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-00040

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 24 May 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5O-04770 by Michael Russell on 19 November 2020, and in light of the UK Government’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, whether it plans to introduce legislation that will place a prospective duty on government and ministers to pay full regard to animal welfare when formulating and implementing policy.

Question reference: S6W-00043

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 May 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 24 May 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the UK Government’s plan to give financial support to farmers for animal welfare enhancements, how it plans to financially support farmers in Scotland to ensure and improve on-farm animal welfare.

Question reference: S5W-36098

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 24 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government which fish farms hold EPS licences for the use of acoustic deterrent device(s) (ADDs) or acoustic startle device(s) (ASDs); which fish farms are currently using unlicensed ADDs/ ASDs, broken down by (a) how many devices and (b) which model is being used; whether Marine Scotland will comply with its duty to enforce Habitats Regulation 39(2) under which it is an offence to disturb or injure any dolphin, porpoise or whale if any farm is still using unlicensed ADDs /ASDs, and whether Marine Scotland will delay enforcement of Habitats Regulation 39(2) until the end of that farm’s current production cycle for farms not yet equipped with double-skinned anti-predator nets, Seal Pro nets or equivalent.

Marine Scotland has not granted any EPS licences for the use of ADDs or ASDs at fish farms. Marine Scotland does not hold information on whether or how many ADDs or ASDs are currently operating at fish farms. Marine Scotland will be undertaking an assurance process to verify that fish farms are complying with the requirements of the Habitats Regulations. This process is not necessarily governed by where farms are in the production cycle or the type of nets used.

The Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation announced on 1 March that the sector is no longer using ADDs that "may be considered to cause disturbance to cetaceans". We welcome the steps taken by the aquaculture industry to remove ADDs and have reminded them of their obligations in relation to European Protected Species.

Question reference: S5W-35911

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 24 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many beavers were translocated from Tayside in the calendar year 2020.

Question reference: S5W-36097

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-35394 by Ben Macpherson on 11 March 2021, whether it considers that double-skinned anti-predator nets, Seal Pro nets or equivalent are ‘satisfactory alternatives’ to the use of acoustic deterrent devices already in use in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-35899

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) it and (b) NatureScot has spent on legal costs since 2016 to defend the right to kill beavers.

The Scottish Government and NatureScot have not incurred any legal costs since 2016 defending ‘the right to kill beavers’.

Since 1 May 2019, beavers have had European Protected Species status and, as such, there is no right to kill beavers in Scotland. The Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994 set out the circumstances in which licences may be granted to allow management of beavers, including lethal control for specified purposes. NatureScot is the licensing authority for the management of beavers in Scotland and may issue licences for the purposes set out in the 1994 regulations.

Question reference: S5W-36094

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the sound pressure level in decibels was at which Kok et al (2017) recorded avoidance by harbour porpoises; what the sound pressure level was at which Brandt et al (2012) recorded a 96% reduction in porpoise clicks at a station 7kms away from a single Lofitec acoustic deterrent device, and what sound pressure level in decibels Marine Scotland has determined as the threshold for disturbance for small cetaceans.

The papers cited in this question are both available in the public domain. The type of Acoustic Deterrent Device used in the Brandt et al. (2012) study (Lofitech) is only used in Scottish waters as a mitigation to move marine mammals out of areas where they may be injured by construction or blasting noise. It is not in use at Scottish fish farms (Scottish Government 2021).

The threshold applied by the Government of 120 dB re 1 µPa (rms) for the onset of potential disturbance from non-impulsive sounds is based upon guidance from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( ESA Section 7 Consultation Tools for Marine Mammals on the West Coast | NOAA Fisheries ).

Question reference: S5W-36190

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Marine Scotland stating that its model for determining whether cetaceans can be maintained at Favourable Conservation Status within each SCANS-III block relies on the assumption that cetaceans are evenly distributed over the seabed, whether Marine Scotland has considered evidence that porpoises are not evenly distributed and that the habitats predicted to be of most importance to porpoises in the absence of acoustic deterrent devices (ADDs) are also the areas where fish farms are located with historic use of ADDs, and whether Marine Scotland will revise its model in light of any such evidence.

SCANS-III outputs represent the most recent synoptic estimates of cetacean absolute densities for UK waters (Hammond et al., 2017) and are the best available information at this time. The resolution of these estimates, in large regional blocks, is relatively coarse, but no other data source currently available can provide absolute densities for all of the areas of interest.

Should finer resolution density maps covering each SCANS-III block become available then we will carefully consider whether it is more appropriate to use these in the future.

Question reference: S5W-36207

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis Marine Scotland has carried out of the impact that acoustic deterrent and startle devices within a narrow channel might have on migration and access to feeding and nursery grounds.

Question reference: S5W-36096

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, with reference to the 2020 Marine Scotland-funded study, at what sound pressure level in decibels did bottlenose dolphins show startle responses to a low frequency simulated acoustic startle device signal; whether the magnitude of startle response increases exponentially with increasing sound pressure level; whether sounds which trigger the startle reflex disturb and displace affected mammals, and what the published sound pressure level is of the Genuswave low frequency acoustic startle device.

The Götz et al. (2020) study is available in the public domain, titled “The startle reflex in echolocating odontocetes: basic physiology and practical implications”, and the details requested can be found there.

I refer to the response to S5W-36099 on 23 March 2021 regarding sound pressure levels of devices.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx