Mr Alistair Carmichael

Absolutely, yes. The picture is complex and it depends what is being put where. However, for some of the spawning grounds for whitefish that have been affected, the evidence suggests that the construction is causing a problem. If we damage our spawning grounds, we are storing up a problem for ourselves a few years down the line. Floating offshore wind is a particular issue for the bigger boats that are further offshore. When floating offshore wind farms are being constructed, virtually the whole area of their construction is closed down. It is impossible for those boats to trawl safely due to the cables that are there because of the floating offshore wind turbines. I have one other matter that I want to place on record, and on which I seek the Minister’s continued assistance. His predecessors in office did take this seriously. It is not something that lies within the remit of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but it matters very much to our fishing community: it is the safety of fishermen at sea, which is a Department for Transport responsibility. I have had two truly shocking incidents in my constituency in recent years. The Pesorsa Dos, a Spanish gill-netter, tried to foul the propeller of a local trawler, the Alison Kay, some time ago, and the Antonio Maria, a French longliner, did the same thing to another local boat, the Defiant. Both incidents happened inside the 200-mile limit—the exclusive economic zone—but outside the 12-mile limit of territorial waters. The United Nations convention on the law of the sea tells us that safety action has to be taken by the flag state. The flag state of the Pesorsa Dos is Germany, and I am afraid Germany does not see much interest to be had from prosecuting a German-registered but Spanish-owned trawler fishing to the west of Shetland. The position remains dire. Sooner or later, if such behaviour is allowed to continue, somebody will end up with a boat at the bottom of the sea. This has to be taken seriously. Representations need to be made to the relevant authorities in Germany and France. Some effort has been made by Ministers at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Transport, but more needs to be done. We simply cannot leave our fishing industry unprotected in this way. The position with the Pesorsa Dos is interesting because it was fishing not just in UK waters but around Ireland’s. The Irish authorities took an approach rather different from the hands-off attitude of Marine Scotland and the Marine and Coastguard Agency, and took the Pesorsa Dos into port, where she was held for some considerable time. Of course, if she is in port, she is not out earning money for her owners. They threw the book at the Pesorsa Dos and its skipper. The Irish enforcement agents, when they were climbing on board, found that the ladder provided for them broke. That meant an immediate €10,000 fine for failing to provide safe access. The matter recently finished in the Irish courts with a series of fines and the forfeiture of gear worth £470,000. I suspect that will concentrate the minds of the owners and skippers of that boat better than the hand-wringing and legalism we have in this country. A bit more of that sort of enforcement would be enormously welcome. We all know that Al Capone was eventually done for tax evasion. Let us hope that the modern gangsters of the sea might be brought to book in a similar way, if not necessarily for the misdeeds themselves.