Rhaiddiw i chi, everybody. Welcome to our first meeting in 2015 of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. I wish everybody a happy new year. Let's hope it's a healthy and successful one as well. I have apologies from Cara Hilton today. Before we move to the first item, we should remember to switch off all mobile phones. It can affect the broadcasting system. If you are using tablets, it is for the benefit of your work and the committee. That is the only purpose that should be here on the desks. Thank you very much. The agenda item 1 is Scotland's national marine plan. This is an evidence-taking session in round table format. I very much welcome our witnesses today. What I'll do is to go round the table. I'm the convener, Rob Gibson, for MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross. Annie Breeden from the Crown Estate. Richard Ballantyne, British Post. Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland and Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change. Fyll Tom was the Scottish Salmon Brees' organisation. Dave Thompson, MSP for Skylach Abern Bednoch. Lucy Green, Health and Scottish Association for Marine Science. Alan Broadbent, Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution. Alex Fogus, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries. Bertie Armstrong, TV Executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation. Jim Hewman, MSP for South Scotland. David Leven, Scottish Enterprise. Angus MacDonald, MSP for Falkirk East. Callum Duncan, Scotland programme manager for the Marine Conservation Society. I also convene Lynx Marine Task Force. Graham The MSP for Angus South and Deputy convener of the committee. That's all who's here. Mike Russell's just going to arrive very soon between Annie and Richard. Welcome everybody. If you wish to speak, just indicate to me the sound system works via the sound technician. You don't need to switch anything on and off. He will, or I will, if you're speaking too long. The draft national marine plan US stakeholders have looked at this in considerable detail, being consulted to a greater or lesser extent. There's questions in my mind about the clarity of purpose, the clarity of when it applies, about how the national marine plan improves on current practice. To sum that up, would anybody like to say what difference is it going to make to your particular sector in terms of the way in which you will operate in future in relation to the plan and in relation to your sector's activities? Phil Thomas. I think your point at the start of clarity of purpose is actually quite a good point to start, because in some ways from my perspective I would see the plan as providing two things, or should be providing two things. One is an overarching framework for planning, which I think is a public approach. The second in a sense is that it's acting as a prospectus almost for investors, because it sets the tone for the whole of the investment environment into the development of marine facilities or whatever type. Scotland is quite well placed, I think, in terms of marine resources for that development, and this plan is an element in that. I think for me the problem with the plan is that it is probably more advanced than that in any other EU region. A number of other people are working on similar plans, but I think Scotland is a bit ahead. But it does have some areas where it's still pretty grey and where you would debate whether or not the balance is quite right, and in particular now it's becoming overtaken by events, because policy is moving around it quite rapidly. So I think it's a good start. I don't think at this stage I'm in a good position to tell you exactly what impact it would have on the aquaculture sector, although it's quite clear potentially it could have a very significant impact. We'll have a look at various shades of grey then as we go through each of the sectors, I think, in terms of questions. But generally at the start, Lucy Greenhill. I think because I don't represent a specific sector, so I come from a broader perspective I guess, and from the environmental perspective in particular. I think the main benefit that we see the marine plan and process could provide is that ability to assess cumulative impacts across multiple sectors. I think one of the areas, or the points at which individual sectors struggle in the consent and decision making process is where you have to assess the impacts of, say, a wind farm development and oil and gas or multiple wind farm developments together. And I think the broader marine planning process could provide a framework for dealing with that in a more streamlined way. But I do think at this stage it's a potential opportunity, it's not how that actually works in practice hasn't been set out as yet, I would say. Bertie Armstrong. Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Could I just mention that I thought particularly helpful was the Marine Scotland web page which now has collected all the documents which are relevant to the present inspection. I thought that was well done and that's helpful. From our point of view, to reiterate some things that other people have said, clarity of planning for us is very important because we need to know where we stand and investment decisions are built on that. Our approach to it very specifically has been that there should be a recognition of some form of protection for already established sustainable uses of the sea and that's clear in our deposition to the consultation. And we take a slightly different approach but use the same words as Lucy did with regard to cumulative effect. I'm assuming she was referring to cumulative effect on the environment and of course for us the cumulative effect of large numbers of small developments on the overall shape of the Scottish fishing industry is something that's terribly important for us. And topically we are very keen that the section on cable laying makes proper sense. It contains most of our requirements and we're pleased about that because that's something that will be increasingly in the news. So in general terms we are pleased with what has come out. We still want to see an even handedness in recognising those sustainable industries that already exist instead of, as the bill does, give an overall preference for new development. Indeed we will come to cables and due course like many other points. David Leven. Thank you. So Scottish Enterprise's objective is to ensure that the economic potential of the marine environment is optimised and we're quite pleased that this marine plan will support that. My specific agreement is with the energy sector and we're pleased that the marine plan will play an important part in relation to offering for the first time a full and ambitious statement of Scotland's ambition around the economic potential of the marine environment so that's good. Also we're pleased that the marine plan will attempt to go some way to achieve the delivery of a mechanism for better levels of co-ordination of action and investment to support the exploitation in a sustainable way of the economic potential of the marine environment. Also we hope and are pleased that it will deliver to some extent clarity and certainty for investors in marine energy projects and also as part of that support a faster and more efficient decision making process around that. So those are our interests in this plan. So it makes a difference for your sector to have that clarity? Absolutely. Calum Duncan. Thank you. We welcome the national marine plan as a step-changing how our seas are managed and provides a great opportunity to address the concerns about cumulative impacts that have already been raised. The purpose of the plan is improved from the previous draft. It says that it would make an important contribution to sustainable development. I think I'd like to be clear on the record that we actually think the national marine plan should be in order to deliver sustainable development which is ultimately sound science, good governance and sustainable economic activity contributing to just society living within environmental limits. So there's still a slight framing issue there I think about what the plan should be for. Some of the sexual chapters throw up some of the confused thinking around that I think. So for example we're concerned that the plan still has a national target for aquaculture expansion and we're concerned that the plan as regards oil and gas doesn't appropriately recognise and address the concerns about the climate change impact of continued fossil fuel extraction. Albeit there is some language about needing to transition to a low-carbon economy, the balance of language isn't quite right there from our perspective. I'm sure there will be opportunities to elaborate on some of these points further but the last point I'd like to make is I think we still think there is much greater scope for the plan to be ambitious in terms of enhancing the health of our marine environment. If we look at the spectrum of environmental health where we are on the baseline is still in a very denuded marine environment, the first of fourth once upon a time had 129 square kilometres of native oysters and I still don't see the ambition for enhancement being commensured with what Scotland's Marine Act list clearly shows to be a marine environment about which there are a number of very substantial concerns and on-going declines but it's great that we now have a framework within which we can discuss how best to manage all the activities to deliver sustainable development. Alan Broadman. Good morning, convener and thanks very much for inviting me along today to give evidence. We are really, as a company, essentially concerned with chapter 14 which is actually new to the plan and wasn't in the previous consultation. We have some experience of how the plan might work you could argue because we recently installed a cable between the mainland in Dura and that wasn't without its difficulties and as far as we could see the plan was being adopted at that point and that caused us a lot of difficulties. We've essentially got three issues to bring to the committee. One is that we feel chapter 14 is new, it hasn't been consulted upon certainly in relation to distribution cables and that needs to be done before the policy is put before Parliament in our view. We also believe the plan should reflect the overarching principles of the existing UK Marine Plan. We believe it needs to be evidence-based, risk-assessed and proportionate and it certainly needs to take a proper account of distribution electricity cables. The third thing we absolutely need to do when it comes out of the mainland Dura experience is it needs to address the specific issue of faulty cables. We absolutely need to address that within the plan and that's not there at the moment. We certainly have a chance to discuss cables specifically a little later on but thanks for raising that. Richard Ballantyne. Thank you. Yes, I've probably echoed previous comments. We very much welcome this document and welcome the interaction we have with Marine Scotland taking on board the port's views. It does set the context against which planning decisions will be made in the future and I guess the main issue we have is going on is how regional plans will reflect that and how they will follow on from this and we hope they very much do. And Annie? Yes, we also welcome the plan. Generally, it provides a good vision for Scotland's seas. For us, it provides a sort of clear framework in which we can undertake our leasing activities. Generally, our objectives are very much aligned with the plan and so it makes our leasing decisions easier and provides the framework for that particularly in terms of renewable energy where there are the spatial areas identified. Thank you. I'm not expecting you all to answer every section. I did bring you all in at the beginning because I think it's important to bear in mind that question. What difference will this make to your sector as we're going through the questions just now? So the first one is particularly about COSLA issues in Graeme Dey. Thank you, convener, and good morning. COSLA have raised concerns along the lines that ministers would be able to overrule the decisions and representations of planning authorities and whether there would be potential conflict between the national marine plan and local marine plans when they are developed. I'm just wondering whether you share those concerns in any way. Bertie Armstrong, then Phil Thomas. Yes, Graham, indeed. In fact, the issue is even slightly broader than that in that it's not clear to us in the fishing industry how the regional areas will actually go about their business and who will comprise the committee's councils or other forums that make up the planners and how they'll go about their work. More importantly, what authority they'll have to institute it. Our experience with in-shore fisheries groups, which are a microcosm, if you like, of that sort of thing, has been less than perfect. So I think there's a systemic difficulty with local planning in that it will vary wildly from area to area. Shetland will be different from the Western Isles and will be wildly different from the Firth of Forth, etc. So we do have a concern about the coherence of plans and it's much more basic than a concern that ministers may overrule. Can I broaden that out slightly in terms of the original question? Do the panel believe that all the relevant local authorities will have the necessary experience, expertise, to take on the duties that are going to inherit from this? Phil, and then Annie. I can give a response directly to that question. The answer is no. I think there is not a prospect at the moment. I think from an agricultural standpoint, there are two concerns. I firstly reiterate the points that Bertie's made, that the notion that the regional bodies, as it were, that are brought together, will instantly work and become fully functional, I think is slightly naive. I think there is now an additional complication because the recommendations from the Smith Commission have changed potentially at least the role of the Crown Estate, or the functions of the Crown Estate in relation to local authorities. So suddenly you would have a situation for aquaculture and other ensure elements where the local authority would become both the proprietor of the seabed and the planning authority. So there are governance issues