve fishing opportunities for all these inshore boats it's been proved by some of the handline fisheries that it's created a mini regeneration of economies and small communities and I think there's evidence out there to support that in my own area i mouse and abs there's been a huge investment in smaller boats with the fishing opportunities for a single fishery handline mackerel so on the background to that we would like some sort of recognition of fishing opportunities and James could you just clarify for me you said that on the west coast there were limited opportunities just clarify what are the limits on the on the opportunities for fishing on the west coast within the 12 mile just a quick quick without getting too messy and it's a prickly subject I think gear conflict is one of the main gear conflict with the mobile sector you know and the scallop judges that limits inshore fisheries because they're they're more or less condensed in a single safe area where they can operate you know which means they're denied fishing opportunities in a lot of fishing areas mpa's have opened the debate on this and they've proved very successful because of the you know the displacement of catches coming from these mpa's it's been proved that there is a there has a small bonus already and it's a very new it's a very new fishing opportunity for them so on the back of that we would like to raise everybody's awareness okay um sorry if i mean i'm just thinking about about the the people watching this some people may not pick up what mpa's are and if you're going to use acronyms if i could just ask you just to introduce them to start with and that just saves for the broadcast peter you wanted to come in very briefly i think before we move on to the next theme which is foltum agraffin very briefly i mean you spoke about getting access to more water does that mean outside of 12 mile limit or are you speaking about mpa's when you say that no i think there's opportunities in several areas i think the west coast it's particularly you know problematic because of the the geography of the coastline you know and there are fishing opportunities there but it's been proven that with the mpa's and being able to start a gear being able to access them it's been very beneficial and we feel if it's if the marine protected areas are supported by all the proper you know groups i think it will be very beneficial and increase fishing opportunities it's a very young as i say but the evidence is certainly shown there already thank you going to move on to the next theme which is foltum agraffin thanks convener that i'm going to focus on a policy in the marine environment i appreciate callum duncan that you've touched on this in one of your earlier answers on our quote in a briefing back here from the london school of economics when they state that one of the key failings of the common fisheries policy was its failure to directly incorporate environmental legislation how does the panel think that fisheries policy prospects at link with management and governance of marine ecosystems okay who'd like to callum i i'm sure you'd like to go on that one yeah that that's fine um yes thank you foltum i did touch on that earlier and i was echoing that you know emphasizing fish and shell fisher obviously part of the marine ecosystem and that's where we value the marine strategy framework directive that um you know places fisheries management in that in that wider range of management that we need to look at to achieve good environmental status by by 2020 and those that directive is transposed into the UK marine strategy regulations 2010 and the uh the outputs of the both the Scottish and the UK marine act in terms of marine planning the marine protected area network that we've heard about um you know these are important management tools uh that fishing has to operate in the context of the the national the scotland's marine atlas highlighted fishing as along with climate change being the two most widespread pressures in scotland seas so we all want to see a thriving uh sustainable fishing industry in scotland a mixed fishery a mixed diverse fishery that also ensures there's sustainable benefits from the inshore as well um and you know in order to um in order to secure those those benefits both for those you know operating the fishers but also the onshore processes in the communities that um that they support you know we all want to keep the lights on around the around the coast as a phrase i've heard and and we absolutely four square behind that um but to do that we need to be starting then you know that starting place needs to be looking at the you know the health that ecosystem uh uh because again as i've touched on you know we know that we know that the nephrops burrowing mud we know that mud communities are also associated with whiting we know that gravels and sands are associated with cod and some other ground fish um you know the so you know we need to be looking we need to be looking at our marine environment spatially and temporally and managing fisheries with the grain of the ecosystem so that we continue to secure the benefits um for you know for for scotland as a whole and particularly those coastal communities um so that's where that so that's where those frameworks are really important i mean i've got the national marine plan scotland's national marine plan here and and it's got ecosystem objectives in it for example management of fisheries on a regional sea base and ecosystem basis with appropriate stakeholders empowered in the decision making process and and so on so there's you know we've we've got layers of um frameworks already in place uh sorry i'll finish in a minute there's one there's one last one on this which was um it just to go back to four country point there's uh there's an agreed UK marine policy statement going back uh quite a number of years which recognised the overall aim of um at the time it was saying reformed CFP but we can insert