For Cod’s Sake

A tiny bit of sense seems to be surfacing in the EU. Franz Fischler is the Fisheries Commisioner and is the man who has swung this way and that on whether the North Sea will be closed to all catching of white fish.

And yet it seems that the Danes and Norwegians, the latter outside the EU but party to the Common Fisheries Policy, were going to be allowed to continue their industrial fisheries.

That sees them catch up to a million tons of sandeels and pout each year. And what do cod, haddocks and so on eat? Sandeels and pout!

But more critically, it simply isn’t possible to catch sandeels and pout without also catching white fish. Some estimates put the ‘by-catch’ of white fish as being greater than our industry’s permitted total catch of cod and haddocks. Some ‘by-catch’!

The influence of the Danes in particular - like Scotland, a nation of some five million people – over European fishing policy has been considerable. Their civil servants, government ministers and industry have worked closely together to progress national aims on fishing. And that has always meant leading the debate, not just trying persuade minds after the terms of discussions have been set by others.

The Scottish White Fish Producers are holding meetings in Fraserburgh and Peterhead this week to brief a very wide range of people in our community on the crisis. A very welcome move.

In Parliament, SNP Shadow Fisheries Minister Richard Lochhead and I have written to the Commissioner asking for an urgent meeting.

The fishing industry are regular visitors to Brussels. So we hope to have the opportunity to add our weight to their arguments.

Is it not ironic that the European Fisheries Commissioner is from Austria, a country with no coastline and no fishing industry.

Would things be as bad if we were EU members in our own right and could appoint our own Commissioner? Perhaps even the Fisheries Commissioner?

It is inconceivable that they would be worse – for sure.

Community Campaigning Wins Again

The very welcome news that there will be a substantial new investment in the Chalmers Hospital in Banff did not happen by accident.

It was just after my election in June 2001 that I was first approached on the subject. The suggestion was made that I lead a campaign to ‘Save Chalmers’.

I took another tack and suggested that community leadership which I would facilititate, advise and work with would work better. And I was delighted to attend and support many meetings and events organised by the campaign that was formed.

The Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee played its role and provided a platform for bringing our concerns to a wider audience.

The advantages of a campaign not aligned to any particular political party are obvious. It enables people of all views, and of none, to feel able to participate without ‘signing up’ to support a particular politician’s politics. And it taps into a new source of energy and imagination to fight the campaign.

After all when you represent the very many interests of some 80,000 people it is difficult to lead all the campaigns yourself.

But I think the biggest long term pay-off with the ‘Chalmers Hospital Campaign’, just as with the ‘Peterhead Prison Campaign’ which arose in the same way, is a demonstration that politics is relevent to people generally and that participation pays dividends.

Well done the ‘Chalmers Hospital’ campaigners!

Taxing Times

It seemed a welcome relief for businesses when Labour Finance Minister Andy Kerr promised in September that he intended to freeze business rates at the current levels. That suggested a saving, against inflation, of some £35 million in real terms.

So it was a very unwelcome surprise to my colleague, Shadow Finance Minister Alastair Morgan, when he read the detail in the Liberal-Labour Executive’s budget and saw a very different story.

It appears that Ministers expect the ‘take’ to rise from £1,570 million this year to £1,909 million in 2005-06. That is a very substantial rise of some 22%.

So unless the Executive knows something about growth in our economy that no professional economist has spotted, businesses will once again be picking up the tab for this government’s failures.

Fuming in Parliament

A well hidden Tory campaign, well at least a Tory leader McLetchie campaign, is for a smoking room in the new Parliament building. Apparently just like the fictional lawyer ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’, this Tory likes a ‘small cigar’ and the new building has no provision for smoking inside.

As a non-smoker, in ‘remission’ for 30 years that is, I welcome the absence of such a room. And the costs associated with one.

Is McLetchie’s campaign a sign that he wants to spend more on the Parliament building? We should be told!