there that I think are new and not considered at all as yet. I think the nightmare scenario for the aquaculture sector is that we spent best part of ten years trying to get local authorities, since local authority planning has come in, really local authorities to have their planning on a consistent basis between local authority planning areas. There is a real concern from the industry that the new arrangements might actually take that in completely the opposite direction, that you might find very localised policies in each area, which might be great for local democracy, but for development in a general national sense, it really makes life very difficult. So I think there are real problems there. Andy Beattie? Yes, when the updated version of the plan provides a lot more detail about what is going to be expected in our original marine planning partnerships, which is good in a lot of respects and is something that we did ask for in our original consultation response. However, it then provides the detail about some of these elements, like the planning partnerships will be expected to refine the option areas for renewable energy, and I don't see that the local authorities planning partnerships would all have access to the technical expertise needed for that. Also, not just renewable energy, but there is talk about the planning partnerships identifying strategic cable corridors and areas that might be suitable for commercialisation of CCS projects. A lot of those are quite strategic issues and will go beyond 12 nautical miles as well, and how the join-up between strategic issues going beyond 12 nautical miles and the planning partnerships needs some careful thought, but Scottish Government through Marine Scotland needs to ensure that the planning partnerships have enough resource and enough expertise to deliver what the plan currently sets out for them to do. That's a very good point that you made there, because on committee we tend to ask the difficult questions, you identify the problems, we very rarely get solutions to these difficulties, so let me ask another question. What do you think needs to be done to ensure that we can overcome these difficulties? Phil Thomas? This is almost a recitation of history in some ways. Graham, if you look at the published documents, there are two documents that are going to a title of something like improved planning for aquaculture development, and these were developed over the last five or six years, and this was started by an initiative from the industry to try to say to the local authorities, if you're going to get involved in aquaculture planning in a serious way, then you need to get the right level of expertise, and therefore there's a very strong argument for local authorities actually coming together to set up some sort of strategic unit that would have all that expertise. Now in practice, I'm afraid the industry didn't probably read the local authority politics well enough on that, because all the local authorities recognised the need to get the expertise, and they fully accept the need to come together with that expertise, but we have made some progress, and there's a much greater sharing between local authorities than there was historically, but I think the solution to the problem would be that you would need some sort of unit that ran across local authorities that did have the expertise to do that kind of work. I might well lead into the next question, but Richard. Just a follow-up story, I've shared both of these concerns that some local authorities actually own and manage ports, so they may be a bit better place to deal with planning decisions related to ports, not necessarily other decisions. These new partnerships do become a new statutory consultee on marine licence applications in my sector's case. That's for things like dredging and disposal licences, which could be contentious, may not be. Just on your question about how you would solve this or attempt to solve this and resourcing, perhaps one option is to have some kind of central person team at Marine Scotland bringing it all together as a strategy ensuring that local partnerships have a central national support to fall on, so they're not just left to do it without any central support. Lucy Greenhill. I was going to say the same thing. There needs to be some greater clarity about the ongoing role of Marine Scotland as that central body in the process, and I know from some discussions that is actually happening, and hopefully at the same time as the final national marine plan is published, I think there will be some guidelines, there's some early guidelines being drafted for the regional marine planning partnerships to take forward that's based on the experience of Shetland and Clyde, which are obviously the furthest ahead, but my concern would be is that they have quite a particular situation while Shetland in particular with their own local planning powers that they have there, but the resources across the other regions like in Argyll, where I'm based, for example, and in Highlands areas, I don't think they would struggle to replicate what they have. I think the other point is that there seems to be quite a lot of emphasis on getting the regional marine planning partnerships up and running and they are all defined and then off they go and do the marine planning, but I think there's a danger if too many of those strings are let go centrally, that we kind of lose a lot of the potential for marine planning to really succeed at a national level. So I was certainly keen that there was some real definitive principles set out by Marine Scotland that provided that skeleton framework around which the rest of these regional marine plans would fit and I'm thinking of things that make sense at a national level, so it is things like reporting on environmental conditions on my side, so things like marine mammals that are protected at a population national level. These kind of things need to be held together centrally for it to be resource efficient and effective. Calum Duncan, and then Mike Russell. I've just come back on Lucy's last point because I agree with the importance of that central oversight and that's the value of the national marine plan providing that framework and providing a clear steer, bringing it back to the local level. I think we'd all agree around the table we want to see evidence-based adaptive decision making, we want to see effective stakeholder participation. So for marine planning to work at a regional level, it has to be effectively resourced and that's a, probably a continual play from all sectors, but it's an investment because if you've got skilled planners delivering ecosystem and facilitating ecosystem-based planning locally, including looking at the scope for enhancing the health of local areas in environmental terms and improving the goods and services in terms of coastal protection, nutrient cycling, locking up carbon, food provision, all the things that flow from properly looking after regional areas of sea and seabed, then the wider society and local economy stands to benefit from that. So that's why we were slightly disappointed that the national marine plan doesn't provide a bit more guidance to regional planners and that links to the concern about the scope for enhancement. The plan could, we were disappointed it didn't include a general policy on encouraging sustainable development and marine activities which provide protection and enhancement opportunities and there could also be a greater steer to regional planners being able to take opportunities to enhance the health of their local plan to look at the different types of seabed that they have there and the benefits that they provide instead of looking at conservation as a constraint but looking at the opportunities there for enhancing the services those habitats provide. So greater resources for local planning is an investment that everybody stands to benefit from. I should bring in Mike Russell at this stage because it follows on from it because last time he was suggesting the exact opposite there was a danger of becoming a little too specific about local activities in the national marine plan indeed that a cat's cradle of regulation and guidance. More regulation and guidance as far as I can see within the document is up Callum's point because I think it rises from it. It does seem to me that in the best of all possible worlds there would be this group of enlightened regional marine planners who were within only relevant local authorities who were in your own words, Callum, highly skilled and ready and able to bring forward detailed local and regional marine plans that involved all the stakeholders. That's not going to happen. There isn't a resourcing for local government. Those people do not exist in the local authorities that are involved. We have in the national document in my own view and it's actually borne out in quite a lot of the evidence and even some of the remarks here a curious conflict between some very detailed and prescriptive actions for example on cables and some very vague aspirations in other areas which don't actually give us much policy guidance. Lucy, your point about key principles is something I'd like to get back to. I raised this with the officials at the meeting before Christmas and I'd just like some reaction from individuals around the table to this point. If this document were couched in terms of key principles that were to be observed in marine activity by all the stakeholders including I have to say and I think whilst the tone perhaps of some of the evidence from yourself was less than helpful some of the content was quite useful. A commitment for example to fishing as an activity a key activity and sustainable fisheries as a key activity and other commitments and then an encouragement to apply those principles locally within the existing framework of regulation because there is a substantial existing framework of legislation and it's difficult to see often when you read this document where the links are between this document and the existing regulation. Again, Bertie's submission makes a point that there is a whole range of regulation that governs fishing. I don't see where that fits in to some of the issues in the national marine plan. So I'd just like a reaction to a document that might become something other than it is which is a declaration of clear principles which are then applied on a regional basis by Marine Scotland staff working regionally and local authority planners although I do have concerns about the capability of local authorities and particularly the key local authorities here in being able to take this forward at a time when local government is under pressure and resources are very tight. So Bertie, I'm strong first. Two apologies. One I keep referring to you as chairman. I'll stop that right away Mr Convener. I beg your pardon. The tone, I accept that. One's worst problem is one's worst problem and one expresses it in such terms. I'm very glad that the content that didn't put off anybody reading the rest of it. The editor is always useful. Right. I would wish to reiterate that point. This is really significant that in the matter of fishing there is a cat's cradle of regulation emanating from Europe and across the continental shelf which looks after us. If we have local distortions and interferences then that will create difficulties and we'll be fighting basically on two fronts. It's not to avoid regulation, it's to have one coherent system. The other point that I think has come out in the last two submissions is the matter of scale. You will not repair very much by concentrating on a few acres of this or that or the other which is why it's very important to have overarching policy rather than regional policy and we do remain very much frightened of the potential for lack of expertise. We've seen it time and time again in things like the coastal forums that exist in the IFGs where with the best intention if you say to a group of people in a very regional area make a plan for you they will say I want his and his stuff because he's not from my area and I want him to stay away from me to very badly generalise on that but that is the danger of not having expertise everywhere. We need to be realistic and we need to remember that the scale of this ought to be on the national marine plan because it's not a very big country anyway before we start dividing it up into eight. Thank you. Calum Duncan, then Lucy Greenhill. On Mike's point about expertise and resources I mean I think as Lucy said, Shetland provides a very good example and there might be special reasons why Shetland was better resourced there but we can look to that as a good example of ecosystem based planning so we should also look at the potential for training because often these matters needn't be that difficult that might be the simple basis of enlightening local planners and decision makers as to what is under the water and you know presentations can be provided and training can be provided and there should be opportunities looked at there. Just on the evidence base I'm a fan of evidence base policymaking in so many ways. Just on the evidence base where is the optimism that the resource exists to replicate what has happened in Shetland which has been largely successful in the other local authorities that are going to be greatly effective my own local authority and others I just don't think given the pressure on local authority resources there is any sign of that happening there is no evidence that is happening indeed existing planning departments with their present workload are suffering as a result for example the increase in applications for renewables I'm not against it I just think the evidence does not support your admirable optimism Well you know we can set out aspirations here in terms of what opportunities might be coming down the line from any changes in governance as well that might provide resourcing opportunities but I might say Argyll provides a good example with the expertise that you have there in terms of the SAC project officer working at the local authority I just wanted to very quickly take the opportunity as well to flag a concern about you talking about the cats cradle this sort of tension between policies and local detail and wider strategic points and just to take the opportunity to log the concern to the committee as to the actual strategic environment assessment process of this plan because