Suggestions of a Brexit bonanza for Scotland’s fishermen are way out of line

I refer to your article “Fishing industry hails Brexit bonanza”, based on a forecast in a new report by Marine Scotland (6 June).

Your article places great emphasis upon only the very rosiest of the four scenarios presented by Marine Scotland’s analysts.

And even in this scenario the majority of the “bonanza” will accrue to fish processors rather than actual fishermen. The other scenarios are much more mixed, with one showing alarming, widespread declines in employment and output.

But what is especially concerning is that the fisheries which support our inshore fleet will not experience anything like a bonanza, essentially because they won’t get extra quota to compensate for the new trade barriers they will have to face.

This matters. Inshore fisheries support some three quarters of the Scottish fishing fleet and provide crucially important employment in many small coastal communities.

The history of Scotland’s inshore fisheries has been one of recurrent missed economic opportunities. Modern management methods, including such basic measures as universal Vessel Monitoring Systems which show where the boats are fishing, are long overdue. As we all know, you can’t manage something until you can measure it.

The stark warning from this Marine Scotland report should prompt Scottish Ministers to finally make good on Nicola Sturgeon’s promise in her 2016 Programme for Government to develop a new Inshore Fisheries Bill.

This could introduce measures that, for the first time, would mean our inshore waters are well managed and able to support a sustainable inshore fishery. CHARLES MILLAR

Executive Director Sustainable Inshore

Fisheries Trust Rose Street, Edinburgh