GIVING exclusive rights to shellfish producer Scallop Kings to farm

scallops and other shellfish over a 241-acre area of seabed along the

shores of Loch Crinan amounted to ''landlordism of the seabed,'' Labour

Scottish Rural Affairs spokesman John McFall told a Commons committee

yesterday.

Further measures could ban fishermen from a centuries-long tradition

and threaten hundreds of jobs, he claimed.

Scottish Fisheries Minister Sir Hector Monro, said the exclusion zone

order MPs were debating was not the first and would end poaching.

Shellfish ranching practised properly could complement fishing.