Fishing and Seafood Sector Strategy

Seamus Logan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I say a special thanks to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for securing this debate. His excellent speech reflects the contribution he made as a Minister and in leading, with others, the development of the action plan.

As a vice-chair of the APPG on fisheries, I welcome this debate. I support the proposed action plan, while acknowledging that many of these matters are largely devolved to the Scottish Government. That said, it is incumbent on me to highlight once again the importance of the Scottish fishing industry in the context of the UK. Scottish fisheries represent 60% of the UK fishing industry, contribute 60% of the UK’s seafood exports and land 75% of all quota species. That may not be big in UK terms, but it is certainly big in Scottish terms, and it is very big in my constituency, as the Minister knows, with ports such as Buckie, Fraserburgh and Peterhead.

The Minister has previously signalled his willingness—nay, desire—to work in partnership with the Scottish Government on a strategy that involves all four nations. I encourage him in that regard. Might he be willing to revisit the UK Government approach to the fishing and coastal growth fund, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) mentioned? The fund was brought in to ameliorate the damaging outcome of EU negotiations under a former Prime Minister, and the unprecedented 12-year access to our waters.

On the upside, the Scottish Government have dedicated £16.6 million in their marine fund Scotland, recognising the importance of the sector to our economy and our coastal communities. Since 2021, it has awarded £86 million to support 499 projects. This year’s funding allocation is revealing: £14.5 million, topped up with only £2.1 million from the fishing and coastal growth fund. Our freedom of information requests have shown that it was indeed a political decision to Barnettise the devolved fund. Scottish fisheries deserve far better than being used to score political points in this way.

In the notes the House of Commons Library provided for this debate, it is highlighted how a report from the Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy group showed that sector strategies that support economic growth do best if policies are tailored to the needs of different industries, based on detailed evidence, and developed in consultation with the industry.

That brings me to the matter of skills shortages, which has already been referred to. The processing sector has made great strides forward in encouraging a domestic workforce with work incentives, but gaps in the labour market remain, and those gaps are holding back production and economic growth. That is where a bespoke Scottish visa for international workers would make such a difference to companies in the north-east that can neither grow nor innovate with the staff they have in place. It has been done before, in 2003, under none other than Jack McConnell, the former Scottish Labour leader and the last Labour First Minister of Scotland—or, as he is known these days, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale.

[Alan Gemmell]

I am pleased to say I was a civil servant who partly made the Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland scheme. I am pleased that we were able to do that, but what more have the Scottish Government done to attract migrants and to skill people in Scotland for those jobs, rather than relying on an old scheme?

[Seamus Logan]

I am glad the hon. Member asked that question. The problem does not lie in Scotland; it lies here in Westminster. That is what I have been trying to highlight.

On the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, it is no secret that I and my party think that Brexit was a catastrophic disaster. The cold hard estimate for the seafood industry revealed that Brexit led to a 30% increase in the cost of transporting products and a 50%9 increase in the cost of packaging.

[Douglas Lumsden (Aberdeen South) (Con)]

Can the hon. Member confirm that the SNP’s policy would be to take us back into Europe, almost like the Labour party, and back into the dreaded common fisheries policy?

[Seamus Logan]

I thank the hon. Member for intervening on that point because I am very happy to put on record that, despite what he says, neither I nor my party wish to go back into the common fisheries policy. I remind the hon. Member that it was his Prime Minister and the previous Government who negotiated the Brexit deal that led us to this position.

[Torcuil Crichton]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Seamus Logan]

No, I have taken enough interventions; I am running out of time.

As we head towards the UK-EU summit on 20 November, I understand that the Scottish White Fish Producers Association is concerned that the worst elements of the common fisheries policy could reappear when the SPS is agreed. I hope that the SPS agreement will instead deliver faster, more streamlined export processes, because without that, the benefits will not be felt by fishermen, processors or coastal communities that rely on trade with the European Union.

Scotland needs a seat at the negotiating and decision-making table to ensure that the voice of our fishing and coastal communities is represented, heard and taken on board. Otherwise, a strategy made in Westminster, far from the reality of my constituency in the north-east, will be in danger of failing in its core mission, as the Minister knows.