we're aware that there was an addendum to the sustainability appraisal that was lodged after the last evidence session which doesn't reference how it relates to the strategic environment assessment process so we don't think the SEA has delivered in terms of influencing the plans and we're concerned about and it links to the point about regional green planning and the links to centralized oversight from government we're not aware of any avenues for holding planners to account arising from the sustainability appraisal process so it's just a flag that that's something that the committee might want to raise with the cabinet secretary Thank you very much, Lucy Greenhill and then we'll come back to Dave with a supplementary he'll get back in soon enough I just wanted to add one brief element to this idea of principles at a central level and that's actually how they could help set out how we measure performance and success of the marine planning process as well because at the minute it doesn't know it's set out to be an adaptive management process, the framework by which that's actually reported and dealt with and developed and determined to be effective isn't yet clear and you really, you'd struggle to develop that at a regional scale that needs to be set around this idea of the core principles and objectives of what the marine planning process is for Fine, thank you I think we've kind of looked at some of the principles in practice we need to look at some of these general principles particularly first of all in natural heritage and then in adaptive management and Claudia Beamish is going to lead off on this one Thank you convener and good morning to everyone who's here I'd like to turn our minds to general planning principle gen 9 on natural heritage which Callum Duncan has touched on already and on gen 20 on adaptive management and stakeholders in evidence have expressed concern that some of the general planning principles about some of the general planning principles and in their briefing Scottish Environment link focused on gen 9 and just for clarification for those that may not have the copy with them, gen 9 and gen 8 and I quote A comply with legal requirements for protected areas and protected species B not result in significant impact on the national status of priority marine features and C protect and where appropriate and I'm not quite sure whether this is in bold in the actual document or whether it's been in bold in my notes but it is very important to enhance the health of the marine area it says in brackets sorry bold added so in written evidence as well on gen 20 Scottish renewables who aren't giving evidence today but have given written evidence have stated and I again quote that ad hoc amendments to the plan in light of new data would create uncertainty resulting in greater risks project development and therefore would not be supported so one or two people on the on the round table today have already highlighted the issue of adaptive management so if we could look please both now at at the development and use of the marine environment from the natural heritage perspective and also the adaptive management issue and whether the people here today think that these set the right tone in in the marine plan draft as it stands at the moment thank you we're talking about the to correct tone here I think particularly it's been suggested Phil Thomas yeah on a general principle I think the idea of setting out the principles and the evidence based management approach at the beginning was good for me the document as it went on was slightly disappointing in the sense that some of those principles got lost or at least the tone if I can use that term of the the later document was not as clear as the tone of the first document I think on the specific point that Claude has raised I think there is an issue because almost anything that you wish to consider as being a development in the marine environment requires substantial investment and therefore if anything is going to happen in terms of development you have to have a framework and a structure that gives investors in every sector investors a confidence as it were that there is some stability about the investment so I think getting the tone right and making sure that in terms of adaptive management you do not have a continuously moving platform is actually a serious consideration because to be frank there are lots of other places in the world that people can invest in we need to attract investment to Scotland so getting those tone and consistency elements sufficiently firmed up as it were I think is important David Leven could I bring you in on this point because I think about offshore marine developments that can learn from some of the things that have changed in the rules for the development of onshore renewable developments and I wonder whether adaptive management is something that needs to be much better spelled out I mean I think we're considering this at two levels I mean to have certainty at the strategic level is very important so we need flexibility in terms of adaptive management for the environment you need that but also from a commercial perspective you need that too so there's a a different balance to be struck at the detailed level I believe I mean I can't talk on behalf of the renewables industry the Scottish renewables have done and I would defer to their comments to be honest in relation to the point that Claudia introduced Anyone else want to comment on this just now first of all, Annie Breeden I mean I think in terms of changing areas potentially that have been identified in the plan for renewables as more evidence emerges I think as Phil has said could be very damaging to industry once you've identified areas to then take them away it just creates a completely sort of unacceptable risk really but I think there's opportunities in terms of where there's the refinement of the option areas you know the plan states that the whole of these plan option areas is not expected to be developed so I think where new evidence is emerging about impacts from offshore wind wave and tide that that's the opportunity to feed it into when you're refining those option areas and to not take this new evidence that will emerge sort of over the next couple of years when projects are deployed would be sort of irresponsible really but there needs to be a clear framework in terms of how that's going to be done so the industry really understands the process for that and it isn't just done in an ad hoc manner As a developer David Allen Broadbent, do you have a view on this? Well funnily enough I'm not a developer in this context to convener we've got 111 separate cables that aren't going to expand at all what we want to do is replace them efficiently repair faults efficiently and keep the customers who are connected to those cables on supply securely and at least cost that's what our issue is I'm not part of the renewable side so I can't comment I'm sorry Okay, just Richard Just to say I guess on adaptive management I mean does it go both ways can we you know does it balance protection side with development sustainable development that's just the point I suppose a question for Marine Scotland flexibility You put that on the table and it's something we can raise obviously with the cabinet secretary Claudia Beamish Can I just push those who are involved with responsibilities for development on the natural heritage side to comment on this as well as any comments that anyone around the table has specifically at this point on the issue of climate change and whether the tone of that is appropriate looking to the future because I actually see that the association of salmon fisheries boards in their evidence who aren't represented today say that there isn't any comment on the effects of climate change on salmonoid fish within the marine environment although there is within the freshwater life cycle part of the salmon's life so I wonder if there are comments from developers about gen 9 and the natural heritage and protection and enhancement of our marine environment and also any comments on climate change Lucy Greenhill I'm not a developer but I was going to make your comments but anyway on the climate change side of things something that we raised was that there seems to be poor balance between adaptation to climate change and mitigation of climate change sometimes that seemed a bit disproportionate to me particularly and Callum mentioned this the oil and gas sector there's a lot of emphasis on climate change adaptation so I had adapted making sure that your oil rig isn't susceptible to rising sea levels but then there was an equal emphasis on actually how we manage and assess the realities of the effects that oil and gas and climate change ultimately so that and actually the problem that raises and it's an opportunity for marine planning to address is the need to look at the different temporal scales at which effects are elicited on the environment where it is at the protected area species level or where it is at the climate change level because at the minute the way that things are legislated and decisions and consent in are done at the minute there's a real difficulty in offsetting and making decisions on those different relative scales of impact so some clarity about how we balance ticking those boxes of compliant protected areas and PMFs and those kind of things against those wider benefits of projects such as renewable energy which obviously mitigate climate change at a broader scale would be beneficial I think Callum Duncan then Bertie Armstrong Thank you I respond to Claudia's first point as well in relation to gen 9 it's an opportunity just to flag that's quite a good example of what we see is lack of ambition because in relation to priority marine features which are important species and habitats wherever they're found the policy applying across the plan is to not result in significant impact on the so it's this very sort of constraining language rather than looking for opportunities to enhance the health of or the extent of and thereby recognizing the links to the benefits that they provide but to bring it back to a specific point about adaptive management we we welcome adaptive management learning by doing but decisions have to be made on the best information available and you know the the Argyll Array was quite an interesting example where with even more information available you know there might have been less risk to developer confidence and investment and that's not to be critical of the process we don't live in a perfect world it's just to flag that having that proper environmental understanding which will never be absolutely complete is very important because that leads to good business as well and I think you know Argyll Array was one example of that and if I could jump quickly to the sentence prior to gen 20 which is linked to adaptive management and the word balance has been used a little bit it says the precautions taken this is in relation to sound evidence should be considered based on risk by balancing environmental social and economic costs and benefits and adaptive management learning by doing should be on the basis of starting from a more precautionary basis because we don't know enough about the impacts often in the cumulative impacts so we don't think it's appropriate to be talking about balancing unknown risks in the context of the precautionary principle by definition the precautionary principle you have to be precautionary on environmental grants first because that is the envelope in which all the other activity happens before you go on just to underline and it mean you don't need to go on in gen 9 it says development and use of marine environment must protect and where appropriate enhance the health of the marine area it's equally important with the other points in that general statement so is the question as relevant as Claudia thought it is part of the envelope absolutely but it states there quite categorically that that must be taken into account perhaps it's a told thing and it might sound like splitting hairs but we think it's appropriate because the plan doesn't also link explicitly for example to the Scottish biodiversity strategy and there's also biodiversity duty for bodies to further the further biodiversity so there's I think it's incumbent on me to raise those concerns about the degree to which the plan meets those legal tests particularly in the absence of a clear strategic environment assessment process as I flagged earlier Bertie Armstrong just now on this one before we move on to some more science it's a very brief reaction to that we take comfort from gen 20 in the terms of of gen 9 because as users of the marine environment presently and that adaptive management practices could take account of new data for instance if we find that cumulative displacement of fishing is creating a local problem for someone you can't just always fish somewhere else depending on size particularly for small scale inshore fisheries if you're displaced you're displaced and you're gone so the use in the sentence before just to pick up on Callum's point of balancing social and economic costs and benefits in a local area is really very important and at this point there's always a ritual statement from the Scottish Fishermen's Federation about the precautionary basis precautionary is necessary it needs to be evidence based and it needs to take sense because if you were to be precautionary about deaths on the road you would shut down road transport and of course we simply can't do that it's the same in the seabed you need to take some degree of risk here and there not to play fast and loose in the environment but to be sensible about a precautionary approach OK, thank you for that Phil Thomas might comment on the Gen 9 in terms of enhancement in view of the fact that we are going to come to aquaculture more broadly later but it would be helpful I think at this point just to have something on the record for the report of the view of the industry on that I don't think we would have too much difficulty with the wording of 9 and indeed one of the things that has recently happened is that the European Union has been trying to look at the application of the precautionary principle across marine development generally in aquaculture in particular and what emerges from that in Scotland for example is there are a number of aquaculture developments in areas that were later