into that new fisheries management arrangements should be to attain ecological sustainability and could contribute to the delivery of effective management of our seas and be integrated into wider marine policy so there's there's a lot of frameworks in UK wide agreements and four country agreements there as well as these international frameworks and um uh those are absolutely key for sustainable fishing and fisheries management i'm quite a full answer there um i'm going to bring Andrew in and then if i may i'd like to look at the next theme uh folding unless you've got something to come back on um andry from uh processes perspective and selling a product you need good provenance to have that provenance you need solid science so having a strong scientific link proving how well the fishery is being managed is vitally important cutting links from management tools would be very very harmful for for the stock valuation so anything that retains the quality investment in the science of the stock would be welcomed by the processing sector sorry can i just just clarify what you're effectively saying that the the fishing sector needs to prove sustainability to be able to market their product do you want to come in and i'll bring Simon back in and then we'll move on to it was just a tiny point that the overarching framework through ISIS of course has existed for over 100 years so hopefully it survives to other turbulence that's going to happen but up more to the point that our contribution from our scientists continues to be directly connected with ISIS and i take it that would be the view of everyone you know i think we've invested hugely in fishery science over decades that investment's got to increase and it's got to continue and it's got to be valued so i'm in joint coming briefly on that just just a very very short point yes on backing up andrew's point really industry and science do work together already very closely where i'm from in shetland there's a lot of work going on from everything from marine planning we're very proud to be part of it food webs carbon footprints and so on and we intend to do that more one thing impetus that brexit does give us as far as industry and science going working together is concerned is a sense that actually something may come of it and that's the holding back part has not been industries unwillingness to cooperate with science it's industries unwillingness to spend its time funding things that don't get anywhere which frankly so the common fisheries policy is what has happened once you see there could be a practical outcome in terms of management you could expect industry to be more enthusiastic still we absolutely depend on science every fisherman will tell you that in his own particular way okay thank you i think we'll move on to the next theme john that's you thanks convener i mean mike rumbles already asked about the fisheries bill and what might happen at a uk level so i was just wanting to go a little bit further on that on the kind of theme of frameworks which is a word that i think a lot of people understand in different ways as we found out we're speaking to agriculture people earlier on so i mean frameworks presumably could be wider than just legislation it might be a memorandum of understanding or something like that but i was just wondering if you could be a bit more specific about what should be done at a UK level and what should be done at Scottish level because i think somebody said sustainability earlier on was that you mr Duncan which is a very kind of high level thing and everyone signs up to that but when it comes down to the detail of you know net size number of days at sea size of the boats when we if we're going to expand the fleet is that going to be a UK responsibility is that going to be a Scottish responsibility to take up this 60 percent so where does the line draw between what happens at the UK level and what happens at Scottish level who'd like to um you're all looking the other way at the moment uh andre John Studell moving away from the catching sector what's vitally important is that the processes in the united kingdom have a level playing field and a very good start to this would be to remove the destructive business rate values on specific regional areas and have a flat rate rateable value throughout the whole of the united kingdom that in itself will produce jobs very very short term and lead to huge reinvestment in the processing industry particularly in the northeast that sounded like a plug for your industry which i'm sure has been mentioned but we're trying to find out is the no no that's that's a UK where it's vitally important as a fishery policy that the uniqueness of fish processing is across the whole year and it becomes this constant and there's no way it's going to be a UK level it is a UK tax so it's not it's devolved by regional valuations but it's a UK tax and if the UK can say right if you're going to if we're going to maximise this massive brexit potential and you can take a uniform rate throughout the whole of the united kingdom if you're going to process fish it's going to be done at that level you will immediately get reinvestment back into the processing sector you made me from scott from england to scotland particularly in all regions i believe because at the moment we're dying at the present moment we've had a brexit in this industry we've had eight years of growth the fishing sector is absolutely booming and the processing sector is dying in its feet and that's because of the environment that the processing sector is having to work in if we can sort that and solve that problem we can then reignite the investment in the industry and not have our valuable fishing asset being trucked outside this country to be processed elsewhere because that's the reality just now i mean i think we need to get into all the areas apart from just rates but i mean i would just say that i mean everybody would like lower business rates so if