Chamber and committees

Squid fishing is a sporadic fishery with the majority of landings of squid occurring between May to October. Historically squid has been present in the Moray Firth and is becoming prevalent in Shetland.

The information you have requested to do with the areas of Scotland’s inshore waters where squid fishing has taken place is not held by the Scottish Government. It is not possible to separate landings of squid between inshore and offshore waters and so it is not possible to provide a breakdown of squid fisheries within inshore waters.

There is limited evidence about the impacts of targeted squid fishery and associated bycatches. The occurrence of squid in samples of bycatch from the Nephrops fleet is rare. The Marine Directorate is undertaking a limited trial with a number of inshore vessels to help gather information and evidence on bycatch within inshore areas to support a longer-term policy decision on fishing for squid.

Under the landing obligation all Scottish vessels are required to report all catch.

The number of vessels that have reported squid catch or bycatch in the five years up to 2024 are set out in the following table.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information as there is currently no specific licence derogation for squid in Scotland and so none have been issued.

Public Health Scotland publish annual information on cataract procedures in our Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information (annual) publication.

The publication does not have weekly figures but annual figures for cataract procedures between financial year 2019-20 to financial year 2023-24 can be found within the ‘Eye’ grouping in table 7 of our publication. This table includes splits by admission type and by health board of treatment and can be downloaded here.

Scottish Ministers have asked the Marine Directorate to undertake a limited trial and pilot project with a number of inshore vessels to help gather further information to support a longer-term policy development on fishing for squid under the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan (NCAP).

The squid pilot project will assess the likely impact of any future squid fishery through the collection of scientific data related to cod and other non-target stocks. Scottish Government will publish findings following evaluation of the pilot project.

This information is not held centrally.

Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments. As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector are involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to efficiently and effectively gather this data centrally.

Health boards are autonomous institutions responsible for their own planning, recruitment, employment and deployment of staff. The Scottish Government supports Health Boards in these matters through the setting of strategic policies and frameworks at a national level.

Information on the NHS medical and non-medical workforce can be found on the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) website on the following link: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

This information is not held centrally.

Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments. As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector are involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to efficiently and effectively gather this data centrally.