designated as SACs or in some other way and there essentially is no conflict so I think the industry is already in the situation where the need to avoid particular natural heritage site is built into the planning process and is accepted but actually rather comfortably there are sensitive areas where the industry was already established on the basis of what we've been able to see there is no adverse impact there which is actually quite encouraging thank you okay thank you for that on the general side oh Lucy Greenhill on this point I just wanted to raise the question of the role of marine planning in the licensing and the decision making process because I think when we talk about adaptive management there's perhaps some different interpretations of what we're actually meaning when we talk about but there's obviously the plan level adaptive management is looking at how effective the marine planning process is and adapting that approach but from a developers and consenting perspective adaptive management is much more about the licensing body making a decision in the face of some uncertainty but then adapting that planned development as we learn from monitoring et cetera that's done at that site about that particular development but that decision to move forward with that risk based approach as you were discussing is very much the regulators prerogative it's their responsibility to do that and I'm just wondering how the marine planning process and that framework really fits against the decision making process and the responsibilities that the government has on how much risk to deal with in adaptive management strategies right thank you for that food for thought sound science we're kind of into that area I think Angus MacDonald can we now guess Calum Duncan's already mentioned general policy 19 on sound science which states that decision making in the marine environment will be based on sound scientific and social economic evidence now we've seen from the Scottish salmon producers organisation submission that they're questioning whether a consistent evidence based approach is maintained throughout the national marine plan and however Scottish environment link have concerns arguing that balancing economic social and environmental concerns is difficult if there is little evidence or science on environmental impacts in an activity can I ask panel members if you're content with the general policy 19 on the use of sound science and would you say that sound science and evidence based policy making is used consistently and appropriately throughout the national marine plan I can respond specifically on the issue that I think is raised in our response which curious enough is not really a salmon producers issue it's an agricultural issue generally there has been a long standing presumption against planning development for the north and east coast based on a very precautionary position in regard to say that position in regard to salmon farming in particular and it was made coming out of the Nixon report in 1997 when there was no evidence of any sort at all and we haven't argued that that position should be shifted in relation to salmon farming although in truth we would question the basis on which it's made at the moment but the thing that we find quite extraordinary is that it's been extended to all other forms of fish farming and we on a scientific basis can see no evidence at all that the logic with salmon farming is that because you're farming the same species you have potential interactions between the farm species and the norm farm species the logic extrapolating that to all other forms of farm species seems quite extraordinary and if you take the amendments report and I think we've quoted the wording for that as well that basically says well we shouldn't change it because we don't know if there are any effects well the reality is that we really don't know if there are any effects from wind development or alternative energy or did you tell fish farming if you came to that you know if you operate on the basis that you say where there are no evidence on the table then you do nothing the reality is you always do nothing and that seems to be a perverse situation so that's the point that we've been concerned about and any others on this just there? Bertie Armstrong briefly it goes like saying that sound science underpins the any address of the problems of stock health and the observation that we make is there's never enough money in the world we're never going to be enough money in the world to do all the science that we would like and that we are trying our best both I think in the fish farming industry and certainly in the wild capture industry to contribute as much as we possibly can for out of self interest of course to contributing to the science base but it's always going to have to be it'll never be completely adequate and we're very glad to see in gen 19 the socio-economic evidence part of that as well okay and we've got Richard and then Lucy just a very quick point I've just come back to in the beginning of the chapter 4 paragraph 4.3 the presumption of in favour of sustainable development and use is presented as an overarching general planning principle of the plan so that's guiding the whole thing so I'll just draw things back to that quick point okay thank you I just wanted to mention briefly that as a general principle and it is sounds that indeed it should be based on sound science but from experience of consent in offshore wind farms in particular there isn't enough science and there will never be enough money so what you're dealing with is a huge amount of uncertainty in the planning and decision making process and I would share the concern that actually that comes down very much to the bodies and the people involved in that process and that is something that could definitely go off and be interpreted differently at a regional scale and it would be an example I think of something that needs to be managed much more centrally and I know this is something that Marine Scotland are thinking about and developing approaches for dealing with uncertainty and risk but I would make that much more clear in the national marine plan and if I could just add one point also another recommendation that comes out of this that needs to be handled at a central level is how science is the objectives of science and the science research is coordinated centrally to ensure that the building up of that sound science evidence base is done in a resource effective and efficient way Thank you for that we should try and move on to a national marine plan interactive Jim Hume Thank you very much The national marine plan interactive there was evidence from some here that they felt that there were some issues and things that were not mapped I would just like to see what some of our guests here today think regarding the national marine plan interactive and if there are any things on it that are not mapped that should be mapped and if so why? Yes Lucy, green hair Just shut me up if I'm talking too much I would just link that to Annie's point about the regional marine plan planners potentially needing to refine plan options at a regional level because what they need is the functionality that the crown estate had and the Scottish Government use in the Mars system and a concern that Annie mentioned was that if they don't have that kind of functionality which the national marine plan interactive had in it then they would struggle to replicate the quality of planning that would be undertaken at a national level they'd struggle to improve that on a regional basis I think Any other points there? Yes Phil Thomas A development of that kind of same point that in reality you never have enough information and I think the most frustrating thing for a developer is when usually in relation to natural heritage to be frank there is the identification that there is a potential natural heritage interaction and the developer is asked to comment on that and the people the developer would normally ask for the information would be Scottish natural heritage but actually it's Scottish natural heritage that is asking the question so you get into these kind of cyclic discussions about something that is based on the fact that simply is not enough information and if I could take a specific point to illustrate it happens quite frequently in relation to bird colonies for example where there is a threat to potentially a threat of mortality to a relatively few birds and the question that comes up time and time again is how much is a significant threat which actually requires you to have some knowledge of the dynamics of the population that you're talking about in terms of reproduction and most of that data is not available Mike Russell Lucy's point and Phil's point and Lucy's earlier point about the need for a national approach to the science which I think is absolutely true there obviously needs to be a national approach to data and mapping data so that there's one single authoritative source what we seem to be hearing around the table is that that doesn't exist or are we hearing and I really don't know the answer to this so I'm looking for some information are we hearing that there are a number of sources some of which are better than others and the danger will be that people are not using the best source what is the situation to answer that point I mean I think I can pick up what Lucy was saying if I understand it rightly is more to do with actual scientific data that was used to inform the selection of the sort of plan option areas rather than sort of wider spatial data but that that information that we have the system that Lucy was referring to our Mars system which is essentially a sort of sophisticated GIS tool which can you put in a lot of difference of environmental technical and other considerations in order to identify offshore energy projects so that that system shared with Moon Scotland when they need to use it and I mean in due course I mean in due course it could be made available in some way to planning partnerships it's not there's obviously the transfer of current state going on so I can't comment on how that would actually work in reality in the future but certainly where necessary we make or where we can we make the information available if you've got I just want to press this point a bit or is willing to answer it if we've got the requirement for first class data and first class science one can't make an absolute distinction but if we've got the requirement for both of those things as an imperative for decision making by local authorities and by developers and by existing users then surely we do need to have a first class resource to access and if that first class resource is not a national marine plan interactive or whatever it's called what is it? It would seem very foolish to go down this road without that information immediately to hand I mean it goes far as to say I don't think you should go down this road until that information is to hand. Would people agree and if so what should we do? Lucy Green howl first I think it's really positive that Marine Scotland are now making a national marine plan interactive available for use for the region marine planning partnerships because at least they will be using the same tool because there was a risk initially that they would just have to go off and develop their own tools and also through in discussions with that they are developing the first thing exercise that's happening now is that the regional marine planning partnerships are starting to pool their data into national marine plan interactive or they're going through that process which is a kind of a follow up to the I forgot the name of the document not chart in progress but the Scotland Marine Atlas so they go through that process again and they're having discussions about how to manage the quality of the data that goes into that central resource so the idea of a central repository is there the question that I have was that we went through this process of gathering national data to enable strategic planning for SEAs and for renewable energy and the Crownist Day and the Mars tool came up with the best tool that was available to do that in terms of the data that it held and the functionality that it has which is why the Scottish Government started to use that for their own planning purposes and I would share the concern that I don't it would be best if that tool was the one that was then shared for use locally rather than national marine plan which I think is national marine plan interactive which I think is a much more slimmed down version of it and compromises your ability to do planning in a similar sort of way that has been done so far Richard and then Callum I agree with I agree with Mike's concerns and I guess the issue we go back to the original points we were talking about first of all is strong what do we call it project management of marine Scotland they have to take the lead and get something centrally done and looking at what the best sources are we have come back to your question on what data is there we've had an email recently this is the port sector from marine Scotland looking just to confirm where the statutory port limits of the major ports are just to make sure they're right because I think some of them not the full of marine Scotland it just goes back through history finding out exactly where they are and if that's a problem all around Scotland there's over 200 or so statutory harbour authorities around Scotland so if each of those is slightly wrong it's going to be affected so I mean there is evidence that marine Scotland are getting on top of certain things so that is good but I suppose it's the question for the committee is for marine Scotland to take a strong lead on collating these sources using these sources just in order to add a layer to the complexity of this question bringing Graham here to supplement it I think specifically on that point absolutely can be I'll thank you for being atlust if I recall correctly it included the shipping lanes for example which showed where the ships were and that impacted on where they would allow offshore renewable developments and it does strike me from the evidence that we've received in writing that it's strange that commercial anchorages and navigational approaches aren't part of this so I would have thought that was a fairly obvious thing to have included Yes that's one of the points that