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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S1W-10481

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 20 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what volume of white fish has been landed in each month of this year and what the total landed figures were for each of the last three years, broken down by species in each case.

The information requested on the volume of whitefish landed in each month of this year (all vessels) for the main whitefish species - i.e. yearly landings of 20 tonnes or more - is provided in the table attached. The equivalent total landed figures for each of the last three years is available from Table 15 (UK vessels) and Table 24 (Foreign vessels) of the publication Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 1999 which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

2000 Monthly landings of main whitefish species
Species	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Grand Total
Blue Ling	289	339	1,239	1,792	918	350	332	232	202	5,758
Bluemouth	14	20	15	34	36	23	25	21	11	204
Catfish	9	17	24	57	152	159	116	95	55	699
Cod	1,439	1,651	1,634	1,536	3,136	2,812	2,413	2,615	1,758	19,741
Conger Eels	10	8	8	7	7	4	6	7	8	71
Dabs	3	4	5	2	6	3	3	3	2	34
Dogfish	188	271	377	328	407	252	254	250	181	2,832
Forkbeard	74	57	95	83	61	39	48	52	38	563
Greenland Halibut	23	195	137	75	158	188	91	45	44	1,008
Haddock	3,600	4,343	4,609	2,976	3,074	4,350	5,122	5,355	4,010	39,031
Hake	174	105	140	212	656	1025	500	228	146	3,251
Halibut	35	3	21	10	33	27	35	25	8	201
Lemon Sole	37	42	83	175	308	440	257	297	187	1,891
Ling	521	624	846	809	901	777	642	527	445	6,248
Megrims	227	180	382	316	357	367	285	324	175	2,696
Monks	1,091	978	1,106	1,097	1,160	951	884	953	706	9,246
Plaice	100	89	100	120	323	391	203	188	191	1778
Pollack (Lythe)	46	90	63	66	105	87	125	93	50	745
Redfish	141	39	167	226	137	103	170	125	90	1,211
Roes	32	61	27	26	9	0	0	0	0	155
Roundnose Grenadier	417	234	224	530	1074	838	824	841	1161	6,496
Saithe (Coalfish)	437	1,106	791	872	1,222	1,153	1,403	1,314	1,171	9,789
Sandeels	0	0	687	1,436	2,354	3,908	709	541	0	9,635
Scabbardfish - black	165	184	163	177	166	191	114	127	151	1,479
Sharks	12	26	3	22	2	15	1	1	2	87
Turbot	7	6	9	7	11	15	12	9	13	90
Tusk	107	94	97	140	175	153	126	89	77	1,083
Whiting	1,750	2,131	2,197	1,503	1,540	1,174	1,119	1,366	1,451	14,873
Witches	149	122	210	196	264	286	189	185	106	1,767
Other flatfish	11	13	17	13	12	12	13	17	14	126
Other or mixed Demersal	55	38	51	54	61	57	49	52	46	482
Grand Total	11,161	13,072	15,527	14,898	18,824	20,152	16,073	15,976	12,499	14,3271

Question reference: S2O-00775

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Sunday, 12 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 20 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken to increase the availability of physiotherapy and speech and language therapy services for children in north east Scotland.

Question reference: S1W-10825

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 15 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of the Scottish fishing fleet's allocated quota for each species is expected to be caught this year.

The "Scottish fishing fleet" is not allocated fish quotas. Quotas are allocated to three fishing groups in the UK - producer organisations (20); the non-sector and the 10 metre and under fleet. There are around 70 UK quota stocks which are allocated to fishing groups. Uptake of UK quotas is routinely monitored at group rather than at individual vessel level.

Under the devolution settlement, a "Scottish boat" is defined by reference to its port of registration. It is possible for Scottish-registered vessels to be fishing out of English ports and vice versa. Similarly, some of the seven Scottish-based Producer Organisations may have in their membership vessels which are not registered in Scotland.

However, for the purposes of this answer, we have assumed the "Scottish fishing fleet" to mean the seven Scottish-based fish producer organisations. For west coast nephrops, however, the Scottish fleet also includes those vessels of under 10 metres in length and those in the non-sector (over 10 metre vessels not in membership of a fish producer organisation) since both groups have a significant interest in this fishery.

