6. To ask the First Minister when a publicly accessible register of fishing quota allocation holdings and transactions will be established. (S4F-01567)

Scotland’s fish quotas are an important national asset. The Government wants to see quotas in the hands of the active fishing industry and supporting its success, and not held as a speculative asset. We are currently working to establish a publicly accessible register of quota holdings, which will be launched later this year. The register will bring much-needed transparency to the quota system.

I thank the First Minister for that answer, which I shall take first thing tomorrow morning to Peterhead fish market.

Does the First Minister agree that successive Westminster Governments have failed to protect the interests of Scotland’s fishing industry and that independence offers a far better deal for fishing communities in the north-east and across Scotland?

With independence, Scotland will have a direct say in fisheries negotiations and will at last be in a position to negotiate the best deal for our fishermen, rather than Scottish fisheries interests being treated in the way that they have been treated over the past quarter of a century and more.

I am not sure that members know of the release under the 30-year rule of the infamous civil service memo about the Heath Government’s negotiations to enter the Common Market, all those years ago, that pointed out that, in terms of Britain’s wider European interests, they—the Scottish fishermen—“are expendable”. That was written by a civil servant. If we look at the lack of priority that was given to the fishing industry by Westminster in European negotiations over those years, we will see that there is absolutely no doubt that Tory and Labour Governments regarded fishing as expendable. In an independent Scotland, it will be one of the great natural resource industries of Scotland and will be defended properly.