my members made in the response to the committee but that is I mean there's some reference in the document but perhaps not enough so you're absolutely right that's a good point to raise They require to be protected Absolutely I mean that's something that members have raised we haven't done that because we didn't do a response but now we agree completely To get that on the record that isn't it? It's the foremost part of this thank you So in the context of making complete information the central point which is what Mike was thrusting at you know can we focus upon that just sort of try and get to that point which then gives Jim Hume some comfort that this interactive approach is actually going to be of value Calam Duncan first of all then Phil Thomas We obviously want planning to be based on as fine scale resolution a data set as possible so I can't comment in detail to the degree to which NMPI does that at the moment but I want to take the opportunity to flag that it's important that it takes it down to that very fine scale and give a very brief example for example in the Firth of Clyde there'll be there are NPAs designated there South Arran, Loch Ffine, Loch Glyde Clyde Seasill but outside of that there are priority marine features such as quite denuded mural beds around Inch Marnock seagrass beds off Skipness for example just giving specific examples to paint a picture of where there are important seabed habitats and you could look at the whole coast of Scotland similarly for little areas that don't necessarily meet national thresholds to become NPAs so that sort of scale is important for NMPI to take on board just to quickly come back on something Phil said about industry to being asked to sort of comment on natural heritage by Scottish natural heritage I mean again it's a resource issue our own sea search, citizen science work contributes to that database but I think everybody would agree that developers in the marine environment are gaining the benefits from use of a public resource whether it's clean water or a bit of seabed or fish stocks or what have you so it's entirely appropriate that the industry helps contribute to our evidence base about what lives where and in doing that they should also be very careful to look at what information is already available so for example for our guile array we tried to pick on that it's quite a good example where we knew prior to even industry doing surveys it looked likely that that area was possibly globally important for basking sharks so it's just a plea that the committee recognises that it's important to make best use of data that we already have as well as generating new data through industry surveys and citizen science and getting in witnesses further Mike Russell wanted to take that forward a bit I'm just concerned at the present moment that we still haven't got a definitive view of what we need it seems to me that we're at the final stages of looking at the National Marine Plan this is the final round of discussion and yet what we've opened up here is that in terms of the data that is required for some very important decisions which will affect either existing activity which will have a huge impact as Callum has said on the environment and which will influence strongly future developments including in renewables we are still working on a range of different data some of which will not be available to local organisations or regional organisations I think that's a big hole and obviously the current estate considerable contribution to make I think frankly Sam's is another one and some of the work that Sam's is doing but it seems to me that the people represented around this table should also be putting their voice or making their voice heard about the need for that data to be available not just to the planners but to those who intend to use the marine environment because access to that data will be vital for their decision making we don't seem to have that data even within the decision makers let alone more widely because your members hold as I know from my previous experience a great deal of data but they are constantly asked for more by organisations such as SNH and CEPA that certainly is true one of the problems I think you have is that the databases are coming together various databases and there has been quite a lot of movement on that over time but the databases tend to reflect data that has been collected for whatever reason but they generally reflect all the data that you would really ideally want to collect and pull together so there are some gaps there so I wouldn't argue against the need for databases the only thing I was slightly caution on is we're looking at this with slightly fresh eyes because it's a marine development I think actually if you came back on to land if I can put it that way and look for the equivalent databases on land there are some gaps there as well so it's not as if this is something unique to the marine environment it happens in other places too but the argument for good sets of data and sets of data of the type that you need to support decisions actually there could be no argument against that that has to be brought into the equation more widely I mean you wouldn't start from there to be blunt if you're starting afresh and this is as you yourself said in your introductory remarks this plan is well in advance of what exists elsewhere then I think we probably should take up an approach that says we need to have the right data before we start using the plan to make crucial decisions and I think that is an issue that will require address coming in I wouldn't disagree with that at all the only thing I would comment as an example is we had some discussion about climate change earlier on and yet if you actually start to look for temperature mapping in the marine areas you actually find that the data sets you have for that are really quite patchy and yet it's really quite fundamental and the same in terms of the pH of marine waters there is some data but it's actually quite patchy so some of the really fundamental things that you would question in relation to climate change the data just doesn't exist at the moment I want to kind of move on but I've got a couple more people to bring in on this before I come back to Jim Hume who can wrap it up so Bertie first then Annie and then back to Jim without anybody else jumping in at the moment just in the briefest of interventions we need to recognise the art of the possible here we tend to contribute to a sense of completeness and neatness in that we need all this information of course we do but we'll never have it all as I view the whole sea is not possible and it changes anyway therefore the movement towards a single point to utilise all the databases oil and gas has got a gigantic one we've got a gigantic but very discreet set of data about areas of the seabed but not others we should move towards that we need to recognise also the matter of scale small marill beds in regional areas are not necessarily the most important thing what is important is the whole northern continental shelf is it relevant that we have marill beds is it still in existence and how much should be protected across the whole thing rather than concentrating on a very micro scale that's not in our gift I'm not going to mix metaphors by starting here's running at this particular moment on that point Greta Kellams mentioned the Argyll Array wind farm project a couple of times so it's worth saying that that project obviously gathered a lot of very useful data on basking shark use of the area and when the developer did essentially hand back the site to us we made sure that any of the survey data that had been gathered by the developer was made publicly available as quickly as possible and I know SNH and Marine Scotland were then able to use that survey data to help inform their consideration of a potential MPA for basking shark in the area Indeed Jim Huma, thank you better I hope I don't start the whole ball rolling again but the original question was of specific issues such as commercial anchorage and navigational approaches that are not on the NMPI we all know there's a lot of data we don't know about and we all know there's data all over the place but the key to the question was really were there specific points or specific matters that people on this table thought should be on the NMPI that we do know of like commercial routes, navigational routes should be on that NMPI that are not and if anybody wants to jump in very briefly just one word answers would be quite useful I think Items that we have on it should be on it and if there's no answers that's fine but Okay but I think you've made your point I think they would agree they've probably said have you got one word answer Callum Yes About three words I have to come back to what Bertie said just to say that the NMPI has to include all instances of habitats and I was just illustrating a point about where regional planning can help fill gaps so that's more than one word sorry Okay we do turn to the subject of sea fisheries now and Alex Ferguson is going to lead off Well thank you convener and yes indeed if we could just move to the sort of specific sector of sea fisheries as has already been mentioned whatever the tone of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation submission to us the fact is that the core of it raises a number of concerns particularly over the way that the initial concerns raised by the SFF in the way that they were dealt with or in the SSF's terms not dealt with through the consultation process now in direct contrast to that at our meeting just before Christmas Scottish Government officials assured us that they'd received a great deal of information regarding the sea fishery sector and that this had indeed led to the redrafting complete redrafting of the first three marine planning policies now my question is really fairly specific but if anybody else other than Bertie wishes to comment they're free to do so basically our stakeholders now content with the redrafting of the sea fishery section and if not what major concerns still remain for that Bertie I'm strong thank you very much this is an area I need to be careful and frank our worst concerns are our worst concerns and when we say in fact we had a lot of consultation events privately with Marine Scotland in the run up to the pre consultation and then the consultation draft we would have liked the national marine plan to be the national fishing plan that's where we come from now of course realistically that's not going to happen and it hasn't but what we were looking for was a degree of even handedness in the treatment of the fishing industry that was established and indeed with regard to local communities very valuable national resource and in a nutshell there we would like complete assurance but we've got for instance the matter of fairness is in as a general principle the presumption for a certain way of addressing for instance cables is in so we are able that our comments have been taken into account we will always say that you never did everything we wanted that's the nature of life but we are relatively satisfied with where we stand now and we'll see what comes out at the final end of this thing really it was three points one even handedness for established uses of the sea two please don't build a whole new framework of legislation on top of the extremely comprehensive framework that exists and three make a presumption in favour of already sustainable use of the sea bed Graham Day To really pursue this because in the written evidence before this committee and I quote from the SFF Marine Scotland did not seek to bring together interested party to discuss how marine planning might lead to coexistence rather than confrontation this failure will have consequences the SFF is certain that those consequences will not be happy particularly as they've been brought about by those who have little or no experience of planning in the marine environment now on the subject of experience it's an interesting viewpoint in that a few weeks ago the same organisation was quite content to have an inexperienced, unelected peer represent its interests in Brussels rather than an experienced Scottish Government minister but setting that to one side that's fairly strong language does the SFF stand by it If I might Graham that was a rerun of the response that we made to the consultation draft the timescale of this within the art of the possible of the receipt of the Scottish National Marine Plan in front of the committee and the outcome of the independent enquiries to how evidence was treated and the very helpful breakdown of what bits have changed as a result of the consultation none of that was available when those statements were made when we go through the outcome it's a very much better picture so that's the context of the consultation draft not this one, but things have changed Iquil, these comments are out of date you're in a much better place now they're out of date, we're in a much better place now that's a reasonable statement We'll have Richard and Phil and then Dave Thompson with his point point really detail actually just on the map in the fisheries section it refers to the quantity of landings in Scotland by district which at first sight is a little bit confusing because you immediately think my sector, you think it's by port and one or two of the ports have highlighted that their figures are slightly out but because it's by district I don't know whether there's room for manoeuvre there for example Dumfries and Galloway Cwcwbri is not on the actual list I presume that's grouped up in air and actually as I understand there's no landings at air, they're all at Trun it's just slightly confusing in a kind of planning context as is with Aberdeen as well it's kind of this that the regional view takes over and perhaps a more detailed map might be available to supplement this I'm sure the date is available For us, talking about page 47 for those of you who actually have the document in front of you and Phil Thomas Mine's very specific I think the document generally both for fisheries and indeed for aquaculture is very light on its recognition of food security issues which are major in my view and the second thing that it misses out on which is partly due to a timing issue is the development of the common fisheries policy changes and in particular the emphasis from a European level on the development