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13 Jun 2012
Commenting on EU talks over reform of the Common Fisheries Policy in Luxembourg yesterday, Scottish Conservative Environment Spokesman Jamie McGrigor MSP said:
“I welcome the fact that some progress has been made on regionalisation, which is one of the key features we want to see from a reformed Common Fisheries Policy.
“There has also been some progress made towards ending discards through a gradual species-by-species target approach.
“But as I argued during the fisheries debate in the Scottish Parliament last week, while all of us want to see a reduction in discards, we must do it in a flexible way, recognising the diverse nature of mixed fisheries and the need for practical measures which actually deliver results.
“We must achieve the correct balance between the numbers of fish in the sea and the opportunity to catch them and we need a discard programme which is easy to use for our Scottish fishermen who, after all, have led the way in Europe in conservation measures in the past.
“Scotland’s prawn fishermen are already making real progress in reducing discards and we should recognise this and congratulate them on that.”
