Chamber and committees

There are no plans to review Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy before the end of the current parliamentary session. This is a ten year strategy and most of its actions relate to the ongoing delivery of our management functions. The progress being made with these is in the updated Scotland's Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030 Delivery Plan which was published on 20 March 2025.

The delivery plan is a live document and it will continue to be updated as progress is being made.

Firstly, the landing obligation was fully implemented in Scotland on 1 January 2019. Prior to this date, the landing obligation was phased in gradually, starting with pelagic fisheries in 2015 and extending to demersal fisheries in 2016, with the final phase bringing all Total Allowable Catch (TAC) species under the obligation, except those that are exempt via de minimis or survivability exemptions.

In relation to the allocation of fish quota, the Scottish Government has taken action to promote the use of selective fishing gear and therefore help reduce discards. For 2025, the Scottish Government is primarily allocating a portion of West of Scotland cod following an application process which places the use of selective fishing gear and/or fishing methods associated with a lower environmental impact at its core. The Scottish Government has also acted to allocate a greater share of quota to the 10 metre and under non-sector fleet. This grouping of vessels (which are more limited in the time they can spend at sea and the distance they can travel than larger vessels) is associated with the use of more selective fishing gear (such as the use of handlines).

The Future Catching Policy workshops were completed in autumn last year, with a combination of industry and eNGO input across all fleet segments. The proposals for future technical measures are being finalised and further engagement with stakeholders will take place this year prior to the formal consultation.

On REM, it is our position that the use of REM will have a positive impact on illegal discarding, providing a strong deterrent and an effective monitoring tool. That is one of the reasons why we are deploying it on pelagic fishing vessels and will roll-out further in the future.

Finally, we are committed to reviewing the current penalties regime as part of our Fisheries Management Strategy and will consider the role of fines as part of that.

In 2021-22, the Scottish Government provided a grant of £200,000 to FareShare Scotland to deliver the Surplus With Purpose programme. This supported the redistribution of 1,001 tonnes of fresh surplus produce from Scottish farms, equivalent to 2.3 million meals, and benefited an estimated 53,700 people via 448 community organisations. The food redistributed was primarily potatoes and carrots which would otherwise have gone to waste.

In September 2022, Surplus With Purpose activity resumed as part of a wider £313,000 allocation from the Fair Food Fund 2022-23. The overall funding contributed to the redistribution of 3,203 tonnes of surplus food, representing 86% of all food distributed by FareShare Scotland – this included a proportion of redistributed surplus food from farms. This supported 585 community organisations and helped provide 8.9 million meals to an estimated 66,000 people.

In addition to these two years, the Scottish Government has, and continues to, fund FareShare to support the redistribution of surplus food to people; this support does not specifically target surplus from farms, but targets a range of surplus from farms and other sources.

This is an operational matter for Police Scotland. They have confirmed that incidents involving the theft of a pet are recorded on Police IT systems as a ‘theft’. However, the Police Scotland IT system can record details of the nature of a theft and it may be information is available in this area direct from Police Scotland.

In terms of data held by the Scottish Government, recent engagement has taken place with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in relation to the issue of pet theft generally. This would include but not be limited to dog theft.

The COPFS advised they had used their internal operational database to assess the nature of general offences of theft so as to seek to identity when theft related to pets. The information they provided is not guaranteed to be completely accurate given the limitations of their ability to search using certain key words (e.g. dog, cat etc.). However, the data does give a broad indication of level of relevant offences over a considerable period.

Within this context, COPFS advise that 335 “pet theft” charges were reported to them during the eleven year period April 2014 to March 2024. This equates to an average of 30 charges a year over this period for pet theft.

The following information provided relates to the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme, which provides funding to install heat pumps and other measures to domestic owner occupied households in Scotland.

a) Table 1 outlines the number of heat pump applications i) received and ii) approved (i.e. legal commitments made to applicants) from 2022-23 until 28 February 2025.

Table 1:

The Scottish Government wants to ensure families affected by Huntington’s Disease are given the best possible care, information and support and I was pleased to meet with the Scottish Huntington’s Association recently to discuss services in Scotland.

The Scottish Government provides funding to Health Boards and Local Authorities, and it is ultimately for local partners to agree a joint, integrated budget which will enable them to meet the needs of local people in line with their Strategic Objectives.

While agreeing budgets is the responsibility of partnerships, we expect that these decisions be made in consultation with people who use services.

I was pleased to meet with the Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA) recently to discuss the provision of Huntington’s Disease services.

The Scottish Government is currently supporting the SHA’s youth services through the Children, Young People, Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund, to improve the resilience and confidence of young people with Huntington’s and support young carers.

Through the Neurological Care & Support Framework 2020-25, we have been working to ensure that everyone with a neurological condition, including Huntington’s Disease, can access the care and support they need. As the formal Framework strategy concludes, we have been engaging with clinicians, patients, carers and third sector organisations to explore a joined-up policy approach to long-term conditions. A full public consultation will commence shortly, following which a strategy will be developed and published later in 2025.

We have recently established a Neurological Conditions Improvement Network and are working with providers across Scotland to consider ways of ensuring statutory and third sector organisations collaborate on decision-making around the provision of care. This aims to ensure the best use of resources while encouraging person-centred support for people with neurological conditions.

Zero Waste Scotland's (ZWS) Corporate Plan for 2025-2030 includes present and future targets beyond the life of this Corporate Plan.

The reference to seeking reduction of Scotland's extraction of raw materials by one third is based on a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report, which stresses the importance of high-income countries reducing their material footprint by bending the resource use curve to achieve economic growth, reduced inequality, improved quality of life and dramatically reduced environmental impacts.

During the lifetime of the current Corporate Plan, Scottish Government will continue to work with ZWS in developing data and policies required to establish a baseline and trajectory for future target setting to measure progress towards a circular economy.

The review of potential methodological changes to the Material Flow Accounts was completed in early 2024. This review concluded that converting the Material Flow Account to an environmentally extended input-output model was both desirable and possible. This revised model is currently being developed and is expected to be released by June 2025.

The last report on the carbon footprint of Scotland’s waste [from all sources] was published by Zero Waste Scotland in 2021, reviewing 2018 data. Due to the SEPA cyber-attack, and limited waste data from all sources available for 2019 and 2020, producing carbon impact reports for these years in 2022 and 2023 was not feasible.

The final carbon metric report was published in 2023, on the 2021 carbon footprint of Scotland’s household waste.

In 2024 Zero Waste Scotland published the first Scottish Waste Environmental Footprint Tool (SWEFT) report. SWEFT is the successor to the Carbon Metric, and reports on the carbon impacts of waste alongside results of other environmental damage indicators such as biodiversity loss and air pollution. It is a vital tool in our work to address the climate and nature emergencies.

Currently SWEFT is only available for household waste, and Zero Waste Scotland intend to report on this on an annual basis. ZWS is currently reviewing the technical feasibility of SWEFT reporting on waste from all sources in the future.