of aquaculture throughout the European Union and all member states are submitting multi-year plans into that process my understanding is the one for the UK has been drafted the Scottish element of that is already in and I would simply recommend that the committee should make sure they see that plan before it goes off really Dave Thompson is at a point related to this I think we should take your point just now and then bring in Callum and then Mike a specific response to Bertie thank you very much and good morning to everybody I just wondered just for clarification from Bertie Armstrong it's been good to see that you do feel your comments were taken into account and some of the stuff here is a wee bit out of date that's encouraging it's good to see us in our repent because maybe the where we put it but I wonder does that apply fully to your comments in relation to sustainable development in terms of where fishing sits in relation to that because you did go into this in some great detail and you have made a specific recommendation that the presumption in favour of sustainable development over and against existing economic activity removed so maybe just a wee bit of clarity on whether you feel that the plan is now reflecting what you feel is appropriate or is there a need in relation to that for further work to be done thank you very much Dave we would like to see assurance that existing economic activity particularly that connected with food security and with the health of local communities is supported we always find ourselves with regard to the health of local communities we always find ourselves with regard to a big part of the socioeconomic aspects slightly on the back foot because our brigo brothers in oil and gas and the potential of renewables if you just gross up the figures we're always absolutely tiny fight but in your constituency that's not the case and in Shetland for instance that's not the case so we we want to see a presumption that at least is even handed and we would like to see it specifically expressed for protection of existing use and of course in my case talking specifically about protection for wild capture fisheries but on the other hand when you read the chapters it's implied even handedness and fairness is implied so that then takes you down to the tactical level which generally is the licensing of individual developments and that's where we tend to run into difficulties and why we are so concerned that the overall strategy protects us because generally in force of capacity to lobby the instinct us to the size of the figures and the good bits of helping climate change all that we find ourselves cornered generally so we need to be careful about that but in general terms yes our comments have largely been taken into account we didn't expect the whole plan to be written on the basis of our response and sure enough it came to pass but we do require the protection and I think you understand that personally from your own constituency thank you very much for that and I think what you're saying is that having it implied in the plan is maybe not quite enough we need something a bit more explicit fishing is probably the oldest economic activity that takes place in the seas and therefore it should be given I believe a pretty prominent position so I would certainly support you in your view that we need to firm up the value of fishing in relation to the plan and make it at least equal to other economic activities if not maybe slightly higher level I would certainly agree with that and also with Phil's point that there is the element of food security we can easily forget that in the developed west that you do actually need to keep producing protein from the sea 16% or 17% of the world's protein we are a small impact on that but if you stop doing that you're leaning more heavily on somewhere else to do it for you Mike Russell wants to come back it's basically the same point but I just want to get absolute clarity in it because there's a bit of confusion in what I'm hearing your submission was in response to what because you say in your submission it starts to say it was the 25th of July that was to an original draft or what it was to the consultation to the consultation this marine plan is a different piece now you've seen this marine plan then you are the 7 bullet points that you have put forward are reduced and changed now to 3 which you have put out if I may summaries this because we need to be absolutely clear first of those is essentially the right to fish issue the second one is overregulation and the third one is what you now call equity of treatment but in this document you actually might much further and talked about the presumption in favour of sustainable development over and against existing economic activity what you are now saying is that you just want equity of treatment for sustainable activity with other activities if I may say it's effectively the same thing I wouldn't demand or expect a presumption in favour of any one element of maritime activity over another equity is bound to be in the end that which is realistically and so we don't want precedence we don't want to say we fish there you can't put anything there or do anything to the seabed that's silly so is that in other words the 7 points are reduced to 3 and you have dropped for example what appears to be demand that no part of fisheries control or management must be delegated to regional planners the whole subject of as we've explored here the whole subject of the regional planning forums is so untried, untested and indeed ill-defined at this stage that we'll need to wait to see what starts to happen there regionalised fisheries management to that sort of level I mean simply won't work but there may be things that can be done locally without damage for instance in Shetland they have their own shellfish management order that's an extra layer that's an extra layer of management it may or may not be appropriate in other areas so we don't want to say that there should never be anything other than the CFP but what we don't want is gratuitous manufacture of extra legs in management organisations in the England East region which you quote with great approval it was an example of somewhere where there seemed to be an equitable approach I wouldn't over or under emphasise that as a model for us because it's different just as much as... You see that the planning process should be arranged on the same principles as proposed by the marine management that would appear to be an endorsement Yes but I'm not quite sure where we're going with this I'm just trying to get absolutely clear because it's a very important sector it's important sector for this committee it's important sector for my constituency to be absolutely clear what your organisation is saying so in summary what you're saying is the right to fish no over-regulation which I certainly agree with and the issue of sustainability to be a key issue alongside the other issues Yes Let me give you an example of how there is a wider scope to that in the matter of Shetland it's been quoted several times in the context of the marine plan the problems for the Shetland wild capture industry go way beyond the national marine plan the problem is the Faroese fleet fishing mackerel at an unconscienceable volume 12.01 nautical miles or what happens in the dark let's see from Shetland their problems are the constraints on days at sea meaning that they can't catch their monk fish and they've been sold that they're rented annually to somebody else to catch because they haven't got time and they've had to modify those sort of things are the real issues for wild capture fisheries not necessarily that which will happen or will not happen inside the regional planning so with regard to regional planning the way it's organised by the MMO in that one bit seems to us as we've mentioned this plan they are in fact ahead in the matter of what they call ICFAS in shore conservation fisheries areas which we call IFGs their way ahead of us and that was quoted simply as an example of how it might or might not work but it's not a prescription yet for anything that happens inside the regional planning the regional planning partnerships because those are not properly defined yet I think so the seven points have been reduced to the three effectively so Dave it was just really to follow on on that little discussion there and Mike might think he's clear and Bertie might think he's clear I'm not sure, I'm totally clear we are speaking to the Cabinet Secretary next week and we've got a week while yet before we come up with our final report on relation to this I'm sure it would be appropriate if the SFF wanted to submit a relatively short document just clarifying absolutely the position based on the latest marine plan and not an initial consultation that that would be helpful for us to receive can we leave you out of this if the timescale is short of course in this point before we move on to another subject I agree with Bertie that the industry should be on a level footing we should recognise the industry as a broad range of players fishing plans should be subject to strategic environment assessment as other plans are and in our submission we called for displacement scenarios in the national marine plan to be subject to SEA and for those assessments to be made and for fishing to be specially managed and integrated with marine planning as we think it should be we'd welcome the clear mapping out of activity of both over 15 and under 15 meter vessel because all that information is out there and it's not being pulled together and I think that would really help a strategic level playing field in another discussion on that do we? I just need to reject that out of hand fishing in general terms happens everywhere it is subject to climate change the specific subject subjecting of fishing to the inspection as a specific plan or project is specifically to do with Natura 2000 sites and not fishing in the northern continental shelf or anything remotely resembling it and so no that is not a way to proceed at all both of your points are noted and we shall take it to the cabinet secretary Mike Russell you want to come in on aquaculture I believe very briefly I just wanted to really fulfil I was a little surprised to see the reiteration of the national targets in the plan I wasn't entirely sure that's where they should be but you've made it very clear that you don't believe those national targets can be met without an expansion on the east coast you've referred to it east and north you've referred to it again suppose that wasn't to happen what's the potential for reaching the targets given the targets that existed for some time and haven't been reached yet well I think there are two or three points at a separate here firstly the north and east coast issue I don't think is an issue in relation to the targets that have reached the targets within the existing area large on the basis of expansion of existing farm activity but that's salmon and trout and the same for shellfish the issue about the north and east coast is that at the moment they present in effect a planning blight on a large part of coastal areas now the reality is that on the west coast areas where we farm at the moment almost nothing is going to be certainly nothing at the moment is going to be as profitable as salmon farming and therefore that area is going to remain dominated by salmon farming if you don't have opportunities to develop on the north coast and the east coast for other species then what you're saying is Scotland's not interested in in other new species and it's not a salmon farmers issue but as a general issue in relation to agriculture we think that's important that isn't well explained in the plan and the plan perhaps needs to be broader in terms of what its expectations are of the industry rather than so specific well I think in terms of the figures in the plan they came about through the industry being asked a question of what is a reasonable rate of development and I'm not telling you anything that I haven't said in public before but the way that came about and indeed the way the targets came about was that the rate of expansion in the market is about 8% per year or has been about 8% per year the rate that we thought was achievable to develop farming through the planning system was about 4% per year my concern at the moment I think is we are reasonably up we're slightly behind but reasonably up to the rate of development that we get to the 2020 target but we do now have a situation where frankly the real question is all about maintaining investment and that was why at the beginning I was keen to stress that this document is in a sense a prospectus for investors because the reality is that there are lots of places in the world that investment can be made in marine development and if we're going to remain competitive and move forward in the way that we would like we want to maintain our position in that Graham Day Thomas knows from previous discussions I'm not an expert on aquaculture so forgive me this question my understanding of why aquaculture is predominantly based in the west is because there is shelter providing the west for the industry to be conducted because of the islands and that may be wrong therefore is it not quite challenging aquaculture in the north particularly on the east coast because if I remember right isn't the most infamous escape from a fish farm that happened in the north in Shetland the one that caused the most damage and was that not weather-related? Shetland is a well-developed area already of course and I think the incidents you're referring to where a year or two back of farm was actually carried away over a headland the seas were at that level in short the basis of your comment is correct in the sense that the reason that aquaculture developed first in the west was because it's very high quality water and more sheltered water the pattern now is that the industry is progressively moving to more exposed positions because the technology has improved even using existing technology there are areas along the north coast and down the east coast that would be appropriate for aquaculture indeed historically there were one or two farms in the Murray Firth for example that were there the area of conflict where you would get with existing forms of aquaculture at least is you really can't put salmon farming in any area where there's water