Allegations and offences investigated under The Fisheries Act 2020: EIR release

Information requested

My Freedom of Information Act request concerns the following legislation:

• The Fisheries Act 2020, Schedule 3;
• The Sea Fishing (EU Recording and Reporting Requirements) (Scotland) Order 2010, implementing Council Regulations 1966/2006, 1006/2008, and 1224/2009 and Commission Regulations 1077/2008 and 201/2010, s.5;
• The Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967 s. 1, s.4, s.5, s.6, s.4A (7), s4A (8), s7, read in conjunction with The Fisheries Act 1981;
• The Sea Fishing (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing) (Scotland) Order 2013 s.9 and,
• The Sea Fishing (EU Control Measures) (Scotland) Order 2015 s.21, s.7, s.9 and s.10 [sic] offences of bodies corporate.

Please can you share data on whether the Marine Scotland and any of the divisions within its area of responsibility has (a) received allegations and (b) recorded any offences investigated under the above statutes in relation to the fraud and/or legal violations relating to the misreporting of fish stock.

If any offences have been received, investigated or recorded, I would be grateful if these could be provided by (i) year of reporting and recording, (ii) nature of offence (specifically, whether involving public or private officials, and whether domestic or transnational), and (iii) outcome of the case (charge, caution, sanction, no further action, etc.).

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

All commercial fishing voyages undergo continuous analysis by the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate, utilising electronic and paper-based records. The activities of vessels are monitored and analysed for the purpose of ascertaining whether there are grounds to suspect a contravention of the law, for example, where an Area of Capture has been misreported in the vessel’s logbook. This analysis utilises intelligence available to the Marine Directorate and from direct examination of documentation and reports submitted by vessel operators themselves.

Where the Marine Directorate obtains evidence, to the criminal standard, of contravention of fisheries law it may report the case to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) for consideration of prosecution, or alternative appropriate action as it sees fit. Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) are civil fines which the Marine Directorate is able to offer rather than pursuing a formal prosecution. Further information on Fixed Penalty Notices can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/marinecompliance- fixed-penalty-notices/ and further information on Enforcement Statistics can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/collections/marine-scotland-reporting-statistics/

Additionally, where the Marine Directorate obtains evidence in suspected cases of the misreporting that, on the balance of probabilities, a contravention of the law may have occurred in respect of a particular vessel, it shall report the case to Marine Directorate Sea Fisheries Policy, who shall consider the report and whether it may justify a variation of the vessel’s Multi Area Licence (MAL) to a Restricted Area Licence (RAL). This is a limited administrative sanction limiting the vessels area of operation to a particular sea area for a set period (usually 2 to 3 months). Should the vessel wish to fish in an alternative area whilst this sanction is in place it must return to port and apply to the local Fisheries Office for permission, it cannot simply fish across sea areas. This administrative measure has proved to be an effective tool in combating suspected misreporting where evidence is not to a criminal standard.

Below is a table detailing the cases received and investigated by MDC for 2019-2023 relating to the uspected misreporting of fish stocks. When investigating fisheries offences cases are usually taken
against owners of vessels, masters of vessels, charterers of vessels and/or their representatives.

Year	Cases	UK Vessel	Non-UK Vessel	Outcome
2019	6	6	0	3 RAL, 1 FPN, 2 NFA
2020	5	5	0	5 NFA
2021	6	3	3	1 FPN, 5 NFA
2022	5	5	0	5 RAL
2023	8	8	0	8 RAL

(RAL = Restricted Area Licence, FPN = Fixed Penalty Notice, NFA = No Further Action)

We are aware that the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) issued two further, identical RALs for ICES Areas 6a and/or 6b for English administered vessels for misreporting across the 2022-23 period.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.