Highly protected marine areas (HPMAs): Don't be fooled by SNP climbdown, the Greens are still in charge – Brian Wilson

The Scottish Government backed down on HPMAs because there was no political alternative, not because it ‘listened’

“I hope what I have stated today demonstrates that I am listening and continuing to listen,” declared Mairi McAllan, Cabinet Secretary for lots of things, in announcing the volte-face on highly protected marine areas (HPMAs). Why, incidentally, do they all need these long, Ruritarian titles? Ms McAllan is “Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition”. In the old days, we would have had a fisheries minister with a reasonable chance of knowing something about it.

These “I have listened” homilies are becoming a bit overworked in the cause of turning necessity into a virtue. The truth is that it took Ms McAllan an indecently long time to listen and even now it is by no means clear what she has heard. The headline the SNP wanted before the very long recess when ministers take to Scotland’s scenic routes was “HPMAs scrapped”. Nobody in communities which have raised their voices against these plans believes it is by any means that simple, even though the specific, forced retreat is universally welcomed.

There was no apology from Ms McAllan for the anxiety caused, the investment lost, the livelihoods threatened by a process that would never have got past first base without sustained deafness since the warnings first presented themselves, almost two years ago. Neither was there any acknowledgement of tens of thousands of man and woman hours that had to be wasted on detailed responses from hard-pressed councils, voluntary organisations, threatened businesses and fearful families – time which could have been better spent if Ms McAllan had listened when she should have.

There is a familiar pattern here. The Scottish Government is awash with online consultations giving the superficial impression of inclusiveness. Often, if they really wanted to know what people think, the best option would be to go and talk to them before setting hares running and forcing those who will be affected into defensive mode.

The HPMA hare was released by the grandly named Bute House Agreement, the sole imperative for which was to bolster Nicola Sturgeon’s sense of security by increasing her majority from a comfortable seven to an impregnable 14. Otherwise, it was completely unnecessary and without thought for collateral Green damage.

Fragile coastal economies immediately saw the Bute House danger. In November 2021, I wrote that the terms are “so far-reaching that the entire (fishing) industry is in a state of apprehension about what comes next”. The Western Isles Fishermen’s Association, for example, described it “as the biggest threat for 30 years”.

If anyone from the Scottish Government had gone out and listened, they would have heard exactly the same reaction around the coast. They didn’t. They sat in offices and composed a consultation document which made absolutely no references to socio-economic impacts and was even more Draconian in what it wanted to ban than anyone had imagined. Far from listening, they had treated the freely accessible concerns with complete disdain.

When that consultation document lit the blue touch paper, who was the politician responsible? Why, none other than Mairi McAllan. “Through the Bute House Agreement” she proclaimed, they were committed to “designating a world-leading suite of highly protected marine areas”. And who from the safe distance of St Andrew’s House could resist a “world-leading suite”?

So the truth is that Ms McAllan found herself in retreat this week, with enough wriggle room to keep the Greens happy, not because she “listened” when there was no political alternative, but because she and her underlings failed to listen throughout the crucial period – which was the entire year preceding the deeply offensive consultation paper’s launch last December.

One may wonder why the smug Greens, having defined HPMAs as “a vital part of the Bute House Agreement” were relaxed this week about ostensibly abandoning them? To keep the ministerial jobs, obviously. But also because there are plenty more weapons in the armoury which were not covered by Ms McAllan’s statement.

For example, in February of this year, sea charts drawn up by NatureScot (the ludicrously re-christened Scottish Natural Heritage) were leaked. Without consulting anyone, they showed plans to ban fishing in huge areas designated as priority marine features (PMFs). Much of this territory covered waters which were also likely candidates for HPMAs.

At that time, Hector Stewart, who built Kallin Shellfish in Uist into a successful, exporting processing business, said: “We are in despair. These charts confirm that they are absolutely targeting all the areas we work in. There are new areas and extensions to previously proposed areas… We just cannot live with that, so what are we supposed to do?” It was doubtless the same reaction around Scotland’s coast.

Remember, this was about PMFs rather than HPMAs or even marine protection areas (MPAs). A freedom of information request asked the Scottish Government “what degree of overlap you anticipate between MPA, PMF areas and inshore HPMAs”? The reply was: “It is not possible at this stage to anticipate what the degree of overlap may be between existing MPAs, protection of PMFs and HPMAs.” That was in March.

If the new-found commitment to consultation with communities means anything, then the whole slate has to be wiped clean and a single system of marine conservation agreed upon. Its cornerstone should be that those with the greatest interest in maintaining a sustainable marine environment are those whose livelihoods depend on it, not ministers with very long titles or civil servants in urban offices.

Mind you, one good thing did come out of the HPMAs furore – the power of a Barra protest song, The Clearances Again, which brilliantly articulated the anger of coastal communities. If there is one thing politicians like even less than being laughed at, it is being sung about. My guess is that another few verses will soon be needed. The Greens are still in charge.