Scottish Nephrops Working Group Report: Scottish Government response

Background

The Group was established in Autumn 2020 to help the sector respond to the challenges arising from EU Exit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The working group was independently chaired by Uel Morton and included Seafood Scotland (facilitator), three catching organisations and three processors: West of Scotland Fish Producers Organisation, Western Isles Fishermen's Association, Scottish Fishermen's Organisation Ltd, DR Collin, Camalltaidh Ltd and Whitby Seafoods. The Scottish Government also had input.

The objectives of the Group are detailed below.

• Investigating and understanding the causes and scale of recent economic challenges faced by the nephrops sector.
• Defining a long-term, strategic vision and identifying long term remedies that will facilitate, promote, and protect a sustained economic recovery throughout the nephrops supply chain.
• Drive the sector forward, particularly to optimise additional markets and sales opportunities, and generate more value for offshore, inshore and onshore interests to maintain and create thriving Scottish coastal communities.
• Determining how the sector can contribute to the Scottish Government's inclusive economic growth agenda and Scotland's climate change ambitions.
• Firmly establishing, growing and promoting Scotland's position as the global leader in the producer of high-quality langoustine and scampi.

The Group published its report on 6 September 2021. The report describes its vision of Working to develop a profitable, sustainable, and equitable supply chain, to position Scottish quality langoustine as the number one choice globally and sets out a range of recommendations to achieve this ambition. The report groups the recommendations into eight themes and each is categorised as either short-medium (S-M) term or medium-long (M-L) term.

This paper sets out the Scottish Government's response to the recommendations.