Scotland’s fishermen face a perfect storm made in Holyrood

YET AGAIN THE SCOTTISH FISHING INDUSTRY is being unfairly treated by Marine Scotland and a disengaged Scottish Government.

The industry is drowning in constant consultations, loaded with questions that take up time for no meaningful return. The results are rarely implemented.

The Scottish Government is coordinating 21 Fisheries Management Plans due by the end of this year. Eleven demersal plans, covering fish that live and feed near the seabed, went through consultation over the winter. Two Nephrops plans, covering langoustines or Norway lobster, followed in the spring, while five pelagic plans, covering fish such as herring and mackerel that live in the open water rather than on the seabed, are now out for consultation, with another three still to come.

For many in the industry, these increasingly resemble tick-box exercises rather than meaningful consultation — another layer of marine policymaking shaped more by environmental politics than the practical realities of fishing. For the SNP they are a means of keeping the Greens onside.

The industry is also deeply concerned about the adequacy of monitoring and enforcement surrounding huge foreign vessels operating in Scottish waters. Yes, they are licensed and subject to monitoring requirements, but fishermen question whether the scrutiny is sufficient — while many of these vessels bring little obvious benefit to Scotland’s coastal economies.

The result of this incompetence has created a total breakdown of trust between fishermen and Marine Scotland, or Marine Directorate as it is now called.

Scientists claim fish stocks are at risk, yet skippers report very healthy stocks on the northern and western fishing grounds.

Scotland’s seas are warming, and the Scottish Government’s own marine research has long recognised that warming can drive commercially important species, including cod, northwards. The science itself now recognises significant regional differences.

fishermen are being squeezed out of the very waters on which their livelihoods depend

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which provides scientific advice on fish stocks and catch limits, identifies at least three biologically distinct cod substocks across the Northern Shelf, including a southern stock in much poorer condition than those further north. Yet fishermen argue that quota decisions still fail adequately to reflect what skippers are seeing on northern and western fishing grounds.

Nor is fisheries management the only pressure being placed on the fleet. Increasingly, fishermen are also being squeezed out of the very waters on which their livelihoods depend.

The Scottish Government’s 2025 draft Sectoral Marine Plan considered 37.4GW of capacity across 32 option areas. At the time, Scotland already had eight operating offshore wind farms, two under construction and another 12 in development.

The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation called for a halt to further offshore-wind consents in August 2025, arguing that the proposed expansion could displace fleets from traditional fishing grounds and have significant long-term effects on fishing. The Scottish Government’s own draft offshore-wind marine plan acknowledges that work is needed to estimate the cumulative impact on fisheries from offshore wind, cabling, marine protected areas and other marine policies.

What we are seeing is a total lack of support for Scotland’s active fishing fleet. With the price of fuel remaining painfully high, in part due to the UK Government’s relentless push towards net zero, Marine Scotland appears determined to turn the North Sea into an aquarium littered with wind turbines.

It is a perfect storm. The industry has to absorb these high fuel costs but cannot pass them on as the skippers are price-takers, not price-makers. All the industry wants is a level playing field so it can continue to provide sustainable food security. Energy security, of course, goes hand in hand.

It’s time the Scottish Government stopped courting its Green pals and listened to those who actually know the fishing industry inside out.