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In the engagement that I have had, I have certainly met a lot of passionate people in each of their sectors, who all greatly value and know the importance of the sustainability of the stocks that they fish and catch—

You are absolutely right that we have used biennial closures, and this will be the second closure that we have had. We had a consultation in the lead-up to the previous closure, so we will undertake another consultation. I cannot give a definitive timescale for that yet, but we are looking to do it soon. We will continue to keep the committee updated on that.

I want to be clear that we will absolutely do that engagement. There have been frustrations about the pace that the bill has moved at. We have been trying to get answers to those questions so that we can get the correct processes in place. As far as I am aware, those discussions are on-going. George Burgess may have more information.

I can give a quick assurance that that will be part of the consultation. We will be looking to announce that and take those licensing proposals forward in the coming weeks.

As the committee will be aware, our consultation on proposals for a future agriculture bill closed last December. We have been analysing the consultation results, and we will be in a position to publish the response to the consultation shortly. As I have previously outlined, we have a commitment to introducing an agriculture bill to the Parliament this year, and we are still on track to deliver that.

I am happy to provide an update. I do not know whether you want me to run through every single action, but I point the committee to the delivery plan for each of the actions that is set out in the future fisheries management strategy, which we published last year. That shows where we are against the strategy and how we intend to deliver against the actions. I will draw out some key pieces of work as examples, and Annabel Turpie will, no doubt, want to add to those.

The first action in the future fisheries management strategy is about promoting fisheries as a safe career of choice for people. We have provided Seafish with more than £400,000 to deliver free safety training for the fishing industry, and we have spent about £2.1 million on encouraging new entrants into the industry, which was funded through the marine fund Scotland.

Work has been progressing in other areas, too. The future catching policy is listed as an action in the strategy. We consulted on that last year and we are due to publish the results of the consultation soon. It was quite a technical consultation. However, when we look to implement the policies, we expect to see some positive steps forward.

There are also actions in the strategy around local resilience, connecting to local markets and enhancing global markets for seafood. We have published a seafood strategy. We have talked about the importance of our seafood trade, of confidence in it and of its resilience, but our policy commitments relating to remote electronic monitoring and vessel tracking are important in delivering that, too. We have had a consultation on remote electronic monitoring, which we launched at the same time as the future policy consultation, and we hope to be in a position to publish the results of that soon. Many pieces of work have been under way.

There have been further developments in relation to that since the delivery plan was published. We have talked about strengthening our regional inshore fisheries groups. There has been a refresh of that network and we appointed six new chairpeople. We also extended the groups’ reach out to 12 nautical miles. That is one development.

We have also done a refresh of our fisheries management and conservation group and how it operates. That is about getting all the different stakeholders round the table and trying to move forward on a lot of the key areas and issues that we face. That group has been established with terms of reference. We are using a hub-and-spoke model, so we have the main FMAC group and four sub-groups that feed into it. We have one on inshore fisheries, one on scallops and one on fishing and climate change. The name of the last one has escaped me, but I am sure that Annabel Turpie can provide that information.

As well as the refresh of that group and the regional inshore fisheries groups, we hope to undertake a review of the regional inshore fisheries groups in the summer next year, just to see how all of that is operating.

Absolutely, but it is in everybody’s best interests to ensure that we have sustainable fisheries. That is what we want to see, and it is what the industry wants to see going forward.

We are seeing some fantastic pieces of work around our coastline that are being led by fishers. We have a couple of inshore fisheries pilots at the moment and, so far, they are showing us really positive results. There is the Mull crab box and we have one in the Outer Hebrides as well. That brings me back to what Annabel Turpie said about working with the different sectors, bringing all those different threads together and seeing how we can move forward.

I think that everybody appreciates that our seas are changing—there is no doubt about that—but we all want to ensure that we have a sustainable sector and sustainable industries. Ultimately, that is what we want to work together to achieve.

I would be happy to. Work has been undertaken by Marine Scotland scientists together with scientists from the University of Strathclyde to look initially at the stock assessments for cod, haddock and whiting. They have been collating the information that we have received from scientific surveys as well as information from commercial fisheries. With that information, they are looking to develop qualitative stock assessments.

Annabel Turpie, do you want to add anything further about the monitoring?

Are you asking about the transitional amendments that we need for the current schemes?