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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-00562

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to update crofting law in the current parliamentary session, and what timeline it has for publishing any legislation.

The Scottish Government remains committed to modernising crofting law to make it more transparent, understandable and workable. This is a complex area of work and officials will continue to engage with key crofting stakeholders with issues for consideration being discussed with members of the Crofting Stakeholder Forum, the Law Society and others.

The timetable for crofting law reform is being considered as part of the Government’s wider legislative programme. In the meantime non-legislative administrative solutions will be sought wherever possible and work will continue with the Crofting Commission to bring crofts back into active use, aligned to actions in the National Development Plan.

Question reference: S6W-00528

Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress with the (a) recruitment and (b) construction work being carried out as part of the rollout of 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare.

The Improvement Service has been commissioned by the ELC expansion programme to collect data from local authorities on progress towards delivery of 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare, and to report on this data. The most recent report, on data returned by Local Authorities in April 2021, was published on 15 June and can be accessed via the Improvement Service and Scottish Government websites. This provides detail on progress with both recruitment and construction work.

Question reference: S6W-00564

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce water pollution on beaches, in light of a recent survey, which suggested that seven out of the 10 of the UK beaches with the highest samples of E.coli and intestinal enterococci were in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing water pollution at beaches across Scotland.

We do not know what water quality data range was used by Save on Energy, a price comparison website, to support its claim. They do not reflect the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s bathing water classifications, which use statutory methods that are used across the UK and all EU member states.

Four of the seven Scottish beaches listed with the highest E.coli and intestinal enterococci in the Save on Energy survey are classified by SEPA as having ‘sufficient’ or better bathing water quality with one of these being rated as ‘excellent’. The three other beaches are receiving significant investment from Scottish Water totalling £23M in order to improve bathing water quality.

This bathing water season Scotland has more bathing waters rated as ‘excellent’, ‘good’ or ‘sufficient’ than at any point since tighter bathing water standards first came into force in 2015.

Question reference: S6W-00839

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated in (a) the South Scotland parliamentary region and (b) each local authority area for the purchase of scientific equipment for schools in each year since 2012-13.

Scientific equipment for use in lessons is purchased by schools and the amount schools spend on scientific equipment is not decided centrally by the Scottish Government.

Scottish Government's policy towards local authorities' spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of the revenue funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on Education, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Question reference: S6W-00522

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many fishing vessels have been boarded for inspection by Marine Scotland in each month between (a) January and May 2020, and (b) January and May 2021, broken down by the nationality of the vessel.

Boarding inspections in Port can only be conducted if a vessel lands in a Scottish Port. Therefore this largely depends on what vessels land in Scottish ports.

The following table is a breakdown of Boarding inspections in port by Month (January to May) in 2020 and 2021, by nationality.

	Boardings in Port						Boardings in Port
2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	2021	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
DNK	2	1				DNK					1
ESP	6	2	1			ESP				1	1
FRA	5	6	5			FRA		2		2	1
FRO	3					GBR	51	18	33	31	39
GBR	116	94	54
NOR	2		2

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May		Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
UK	87%	91%	87%	0%	0%	UK	100.0%	90.0%	100.0%	91.2%	92.9%
Non UK	13%	9%	13%	0%	0%	Non UK	0.0%	10.0%	0.0%	8.8%	7.1%


	Landings						Landings
2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	2021	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Denmark	2					England	62	56	56	65	72
England	79	63	88	37	61	France	3	17	33	24	24
France	20	29	37	25	37	Germany			1	1	2
Germany			1	1	2	Guernsey					1
Ireland				2		Isle of Man	1	6		4	3
Isle of Man	2	2	4	4	7	Northern Ireland	11	3	19	9	9
Northern Ireland	12	1	3		2	Norway	1			1
Norway	5	7	6	2	2	Scotland	3442	2571	3848	3550	2297
Scotland	3334	3132	3266	2045	3443	Spain		11	15	18	28
Spain	14	13	25	29	32	Wales					1
Wales	4	1	1		4

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May		Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
UK	98.8%	98.4%	97.9%	97.1%	97.8%	UK	99.9%	98.7%	98.8%	98.7%	97.6%
Non UK	1.2%	1.6%	2.1%	2.9%	2.2%	Non UK	0.1%	1.3%	1.2%	1.3%	2.4%

The following table is a breakdown of Boarding inspections at sea, by nationality for the periods January to May 2020 and 2021.

It is worth noting that on any given day the UK fishing fleet accounts for approximately 80% of vessels actively fishing in Scottish waters. It would therefore be reasonable to expect that 80% of our boarding inspections during any given period would be on UK vessels and the remaining 20% being foreign vessels.

As we work a risk based approach, our boardings will not always reflect nationality. Our boarding statistics indicate that 70% of our boardings are UK vessels, with the remaining 30% being foreign vessels, which would be proportionate to the fleet sizes.

	Boardings at Sea						Boardings at Sea
2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	2021	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
DEU						DEU	1	1		2
DNK						DNK	4		2	3
ESP						ESP				1	3
FRA			1			FRA	1			5	5
GBR	16	11	7			GBR		7	13	25	37
IRL		3				IRL	7				4
NLD						NLD				1
NOR		1	2

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May		Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
UK	100%	73%	70%	0%	0%	UK	0%	88%	87%	68%	76%
Non UK	0%	27%	30%	0%	0%	Non UK	100%	13%	13%	32%	24%

Please note, Covid restrictions were applicable from April 2020 and continue to be applicable now.

Mitigations have been put in place to allow boarding inspections to take place where safe to do so.

Question reference: S6W-00507

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to calls from the Scottish Environment Link coalition to introduce legally-binding targets to protect wildlife by 2022.

The Scottish Government is committed to action to protect wildlife and to the effective monitoring of progress towards this goal. The Scottish Government has recently added a new single high level indicator to the National Performance Framework which measures trends in marine and terrestrial biodiversity in Scotland.

We have committed to introducing an ambitious new Biodiversity Strategy for Scotland within a year of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (CoP15) and the publication of a new global biodiversity framework. Policies to take forward our commitment to tackle the nature crisis and methods to measure progress in this regard will be considered as part of the development of this Strategy and its supporting delivery plan.

Question reference: S6W-00493

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the speed for offering invites for initial and second COVID-19 vaccinations in the NHS Lothian area is reportedly slower than in other NHS board areas.

NHS Lothian is performing in-line with the rest of Scotland and within national timeframes. All NHS Boards have the same timeframe in which to complete each JCVI cohort. There will be slight local variations in time taken to reach targets dependant on population demographics within each NHS Board i.e Lothian has proportionally the highest constituency population of younger adults. NHS Lothian have reached these targets for each cohort, with the percentage coverage for over 50s in line with the Scottish average.

The vaccination data are updated daily and can be found here: COVID-19 Daily Dashboard | Tableau Public

Question reference: S6F-00164

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to curb the decline of iconic woodland bird species in Scotland.

Question reference: S6F-00141

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-00142

Asked by: Lorna Slater, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

Question to be taken in Chamber.