contamination and therefore any of the areas of the east coast where you're getting significant marine contamination from effluent coming offshore those areas are not there you also need to have an appropriate depth of water and by and large that rules out some of the areas on the south west coast for example because you tend to have shallow sandy beaches and some areas not all areas on the south east coast as well but there are opportunities and I think for us the notion that there's an illogicality about saying well we should have a presumption against development because nobody at the moment is looking to develop there because there's a presumption against development if that presumption was removed I have no idea what species might evolve but the opportunity would be there for somebody to come in and look for a development there without going into the whole development of the salmon farming industry and other species Calum Duncan a short comment on this before we move on to something else you'll probably want to comment on just to flag concerns that the habitats regulations appraisal results the screening showed that an appropriate assessment of this national marine plan wasn't required we're concerned about that one of the concerns we have around that is the growth target in the aquaculture sector we're in favour of sustainable development but we think that that growth target is a matter of concern in the plan it's inconceivable to ourselves that such growth would not potentially have an impact on European marine sites and therefore we'd like to understand why an appropriate assessment of this plan was not required and that's something you can maybe ask the cabinet secretary we'll take two points the two points if you've heard that we know what your point of view is the growth is actually very very small and the reality is we're just a few tonnes ahead of where the industry was in about 2001 so you can almost argue that if you took the 2001 reference point up to now there has been no growth so the growth is actually very small but the potential was the growth potential is very substantial in my view and part of that includes moving further offshore which takes you into a wholly different set of technologies but aquaculture is going to develop the piece of debate if you like is how much of it is going to develop in Scotland as opposed to develop elsewhere in the world and that all comes down to investment okay I think we'll leave it at that particular point of cabling and we have seen a number of comments here about the content of the marine plan which talks about cable should be buried to maximise protection where there are safety or seabed stability risks and to reduce conflict with other marine users and to protect the assets and infrastructure so there's a couple of points of view here obviously we know that GPS for example can allow people who are travelling across areas where there are cables and pipelines to be able to identify where these are so there seems to be less of a problem from my point of view of a conflict with other users but perhaps Alan Broadbent might want to deal with the question from both the financial and the environmental point of view yeah the first thing to say is that these cables have been there for some time and we've no plans to expand upon them unless of course some other Scottish island in the 59 we supply becomes inhabited and we'd have to look at that but these cables are already there there are 59 islands 111 separate cables they've been there for some considerable period of time they do supply tens of thousands of customers on the Scottish islands in the words of Mr Armstrong I think they would count themselves as established users of the sea they need those cables to get supply so I think they've got every right to be concerned about what's in this plan we've got some experience of the plan because I do believe and we believe it was being employed when we had the mail-in-dura situation when we tried to replace that particular cable I'll be the first to admit that that took far too long we left those customers on diesel generation sets for far too long they had faults because of that we had to man it for 24 hours that was a serious issue and that needs to be addressed in the plan and it isn't in terms of environmental age to touch on that first of all Mr Day talked about EMFs in the previous meeting EMFs are pretty well dealt with scientifically on the land side and we do have exposure limits to the government that deal with that the same limits I would assume that I'm no expert in that matter and the sea would apply so certainly from a human level there are absolutely no issues that I would be aware of in terms of that and in terms of marine I don't think and indeed the plan itself says there isn't any evidence in terms of marine what all I can say to you is when we do inspections of our cables we find significant marine life around them I know that's not saying that's really a good thing but we find a lot of marine life around our cables that is a fact of but you come back to the other issue about the economic issue where we are just finished a price control with a regulator we are a heavily regulated business our income over the next 8 years from April 2015 is governed by us submitting a business plan to Ofgem the regulator we have a bit of negotiation along the way although in essence Ofgem tell us what they're going to give us and we get back to them and try and get a wee bit more based on what we believe is the right level of expenditure to serve our customers going forward and largely we got what we asked for in this particular price control Ofgem have given it to us however when Dura Mainland happened we were in a completely different position we had submitted for £48 million to both replace some of the cables and repair them this policy if you were to protect or underground all of those cables adds £280 million on to effectively customers bills that's the bottom line that's the reality of it and I'm not saying we're not prepared to review that through a cost benefit analysis what actually happened was after we had applied for a licence or indeed it was actually when we were discussing with Marine Scotland the subject of a licence and they mentioned you're going to have to underground this we took it so seriously we organised a meeting between the regulator Marine Scotland and us because we knew that we were far short on the amount of money we needed for that in that particular price control Ofgem came to the meeting we talked about it and agreed or at least we thought we agreed that this would be done in a cost benefit analysis going forward it would be proportionate it would be the right thing from an evidence perspective and it would be risk assessed now I have to say we had to get the main lens you're a cable done more quickly than that could be done but we did say to Marine Scotland we would be prepared to do that afterwards now in every single case we would be prepared to do that afterwards if there were a fault for instance and we are perfectly prepared to talk to the stakeholders and agree what their concerns are are there any safety aspects to our knowledge there are no safety aspects either injuries or deaths to any of our cables there are none and we've got the marine accident investigation board figures going back 20 years there are none in there so there is no issue as far as we are concerned in terms of safety but I do accept that each circumstance might be different and we need to discuss that with the stakeholders we absolutely accept that now what we find is we've got chapter 10 which A we believe wasn't fully consulted about in terms of distribution cables and absolutely needs to be I think Mr Russell is correct it's both specific and explicit and it actually takes some skill to be specific and explicit and yet unclear and that's the reality of what our appendix 2 says now we've made these comments previously we've made them in the first consultation in the second and as far as I'm concerned they were largely ignored so we need as I said at the very beginning for chapter 40 being 14 to be consulted upon again and we will contribute to that we are perfectly happy to go forward on a cost benefit analysis but we want evidence to be in there we want to be risk assessed because our primary concern is our customers on the islands it's not about this business from security from economics and they will actually have a downside on that if this goes through in the way it is at the moment okay but there's lots of other kinds of cables and pipelines that exist at the present time for example we've been joining up many of the islands with broadband I'm not quite sure whether these have been buried or not I'm certainly know that there's lots of pipelines that are not buried into the bargain so we're talking about something which is being put in a plan here and it looks as though perhaps the best element that might be drawn out of this from my point of view might be on a case by case basis looking at the potential for burial Alan? That's essentially what we're saying but provided that the plan contains with it at the highest level visibility, risk assessment and evidence and I have to say that the evidence was scanned if not nonexistent on the Dura cable and we've been forced to protect it or underground it down to the 50 meter mark now I don't believe that was right and I don't think that's in our customers interest but we had to agree to it because we had to get the cable in that was the reality of life but that's exactly what we're saying convener going forward but we need that in the plan and just to finally say on that we need that in the plan and the point that Mr Russell made today and last time is that if you're not very specific at the high level there and it gets moved out to local marine plans and during licensing we will have a really difficult job to get this through because that was what happened in mainland Dura Mike Russell? The Dura example needs to be born firmly in mind by members of this committee and those who are discussing this just want to stress the point that Alan has made for six months that cable was not operating the bow more diesel sets were operating flat out they were going into a winter which if you've been in the winter in the Isle can be very harsh indeed the people living next to the bow more diesel sets were subjected to really fairly intolerable conditions for six months, sounds silly but they were and they were complaining about it and the cost of operating that system was very substantial indeed I'm sure Alan will bear that out Now in the chronology Alan that you have given in your evidence I just want to press up two points there are two gaps in the chronology where things don't appear to be happening one is between June 20th and July 28th when my assumption is you were preparing the application for the licence am I right? Absolutely but it was at that point when we discussed things with Marine Scotland for the first time we realised we were going to be forced to put a cable underground The second one and this is where the worry about the plan exists is the gap that takes place between August 18th on October 28th at say 11 weeks there has been a consultation the consultation is finished and for 11 weeks there is inaction on supplying all these people at Jura, Isle and Collinsay because the three islands were affected by this all these people just wait to find out what was happening What was happening during that period? You are not quite right about the date it was the 13th of November we actually got a licence You got the draft licence on the 28th something happened What was happening was we were in discussions with Marine Scotland we still believed that at that point they had said underground the whole cable so eight kilometres had been undergrounded they then changed that policy and I do not know but at least it helped us because it made it easier to get the cable in and there were a lot of discussions one of which was the off-gen meeting which was absolutely fundamental for us because what I did not say what came out of the off-gen meeting was they agreed to give us what is called a re-opener in the price control so that we have now got a situation where whatever money we spend in the price control we can recover through the off-gen re-opener so there was a lot of things happening at that point we were obliged to speak to stakeholders at that point because we had to also start developing a cable protection plan that was very difficult to do because generally speaking if you are going to put a cable under the seabed as opposed to on the seabed which 110 of our cables already are it is a completely different survey you have got to do you are not actually entirely sure what the seabed is like underneath and some of that work had to be done and some discussions had to be held during that period but we were pressing for a licence earlier so that we could have actually went and caught a neep tide which we needed in this particular case and good weather and I think we were particularly fortunate on December the 7th to get good weather and the neep tide I mean I do think that you did an extraordinary job to get the cable in in that period of time I mean I was astonished to get the first email saying it started late and I virtually turned around and you got the email saying you finished laying it and you got the whole thing for those who are involved you are arguing that there should be a special section on replacing cable which I think is correct I think it has to happen because these are circumstances in which you are providing continuing a service which is this you are also arguing that the provisions of the meeting plan which I think you are right which were essentially operated during this time led to an unacceptable delay in ensuring that the community had the service that it needed We have an example, it's not often you have a specific example that feeds into what is a draft policy and I believe the two are related and that is the case I know that that's a view on Dura for example and Eila particularly on Eila that the meeting plan was operating and it didn't operate well in the interests of my constituents so I mean I very much support that but there will be other views but I do think there needs to be a special provision for replacement cables Can you just confirm you are not planning new marine cables? No, there