that's what it is that sorry don't understand that so i thought you're meaning business rates yeah yeah but what do you mean by that well every business would like lower business rates that's true and that but i think that's a separate question i don't really think that that is a separate question what the industry needs is fairness and not us and not a tax that is destroying it and an unfair tax that is regionally destroying it andrea i'm tempted to to part that having given it quite a bit of air time just for clarity and very quickly just just to be clear andrew your concern is about rateable values rather than the level of the tax primarily because i think it's been said that the rateable value per square metre in hull is about well it's less than half 39 yeah it's less than half but it's that stage yeah i'm absolutely parking that now otherwise we'll get into the competencies of being a surveyor which will will drag me into it having been one so i want to get away from that and go into frameworks if i may and i'm gonna try and bring simon in on that to try and wider it's out across across the UK and indeed niff down to the level in scotland so simon would you like to lead off from that yes thanks thanks again community it was it was really just a fairly short commentary we're told this is work in progress i guess you know you've been trying to work on it yourselves if you could see any of it there's nothing objectionable in principle on the agreed UK scottish lines it's all fairly woolly and you can there's not much in there to disagree with as far as the fishing industry is concerned the catching industry and presumably the rest of it as well is what we're interested in is workable outcomes and that means devolution within the limits of of reasonability we want the UK to while with the constitutional arrangement seems to work perfectly well at the moment we like it that to continue so you can imagine mess size and all the other things that was mentioned at the beginning that should be as rightly devolved power there's nothing wrong however we're saying the devolved administrations do their own bit in terms of day to day management but there's no reason before something becomes law for them to sit down and get things as seamless as possible between them because at the end of the day we're talking about practical outcomes and the practicalities when it gets to that level the question is no longer political which is very helpful i'm sorry to say that it is and a practical solution for a technical matter on fishing either it works or it doesn't and that is something which i'm sure could be worked out between defford marines scotland and the other devolved administrations because even the EU has changed its view over the years as to what works and what doesn't work has it not it has but the word there is years and many many many years and not nearly as fast as it would want we would rather from a fishing industry have the ability to place a phone call to marines scotland discuss it with this parliament something that could be done quickly like very quickly because sometimes as caron will bear me out that the marine ecosystem can change very quickly you really do need to be fleet of foot about it and something like net sizes you could live with it being different from in scotland's waters and english waters yeah if that makes sense absolutely and i think as long as english and scots know what they're doing and why there's no reason why they couldn't happen these are very for many of the fisheries they are very different fisheries okay there's a boundary but for many the fisheries are very different in any case it would be appropriate i'm going to bring in james harrison and then we're going to move on to the next theme has changed its view over time and that even within a common fisheries policy there's been a lot of flexibility for member states to adopt higher standards for their vessels when and where they want only applicable to their vessels though there's also been derogations that have been allowed from things like minimum landing sizes where the science backs that up so i think we wouldn't want to lose that flexibility in a common uk framework whatever that means but i would also add that the international element of this comes back in even on things like net sizes gear regulations because you know the EU in its negotiating position on shared stocks that was set out at the end of last month was indicating it would be pushing for harmonized fishing regulations not just agreements on quotas but also going down to the that more granular level and so that those international agreements and we see this with the coastal state arrangements on mackerel there are certain minimum standards that everybody agrees to in relation to their own fleet this will have implications for flexibility as well that will have to be reflected across the uk right i am going to move on to the next theme now and that will be rich laugh yes good morning basically i'm sorry afternoon um we have the london fisheries convention and that convention was signed in 1964 allows vessels from five european countries to fish within 6 to 12 nautical miles of a uk coastline in 2017 as you know the uk government announced that will withdraw from the london fisheries convention are you content as a panel content with the uk withdrawn from the london fisheries convention and what impact do you think that will have on scotland james cook is that something you'd like to head off with start with and then i'll bring in other members well i think this is mostly a fish a white fish related issue um our own as i say particular east coast and west coast of scotland there are different different views on this but i think i would okay simon do you want well even more qualified would be would be dr james in terms of the fisheries convention in terms of practical day-to-day stuff yes james is right it's it's mainly a white fish issue as far as uk access to