Chamber and committees

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-11377

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 October 2022
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 6 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its commitment to publish a strategy for seafood.

We intend to publish our Strategy for Seafood today. The strategy underlines the importance of the seafood sector and sets out how we are supporting industry to contribute to achieving our Blue Economy aspirations.

Scotland’s world renowned seafood sector is a vital part of our economy that particularly supports our coastal and island communities. Our marine environment contributes significantly to our commitment to being a Good Food Nation and to the ambition of the Local Food Strategy, with locally sourced seafood forming part of a healthy sustainable diet. The fishing, aquaculture and processing communities also have an important role to play in helping us achieve Scotland’s net zero targets and in implementing a range of measures articulated in the Bute House Agreement to improve existing ecosystems, encourage sustainability and protect our marine natural capital assets.

The strategy draws together and provides cohesion to the many existing initiatives which deliver for the seafood sector, and makes some recommendations which we will continue to explore as we transition towards net zero and delivery of the Blue Economy outcomes.

We look forward to taking this important work forward with the sector.

The publication of the strategy is consistent with our Programme for Government commitment to publish a strategy for seafood in 2022 and the document will be available to view on the Scottish Government website from today.

Question reference: S6W-11066

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2022
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 21 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to encourage greater landings of key fish stocks into Scotland and maximise economic benefit to coastal communities from national marine resources.

Each year Scottish vessels land around £100 million worth of fish outside of Scotland, often for species for which our nation already has ready processing capacity. This represents a lost opportunity to bring additional investment and downstream benefit to our coastal communities from Scotland’s fishing quotas.

Our fish quotas are a national asset and I want to ensure that fishing opportunities allocated to our fleet, for the most important Scottish species, deliver a substantial economic return to our businesses and communities in Scotland.

That is why today, I am announcing changes to the economic link condition contained in Scottish sea fishing licences. This change to the economic link conditions is a key policy in Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy, which supports sustainable and responsible fisheries management in Scotland. The delivery plan which supports the Strategy and outcome of consultation document for changes to the economic link, will be published today at 2pm and can be found at [ Publications - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Changes to economic link licence conditions will take effect from 1 January 2023 and will require vessels that catch stocks of key economic importance to Scotland to either:

Land a set minimum percentage of these stocks into Scotland.

Return some fishing opportunity to the Scottish Government for re-distribution amongst the Scottish fishing industry.

These changes will help to redistribute economic returns from Scotland’s fishing opportunities to the Scottish Seafood sector and our coastal communities.

Question reference: S6O-01369

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6O-01185

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what policies and actions across government will support people in the Banffshire and Buchan Coast constituency to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S6O-01076

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made with regard to supporting pupils with neurodiverse conditions.

Question reference: S6W-07370

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 31 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the number of people aged 25 to 64 who have been educated at tertiary level in Scotland, and how this compares with (a) England and (b) Wales.

The OECD provides data on the percentages of populations with tertiary education in OECD countries. Latest data for 2020 show the percentage of the 25-64 year old population in Scotland with tertiary level education is 55.7%. This compares to 43.4% for Wales and 49.4% for the UK as a whole. Data for England on its own is not available though it is for the English Regions, which is set out in the following table.

Percentage of 25-64 year olds with tertiary level education, 2020

Regions of England	%
North East England	38.1
North West England	44.0
Yorkshire and The Humber	41.4
East Midlands	43.8
West Midlands	43.1
East of England	44.6
Greater London	68.4
South East England	51.8
South West England	47.2
Source: OECD Statistics, 2020

https://stats.oecd.org/

Of the regions of England, only Greater London has a higher proportion of their 25-64 year old population educated with tertiary level education than Scotland does.

OECD defines tertiary education as comprising International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011) levels 5 (short-cycle tertiary education), 6 (Bachelor’s or equivalent level), 7 (Master’s or equivalent level) and 8 (Doctoral or equivalent level).

Question reference: S6W-07309

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 29 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the most recent level of environmental protection spending per capita in Scotland, and how this compares with (a) England and (b) Wales.

The most recent data for environment protection expenditure is published as part of the Country and regional analysis published by HM Treasury ( Country and regional analysis: 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ). The relevant information can be found in Table A-15 of the published tables.

Table 1 is taken from the publication and summarises expenditure per head for Scotland, England and Wales for 2020–21.

Table 1

	Environment protection expenditure (£ per head)
Scotland	271
England	172
Wales	213

Data from the same publication shows environment protection expenditure per head is consistently higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK for the previous 5 years.

Question reference: S6O-00784

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what support is available to ensure that more fish caught by Scottish vessels is landed and processed at Scottish ports.

Question reference: S6O-00735

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on calls by the anti-poverty campaigner, Jack Monroe, for policy makers to take a more comprehensive view of tracking the full cost of poverty, as highlighted by the Vimes Boots Index.

Question reference: S6W-05752

Asked by: Karen Adam, MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2022
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress drafting the Joint Fisheries Statement under the Fisheries Act 2020.

Section 2 of The Fisheries Act 2020 (the Act) requires the fisheries policy authorities (UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government, and Northern Irish Executive) to prepare and publish a Joint Fisheries Statement that:

sets out the policies of the fisheries policy authorities for achieving, or contributing to the achievement of, the fisheries objectives in the Act;
contains a statement explaining the use the fisheries policy authorities propose to make of fisheries management plans in order to achieve, or contribute to the achievement of, those fisheries objectives; and
contains a statement explaining how those fisheries objectives have been interpreted and proportionately applied in formulating those policies and proposals.

Work on a draft Statement has been undertaken in recent months with officials from each of the administrations collaborating and sharing proposed content to ensure that each fisheries policy authority’s interests and needs have been properly taken account of. Having agreed the content of the Joint Fisheries Statement, under Schedule 1 to the Act (at paragraph 3), each of the fisheries policy authorities is required to lay a consultation draft of the JFS before the appropriate legislature and to specify a period for its scrutiny. In addition, the Act enables an appropriate legislative body to pass a resolution on the consultation draft of the JFS, or enables an appropriate legislative Committee to make a recommendation on it.

The Scottish Parliament is of course the appropriate legislature to consider the consultation draft of the JFS and I am announcing that it is my intention to lay the Joint Fisheries Statement in the Scottish Parliament for scrutiny on 17 January 2022. The document can be found here: Consultation on the draft Joint Fisheries Statement - Scottish Government - Citizen Space

The Act also requires the fisheries policy authorities to specify a “scrutiny period”. I am proposing that this period should run from 17 January – 25 February 2022. This will allow the Scottish Parliament to synchronise its scrutiny process with the other UK legislatures. I have also written to the Rural Affairs Islands and Natural Environment committee today to advise them of this timeframe, given that they may be asked to undertake scrutiny on behalf of the Parliament.

It is also our intention that the draft JFS will be the subject of a public consultation from 18 January – 12 April 2022.