Hamish Macdonell

BY HAMISH MACDONELL

After the split

Brexit blues are still affl icting the industry – in more than one way

IT was one of my Salmon Scotland colleagues who put it best: “We have no greater access to Europe than a � lapia farmer from Zimbabwe. We are a third country now and we are being treated as such.”

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. A� er all, we knew this was going to happen. We were told, before the Brexit vote, that we would lose all the export advantages we had with Europe.

Yet there was s� ll a feeling that perhaps, because we have been trading with Europe for so long, that maybe they would look on us favourably and not enforce all the rules as stringently as they could.

But no, now that the latest animal health regula� ons have come into force, it is clear that we really do have pre� y much the same status as African � lapia farmers when it comes to selling into the European

Union.

That is galling and frustra� ng. Each load of salmon, which would have passed through the border posts with hardly a glance 18 months ago, now has to be accompanied by enough paperwork to wrap a dozen fi sh suppers.

Salmon producers have to declare if the fi sh is des� ned for human consump� on or further processing – regardless of whether the answer is both, neither or some of one and some of the other.

If the fi sh is des� ned for further processing, each load has to be signed off by an offi cial vet and all farms expor� ng to the con� nent have to be approved by a vet in advance.

Then, when it gets to the border posts, almost every part of every single load is checked by hand even though this is exactly the same product that was waved through with a smile a few months ago.

There have been delays, confusion and frustra� ons. There are barely enough vets to process the cer� fi cates and the system could buckle at any point, par� cularly if there is a Covid fl are up that reduces staffi ng numbers at the cer� fi ca� on hubs.

We had hoped the whole export health cer� fi cate system would have been digi� sed and put online by this point, but that seems to be delayed too.

It may seem odd, given all this, that when the 2021 export fi gures come out this month, they will show that Sco� sh salmon producers sent more fi sh to Europe in that year than ever before.

Those fi gures will no doubt be seized on by pro-Brexit poli� cians to claim that the UK’s departure from the EU has been a success and that exports are thriving.

Those fi gures, however, are evidence of a much more complex picture. The main reason Sco� sh salmon farmers exported more fi sh to Europe in 2021 was because there were s� ll serious transport issues with more distant markets, par� cularly China and the United States.

Also, while volumes were up in 2021, values were down. Farmers were ge� ng less for the fi sh than they were before.

So the real picture is of a diffi cult trading year with producers ba� ling valiantly against Covid

“There have been delays, confusion and frustra� ons”

transport restric� ons and Brexit-induced bureaucracy. In fact, it is remarkable how much salmon they managed to get to their customers in Europe, given the head winds they faced.

The staffi ng issue

But there is another side-eff ect of Brexit, one that has crept up on our members more slowly, but that could have a more damaging eff ect in the long run.

Anyone who visited a fi sh processing plant in Scotland before Brexit would have seen how much our sector relied on European workers. Signs and posters were o� en wri� en in Polish, Romanian or Bulgarian while the languages you could hear on the processing lines varied from one Eastern European tongue to the next.

Some of these workers applied for leave to remain and have stayed, living and working in Scotland, but some have gone home, never to return.

There used to be a throughput of European workers, but not anymore. That conveyor belt has stopped and there is no evidence it will ever get going again.

Above: Salmon processing Left: Brexit

Taken together with self-isola� on regula� ons, this Brexit-inspired labour force problem is now causing real problems. All the processing facili� es serving the Sco� sh salmon sector are short of workers, some by 15%-20%.

The problem can be par� cularly acute on the islands, where the loss of half a dozen workers can place immense strain on those who remain, depressing their morale and making more staff shortages all but inevitable.

There is simply not the pool of workers there used to be and they will have to come from somewhere if our sector is to thrive.

Salmon Scotland has joined forces with the Sco� sh Seafood Associa� on and the Sco� sh Fishermen’s Federa� on to ask the UK Government to loosen the restric� ons on foreign labour for fi sh processing. We have asked for the same sorts of dispensa� ons given to the haulage and poultry sectors when they hit similar problems before Christmas.

The UK Government does not want to keep adjus� ng the rules – for obvious reasons. If it did, it would undermine its own arguments that Brexit is a success that will provide more jobs for Bri� sh workers. This is, perhaps the crux of the issue: Brexit was an ideological move but it has created prac� cal problems. Only by accep� ng that real, concrete steps have to be taken to solve these problems will the Government ease the pains of Brexit.

Yet, if it does it will eff ec� vely be admi� ng that Brexit is not the allsinging-all-dancing success it has consistently claimed it to be. Our hope is that prac� cal necessity will win out over ideology. If it doesn’t, then there will only be more pain ahead – something our members really do not deserve to endure any more.