other because it's a reciprocal matter with these other countries but that is an opportunity which we really won't miss this is not something that matters greatly now we have enough quota in our own waters even without breaks we don't have to go very far to catch it say the least the fish stocks have recovered to that extent we don't need to go hunting off skygorect to exercise these rights so my legal my limited legal understanding was it effectively perhaps we didn't need to revoke it at all perhaps it was rolled into it was enough to come out of the euw to lose it and james will know more about that than i but if it's going good we won't miss it andry do you want to come in and then i'll bring in james i have an opportunity here of a blank canvas and restricting it with ancient deals and regulations it's time for a fresh start so i would welcome it okay james harrison and then i'll come to canum i mean it's been denounced the denunciation will take effect two years from last july or on brexit day whichever comes later that was in the denunciation notification so we will have a clean slate that doesn't necessarily mean however that in the future we might not have new arrangements which allow access but it will allow us to negotiate those from scratch so i think it puts us in a positive position callum would you like to come in briefly on that one yeah i just wanted to briefly take the opportunity to highlight the importance of the inshore and there's opportunities there but given uh the commitment to an inshore fisheries bill which was made a while ago which i think is urgently needed in scotland to address the gear conflict we've heard about and to be able to more effectively manage our inshore fishing with greater granularity again with the ecosystem you know that's something that we mustn't lose sight of if i can just take this opportunity to flag that up it's really important okay thank you the next theme we're going to move on to is led by Peter Chapman thank you convener and my my issue is one of the big issues i would argue and that's about trade and tariff and non-tariff barriers the strange thing about the the market for fishing in the uk is that we export the majority of what we catch and we import the majority of what we eat which seems a strange thing but it seems to be backed up by the figures that we we catch 660 000 tons and then export nearly 500 000 tons of that and of the fish that we eat we import 720 000 tons much of that from the european union so obviously tariff free access to the single market for fish products is very very important so my question is what are your concerns about possible tariff and non tariff barriers post brexit and how might any of these problems be overcome andry would you like to head off on that tariffs quit the propo you know if what's good for the goose good for the gander and if there is tariffs one thing about the processing sector is we will deal with those tariffs only if we have a competitive environment to process that product with we would love to see no tariffs i think that would be the best flow of of of anything but if there are tariffs we'll deal with it and we'll handle it if we're given the proper environment to do so simon do you want to say something on that yeah i'd like to make a thanks peter as well i'd like to just make a distinction really between our attitude to tariffs and the non tariff barriers we of course when the brexit vote came through the first thing we did really was to scurry over to a w two or rules or and people plowing through that massive stuff to figure out what kind of impact it would have or could have clearly we'd like as i guess every sector would like most sectors would like a zero tariffs in frictionless trade one thing that comforts us in the seafood sector is that it's mutually beneficial to have zero tariffs we didn't realize until we started looking at this that in fact it's pretty much balanced or was in 15 16 the last years which i've got up to date information because of this phenomenon we've talked about if we import the fish wheat we export the fish to other people to eat it's remarkably similar it's roughly a billion in each direction every year of seafood our stuff is a little bit different it's often unprost relatively to process but nonetheless you think it's mutually advantageous in seafood as well as in many other sectors to have zero tariffs in any case a couple of our very biggest markets are relatively insensitive in the sense that i wouldn't want to be glib about it mackerel's the biggest single export from Scotland in terms of the catching sector the biggest single species for the EU as well for that matter that is already sold largely outside the EU next biggest if you look down the list and depends what you look at nephrops for example they're often in a strong position because in many markets it's very difficult to see what could replace them and certainly not in that kind of quantity so a small things there that give us some comfort or at least don't plung us into pessimism we think this is in this is not an insurmountable issue like andrew said you know we can live with it i think the industry is in a strong place on the catching side if there are additional costs to absorb they absorb bigger ones year on year in terms of fuel prices and exchange rates anyway so that's the tariffs relatively relaxed without being complacent at least not pessimistic the non-tariff thing is much more serious it's a serious concern it's a it's a it's a practical concern whether or whether whether we have a free trade deal or not if we're outside the customs union there will be customs there will be paperwork we have perishable goods and that is a short term issue which needs to be resolved again though mutually beneficial there's a lot of perishable stuff coming across from the continent to here as well obviously not just seafood she would think it's in mutual interest to have something that works as frictionless