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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: S6W-36322

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-24187 by Patrick Harvie on 19 January 2024, whether it will provide an update on the average processing time for a Home Energy Scotland (a) grant and (b) loan application.

Question reference: S6W-36188

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will review Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030 before the end of the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-36183

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-32791 and S6W-32788 by Mairi Gougeon on 8 and 17 January 2025 respectively, and in light of recent media coverage, including a video showing discarded fish on the seabed, what (a) progress it has made toward the implementation of fish landing obligations to make the rules regarding discarding more effective, (b) action it has taken to ensure that it achieves the bycatch objective when it is allocating quotas, (c) progress it has made with the development of future catching policy in addressing discards and (d) its position is regarding to what extent (i) remote electronic monitoring and (ii) an increase in fines would help prevent illegal discarding.

Question reference: S6W-36185

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the fixed quota allocation set out in Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030 is fit for purpose, and whether it will consider adopting the quota application mechanism pilot programme that is being rolled out in England.

Question reference: S6W-36189

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress with the Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030 Delivery Plan.

Question reference: S6W-35771

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 28 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether any further data on dog thefts has been compiled by Police Scotland since the release of its last set of figures covering the period up to 2021.

This is an operational matter for Police Scotland. They have confirmed that incidents involving the theft of a pet are recorded on Police IT systems as a ‘theft’. However, the Police Scotland IT system can record details of the nature of a theft and it may be information is available in this area direct from Police Scotland.

In terms of data held by the Scottish Government, recent engagement has taken place with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in relation to the issue of pet theft generally. This would include but not be limited to dog theft.

The COPFS advised they had used their internal operational database to assess the nature of general offences of theft so as to seek to identity when theft related to pets. The information they provided is not guaranteed to be completely accurate given the limitations of their ability to search using certain key words (e.g. dog, cat etc.). However, the data does give a broad indication of level of relevant offences over a considerable period.

Within this context, COPFS advise that 335 “pet theft” charges were reported to them during the eleven year period April 2014 to March 2024. This equates to an average of 30 charges a year over this period for pet theft.

Question reference: S6W-36127

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the May 2028 deadline for farmers and crofters to have completed habitat maps is consistent with its target of reversing biodiversity decline by 2030.

Question reference: S6W-36136

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35438 by Gillian Martin on 20 March 2025, whether it has adapted the approach of the UN report and, if so, how it arrived at the specific target of "seeking [a] reduction of Scotland's extraction of raw materials by one third", in light of the country's specific circumstances.

Question reference: S6W-36148

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the support mechanisms in each of the past five years specifically targeted at distributing surplus food from farms showing how much (a) surplus food each programme has distributed and (b) funding was committed.

Question reference: S6W-35598

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the performance of the system for providing grants for the installation of heat pumps in each of the last three years, showing the (a) number of applications (i) received and (ii) approved, (b) average time for approval and (d) number of applications currently outstanding.

The following information provided relates to the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme, which provides funding to install heat pumps and other measures to domestic owner occupied households in Scotland.

a) Table 1 outlines the number of heat pump applications i) received and ii) approved (i.e. legal commitments made to applicants) from 2022-23 until 28 February 2025.

Table 1:

No of applications	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25 (until 28 February 2025)
i) received	2537	3085	2920
ii) approved	2214	2791	2872

It is important to note that application processing timelines mean that the number of legal commitments made are not a direct subset of the number of applications received, for all there will be substantial crossover between the two.

b) I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24187 on 19 January 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

c) As of 28 February 2025, there were 208 live heat pump applications for which a decision remained outstanding, the majority of which had been submitted in January and February 2025. This number includes applications on hold awaiting further information or supporting documents from applicants.