David Duguid – 2021 Comments on Scottish Seafood Exports

The comments made by David Duguid, the UK Government Minister for Scotland, on 14 May 2021.

This taskforce has been unusual as it has brought together industry experts from the catching, processing, exporting and aquaculture sectors as well as three ministers from the UK Government and the Scottish Government.

Rapid progress has been made in a variety of areas through this taskforce. In particular, we have considerably cut the amount of time staff spend filling in details on Export Health Certificates, helping speed time-critical exports of our world-class seafood.

Although the taskforce has a fixed lifespan, we are looking at how we can continue this important dialogue.

We want to maintain close contacts, though we appreciate people in the industry are busy. I am confident we can reach accord on ongoing discussions as we seek to maximise the opportunities for our key seafood sector.