as possible between ourselves and europeans if we're outside the customs union and you'd think in a in a it's now half a century i was thinking about half a century since we or the americans at least put a man on the moon you think there'd be enough it wizards out there to get something that actually works for both sides because i'm sure there's a commitment on equal need on both sides to make this work so there's a short term concern yes but none of that should blind us of course to the to the much bigger price that we see lying out there i'm going to bring james cook in there yes i'm i think we're very concerned with this i think we were we were looking at a paper that was supplied by the e s r i which is the economic and social research institute of doubling it was a paper in november 2016 and it gave us all the parameters the different classifications that all fish and process fish shelfish would fall into and just to summarise it i think it recommended or it suggested that we would see a downfall of about 40 percent of our product through the direct input you know if there's no trade zero trade agreement and i love this term frictionless movement i think that's that's aspirational i think but the reality is it's going to be quite different um so we're very concerned about that but we can supply the chamber with the paper if anybody would like to follow it and it gives you a lot of the facts behind the you know the world trade organization tariffs which are are very alarming and the classification of it so that's an area that we have to look at um something that might polarise our mind and i think anzu in our industry will remember this very well we had that horrible experience in july 2015 with the migrant crisis in cali now that just about brought the industry to its knees and this was only on very infrequent days during that period where operationally we couldn't get our vehicles and our product to market our own company during that period i think six weeks we wrote credit notes for over 200 000 pounds of the business and that was just in the six weeks on very infrequent days where we couldn't make market and we couldn't actually measure the cancelled business that was actually cancelled that was just credit notes we had the issue against product that had failed so scotland has a lot of high value especially from our sector from the creole sector very high value premium products which the european market loves in particular live langistine live lobster live brown crab so i think we're very exposed to problems you know and we're very very concerned and as i say i love that term frictionless but i think that's more aspirational than the reality okay i'm i'm just gonna i'm afraid because time is marching on i'd like to to bring jamie in on on theme seven thank you convenient good afternoon panel and i may apologize for leaving after my own discussion and themes to uh head to another meeting but i wanted to talk about um just how we ensure that the fishing interests of scotland are at the forefront of any brexit discussions i mean the fishing that the fisheries market is accounts only around 0.05 percent of britain's gtp so in terms of the agricultural scene it's relatively small but it's as you pointed out mr cook it's a highly valuable and very important one to scotland's economy uh how does the panel think that we could ensure that as part of these negotiations whether it's on trade or tariffs or deals with the EU or otherwise that at the forefront of those negotiations is the protection of the industry and how do we ensure that the industry has a loud voice in those who'd like to head off on that um i mean simon andrew james i mean one of you i would have thought would have strong views on this simon we thank you convenient the answers we're doing our best we we make a lot of noise i think collectively for for a very small industry i think it's very encouraging also that it's not a yes we make a lot of noise for small industry but it's not as though nobody cares we were encouraged when we in the sff we we commissioned an opinion poll in january and that showed throughout the country east west remain leave it was very very similar result that 79 percent of respondents said that the uk should take control of its eez and its fishing opportunities on in 2019 itself that's it's an interesting it's for some reason it and it said it'll go back to history it's an iconic industry and people do for some reason and it helps us at the moment take the case of the fishing industry as some kind of iconic importance this is the one gain that even remain voters can see right across the board and right across the country not just in scotland so we're encouraged by that but i don't think apart from making noise and continue to exercise whatever influence we can i'm not sure at the end we don't get a seat at the negotiation table and given our size perhaps we shouldn't hate but i think we're doing what we can i'm going to bring calamine and then andrew yeah very quick one i mean as mcs and Scottish environment link and as members of environment links uk and greener uk networks of angels we're we're focusing on the principles so we don't necessarily have a uh you know a recommendation or a policy preference on this but i did want to flag to the committee a report that was done by the new economics foundation that's involved informed um uh some of their thinking which was not in the same boat so there's a range of brexit scenarios um and i'm not an economist i'm not advocating how uh how accurate the scenario planning is in there but the committee i think should should show an interest in that report andrew you want to come in forward be helpful i think for the industry is putting the value on the stock to to focus our mp's msp's new mep's not to be of what we're actually giving away and a great way to do that is the the quota rental to the other european nations knowing that you've got this lifetime revenue stream