UK fishing fund offer to Scotland is ‘madness’, minister told

The issue was raised in an urgent question in the House of Commons.

Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland, pointed out that Shetland alone accounted for about 9% of the UK catch, but that Scotland as a whole would receive less than 8% of the fund.

He told Eagle: “If the minister is sincere when she says that the aim of the government is to maximise local investment then to use the Barnett Formula to distribute this is ocean-going madness.”

SNP MP Seamus Logan said the fund had provoked “anger, dismay and sense of betrayal” in coastal communities.

And Scottish Labour MP Torcuil Crichton, who represents the Western Isles, questioned the “fairness” of the fund and called on the Department for Food and Rural Affairs to review it.