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: S5W-06571

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 1 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what practical measures it will undertake to ensure that all of Scotland's seas and inshore waters achieve good environmental condition by 2020.

The Scottish Government has made considerable progress in its work to protect the marine environment.

The National Marine Plan was adopted in March 2015 and provides a framework for consistent decision making that takes account of the marine environment. Work is now progressing to implement marine planning at a regional scale. Marine Protected Areas provide additional protection to important locations in our seas. This network now covers around 20% of our marine area. Work to complete the network and deliver necessary and appropriate management measures will continue over the next couple of years.

Since 2012, the Scottish Government together with the UK Government and the other devolved administrations have been working to deliver the Marine Strategy Framework Directive for achieving Good Environmental Status in our seas by 2020. As part of that effort a programme of measures was established in 2015 which includes Scotland’s commitment to improve the state of the marine environment as part of ensuring sustainable development through the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and those measures already taken as a result of existing EU legislation, such as the Water Framework Directive, the Birds and Habitats Directives and the newly reformed Common Fisheries Policy, which all contribute to improving the state of the marine and coastal environments.

Question reference: S5W-06043

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) Forestry Commission Scotland and (b) Scottish Natural Heritage has spent directly on deer management in culling and fencing on public land in each of the last five years.

Details are as follows:

a) Forestry Commission Scotland

Year	Culling	Fencing
2011-12	£3.049m	£0.894m
2012-13	£3.286m	£1.492m
2013-14	£3.288m	£0.711m
2014-15	£3.722m	£0.753m
2015-16	£3.763m	£0.656m

Details are as follows:

b) Scottish Natural Heritage

	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Direct expenditure	£69,900	£23,700	£39,400	£24,470	£55,540
Staff costs	£140,207	£140,207	£141,417	£147,844	£156,371
Sub total	£210,107	£163,907	£180,817	£172,314	£211,911

Fencing	£-	£-	£16,000	£-	£10,000
TOTAL	£210,107	£163,907	£196,817	£172,314	£221,911

Question reference: S5W-06045

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost has been to Scottish Natural Heritage of each of the current section 7 agreements under the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, including all grant support, staff time and expenses incurred during negotiations.

The current suite of Section 7 agreements were negotiated by the Deer Commission for Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) does not hold data which allows for the costs of negotiating these agreements to be identified.

There are currently 3 Section 7 Control Agreements extant (Fannich Hills, Mar Lodge, Caenlochan). A number of recently expired agreements are being reviewed in light of the recent Deer Management Plans which have been produced in 2016.

Staff time in SNH spent on deer management issues is covered under a number of broad business plan headings/activity codes in staff job plans, hence it has not been possible to disaggregate work on individual Section 7 Control Agreements. As presented in the 2016 SNH Deer Review, estimated SNH annual spend across all Section 7 agreements is on average £250,000 per annum.

In the 8 Section 7 areas (Fannich Hills, Mar Lodge, Caenlochan, Bein Dearg, Breadalbane, Inverpolly, Kinveachy) where agreements were in place during the period 2011 – 16, £321,716 has been spent on counts and £237,613 on habitat Impact assessments.

There have been discussions on the potential use of a Section 7 Control Agreement in the Assynt Peninsula Sub Group of West Sutherland Deer Management Group. The costs of these discussions are estimated below. These are provided for illustration only as the size and complexity of potential Section 7 Control Agreements varies considerably.

SNH Staff Costs associated with Assynt Peninsula:

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	Total
Total	£2,116.42	£22,241.95	£24,710.50	£34,886.44	£83,955.31

Staff time or costs for the period prior to the 2013-2014 financial year are unavailable as before that staff time was recorded differently.

SNH direct costs associated with Assynt Peninsula:

Year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	Total
Direct cost	£2,850.00	£8,873.25	£67,858.16	£1,822.26	£81,403.67

These direct costs included deer counting, legal advice, consultancy and mediation.

Question reference: S5W-06046

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost has been of Scottish Natural Heritage assistance to deer management groups to improve their deer management planning, including training and deer management plan delivery, in each of the last five years.

Details are as follows:

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has provided funding to deer management groups to improve their deer management planning, including training and deer management plan delivery, in each of the last five years as follows:

Year	Total spend
2011-12	£90.500
2012-13	£93,523
2013-14	£131,958
2014-15	£149,947
2015-16	£226,370

These figures include £200,000 provided by the Scottish Government to SNH, assisting them in 2014 and 2015 to provide further dedicated support to individual Deer Management Groups to develop Deer Management Plans. This funding also covered relevant SNH staff costs.

Question reference: S5W-06047

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost has been of Scottish Natural Heritage support for aerial counts of deer populations to support the work of deer management groups in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S5W-06041

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much the Association of Deer Management Groups has received from (a) the Forestry Commission Scotland and (b) Scottish Natural Heritage in venison levy to support its work in each of the last five years.

Details are as follows:

a) Forestry Commission Scotland has not provided any venison levy to support the work of the Association of Deer Management Groups (ADMG) in each of the last five years.

b) Scottish Natural Heritage has provided venison levy to the ADMG as follows:

Year	Total spend
2011-12	£885.56
2012-13	£1,054.41
2013-14	£1,236.95
2014-15	£824.77
2015-16	£3,208.83

Question reference: S5W-06042

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Association of Deer Management Groups has received from (a) the Forestry Commission Scotland and (b) Scottish Natural Heritage for collaborative projects in each of the last five years.

Details are as follows:

a) Forestry Commission Scotland has provided approximately £5,000 of funding to the Association of Deer Management Groups (ADMG) for collaborative projects in each of the last five years.

b) Scottish Natural Heritage has provided funding for collaborative projects to the ADMG as follows:

Year	Total spend
2011-12	£14,771
2012-13	£14,771
2013-14	£15,516
2014-15	£16,708
2015-16	£0

Question reference: S5W-06044

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) it and (b) Forestry Commission Scotland has spent on deer fencing grants on third-party, private land in each of the last five years.

Details are as follows:

a) The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. However, Scottish Ministers have committed the following amounts for deer fencing grants on third party, private land in each of the last 5 years through the Rural Priorities Scheme and Agri-Environment Climate Scheme.

Year	Fencing
2011	£3.220m
2012	£2.975m
2013	£2.363m
2014	2.980m
2015	£1.213m

b) Forestry Commission Scotland has provided the following support through SRDP grants as part of woodland creations projects.

Year	Fencing
2011-12	£3.697m
2012-13	£3.259m
2013-14	£2.711m
2014-15	£3.409m
2015-16	£1.431m

Question reference: S5O-00579

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to research suggesting that there is a possible link between Alzheimer’s disease and air pollution.

Question reference: S5O-00523

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Justice last met Scottish Women's Aid and what issues were discussed.