and i think if that happens that would push it right to the front and we would have members of parliament fighting for their life to retain that value and that stock and that tradition the people of scotland very passionate about the fishing industry but the people in the united kingdom are very passionate about this industry it's wild it feeds us it's it's a no brainer james cook and then james harrison i think we would like to focus the government's attention that this is a fairly small industry but it's very relevant to scotland it's a it's a traditional small coastal community's fishery and it's supported you know mixed uh or varied areas for quite some time and it is now a major contributor i think the figures allow it we've got 1400 member vessels which operate in and around the coast and they would be greatly impacted by this so you know gdp wise it's it's not maybe relevant in the in the regards bigger industries but i think for coastal communities i think given the pressure they've had for quite some number of years i think it's it's time we've got the recognition and the support that they deserved you know so any loss and if we're talking about 40 you know and lots of opportunity through a hard Brexit we have major issues that translates to all coastal communities very very quickly jobs and opportunities so i'm going to bring in uh james harrison then i'm afraid because of time we're going to have to move on to the next theme so james harrison i mean a very quick point is i think i would encourage you to think about this in longer term not just about brexit negotiations but the UK will be negotiating with coastal states uh in the first you know in all future years and we need to ensure that the Scottish voices represented in those negotiations be they bilateral with the EU bilateral with Norway multilateral amongst coastal states or in an organization such as the north east Atlantic fisheries commission uh that there need to be arrangements in place to make sure that the Scottish government the Scottish industry and the Scottish parliament have an oversight of those negotiations to ensure that the Scottish interests are best protected okay thank you i'm afraid we are going to have to move on and the next theme is is jon finney's theme good afternoon panel it's a very brief question it's about the european maritime and fisheries fund and the information i have here is that between 2014 and 2020 scotland's been allocated 44 percent of the total UK fund and the scottish government recently put a release out about setting out how 4.8 million of that funding would be awarded to 43 projects so can i ask what the implications for not just sea fisheries agriculture but also the process and its being of the loss of that fund and is there an expectation that it would be replaced post brexit who'd like to head off on that andry are you happy to start the loss of that funding would be a huge setback i think it's very important like the farming industry that's been given a five year guarantee that funding will remain in place that same sort of guarantee should be extended to the fishing sector i would also like to say that that funding should be available without a ceiling because there are many large companies can't gain access to that funding at this present time due to rules about turnover etc so i think that that is vitally important if we're going to see this huge investment that i think we need to in in processing we've lost over a year of growth 36 percent of our processes if we're going to have this huge uptaken quota we're going to need huge investment in fish processing and it's going to need funding and that type of funding is going to be vitally important to bring those projects forward okay Simon would you like to yes certainly absolutely agree with that it's the actual amounts involved are not always enormous in comparison to the fishing opportunity we have we did a little study just in in shetland where we just looked well what what is that actually worth and it worked out to less than 1 percent there's a value of emf coming into shetland uh less than 1 percent of the value of the fish caught by EU vessels within 50 miles of shetland so it was having said so it's in that sense it's relatively unimportant however it's absolutely vital for particularly targeted things it's very difficult to build business cases for infrastructure in rural areas for example you really do need that seed that that kernel around around which other structures or other structured finance can be built that's absolutely essential infrastructure to do with regulatory change as well sometimes that can be very onerous especially on small vessels when you get new things coming in we have a thing called ILO of 188 and what that's all about is about standards at sea some of these things can be very onerous and there is a need for targeted grant to deal with that updating our fleet there's another another good one in general sustainability maintaining a reputation of our seafood as well you think there'd be a need for targeted financing there it'd be very useful and of course in applied science so while the numbers involved were not the numbers involved didn't have to be absolutely huge we would expect that to be replaced for all those reasons because it even a small amount properly targeted to make a very very big difference in some of the communities we're talking about. James, do you want to come in on that? Yes and to underline that I think it's very relevant that we get some sort of framework in place that similar to the farming community that would guarantee us access to funding so that investment can follow what we hope is going to be a very profitable cat sector and opportunities abound and it would be rather ironic that all these opportunities were presented and there was no funding in place for anybody to access it so again we'd be very supportive of that. John, do you want to follow that up at all? I think perhaps