Who's the best Holyrood choice for fish farming?
The manifestos have now been published for five of the top six parties contesting the 2026 Scottish Parliament election. Here are their promises related to both the sector and rural Scotland.
The result of the Scottish Parliament election on May 7 will determine how Scotland’s salmonid farming industry is treated by government, and how quickly it can grow, if it is allowed to expand at all.
So, which political parties should voters who want to see the sector thrive opt for, and which should they avoid?
Fish Farming Expert has examined the manifestos of five of the six parties expected to feature most prominently in the results and picked out the pledges relevant to fish farming, including connectivity and solutions to the shortage of rural housing.
The parties are placed in order of their expected number of seats, based on a YouGov opinion poll of nearly 4,000 Scottish adults and carried out between March 23 and April 8, although these numbers are likely to change as more opinion polls take place nearer to May 7.
Scottish National Party
The SNP is predicted by the YouGov poll to win between 63 and 69 seats, giving it an overall majority and another five years in power.
The party has been largely supportive of aquaculture, but clashed with the sector and the fishing community over plans to introduce Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in 2023, when it governed in a de facto coalition with the Scottish Greens.
The plans, which would have transformed 10% of the relatively close to shore seas controlled by the Scottish Government into no-go zones for fish farmers, fishermen, and leisure users led to three SNP MSPs including former Cabinet Secretaries Kate Forbes and Fergus Ewing voting against their party and three others abstaining in a vote on the issue. The plans were eventually dropped.
An attempt by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to reduce lice limits on fish farms has also caused problems, leading to mass appeals by salmon producers who say SEPA’s modelling massively overestimates the number of lice on farms and the threat to wild smolts.
'The backbone of communities'
The SNP’s 2026 election manifesto, published today, states that Scotland’s fishing and aquaculture sectors are the backbone of many rural and coastal communities, and that the party is focused on ensuring that they have a “sustainable and prosperous future”.
The manifesto makes no mention of HPMAs. That doesn’t guarantee that there wil be no further restrictions on marine use, but these may fall on the fishing sector.
“Our fishing sector and the associated supply chain companies including our processing sector are the lifeblood of coastal communities across the nation, that is why we will always champion balanced policy which both enables the sector to flourish whilst supporting improvements in the protection of our marine environment,” states the manifesto.
Streamlined consenting
Among the things the SNP is promising is to simplify the planning system to make life easier for businesses, and to improve fish welfare and streamline aquaculture consenting processes, something already being done under the current SNP administration.
The party is also promising moves to encourage more housebuilding, including in rural areas.
“We know that our rural and island communities face unique housing challenges, from limited affordable supply and high build costs, to pressure from second homes and the migration of younger people,” writes the SNP.
“Our £75 million Rural and Island Housing Fund will help address this by supporting the construction of more affordable homes of all tenures in rural Scotland.”
On transport, the SNP will continue subsidising ferry fares to the islands, and will support Shetland Islands Council’s exploration of financing models for fixed links - tunnels, bridges and causeways – to improve connectivity.
The party has pledged to complete the dualling of the A9, which it describes as a lifeline for Highland communities and Scotland’s economy, by 2035.
Reform Scotland
YouGov’s poll indicated that the right-wing party is on course to win between 17 and 23 seats, making it the second-largest party in Holyrood.
Reform is supportive of fishing, which it says has been let down by successive UK governments, and it has pledged to stop any future offshore wind farms which harm fishing grounds and migratory birds. It also pledges to “roll back on state electronic snooping on board Scottish trawlers”, among other things.
No mention of aquaculture
But Reform doesn’t mention fish farming in its manifesto at all, despite the importance to the salmon sector to the rural economy.
On the issue of connectivity, the party promises to embark on 10-year plans to upgrade major trunk roads, renew ferries, and modernise harbours.
Reform says Scotland’s housing crisis can be fixed by building 15,000 affordable homes per annum over the next five years. But on the problem of finding accommodation in rural areas, which salmon farmers say can make it difficult to attract staff, its only suggestion is to support self-build and small-scale developments through a revised planning system.
Scottish Labour
The YouGov poll predicted Labour would win between 12 and 17 seats on May 7.
