Commenting on the Shell Gannet F Subsea Flowline oil leak in the North Sea, Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said: "We take any oil leak extremely seriously, as the First Minister has made clear, and we are continuing to monitor this situation very closely. Marine Scotland officials are participating in the Operational Control Unit - alongside Shell, UK Government departments and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee - and are reporting back to Ministers on a regular basis.

Extreme positions and are being adopted and incendiary language used on the issue of transferable quotas. The question of how quotas have become tradable legal rights in the UK, and whether this is a good or bad thing is being conducted, in heated terms, between those who see tradable concessions as a panacea for the failures of fisheries policy and those who see it as a type of crime. This debate is important because it touches the current discussion on the way forward for the under-10m fisheries within domestic fisheries policy but also the direction of CFP reform.

Scotland's Chief Statistician today published the Scottish Shellfish Farm Production Survey 2010, Providing information on production and employment, it is structured to follow industry trends within the mussel, Pacific oyster, native oyster and scallop sectors. Some statistics are given for the 20-year period 1990-2010.