The Scottish Government

Question and Answer Session 2 - Forum 1

The following are notes from the afternoon question and answer session at the 1st Freshwater Fisheries Forum. The panel of speakers in this session consisted of:

Gordon Brown (GB) - Chairman SEERAD - Freshwater Fisheries and Aquaculture Division

David Dunkley (DD) - SEERAD - Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Branch

Graeme Waugh (GW) - SEERAD - Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Branch

Andrew Wallace (AW) - Association of Salmon Fishery Boards

Cameron Durie (CD) - Environment Agency (England and Wales)

John O'Connor (JO'C) - Central Fisheries Board (Ireland)

Frank Spencer-Nairn - Beauly DSFB

Is it the intention to consolidate the existing legislation or will a lot of the old Acts still remain in force?

DD - In 2003 the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolation) (Scotland) Act gained Royal Assent. This Act has already been passed to consolidate the existing legislation, but it has not been brought into force yet as it is hoped to have the Consolidation Act and the Borders Rivers Orders in place together so the whole of Scotland could be covered at the one time.

Jane Wright - Association of West Coast Fisheries Trusts

One of the things that the Steering group must look at was how to make the contribution by anglers accountable. This is the crux of persuading people to contribute small amounts of money. Suggested setting up 'area management committees' to collect money from ticket sales, so the anglers' contributions could be made accountable.

Richard Gustar (SEERAD) - Spoke about the Scottish Executive fisheries website and the new discussion forum that was available on the website for people to air their views. All the papers that would come out of this forum, steering group minutes, etc. would be posted on the website.

Peter Reith (Federation of Border Angling Associations) - In the Borders there is a system of protection orders that seem to work extremely well. Local clubs manage the money from permits sold, using the money for stocking, and river improvement as they see appropriate. The only downside to protection orders was the 'all or nothing' nature of them. Protection orders applied to the whole of the catchment area or not at all. If some flexibility could be introduced into the system, this could help address a lot of the difficulties that have been identified.

CD - In England and Wales, there had been a long period for anglers and netsmen getting used to the licensing system. A short time ago there was a review on how money was actually obtained for the fisheries regulation process. Up until that time there had been Government grants on the one hand and licence duties on the other. There was talk at one stage about getting revenue from fishery owners as well. That idea ran for quite a long time. One of the reasons that the idea stalled was that it was bureaucratically quite complicated. It was also recognised that it was probably the participants in the sport who would end up paying what the owners had already paid anyway by having it passed down the system. That idea was ditched and it is now back to Government grants and licence incomes.

The main component of the funds comes from the licence income. About £2½ million a year is spent on fisheries improvement projects. Just short of £2 million is spent on coarse fish and trout projects and about £½ million on salmon projects. A vast amount of projects don't require a lot of money to get started, but they do need encouragement. There are currently quite a few projects that obtain seed core money from the Environment Agency 'project pot'.

Nick Yonge - River Tweed Commissioners

Firstly, Gyrodactylus salaris must be considered in the proposed Bill. Asked about the effectiveness of sections 14 and 30 of the relevant Irish and English/Welsh legislation in terms of regulating fish movements. Asked if it would be possible to standardise annual close times across Scotland .

JO'C - Developed a policy document for the Minister setting out the basic rules in relation to the movement of fish and stocking and the use of hatcheries.

Nick Yonge - but is your current section 14 that controls it effective?

JO'C - It is effective to a certain extent. Trying to do two things: firstly, trying to get the legislation right and secondly trying to educate people. The policy document was very important in putting these issues in context. We want to move the powers away from the Minister to the Fishery Boards, as they're the people responsible for the Fisheries and should have some devolved powers. Essentially the basic provision of the legislation was very strong.

CD - Section 30 in England and Wales governs all introductions of fish both within catchments and between catchments. It is an offence to introduce a fish into any water without having previously obtained consent from the Environment Agency. It is necessary to have the section 30 process, how well it works is another question.

GW - Firstly, transfer of species. This is something that we can consider. We are in a fortunate position at the moment because we can look at the processes used in England, Wales and Ireland, and benefit from their experiences. Secondly, close times. It is up to the Boards to apply for regulations to change these. They are fairly similar throughout the country, only differing slightly because the rivers differ slightly and were in place to suit the runs of fish. There was a question on weekly close times as well. The department had received quite a lot of correspondence recently regarding weekly close times. People asked why the weekly close time for salmon was a Sunday, and was there any possibility of the close time being moved. It appears it was a Sunday for religious and possibly conservation reasons. The point had been raised that a lot of people could perhaps fish on a Sunday that could not fish during the week. There was no reason why close times could not be changed as long as they were being changed for the right reasons.

