MINISTERS have announced plans to clean up Scotland’s fish farms in a bid to protect the environment from pollution and stop disease spreading to wild salmon stocks.

From next year, farms will be made to publish weekly figures on sea lice levels and set tougher control targets.

Rural economy secretary Fergus Ewing told MSPs the changes were the first step in a “broad programme of reform” to improve the industry.

He also said the government would explore how third-party independent checks on lice counts could be used to back up self-declaration.

He said: “Taken together, the new measures signal a major shift from self-regulation to statutory regulation. They also seek to move to an approach that supports prevention through robust and independent monitoring.”

However the Greens said he was “cajoling rather than compelling the industry to clean up its act”.

The move followed the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) this week publishing a new regulatory framework for the finfish aquaculture sector.

It includes tighter limits on waste produced by fish farms, including faeces, uneaten food, and chemicals to treat lice and other diseases.

There is also improved monitoring, and a shift to siting farms away from sensitive areas in future.

Mr Ewing said a review of salmon farms by Holyrood’s environment committee had concluded the status quo was “not an option” and new legislation was required.

He said this would take effect in 2020, forcing farms to be more transparent and responsive to sea lice infestations.

He said farms would be required to file a weekly sea lice number with the government’s fish health inspectorate one week in arrears.

The trigger thresholds for reporting and intervening on sea lice problems would also be lowered in stages.

Currently a farm-wide average of three adult female lice per fish for reporting and eight for intervention, the triggers will be cut to two and eight respectively, then two and four after another year, unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary.

Mr Ewing said he was “extremely concerned” about the decline in wild Atlantic salmon, and aquaculture was one of 12 key factors involved.

He said sea lice were “ubiquitous in the marine environment and have the potential to impact on wild and farmed fish,” but improved compliance with voluntary codes and investment in new technology saw lice levels fall last year to their lowest annual average since 2013.

Scottish salmon farms directly employ 2000 people and contribute £220m a year to the economy, while supporting a further 10,000 jobs and adding another £400m.

Tory MSP Sir Edward Mountain, who owns half an £8m fishing beat on the Spey, was sceptical that the “very poor” enforcement in the sector would improve.

Mr Ewing said the changes involved “an aspect of independent audit” and insisted the government took enforcement seriously.

The Scottish Greens said the siting of existing salmon farms should be reviewed as well as the location of future farms to assess their impact on the environment.

MSP Mark Ruskell said: “People are rightly upset and angry after shocking revelations of the appalling conditions in many of our salmon farms and there are real fears that the industry’s plans to double annual production will cause needless suffering to millions of fish.”

Labour MSP Claudia Beamish said: “The Cabinet Secretary must ensure that any plans for the closed containment of fish will be fully tested against animal welfare standards.

“SEPA’s shift to encouraging applications for larger scale fish farms in deeper waters may simply disperse fish faeces and medicine more widely in the marine environment, pushing it further out of sight and out of mind.

“Scotland’s coastal communities need a strong aquaculture sector and it is important that the SNP government listen to concerns to get secure its sustainable future for years to come.”

Julie Hesketh-Laird, Chief Executive of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation, said the sector had been leading for some time led on greater transparency and the speedier publication of data.

“The SSPO has been voluntarily publishing lice data since 2013 and since 2018 reporting has been on a farm by farm basis. We are pleased the Scottish government’s announcements build on this. We welcome the Minister’s commitment to public consultation and look forward to engaging fully in it to help ensure that the data collected is used effectively so the new system can work as well as possible.

“We would expect everyone with an interest in wild as well as farmed salmon and sea lice to work to the same high levels of transparency and ensure data is accurately collected and quickly reported and published. Building trust in the regulatory system is important.”

“The Scottish salmon sector welcomes this move to tighter regulation. It is in everyone’s interests to operate to the lowest lice levels possible. This follows the recent advances the sector has made in controlling lice with non-medicinal means, measures which have brought lice levels down to their lowest level for six years.”