It is not possible at this stage to accurately predict the likely level of percentage uptake of quotas by the Scottish fleet since a number of factors such as availability of fish and weather conditions can bear on uptake levels in the weeks to end-December.

However, based on recorded uptake as at 9 November (the latest available figures), the following tables show the approximate percentage uptake of the main whitefish stocks by the Scottish Produce organisations based on current allocations:

North Sea	Cod	Haddock	Whiting	Saithe	Nephrops
	75%	66%	79%	89%	68%

West Coast	Cod	Haddock	Whiting	Saithe	Nephrops
	69%	55%	75%	52%	80%

Question reference: S1W-10846

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive why the circumstances surrounding the remit of the Deputy Minister for Rural Affairs as referred to in Mr John Home Robertson's speech in the Parliament on 1 November 2000 were not made public at the time.

Question reference: S1W-10845

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-6754 by Ross Finnie on 7 August 2000, and in the light of its Comprehensive Spending Review, whether it will provide updated information for the same figures for the next three years.

The information requested, in respect of Rural Development portfolio spending by the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department (SERAD) is shown in the table below.

	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Value of spending (£ million).	148	158	162
Spending as a percentage of total SERAD Rural Development resource plans.	24%	25%	26%

The sums above constitute between 0.7% and 0.8% of the Executive's plans for Total Managed Expenditure. The values of the proportions shown for the expenditure here are highly sensitive to the value of "European" spending. The value of the department's significant expenditure on Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on-farm payment schemes is very sensitive to factors such as the value of Sterling. While the Executive's plans for "non EU" spending shown above are fixed for the Spending Review 2000 period, its plans for CAP spending are classed as Annually Managed Expenditure (AME), outside the Scottish Block and formula arrangements. The spending is classed as AME because actual expenditure on CAP schemes is prone to considerable variance from plans. The proportions shown here therefore, based on comparisons between fixed and variable plans, do not allow meaningful conclusions to be drawn.

Question reference: S1W-10847

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what input and influence the National Farmers' Union had in relation to the remit of the former Deputy Minister for Rural Affairs.

Question reference: S1W-10824

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of the overall spending block (a) its total rural affairs budget; (b) that part of the rural affairs budget which is not tied to European funding; (c) its total fisheries budget, and (d) that part of the fisheries budget which is not tied to European funding will represent in each of the next three financial years.

In the table below "overall spending block" figures are the Scottish Executive's Total Managed Expenditure as shown in Table 2 of Making a Difference for Scotland. Figures for the "rural affairs budget" are the plans for Rural Affairs spending by the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department (SERAD) shown in the table on page 22 of the same document.

2001-02

£ million

2002-03

£ million

2003-04

£ million

Scottish Executive Total Managed Expenditure (TME).

19,743.9

20,912.8

22,074.8

SERAD Rural Affairs budget.(% of TME)

621.9

(3.1%)

627.1

(3%)

628.5

(2.8%)

Amounts of SERAD budget "not tied to European funding."

(% of TME)

148

(0.75%)

158

(0.75%

162

(0.73%)

Fisheries Budget.

(% of TME)

6.9

(0.03%)

8.4

(0.04%)

8.4

(0.04%)

Non EU Fisheries Budget.

(% of TME)

(0.01%)

The Fisheries expenditure plans shown are those for the Fisheries Budget Level 2 in the table on page 22 of Making a Difference for Scotland. They exclude resources of over £50 million a year devoted to the Scottish Fisheries Protection and Fisheries Research Services Agencies which are included in the Level 2 Budgets for Agencies.

Question reference: S1W-10780

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 14 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Deputy Minister for Rural Development intends to use the title of Fisheries Minister.

Question reference: S1W-10715

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 13 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive who will represent Scotland at the next meeting of the European Community Fisheries Council.

Question reference: S1O-02471

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 9 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive when a scheme will be introduced to help low income families pay their water charges.