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That is the issue. We know that individual farms collect a lot more data than they are mandated to publish, as part of their good animal husbandry, animal welfare and general management of sites. However, if the publication of that data was mandatory, it would give more confidence that it was accurate.

We asked the industry and regulators to agree mortality thresholds that would trigger intervention, as that is key to ensuring that fish farms that are not performing, or that regularly have high levels of mortality, are dealt with, moved or whatever. Why were mortality thresholds that would trigger intervention not developed as part of the framework?

Yes. We can model it, but no mortality thresholds that would trigger Government intervention were identified.

The committee recommended mandated mortality reporting. We have heard that the Government is not providing that to the level that we would like. However, your update to the committee of 5 March, which provided the mortality data set explainer, says that

“Understanding the reasons for losses within food production is an important part of responsible farming”

and is important to ensure transparency. It then goes on to say that

“no single dataset provides a complete picture across the entire production cycle”.

Do you agree that those two sentences reinforce the committee’s recommendation that there should be comprehensive mandatory reporting of mortality, which you have rejected?

I will run through some of our recommendations and compare them with what was delivered.

The committee recommended that the fish health inspectorate should have powers to halt or limit production at high mortality sites, but the Government has suggested that no legislative control is justified. We wanted there to be an agreement between industry and regulators on mortality thresholds, but what we have are internal definitions that are used for analysis and not for the identification of any sort of regulatory thresholds. We do not have Government-led modelling of environmental drivers. We do not have comprehensive publication of mortality data for cleaner fish and so on. We asked for an annual fish health report, but we do not have a commitment from the Government to produce that. Further—I reinforce this—although we have an analytical framework, which identifies nine sites, there is no regulatory follow-through to deal with any situations that arise. Finally, transparency is a big issue, and I note that we do not have a single data set that allows the public to have confidence that the data that is provided shows that there are improvements in the industry. There is a range of reasons why we are not confident that the Government has delivered what the committee recommended a year ago.

I am very conscious that we have addressed perhaps a fifth of the questions, yet we are halfway through the session. However, I appreciate that mortality is a key topic. Carrying on with the theme that was just touched on, we will move to questions from Emma Harper on fish health, welfare and cleaner fish.

I will bring in Alasdair Allan.

That is helpful.

I have another question before we move on to spatial planning. Sorry—I am jumping all over the place. Emma Roddick wanted to ask a question before I jumped in. I apologise, Emma.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. From my personal point of view, over the almost 10 years that I have known you, you have always enabled civil and respectful debate without, on any occasion that I can remember, that discussion turning hostile. That is a credit to you, given some of the intensive questioning that we have had around the table. We can agree that you have disagreed—or we have disagreed—agreeably, which is to be commended.

I am sure that I can speak for everyone around the table in conveying our thanks for the way in which you have engaged with the committee over the years, including on some pretty heavy topics. We all wish you very well in your future, whatever that might hold for you. Thank you very much.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow for a changeover of witnesses and for a comfort break.

11:36

Meeting suspended.

11:42

On resuming—

Thank you. Is the committee agreed on the approach that has been proposed?

Members.

That concludes our business in public. Before we move into private, and given that this will be our last committee meeting in public, I want to put on record my thanks to all the committee’s members, both those who have been here for the full five years and others who have dipped in and out. I thank all of you for your contributions.

I know that this is not generally done, but I also want to mention the team of clerks behind us. I believe that Emma Johnston has been the only one of the team who has been with us from the start, and I just want to put on record my huge thanks for the support that she has given me as convener through the good times, the bad times and the difficult times. We have had a legislation-heavy agenda over the past five years, and, without her guidance and the support of the team who sit under her, that task would have been made even more difficult for us.

I just want to say thank you to the clerks, everybody who has supported the committee and the witnesses that we have had over the past five years.

We will now move into private session.

12:20

Meeting continued in private until 13:01.