Chamber and committees

Information on the 10 most common offences for which (a) men and (b) women in the Highlands and Islands parliamentary region have been sent to prison in each year since 2016-17, broken down by (i) age group and (ii) number of offences; is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre - Bib number 63924.

Please note:

Criminal proceedings data are presented by the main charge which is the one conferring the most severe penalty.

Data for 2020-21 are affected by the pandemic and subsequent court closures and may not be indicative of long term trends.

The latest available data is for 2020-21. Information for 2021-22 will not be available until publication of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2021-22 Statistical Bulletin. This is due to be published in 2023.

I met with the Chair and Chief Executive of Loganair, HIAL’s largest customer, on 20 December 2022 to discuss the industrial action at HIAL’s airports and the measures that Loganair had put in place to minimise the disruption for passengers.

HIAL worked to limit the impact of the industrial action where possible and were able to keep Campbeltown, Dundee, Inverness, Islay, Tiree and Wick John O’Groats Airports fully operational during the strikes. They were also able to facilitate reduced operations at Kirkwall and Stornoway Airports. Safety, however, is paramount and where there are insufficient staff available for airports to operate in a safe and regulatory compliant way, flights are not able to operate.

Marine Scotland Science, as a statutory consultee in the fish farm planning application process and part of Scottish Government Marine Scotland Directorate, provided advice to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Planning Authority and is available to view on the planning portal; 2021/0357/DET | Installation of a Marine Fish Farm and associated development including shore base, slipway and pontoon and road upgrades | Beinn Reithe Loch Long (lochlomond-trossachs.org).

Advice from Scottish Government aquaculture policy unit was provided to the park authority on the national significance of the project, as the first application for a semi-enclosed marine loch fish farm in Scotland. Advice is available to view on the planning portal; 2021/0357/DET | Installation of a Marine Fish Farm and associated development including shore base, slipway and pontoon and road upgrades | Beinn Reithe Loch Long (lochlomond-trossachs.org).

Scottish Ministers approved new Scottish Environment Protection Agency fish farm Controlled Activity Regulation charges in September 2022. Where an operator achieves a reduction in 80% of expected emissions, SEPA will halve the application fee.

In terms of support for emerging technologies, the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre, part funded by the Scottish Funding Council, was established in 2014 to fund and support collaborative research, applied science and innovation to reduce the environmental footprint and increase the economic impact of aquaculture.

Assistance may be available through the Marine Fund Scotland, where projects require public funding to proceed, and deliver outcomes in Scotland’s Blue Economy Vision.

The Scottish Government will consider how innovation can be further supported through the regulatory review of fish farm consenting, the Vision for sustainable aquaculture and National Marine Plan 2.

New innovative technologies, including semi-closed containment systems, have the potential to make a significant contribution to Scotland’s aquaculture industry. Systems must be designed to operate in the conditions in the surrounding environment, meaning that there is no one size fits all approach.

Waste capture technologies can result in a significantly longer return on economic investment, however, they have the potential to reduce interactions with the environment and reduce some of the operational costs of fish farming, for example, by lowering the cost and number of fish health treatments required in a production cycle.

No assessment of the potential of semi-closed containment aquaculture to support jobs in rural Scotland has been made by the Scottish Government. Employment opportunities and benefits are considered as part of the statutory fish farm planning process.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13304 on
‎ 5 January 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government is aware of the paper that Dr Foxley and Professor Robertson have produced on Gaelic medium teachers and officials met with them on 1 December to discuss this.

The Scottish Government continues to work with university partners and other stakeholders to address recruitment issues for Gaelic education and other priority areas. The Strategic Board for Teacher Education oversees issues relating to teacher education including recruitment to the teaching profession.

We are considering the responses to our recent consultation on the Future of Gaelic and Scots. These will help strengthen our aims for the Gaelic language and support for those interested in teaching in Gaelic Medium Education.

Scotland is leading the way on electric vehicle charging infrastructure, with more EV chargers per capita than the rest of the UK. The latest figures showing that Scottish electric vehicle drivers benefit from 60 public charge points per 100,000 population. This compares to the UK as a whole at 45.2, England 53, Wales 34.9 and Northern Ireland at 18.4 charge points per 100,000 population.

A) Scottish Government only holds information on charge points registered on the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) network, we do not hold charge point information for the wider public charging network run by commercial operators. The total number of publicly available charge points registered on the CPS network broken down by Local Authority area in the Highlands and Islands region is shown below. These charge points are owned by councils, other public bodies, charities and businesses who received grant funding from the Scottish Government.