Chamber and committees

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) will monitor work undertaken under the licence to cull ravens granted to the Strathbraan Community Collaboration for Waders throughout the year, including carrying out inspections on the ground. The licence has been granted initially for one year, for the culling of no more than 69 ravens. SNH will review its position on the licence at the end of the first licence period.

The circumstances of the recent disappearance of a satellite-tagged while-tailed eagle are similar to those defined as “suspicious” in the Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) report, Analyses of the fate of satellite tracked golden eagles in Scotland. The case is the subject of an on-going Police Scotland investigation. SNH will take any decisions on restricting General Licences based on information received from Police Scotland and in line with their published General Framework for Implementing Restrictions .

There is no evidence to link the disappearance of this satellite-tagged white-tailed eagle with those land managers taking part in the licensed trial in the Strathbraan/Glen Quaich area of Perthshire. SNH has no plans to revoke the licence for this trial, which has been granted initially for one year.

Our franchise agreement does not obligate the franchisee to provide the information in the format requested by the member.

ScotRail provides my officials at Transport Scotland with statistical information on the public performance measurement (PPM), which is used in the railway system in Great Britain to provide a consistent and comparable assessment of performance. The PPM measure counts all trains planned to run, which run and arrive within five minutes of their scheduled arrival time. Trains which are cancelled, either in full or in part, or which do not stop at stations at which they are meant to stop, are counted against this measure.

Performance information for ScotRail is available on-line, at the ORR Data Portal (Table 3.18). An on-line link to this table can be found here:

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/5b6fbf8a-7fab-469e-9855-6c6cb4ff67dc

It includes ScotRail’s PPM information by operating sector and overall, on both a by-period and a moving-annual-average basis.

Also, ScotRail publishes quite detailed information for each four week period on by-station and by-sector PPM. This information is published at stations, and is also available on-line, at this URL: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/performance-and-reliability

The introduction of the new faster, greener, longer trains for passengers across Central Scotland, planned for December 2018, will allow a significant improvement in both journey times and performance against the timetable.

Peak- and off-peak capacity for ScotRail services between Glasgow Queen St and Dunblane, or which call at Dunblane, is as follows:

The Scottish Government is aware of the intentions of the UK Government and other devolved administrations in relation to changes in animal cruelty sentencing legislation. There have been no formal discussions of the issue in 2018.

The Scottish Government is currently not running any campaigns in relation to 20mph speed limits.

While not specifically on 20mph speed limits, Road Safety Scotland, the Scottish Government’s principle road safety delivery partner, runs the “In Town Slow Down” road safety campaign which focuses on driving at more appropriate speeds within urban settings.

Regarding enforcement, the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 stipulates that the Chief Constable of Police Scotland is responsible for the policing of Scotland, and is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority for this, rather than to Scottish Ministers directly. These arrangements are in place to ensure public confidence that the police act independently, free from unwarranted Ministerial interference.

You will appreciate that I cannot provide a specific date, but will make a decision on this recalled appeal as soon as possible. As Planning Minister I always ensure that no unnecessary delay occurs in the issue of a decision. As with all planning appeals before Ministers, it is not appropriate to comment on the specifics of the case.

The following table sets out Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) estimates for staff employed on site for the direct management of its National Nature Reserves in each of the last five years.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) publishes details of the annual expenditure on Managed Sites in its Annual Reports, which are available on the SNH website, http://www.snh.gov.uk/ . The following table sets out the published figures for 2013-14 to 2016-17 and the estimated expenditure in 2017-18. These figures include the costs of managing SNH’s 36 National Nature Reserves (NNRs).

Scottish Natural Heritage’s (SNH’s) 36 National Nature Reserves (NNRs) contribute directly to many of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy targets. For example:

•  SNH has active or planned peatland restoration and conservation work on ten of its reserves. Four reserves are also used in support of the Scotland-wide Peatland Action Programme to host peatland management demonstration and contractor training events.
•  SNH’s reserves help conserve about 6,000 ha of native woodland and SNH pursues woodland conservation and expansion on at least 9 NNRs, including the piloting of novel woodland restoration and expansion approaches.
•  SNH’s NNRs generate more than 600,000 visits to the countryside and provide for 3,500 education visits and work-experience for school pupils and placements for students on environmental management courses. Where possible, efforts are directed at supporting schools in the most disadvantaged areas.
•  SNH’s NNRs conserve 818 (c15% of all) ‘designated’ protected natural features of overlapping sites of special scientific interest and Natura sites. 94.9% of these are in favourable or unfavourable recovering condition, where there was an on-site remedy. (The comparable figure for all features with an onsite remedy is 87.2%).
•  SNH’s NNRs support improving connectivity through collaboration in wider landscape initiatives such as Cairngorms Connect, the Carse of Stirling Project and the Cairngorms National Park Forest and Woodland Network.