If the party wins power, it promises a tourism strategy that markets Scotland as a premium food and drink destination, “leveraging the strength of whisky and salmon while treating the wider food and drink sector as a strategic economic asset”.
It intends to introduce a new Marine Plan with a spatial, as opposed to sector-specific, approach so there is clarity for offshore wind, fisheries and coastal communities on their roles and responsibilities in Scottish waters.
Labour would establish a Marine Recovery Fund, funded through developer contributions, to deliver strategic marine and nature recovery. It would also review the roles and remit of nature and environment agencies, to reduce duplication and unnecessary bureaucracy.
On the issue of connectivity, it would merge state ferry buyer CMAL and ferry operator CalMac into a single entity. On housing, it promises 50,000 new affordable homes to drive down housing waiting lists and reduce rents, and 125,000 new homes by the end of the Parliament in 2031, although it doesn’t specify how many would be in rural areas.
Scottish Greens
The YouGov poll put the Scottish Greens in fourth place, with 10-14 seats.
Ariane Burgess, who was a Scottish Greens regional list MSP during the last Scottish Parliament, has objected to virtually every planning application to extend salmon farms in recent years, so it’s no surprise that the party takes a chest-beating, hostile approach to fish farming in its manifesto.
The Scottish Greens are not afraid to stand up to the huge international corporations that threaten our waters with industrial-scale fish farming
“The Scottish Greens are not afraid to stand up to the huge international corporations that threaten our waters with industrial-scale fish farming,” states the party, which adds that it if gains power it will “pause new salmon farms or the expansion of existing sites until the industry demonstrably improves fish welfare, reduces mortality rates and escapes, and tackles chemical and plastic pollution”.
It also wants to give regulators greater powers to shut down fish farms that fail to meet welfare and environmental requirements, and would give coastal communities greater say over fisheries management and marine spatial planning, including planning applications for new fish farms and offshore energy installations.
End fish farm rates exemption
The Scottish Greens would also end the exemptions from non-domestic rates that apply to salmon farms, and promote vegetarian meals. A Scottish Greens government would “ensure the public sector leads the way in driving ethical consumption and encouraging plant-based diets by promoting local, organic and plant-rich requirements into procurement contracts”, the party states.
On the environment, the party would bring forward an Ecocide Bill “criminalising severe environmental harm and widening liability for corporate executives”, with imprisonment for those responsible for the worst offences.
The party has a mixed approach to transport, promising to explore the feasibility of bridges, tunnels and causeways across the sounds of Harris and Barra, and to improve connectivity for islanders in the Northern Isles, but also to establish a Scottish Environmental Court empowered to hear legal challenges to new road building plans.
Scottish Liberal Democrats
The YouGov poll predicts that the LibDems will win between seven and 12 seats on May 7, up from four in the 2019 election. But the party has not yet published its manifesto.
Scottish Conservatives
According to the YouGov opinion poll, the Conservatives could win just five to 10 seats as the party sees much of its share of the vote migrate to Reform.
The Conservative manifesto points out that Scotland’s food and drink industry supports thousands of jobs and provides billions of pounds of investment.
“It gives not just Scotland, but the UK, world-leading produce like whisky and salmon. Ministers should be working to support the industry, not harm it. We would promise not to implement harmful regulation on the sector,” states the party.
We pledge not to revive plans for HPMAs in any form in the next Scottish Parliament
Like Labour, the Conservatives would merge CMAL and CalMac, and would back both fishing and aquaculture.
No return to HPMAs
“Coastal communities are suffering from population decline while the fishing industry is in a downturn. That is why we must support this industry and the jobs and communities it sustains in coastal areas. That means working with the industry to support aquaculture, with a strong focus on making sure fish farming works for local people, other industries and the environment,” the party says.
“What we will not do is propose damaging policies that threaten the entire fishing industry’s existence, as happened in the last session of the Scottish Parliament. The SNP, backed up by their Green coalition partners, proposed introducing Highly Protected Marine Areas to Scotland’s waters, which would have banned fishing from 10% of our seas. The Scottish Conservatives backed industry calls for these plans to be ditched, and thankfully they were. We pledge not to revive these plans in any form in the next Scottish Parliament.”