Drew Jamieson - Consultative Committee on Freshwater Fisheries

Was there any space within the process for giving greater protection to the physical habitat as opposed to concentrating purely on the fish themselves? How was the land use impact considered at present in relation to fisheries. What permission was required for example to carry out agricultural activities that may damage important fisheries.

Liam Mathers (SEERAD) - explained that part of his policy responsibilities included the implementation of the European Communities Habitats Directive. Currently within Scotland there are 17 salmon rivers or rivers with salmon as an interest within them, that had been designated as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) and this equated to 40% of the Atlantic salmon resource within Scotland. In answer to the question about protecting the habitat of the species, that is exactly what the Habitats Directive was designed to do. So if an area was designated as a SAC, the UK Government has a very strict obligation to ensure that the habitats for the Atlantic salmon species interest are protected. If there is any kind of development proposal, the UK Government is fully obliged to ensure maximum legal protection. This did not apply to all river systems, only to those that had been designated for specific international importance. Very hopeful of securing a block of European funding approaching £3½ million which was looking at targeting 8 out of the 17 rivers in Scotland looking specifically at habitat improvement and protection.

DD - SACs exist for a whole host of species, not just salmon and these have habitat implications. If they are making sure that habitats are good for these other species, then hopefully it should be good for all manner of things. There are other mechanisms that exist, for example where there were hydro developments, there had been the involvement of the Fisheries Committee which was specifically allowed for in statute Law.

Drew Jamieson - Recognised the importance of SACs, but I was talking about in general terms of the average river and if the farmer upstream did something to damage the river. Are there any mechanisms that exist to prevent this.

DD - The Water Framework Directive (WFD) would deal with this. One of the things that is central to the Directive is the concept of integrated catchment management. The WFD would require people to do a whole host of things. Fishing interests are going to be involved so let us get ahead of the game.

Dr Alistair Stephen - Institute of Fisheries Management

In relation to rod licensing, if we all want to improve fisheries for whatever reason and the conservation of fish stocks then we are all going to have to be responsible and probably financially responsible as well. Asked about John O'Connor's experience trying to introduce rod licensing in Ireland .

JO'C - The Department thought that too much money was being spent on inland fisheries. In my view in Ireland, there was not too much money being spent, we were just not sure of the value for money we were getting from the state investment. What I wanted to get across to the Minister and to the industry in Ireland was that more state investment was needed, but industry itself in particular needed to contribute more. The rod licensing did not work. It was about principal not about money. We brought in a voluntary permits system, but the money did not come in. There was a review of fisheries a couple of years ago where the intention was to increase the size of the Boards. Stated that the Scottish Executive needed to invest more. Need to make sure that the money's invested locally and that people get value for money.

Peter Kennedy - Ayrshire Rivers Trust

Stated that the Trust had problems dealing with areas which had no river boards. It was mentioned earlier that river boards could be used as a basis for future catchment area management for all species. Wanted to know if there had been any thoughts or proposals on dealing with areas that did not have river boards.

AW - This is a difficult issue and a much localised issue. There were attempts being made to amalgamate districts in Argyll and the north coast. Ultimately we would be dealing with one specific area and that would be the Clyde in the Strathclyde area, Loch Lomond and the Irvine. Have spoke to the Irvine about forming a board. Don't know what the solution would be on this. This would need to be put on the list of things to be discussed by the Steering Group.

DD - no legislation currently exists that requires the formation of a Board. As this development is taken forward, we are going to have to have some management structures in Scotland. It is about time that people started thinking seriously about how we can do this because it must be done. It is not beyond all of us to agree on things that are going to benefit the fisheries and ultimately the fish on which they depend.

Vaughan Ruckley - Edinburgh Walton Angling Club

Tired of receiving glossy brochures that are the result of some committees working for five years, a lot of good ideas being put together but nothing much happening. Science and information are absolutely crucial. Agree on the point that mandatory collection of information about fisheries and the format and technology for that should be standardised. Scientific studies and the improvement of data collection should not be at the cost of taking action now on some of the very major issues around including pollution, salmon farming, netting, predation and so on which need Executive action sooner rather than later.

