Extent of Scots Brexit fish woe could be wrong amid claims HMRC recorded just 3 per cent of actual exports

Hamish Macdonell, of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation, said that the export figures for Scottish salmon published by HMRC were off by 97 per cent, and claimed it would be impossible to understand the extent of the problems the industry has faced as a result of Brexit without accurate data.

Hamish MacDonnell

He explained: "There is a real issue over the validity of the export stats which have been put out by HMRC. The figures for January are not just wrong, they are very very wrong.

“It is very difficult I think for you as the committee, and for anybody else really to assess the impact of Brexit, when we don't have a proper baseline of stats.”

Mr Macdonell said that around 5000 tonnes of Scottish Salmon was exported to Europe in January, however HMRC’s data “shows we only sent 80”. He said the Eurostat system, which records imports into the EU, shows 4700 tonnes of Scottish salmon being brought in. 

He said: "This [HMRC data] is only 3 per cent of the amount that actually went there.

“That has been the big problem, the very least in January in terms of the collation of the figures.

“Something happened to do with the way the figures were collected and I don't know who is to blame or where the problem has come from, but unless we can get a really proper baseline of how much fish is actually going into Europe, it's impossible to tell what the impact of Brexit [has been].”

He was answering a question from Moray MP Douglas Ross, who said that the evidence was “incredible”.

He replied: “That's just an incredible statement that we've had from you.

“So you're effectively saying that somehow HMRC have lost 97% of the salmon that was exported to the European Union?

“I'm not saying there's salmon lying somewhere, but the figures collating that... and it's not just a couple of percent. It's the vast majority.”

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Mr Macdonnell replied: “If you as a committee really want to understand what's going on with Brexit, we need to get those figures right.

“The February figures were much more as we would expect, but our concern is that we don't know whether those February figures include some from January which have been pushed on, or whether they are the actual February figures and it was just a blip that happened in January.

“Until we know for sure what's happened, it's really difficult then to make any judgments.”

He also suggested that exports of Scottish Salmon this January may actually have been higher than before Brexit, but due to the errors with the data, it was impossible to say accurately.

He added: “ We believe we actually sent more salmon to Europe in January 2021 than we did in January 2020.

“If that is the case, that does tend to change the perspective quite a lot.

“We have been appealing and talking to HMRC about this for the last two or three months because they're the ones that publish the official export stats, and we have been unable to make any headway.”

Mr Ross said that “all MPs across all parties” would be interested to know what the issues were with the data and “get to the bottom of what has happened”.

An HMRC spokesperson  told The Herald: "We are aware of the Scottish Salmon Producers query on “whole, fresh/chilled Atlantic Salmon” exports.

“We carry out monthly quality assurance of the provisional trade data and revisions are made should we identify errors."

MPs also heard from Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fisherman’s Federation and Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland.

They were asked about the impact of the UK Government’s £23m fund to help fishing firms who had lost out as a result of Brexit by MP Sally-Ann Hart.

Ms Fordyce said that for Scottish processors, the fund had achieved very little.

She explained: “For the processing sector it hasn't been very useful.

“There was a small amount of processors, there were such a large number of hoops that people had to go through to be eligible for it.

“They made the applications and they only got 50% of their funding of what their losses were. And also they only got paid out a couple of weeks ago so [it has been] very, very poor.

“[There are] a lot of very frustrated processors who have either been ineligible, the timescales of actually paying out and once they've been paid out they didn't realise they were only going to get 50%.”

READ MORE: £23m compensation scheme opens for Brexit-battered fishing firms

Ms MacDonald said that both the UK Government and Scottish Government schemes had been “helpful” for fishermen, but added that the two programmes had not been “joined up” enough.

She explained: “So these schemes certainly have been helpful, but what was not so helpful was that there didn't appear to be a great deal of join-up between them.

“There was some overlap between them and it was quite difficult I think for people in the industry to know where they were eligible and where they were not.

“They would rather have the fishing opportunities to be able to go and work and catch fish than to be sitting taking public money essentially to help with their costs.”

READ MORE: UK Government responds to protests over post-Brexit chaos that sees fishermen flock to Denmark to sell fish

Ms Fordyce told MPs that there was “no information” about how a new £100m fund, also announced by Borid Johnson, would be used to benefit the industry.

SNP MP and committee chairman Pete Wishart asked if the witnesses could explain “what’s going on” with the fund, to which Ms Fordyce replied: “ We don’t know.

“We just keep coming back to ‘There's going to be this £100m’ but there's nothing more being said about it and it's a frustration to the industry.

“The sooner we can get a bit more clarity on what that 100 million is going to be spent on, the better."

David Duguid, junior Scotland Office minister, later told MPs that more details about the funding would be provided “shortly”.

He said: “Before the end of the transition period the Prime Minister announced £100m fund to grow and develop the industry.

“We are pleased that more information on that fund will be released shortly.”

He added: “The government recognises that businesses involved in the export of highly perishable goods, such as live and fresh fish and shellfish, have been affected by border delays on both sides of the channel.

“In response to the ongoing impact of COVID, as well as export issues experienced by seafood export businesses across the whole UK earlier this year, we opened a Seafood Disruption Support Scheme, followed by the Seafood Response Fund to provide up to £23m of financial support across the whole sector.

“Many short-term issues have been, or are in the process of being, resolved but there are also issues with which we understand will take a bit longer to resolve but that's why it's very important that we take the action now to make sure we get those issues resolved.”