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In 2020 Marine Scotland introduced a new mechanism for reporting gear loss that aims to take a holistic approach, facilitating fishers being reunited with displaced gear.

A report of lost gear can be made via any of our 18 Fishery Offices. The aim of this is to help fishers arrive at an amicable outcome, but that will also ensure all necessary information is available, should Police Scotland require to be involved.

As noted in the report of the Task Force on Gear Conflict, there are no statutory requirements for gear conflict avoidance or resolution. Gear damage and vandalism is a crime and a matter for Police Scotland. It is not a fisheries offence and therefore Marine Scotland Compliance is unable to take enforcement action.

We have also introduced The Gear Marking (Scotland) Order 2020, which makes it a legal requirement for a fishing vessel to deploy buoys made for that purpose and those buoys display their name and registration number. This builds on the Best Practice Guidance for Marking Static Fishing Gear we published in August 2018. At sea, our Marine Protection vessels have been actively engaged in assuring compliance with this Order and our Inshore Protection Programme has enabled more agile and responsive monitoring in inshore waters.

In addition to this, in 2020 Marine Scotland introduced a new mechanism for reporting gear loss that aims to take a holistic approach, facilitating fishers being reunited with displaced gear. A report of lost gear can be made via any of our 18 Fishery Offices. The aim of this is to help fishers arrive at an amicable outcome, but that will also ensure all necessary information is available, should Police Scotland require to be involved.

We have not undertaken any specific work relating to the French ban introduced on New Year’s Day and its operations. However, as set out in my response to S6W-05499, we are working with the other UK administrations to introduce extended producer responsibility for packaging, which will encourage more sustainable packaging design, and are supporting industry-led efforts to reduce plastic packaging, through the UK Plastics Pact.

The Scottish Government is also keeping under review the impact of existing actions in train or planned as well as evidence from other countries. As part of our commitment on the waste route map we are working with industry, local government and environmental groups to identify further actions to accelerate progress towards waste prevention and recycling targets.

The Report of the Task Force on Gear Conflict, while recommending Marine Scotland undertake targeted surveillance in areas where there is historically known to be gear conflict, also recognised that there are no statutory requirements for gear conflict avoidance or resolution and no easy solution to the problem. Our assets are tasked according to risks of legislative infringements and therefore there has been no specific tasking with regards to gear conflict.

However, we introduced The Gear Marking (Scotland) Order 2020, which makes it a legal requirement for a fishing vessel deploying buoys for fishing operations for those buoys display their name and registration number. This builds on the Best Practice Guidance for Marking Static Fishing Gear we published in August 2018. At sea, our Marine Protection vessels have been actively engaged in assuring compliance with this Order and our Inshore Protection Programme has enabled more agile and responsive monitoring in inshore waters.

In addition, the outcomes of our 2017 Inshore Fisheries Pilots initiative have worked to address some of the causes of gear conflict and test approaches aimed at mitigating them. Our Mull pilot for example successfully introduced temporal and spatial separation of the creel and scallop dredge fleet, while the Outer Hebrides pilot is testing creel limitation as well as a low cost approach to tracking and monitoring of fishing vessels.

We are also continuing to encourage the industry to develop voluntary codes of conduct and providing support wherever necessary. Our national network of Regional Inshore Fisheries Groups are the correct medium for such proposals to be proposed and developed.

In 2020 Marine Scotland introduced a new mechanism for reporting gear loss that aims to take a holistic approach, facilitating fishers being reunited with displaced gear. A report of lost gear can be made via any of our 18 Fishery Offices. The aim of this is to help fishers arrive at an amicable outcome, but that will also ensure all necessary information is available, should Police Scotland require to be involved.

The Scottish Government are continuing to progress our commitment to modernise the Scottish fleet by deploying appropriate and proportionate vessel tracking and monitoring systems across inshore vessels. Work is well underway with the extension of Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) systems to the scallop dredge sector. Our Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030 also acknowledges the importance of making full use of technology to ensure more effective compliance and develop the evidence base to underpin future decision making. Wider extension of appropriate tracking systems across the inshore fleet is also one of the priorities under the recent Bute House Agreement.

In addition, our 2017 Inshore Fisheries Pilots initiative have worked to address some of the causative agents of gear conflict and test approaches aimed at mitigating them. Our Mull pilot for example has successfully introduced temporal and spatial separation of the creel and scallop dredge fleet, while the Outer Hebrides pilot is testing creel limitation as well as a low cost approach to monitoring fishing vessel activity.

The Scottish Government also continues to work collaboratively and closely with Police Scotland and in situations where gear conflict amounts to theft, Police Scotland should be contacted.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05595 on 25 January 2022. 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 .

Decisions regarding the use of technology to operate Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) are for industry to take in line with the principle of producer responsibility.

We would anticipate that industry will make extensive use of digital technology in delivering the scheme, for example by developing an IT system to track payments made and received, adopting state-of-the-art reverse vending technology to prevent fraud, and using digital media to communicate with the public regarding DRS.

We are aware of the so-called ‘digital DRS’ as a proposed approach to delivering deposit return whereby consumers redeem deposits on scheme articles by scanning them with a smartphone before placing them in their kerbside recycling. We considered this approach during the policy-development process for DRS and the strong feedback from both industry and environmental NGOs was that the technology is not sufficiently mature for implementation on the timetable for our DRS.

We, and Circularity Scotland Ltd as scheme administrator, are monitoring developments including trials of ‘digital DRS’ in Wales. However, we are focussed on delivering a return-to-retail DRS, in line with international best practice, that will make it as easy to return a bottle or can as it was to buy it.

Scottish Government officials have worked closely with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to develop an alternative solution to the collection of data on sight loss registration and certification to replace the previously underutilised web platform. As part of the new process, certification and registration data, as well as clinical diagnostic data, will be collected by Health Board eye clinics and Local Authorities (or their agents) via a spreadsheet for annual return to PHS. This data will provide evidence which can be used to inform planning of local and national services. We will write to clinicians to update them on the new process and timeline for moving to the new process.

Our aim is to replace the current paper-based CVI form with an electronic CVI form within the new Ophthalmology Electronic Patient Record (EPR), which is being developed. Once the EPR is in place, the electronic CVI form will be incorporated and this will support consistent annual reporting of sight loss registration statistics.

The Maternity and Children’s Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC) is taking a quality improvement (QI) approach in its work to improve our understanding of the variation in caesarean section rates in Scotland. This work is in its early stages, with initial scoping work underway. The next phase of the QI work is due to commence early in the next quarter and will involve further engagement with NHS Boards.

MCQIC publishes resources relevant to its work on its website. Relevant outputs from this QI programme will also be shared in this way as the work progresses.

Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC) | Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) | ihub - Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative (MCQIC).

The Scottish Government’s emergency Covid19 support to the performing arts sector during the pandemic, included an award of £749,000 to Horsecross Arts by Creative Scotland from the Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund (PAVR) which was announced on 5 August 2020. Creative Scotland assessed Horsecross Arts against the criteria for the fund which were:

• Attain Financial sustainability
• Allow staff to return from Furlough or avoid redundancy
• where possible , Provide opportunities for Creative Freelancers.

As a non-departmental public body Creative Scotland operate at arm’s length from government for all their funding decision. This means that Scottish Ministers have no role in individual funding decisions.