are none, we are the distribution business the transmission business and renewables are quite different they've got different commercial imperatives and I can fully understand why they would want to underground their cables and I think for the most part renewables do underground their cables in the sea as does transmission but it's a different commercial imperative and the cables do different things and therefore a case by case basis of renewables would be buried but replacement cables, particularly in urgent circumstances would subject to a different set of regulations Well no, the I knew cables being completely new Yes, completely new Replacement, I mean we've been replacing cables for 60 years on the seabed like for like and we haven't had a problem with that all of a sudden it's a problem Thanks, Bertie Armstrong and then a question from Claudia Beamish Thank you Mr Beamish I think I think we're discussing a matter which is to do with one licence and it's a tactical matter Sorry, forgive me It's a tactical matter Section 14 on submarine cables Goodness me Section 14 on submarine cables is the strategic plans and has just been mentioned it doesn't apply to all things that are let across the seabed for instance the transmission cables from renewables There is indeed another point of view and the things I would take issue with one are electricity cables are not a contributor to fish stocks that there may be anecdotal evidence of clustering but that's we can lay that to one side Second, the fact that you've not detected an accident involving catching of cables it seems to imply that there is no danger of death from catching obstruction in the seabed by a fishing vessel that is not correct either there are many examples of particularly with scalloped ridges where there is a danger of death from catching seabed obstruction so it's a bit like saying I've got nine years no claims bonus on my insurance therefore I don't need it there is a danger of death and we ought to look carefully at this for the life of me I can't see what's wrong with the objectives in Section 14 and I understand the plight of the Jura and the other three islands electricity users during this but we would be roundly frightened by a clause that says you can just lay electricity supply cables replacement electricity supply cables across the seabed without further ado I hope that's not what you're asking for and we would object to that roundly why it took six months to replace the emergency cable of course I understand is a matter of a problem to the users but if there's going to be a further consultation on this then we will certainly participate because there are two sides to this argument we're not asking for don't even think of putting a cable where a cable existed before and where no problems seem to care but what we do want is the objectives that are laid down in 14 to be properly looked at and that is to protect submarine cables from user coexistence Alan Brogdon I think that there's a general point there is partly an issue about people's understanding of what these cables are and what they're not and I'll hopefully have explained today they're quite different to renewables they're quite different to transmission they've been there a long time we're asking to renew and replace and we've existed alongside fishermen and other race stakeholders for a very long time with no particularly big issues so I'm okay with that that marine life point was just about that the EMFs don't appear to be affecting the barnacles it wasn't about you're attracting fish or anything else the accident statistics from the MAIB indicate there were no Scottish cables at all in that but it did indicate there were rocks affected there were wrecks being pulled and that could happen what I'm saying is there's no evidence that has happened so on a risk basis you may very well take that into account in terms of the chapter I would recommend you read our evidence appendix 2 where we highlight why this may very well be specific and explicit but it's unclear and confusing and we do worry further down the line it will impact on our customers badly and we're really concerned about that particular point I'm certainly not saying we are going to lay that's not what I said to Mr Armstrong that we are just going to lay cables willy nilly I would like to do it pretty well the way we've done it for the last 60 years we've actually had a really good relationship with the stakeholders and indeed Marine Scotland we've got the cables in a good time customers had their supply restored and it hasn't been an undue burden on customers bills that's what I would like to return to and if we can write that into chapter 14 so much to better I think we've got both of your points of view on this Graham Dayer has a point and one I just want to get some clarity on this because safety is absolutely paramount no doubt about that but isn't what Alan Broadbent is seeking and asking for simply arrangements that continue the existing coexistence between fishing and the submarine cables because as I understand it is replacing cables as they require to be replaced in exactly the same location in the same way and if the fishing industry already know where these cables are I don't see what the problem is and I would seriously question why you would be scalloped dredging in an area where you are known to be cable surely that just would not happen a point taken but I reiterate I'm not quite sure why we would want to depart from the objectives as they're laid down of course there needs to be coexistence this was it's really quite difficult when you pick through one example when you're actually talking about a strategic principle this one example was not a shining example of coexistence we had meetings called the night before the night before work was due to happen we knew for a fact that assets had been booked to carry out a lay before a consultation had taken place with the local fishing groups so I think it's down to a licensing argument about this specific thing and we could go on forever talking about that specific argument no this is a very for example Bertie it does need to be understood in that regard this is the example of a cable that failed in June that there was an endless process in which the community got incredibly frustrated in which there was discussion with the fishing community because it was going on in September and October and I know that as a local member and we got to the stage that they required an enormous push to get the cable in place before the winter weather came in to well it was coming in already to Islay it's a very good example because it was being run on the principles of the plan that's exactly the point that Alan is making and therefore what it tells us is that the principles in the plan do not allow for replacement of cables that break and require urgent change and therefore that is the change that's required nobody is arguing for a blanket change but there requires to be a replacement like for like replacement when communities are disadvantaged this is a very good example excellent example and what might be entirely appropriate when you are making a presumption or making a regulation or a direction as you've just explained would be another direction to the cable company to make sure that planned maintenance and a replacement of cables took place to mitigate the risk of creating this blind emergency how old was the cable and why did it break in June have you any evidence on that no you've just made a statement which indicates some doubt about the company's maintenance have you any evidence on that I did not make a statement I made a suggestion if you're going to say we require in statute some means of rapidly replacing broken cable then that sounds reasonable I would say it would be reasonable to place in statute also another statement which said I shall maintain the things and schedule their replacement realistically Of course statute does because the ESQCR makes the electricity safety quality continue to regulations requires to do that although of course every regulation these days at a very high level and it won't be specifically saying do that for something in cables anything else having said that I'm proud of our companies record in terms of ESQCR doing the right things and I think the fact is any cable or any equipment at some time or another and if it doesn't my regulator is going to say to me you're not operating economically and efficiently because you're replacing it too often so there's a reality of life there that we've all got to face up to that some things will fail submarine cables occasionally will fail and we will have to be able to replace them very quickly All of that's agreed none of which explains why there would be any resistance to a statement in the statute by way of balance that would require what is already there to be simply noted towards why did it break in June I can ask these questions out with this we hear your point of view repaired what the cable company has said we note the points as it states in part 3 in the marine planning policies cables to the following factors will be taken into account on a case by case basis et cetera and I think we're dealing with a whole lot of issues there that would allow this to be quite clear and we will ask the cabinet secretary about these points you have made Claudia Beamish right, thank you convener it's simply a brief point of clarification for Alan Broadbent and I would just like to ask you what sort of cost benefit analysis on a case by case basis looking to the future would actually come up with anything other than the fact that if you're quoting the £280 million on customers bills what would come up with anything other than the cheapest option when there's that pressure and what sort of cost benefit analysis are you using the first part the question is we just went through a price control with the regulator that every single piece of expenditure and investment we proposed had to have a CBA attached to it essentially based on the UK Government Green Book so that was essentially what it was based on and at the meeting with Ofgem they suggested that would be the way forward to do that we've already begun to think about how we would do it going forward we would be drawing in a lot more expert advice than maybe previously we have had we may well discover issues that we didn't previously realise were there but I do take your point entirely it's difficult for me as an engineer who's laid a lot of these cables to see what particular situation could actually overturn that having said that there may be some shorter cables there may be cables in particular areas of fishing intensity that we may vet or other stakeholder activity that we may very well choose to factor in and choose to put them underground or to protect them so there are conceivably areas but on the face of it I think that the 110 cables and on the seabed there was effectively a CBA done for those and at that point there was no clear reason why you would spend up to 6 times more to put the cable underneath the seabed right thank you very much I'm just going to move on to a final point possibly I hope of the relationship between the national marine plan and the Crown Estate as we know the Smith commission has proposed the transfer of Crown Estate powers both to Scotland and to particularly local areas there are practical points that are raised within this and it's a moot point about just exactly how that's going to be done but I wonder if any of the witnesses think that the marine plan needs to be changed in the light of the Smith commission proposals probably the marine plan wouldn't be completed in any way till after the heads of that subject are agreed at the end of this month on the potential bill related to the Smith commission proposals so if I could be more specific maybe Annie would like to make a comment about that I think there's very few direct references in the plan to the Crown Estate there's some references to our functions I think in terms of leasing and in terms of renewable energy leasing rounds so there may be the need to make some minor you know very minor changes to semantics I think but as a whole I don't believe that it needs much change to be honest given the changes that will happen okay which may or may not happen in the form that they are outlined Phil Thomas I'm not sure that the plan will necessarily be the place to deal with it as I was saying earlier I think it actually throws up a whole series of new issues and my guess would be that the easiest way to deal with it in the plan is simply to make reference to the fact that the changes that have taken place and that the consequences of that change will be dealt with in some other document in some way okay so everybody's happy with where we're at with that it's kind of a moving platform at the moment but I thought I would finish up with that in case anybody else had a view okay thank you very much that's very helpful indeed you've given us a lot of thought and material to mull over you've provided us with a morning of considerable interest I'd like to thank all the witnesses for your efforts and your input they are all valued the written ones as well as those which have been taken orally just now so thank you very much for that we're going to call a short break to allow the witnesses to remove themselves for us to get a short comfort break and for us to deal with the final item in public on agenda item 2 in a minute or two so I'll have a break now back to the agenda I've a call meeting to order thank you agenda item 2 public bodies consent second item today is for us to consider as members a Scottish Government memorandum relating to the public bodies abolition of homegrown timber advisory committee order 2014 draft it's a UK instrument the Scottish Parliament must give its consent to the order are there any questions to be raised there don't seem to be any questions I'm having this is true therefore I invite members to decide whether the committee agrees to recommend to the Parliament that the draft motion as set out in the public body consent memorandum is approved are we agreed yes we are agreed thank you very much future meeting details next week on the 14th of January committee will take evidence on the national marine plan with the cabinet secretary and consider its draft report on part 4 of the community empowerment Scotland bill in private I close the meeting now