§ Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smithasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in his study of a system of salmon tagging; and what problems have emerged.
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§ Mr. Goldingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made towards a salmon tagging scheme; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacGregorThe examination by officials which I announced on 29 February in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) has been able to identify the main areas of concern in any scheme to control salmon sales and is looking urgently into the practical difficulties of establishing effective control, including:
- (i) the issue of tags to anglers and netsmen and the return of unused tags;
- (ii) tagging the substantial (and growing) number of fanned salmon;
- (iii) controlling sales of imported Atlantic salmon.
As I said in my earlier reply, my right hon. Friends and I are convinced that any scheme, to be effective, would have to apply to Great Britain as a whole, and the study is being pursued on that basis. I would like to pay tribute to the co-operation we are receiving from the water authorities and from representatives of various interests concerned in our examination of the problems. I hope that it will be possible to identify a practical basis for a control scheme, but at this stage I cannot forecast the conclusions which are likely to emerge.