Frank Spencer - Nairn Beauly DSFB

One thing which needs to be taken into account and studied in detail on a regional basis or a river by river basis and that is looking at what the limiting factors are. It is not always the case that it is the number of fish, and to pick one example it could be the lack of ghillies in an area.

It was mentioned that one of areas that you would like to see the legislation touching on was the Scotland wide access to freshwater fisheries. The fact that this had been raised suggested there must be issues that you had been made aware of in this respect. Would be interested to know at this stage what those issues were.

GB - Our interest in access flows from the present administration's programme for Government. The Minister talked about three of them. It would appear that people had been approaching politicians in the run up to last years elections indicating there was an access problem for freshwater fisheries. It was perceived as a problem and we needed to drill down into that and to see if there was a problem and see if anything could be done about it.

Frank Spencer-Nairn - Do you believe it is a financial or a physical problem with access.

AW -Gratified that the Minister had said this morning that we had to look at this issue in an evidence based way. Heard some severe criticism of the protection order system this morning and then heard from two other people who said that their protection orders are working fine.

Need to find out exactly what it is about these systems that isn't working and why. Need to identify the problems and then solve those problems. This was the benefit of having a wide forum of people to actually look at what the access issues were. Firmly believe that there are problems, but think that the biggest failure is the lack of information about fishing opportunities and other constraints such as introducing people to the sport. Most energy should be concentrated on these areas. Before a sensible assessment can made about what to do with access, a sensible assessment needs to be made about what the access constraints actually are.

DD - there are probably physical, financial, legal and perceptual problems with access and these should be ticked off as they are covered.

Laurence Larmour - Lochaber DSFB

There was a comment this morning which suggested that there should be a reduction in the restrictions on anglers. Had concerns about this as he had to enforce fisheries legislation as part of his job. Unfortunately, quite commonly come up against anglers who may be fishing with 2, 4 maybe 6 rods at a time and at best is met with hostility and bailiffs are quite frequently threatened with physical violence. Hoped that the Executive in its review of the legislation would not listen to those who shout the longest and stamped their feet the hardest.

Derek Keith - SCAPA

We have heard quite a lot today about the 1976 Act 'Exclusion Orders' [protection orders]. There is a massive problem with 'Exclusion Orders' [protection orders]. There are 13 protection orders in Scotland covering 20% of Scotland 's land area. Angling participation had collapsed. They are not working well. If the 1976 Act does not get repealed then the Minister's proposals for the public partnership for access would be dead in the water.

DD - There is no such thing in law as the exclusion order that was Derek's description of protection orders. If they are not working, then we must to do something about that. Protection orders are made under the 1976 Act. Section 1 of the Act states that where Scottish Ministers are satisfied that the proposals in the application for a protection order would result in a significant increase in the availability of fishing, then a protection order may be made. Protection orders provide protection, unfortunately maybe not to the fish but to the owner of the fishing rights, to ensure that anybody who wants to fish should be allowed to fish providing that they have a permit. If they do not hold a permit then an offence is being committed. Lord Sewel, when he was Minister was minded to revoke the protection orders in the Tweed and the Tay and surveys were done in relation to the fact that some fisheries had been withdrawn relative to what was proposed when the applications were sent in. Those issues where addressed and, in the case of both the Tweed and the Tay, it was found at the end of the exercise there was more fishing available than there was when the original proposals were made.

Alex Stewart - Tay Liaison Committee

The Tay system is quite straight forward in what it does. £1 per permit is taken off every permit sold and donated to every angling club to fund its administration. It makes grants available to riparian owners or angling clubs for improvements environmentally to the fishing. These can be applied for under certain criteria which must be met. Would like some form of legislation in the new Act to make these returns to the likes of the Tay Protection Order compulsory so that proper statistics could be produced. David Dunkley is correct in what he had said about the 1998 exercise. Access was improved, but we still had no compulsory side to the legislation to compel every riparian owner to make their returns. Every riparian owner had made an agreement with angling clubs or Tay Liaison Committee for access.

Would also like to see some form of compulsory training in the new legislation. On the Tay no one is submitted for a Warden's card unless they are properly trained.