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-42391

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether future support for Less Favoured Areas through Tier 2 of the new Agriculture Reform Framework will be based on contemporaneous or historic data.

Question reference: S6W-42392

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding reported comments by the Director of Agriculture and Rural Economy, what its response is to the comment that the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) could not be rebased due to staff number reductions.

Question reference: S6W-42393

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of payments made under the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) in 2024 was based on historic data.

Question reference: S6W-42286

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support it offers or plans to provide to landowners of fewer than 200 hectares, including those who are community groups and private individuals, who wish to manage land for the restoration of natural processes.

Question reference: S6W-42284

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to align the ecosystem metrics used in the Ecosystem Restoration Code with other policy frameworks and mechanisms, including through nature recovery targets and public funding mechanisms.

Question reference: S6W-42285

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the contribution of natural processes, such as natural regeneration, natural river dynamics and trophic interactions, toward meeting statutory nature recovery targets.

Question reference: S6W-42283

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recommendations of the recently published report by the British Ecological Society, Aligning Environmental Agendas for Nature Recovery.

Question reference: S6W-41724

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to ensure that public investment is evenly distributed across (a) north east Scotland and (b) Scotland.

The Scottish Government plan to publish a new infrastructure delivery pipeline alongside the Scottish Spending Review in January which will set out our future investment plans underpinned by a 30-year needs assessment and a draft infrastructure strategy for consultation. The draft strategy will set out a ten-year framework to guide infrastructure planning, investment, and delivery across the country and seek views on how we can better embed local priorities into investment decisions in line with our National Planning Framework 4.

We are committed to delivering key infrastructure projects and we have a proven track record of successfully doing so across Scotland. In the north east this has included the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie to Tipperty scheme, the Aberdeen to Inverness Rail Improvement Project, and the A92/A96 Haudagain Junction Improvement project.

The Scottish Government is also investing significant amounts of funding in City and Regional Growth Deals across Scotland including the Tay Cities Region Deal, the Moray Growth Deal, and the Aberdeen City Region Deal. In addition, we are also investing further funding in the north east of Scotland’s infrastructure over the same time span as the Aberdeen City Region Deal.

Question reference: S6W-41823

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 18 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding Scotland’s fishing sector, how it plans to support sustainable (a) economic growth, (b) development and (c) fishing practices (i) in north east Scotland and (ii) across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the fishing sector in Scotland.

Our work to secure sustainable fishing opportunities for Scottish vessels through our international negotiations, which is informed by our science advice, is critical to supporting economic growth and development within the fishing industry. Our quota management approach ensures the quota is translated into opportunities for the Scottish industry and licencing supports the proper functioning of the fishing industry and the responsible management by the fishing fleet. Our enforcement efforts underpin sustainable fisheries management, delivering confidence and accountability in our sea fisheries which supports a positive brand and marketplace for Scottish seafood.

In addition to this, we support the fishing sector through a modernisation programme to ensure the long-term sustainability of Scotland’s fish stocks and to provide confidence from an economic perspective. The Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy and the subsequent delivery plan, which apply across the fishing fleet, includes a range of actions focussed on delivering sustainability for Scotland’s fishing sector, including commitments to strengthening and modernising regulation to support sustainable fishing practices, increasing the volume of fish landed into Scottish ports, and increasing resilience within the sector.

We also provide direct financial support through the Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) which provided £14 million this year to support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, research, innovation, and support coastal communities around Scotland. Since 2021, the MFS has awarded £70 million to 390 projects, enabling over £150 million investment. This includes £4.6 million to projects in the North East, including £1.2 million to Peterhead Port Authority.

This MFS support shows how derisory the allocation of just £28 million over 12 years of the £360 million Fishing and Coastal Fund is. It is a hammer blow for our fishing sector given that it equates to only 7.78% of this new funding. Scotland accounts for over 60% of the UK’s fishing capacity and seafood exports, with Scottish vessels landing over 75% of UK quota species. Scotland’s allocation should be at least 46%, reflecting our share of the UK’s EU fisheries funding.

Question reference: S6W-41726

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics for 2024, what its response is to reported collapsing stocks of (a) Northern Shelf cod, (b) mackerel and (c) other North Sea fish.

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advice is challenging for a number of our key stocks this year across the Northeast Atlantic, not least the iconic stocks of cod and mackerel. There are many factors that may be contributing to this, such as natural mortality, climate impacts and low recruitment across the North East Atlantic.

North Sea cod is not collapsing. The ICES advice shows a stark picture of the health of the southern substock, and this is primarily what is driving down the overall advice. The immediate priority must be the implementation of spatial management measures that restrict potential catches of that southern stock. We already have significant measures in place in Scottish waters and we are reviewing these to see what, if any, improvements can be made.

The advice for mackerel is unprecedented, well below anything we have seen on the ICES advice sheetsat least since 1987. Scotland continues to work with the UK Government and our Coastal State neighbours to agree a comprehensive sharing arrangement. ICES advice clearly demonstrates the importance of the interim steps taken by the UK, Norway and the Faroe Islands, whose agreement immediately reduced the total outtake of the stock, representing a step towards more sustainable fishing, whilst the wider sharing discussions continue.

Our stocks are jointly managed with the fishing nations around us, with negotiations currently ongoing. It is important that we continue to work together to balance sustainably managed fish stocks and a sustainable and prosperous industry and coastal communities. Whilst there is some challenging advice there are also many stocks where the picture remains more positive and the overall trend is good. The Scottish Sustainable Fishing Indicator (SFI), which summarises the sustainability status of commercial fish and shellfish stocks in Scottish waters, shows that the sustainability status of stocks in Scottish waters has increased through time, from 39% in 1995 to 73% in 2023.