Finnie vows to fix the 'great muddle' of governance

THE way our seas are governed is a "great muddle", the Scottish environment minister, Ross Finnie, admitted, and the solution could lie in a change to the Scotland Act.

Mr Finnie said a Scottish marine bill was not likely to be coming "immediately", but a UK bill expected this year could contain much of the necessary measures to address the situation. He said he agreed the way the seas were administered should be changed.

"There's a great muddle of who's responsible and, therefore, there are two separate but parallel things going on. One is to try and decide what is the policy content; what would we in Scotland like to contribute to this very important debate on marine spatial planning, on nature conservation, on the conservation of our fishing and maritime resource," Mr Finnie said.

"And, secondly, what would be the most effective arrangement that would give recognition to devolution and recognise that, when the Scotland Act was passed, none of this was in contemplation? Can we get a sensible arrangement which allows Scotland and the Scottish Parliament to exercise powers over these matters?

"Once we've sorted that out, you then say do we need a second, Scottish, bill or can this all be wrapped up in a single bill that would make clear that Scottish interests were able to be represented?"

Mr Finnie said an advisory group with representatives from various interested bodies in Scotland had done "quite a lot of work" on the subject of how to improve management of the seas. It has been discussing marine spatial planning and a number of pilot projects - including one on the Firth of Clyde - have been set up to find out who uses the sea and how and what kind of sea life lives where.

The Scottish Executive is currently negotiating over getting some form of control of marine conservation up to the 200 nautical mile limit, rather than 12 miles as at present.

But Mr Finnie added: "I've got no problem about there being an over-arching UK policy framework. If it was possible to have an arrangement where you had a tiered kind of system - an over-arching policy and legislative framework that Scotland was able to have the devolved administration of - that would be ideal. They [Westminster] would set the over-arching principles, we would set the detail."