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: S5O-04366

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government whether there has been an increase in the number of benefit claims made to Social Security Scotland during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Question reference: S5O-04361

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 May 2020
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what role local authorities have in ensuring the safety of taxi drivers operating during the COVID-19 outbreak, and what guidance it has issued to support this.

Question reference: S5W-28403

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 14 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £16.4 million funding allocated to it in October 2019 to replace money from the European Maritime Fisheries Fund will be available to those involved in the fishing industry in Scotland once the COVID-19 crisis is over.

Question reference: S5W-28404

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 14 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether the £10 million announced on 14 April 2020 for the Scottish Seafood Resilience Fund includes, or is in addition to, the £5 million that it previously stated it was spending on helping the fishing industry during the COVID-19 crisis.

Question reference: S5W-28405

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 14 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the money it has announced to support the fishing industry during the COVID-19 outbreak is from the £16.4 million that it received from the Treasury in October 2019 to replace money from the European Maritime Fisheries Fund.

Question reference: S5W-28406

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 14 May 2020

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason applications for funding from the £16.4 million allocated to it in October 2019 by the Treasury as a replacement for European Maritime Fisheries Fund money did not open immediately to those in the fishing industry in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-28081

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 April 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what the monthly average sales income has been for fishermen in each of the last three years.

Marine Scotland’s Sea Fisheries Statistics 2018, published in September 2019, holds the most recent statistics on the annual value of fish and shellfish landings as well as the number of fishers employed on Scottish registered fishing vessels. These data can be used to calculate the monthly average landing income per fisher as shown in the following table.

Table 1 shows the monthly average landing income for Scottish registered fishing vessels landing anywhere (i.e. Scotland, or elsewhere) for the three most recent years with published data.

Table 1 : Value of landings, number of fishers, and monthly landings per fisher; Scottish fishing vessels landing anywhere, 2016 to 2018
Year	(A) Total value of landings, £	(B) Number of fishers employed	(C) Monthly average landing income per fisher
2016	556,688,000	4,823	£9,619
2017	559,339,000	4,799	£9,713
2018	573,594,000	4,860	£9,835

Average sales income from fish landings for Scottish fishers is not easily available nor an accurate predictor of the need for financial support to targeted sectors of the industry during the Covid-19 pandemic. Those businesses identified, by the Scottish Government, as being in need under the Covid-19 fishing industry support announced on 25 March earn substantially less than the average income presented in Table 1 - which is driven upwards primarily by very large levels of landing income by the Scottish pelagic fleet. Landing income is also not the same as money in the pocket, as a large proportion goes towards business costs.

In particular, landing income is different from fisher earnings, and can be seen as similar to total sales or turnover of businesses rather than profits and earnings. These averages likely hide very large differences between fishing vessels and between different sectors of the fleet targeting different species.

Unfortunately to get an estimate of the annual income for those vessels included under the support announced on 25 March would require the release of unpublished administrative data.

Further, the criteria attached to the industry support results in the average payment under the package being more refined than simply the average income of vessels under 12m.

Question reference: S5W-27837

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much was awarded in Scotland by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund in 2019-20, broken down by region.

Details are as follows:

Local Authority	Total Grant (£)
Shetland	239,630.67
Orkney	9,927.00
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	97,439.31
Highland	75,010.64
Moray	42,374.00
Aberdeen	787,154.08
Aberdeenshire	1,783,644.62
Angus	10,314.16
Fife	133,127.65
East Lothian	1,865,880.62
Scottish Borders	149,503.27
Dumfries & Galloway	138,389.61
Falkirk	303,110.18
Edinburgh City	1,758,006.63

Any region not listed has had no awards in the time period.

Question reference: S5O-04281

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S5F-04045

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 March 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2020

To ask the First Minister for what reason Abellio ScotRail and Serco are to be given a reported £103 million in additional public funding despite not meeting their targets.