Fisheries Statement

I am aware that some of my fellow blogging MSPs post excerpts from their contributions in the Scottish Parliament chamber. Whether this is an exercise in vanity or not, I thought I would give it a go. It provides easy material after all and allows me to maintain my new year's resolution to blog more often.

We will see how long this new endeavour lasts!

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Fisheries Statement - 16th January 2008

Question by Jamie Hepburn MSP to Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Richard Lochhead MSP

Jamie Hepburn (Central Scotland) (SNP): The Government announced last year that it will set up a Scottish fisheries convention and a Scottish fisheries council. In light of the fisheries talks and the associated agreement, will the minister tell Parliament what those bodies will do and when they will meet?

Richard Lochhead: The Scottish sea fisheries council meets for the first time next week, and the convention on the future of Scotland's fishing communities will meet in two or three months' time. We feel that the community dimension of fisheries policy in Scotland needs more attention. I am sure that the Parliament agrees that fisheries policy is about not simply TACs and quotas but the impact that it has on real, living, working communities on our shores. That is why it is important to recognise the community impact, as well as the cultural and social impacts, of decisions that are taken in Brussels. The purpose of the convention on the future of Scotland's fishing communities is to bring together local authority representatives with organisations around Scotland that might not be directly related to fisheries management issues but which have a clear interest in the future of our fishing communities.