Simon had something for us to add. Yes, thank you. Just very quickly John, just one point I would mention as well which comes into frameworks and everything else under the emff there's a pot of money which comes to the UK and then is divied out among the devolved administrations it's a very clumsy arrangement or maybe no arrangement it's very unsatisfactory sometimes when there is a need in Scotland for example and we can't tap into an English pot you can't transfer stuff across if we're to replicate an emff style system in the UK it's important that untapped resources can be used by other devolved administrations there should be some mechanism to allow that. Callum very briefly. Whatever funding arrangements are in place public money should be used for public good so it should incentivise sustainable fishing and a race to the top is what we'd like to see in terms of encouraging sustainable fishing practice and it's an opportunity to also look at novel ways of funding other industries help fund marketing and data collection and strategic environment assessments so on so maybe the government should explore cost recovery system maybe with small levion industry as well to help that industry in the long term because it helps to fund monitoring data collection and so on that can help inform a more sustainable fishery. Thank you very much. Okay thank you and it gives me the chance to ask one question at the end and I'm going to put a limit on it in the sense that I'm going to ask you to give one thing that you haven't mentioned already that you think the Scottish Government or the UK government should be concentrating on and should be doing at the moment so one thing you haven't mentioned before and that either the UK or the Scottish Government should be doing that they're not they're not doing or not doing enough of so I'm going to start on the right and work to the left that's my right your left so Simon that's you and I'll work down the table. I would like to make a plea it's a general want and that is of Scottish Government that we're all aware of the Scottish Government's position with regards to Brexit that nonetheless there is a need to get practical things done in preparation for Brexit and some of this some of the fisheries management issues that should be looking to the future what can we do differently I think there needs to be more more zeal if not about Brexit but about the opportunities and the work that could be done now to prepare for that that would be a plea really. Thank you James Cook. Well the one area that we haven't really touched on is the customs situation you know at the channel ports that's something that I think is very relevant we've we've no really had any consultation at all with anybody regards customs documentation clearance or even any clear principle on how this is going to happen or work. I know that it's in its infancy but it's a very relevant problem for us going forward. Currently we enjoy CMR documentation to access Europe because of the freedom of the nature so dedicated customs sorry CMR documentation is just that. That was a TLA which I didn't quite pick up on. CMR I think it's just a customs document that allows us access to export our goods into the EU and it's a very as I say frictionless operation at the moment but we would certainly like some focus put on this issue and some consultation with our industry about preparing customs documents that are relevant for our industry. Thank you James Callum. I'd like to see more collaborative working across the UK administration similar again to what I said a year ago we know that the officials are doing what are termed by them deep dives in terms of exploring policy detail to then inform ministers so it would be about communicating more about these issues and feeding back from those those meetings of officials to relevant relevant ministers and to the relevant parliaments and wider stakeholders us to actually where discussions are at because it needs to be collaboration. Andrew, I'm sure I don't need to say nothing you've mentioned before. I would like to see every species in our sea given very good provenance and supported by solid scientific data and research that's what I would like to see. We have the cod, the haddock, the mackerel, the coley all with very good provenance but I would like to see investment in all species because we've got wonderful species out there that don't have the backing of the science and with that investment then we can absolutely maximise this Brexit opportunity and get the most out of the extra 60%. Hopefully the United Kingdom will process over the next 30, 40 years as we slide to catching all our own fish and not having foreign people catch our fish and enjoy the benefit of it. James Harrison. I would like to say that fisheries management policy can't be dealt with as an isolated issue. We have a really good marine special planning system in the UK and in Scotland particularly for inshore waters and fisheries needs to be dealt with in that context and plugged into the marine planning system. Perfect. Thank you very much. We have slightly overshot our time. Again, it's rather like the last panel. I think it's a very interesting subject and it's been very worthwhile for the committee. I'd like to thank all the witnesses and I'm going to briefly suspend the meeting. I would ask members to stay in their seats and I'd ask the witnesses to leave as quickly as possible so that we can finish the last item on our agenda. Thank you. I'd like to reconvene the meeting and move to the agenda item 2, which is subordinate legislation. This item is the consideration of one negative instrument concerning the important inspection fees for plant health. No motions to annul have been received in relation to this instrument. Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendation in relation to this instrument? It is agreed. Thank you. That concludes today's meeting and I now close which I now close. Thank you.