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: S4O-01008

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 May 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how it will ensure that, following the reduction in its operating budget, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency does not reduce the number of inspections that it carries out.

Question reference: S4W-06938

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 27 April 2012
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 11 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the recommendations in the WWF Scotland report, Electric Vehicles: Driving the change, whether it will (a) produce an action plan, (b) develop a national infrastructure, (c) commission a review of market models for a recharging infrastructure and (d) work with local government to encourage businesses to install recharging points.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are a central part of the Scottish Government's commitment to achieving almost total decarbonisation of road transport by 2050. We welcome the comprehensive report by WWF Scotland, which will help inform our work with stakeholders to advance the adoption of EVs in Scotland.

(a) On 28 March we launched the E-cosse partnership, a collaboration jointly initiated by Transport Scotland and WWF Scotland which brings together car manufacturers, power companies, local authorities and other key stakeholders to maximise the opportunities for EVs to become an integral part of Scotland’s sustainable transport system and a smart energy grid.

A key output from E-Cosse will be an EV roadmap, a structured analysis of the key opportunities and necessary interventions to achieve an increase in the take up of EVs. This roadmap will be developed following a number of stakeholder workshops which will integrate the necessary expertise from across the EV sector. It will be published by early 2013.

(b) Over the past two years, the Scottish Government has invested over £8 million in electric vehicles and infrastructure for Scottish public sector. This has enabled Scotland’s public services to purchase around 270 low carbon vehicles and install around 240 charging points across the country, with a further 170 charging points planned to be installed during 2012-13.

Charging infrastructure has been installed via the UK Government’s Plugged in Places (PiP) scheme, which has brought £2.25 million of additional funding into Scotland. The first round in 2011-12 focussed on locating electric vehicle charging points to support the developing fleet of public-sector electric vehicles, in 2012-13 we are continuing to work with the public sector and others to expand the network of charging infrastructure to include more publicly available locations such as workplaces, park-and-ride sites, leisure centre car parks and on-street locations.

(c) A key focus of E-cosse will be to consider the future requirements for recharging infrastructure in Scotland to support growth in markets for EVs. As part of the roadmap development process, an infrastructure workshop will consider the entire EV recharging ecosystem, paying particular attention to the enabling technologies, operating models and future user requirements.

(d) In 2012-13 Transport Scotland will continue to work with the public sector and others to expand the network of Scottish Plugged in Places charging infrastructure, one area of which will be to increase the uptake of charging points installed by businesses.

Question reference: S4O-00941

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take as a result of the Court of Session judgement on the Moonzie Farm rent review case in relation to Section 13 rent reviews to ensure that the views of tenant farmers and tenants are taken into consideration .

Question reference: S4W-06375

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 March 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 April 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been made of cormorant population trends on designated sites and the factors that influence these.

The assessment of the population trends of cormorants in Scotland includes: the monitoring of designated sites in Scotland which have breeding or wintering cormorants as a qualifying feature, carried out through Scottish Natural Heritage’s Site Condition Monitoring Programme (SCM), and the results of national programmes such as the Seabird Monitoring Programme for breeding cormorants and the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) for wintering cormorants. Where the monitoring in both cycles (i.e. breeding and wintering) of SCM has been undertaken it can be considered together with the results from the national programmes to enable basic trends in the population levels of cormorants in Scotland to be identified.

In general, the factors which influence these trends are not clear, although a study in Caithness identified the decline in breeding cormorants was likely to be the result of an increased death rate in adult birds over the winter. However, the cause of this increased mortality is not known.

Question reference: S4W-06376

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 March 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 April 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been made of the wintering habits of cormorants breeding on designated sites.

Question reference: S4W-06377

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 March 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 April 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been made of how the cormorant licensing system in England impacts on the population trends of the species at designated sites in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-06378

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 March 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 April 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) cormorants and (b) other piscivorous bird species are killed annually under licence.

Licences may be issued under Section 16(1)(k) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) by Scottish Ministers, for the purpose of preventing serious damage to fisheries or inland waters. The Scottish Government transferred the licensing function to Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) in July 2011.

SNH has still to receive the report returns for the number of cormorants and other piscivorous birds shot in 2011. However, the following table lists the number of licences and corresponding bag limits which have been granted for the killing of cormorants and other piscivorous birds between 2009 and 2012. The table also lists the number of cormorants and other piscivorous birds shot under licence in 2009 and 2010.

Piscivorous Bird Licences

Year

No. of Licenses Issued

Bag Limit (BL) for Cormorant and No killed (K)

Bag Limit (BL) for Merganser and No killed (K)

Bag Limit (BL) for Goosander and No killed (K)

Bag Limit (BL) for Heron and No killed (K)

Bag Limit (BL) for Eider Duck and No killed (K)

2012

BL = 49	BL = 36	BL = 137	BL = 5
K = TBC	K = TBC	K = TBC	K = TBC

BL = 0

2011

BL = 79	BL = 37	BL = 180	BL = 6
K = TBC	K = TBC	K = TBC	K = TBC

BL = 0

2010

BL = 121	BL = 23	BL = 166
K = 47	K = 9	K = 79

BL = 0

BL = 5

K = 0

2009

BL = 67	BL = 38	BL = 184	BL = 5
K = 17	K = 0	K = 6	K = 5

BL = 0

Question reference: S4O-00834

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what contingency plans it has put in place to ensure the continuing sale of mackerel in view of the possible loss of the Marine Stewardship Council certification at the end of March 2012.

Question reference: S4W-05627

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 12 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will send a delegation to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).

Question reference: S4W-05629

Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 12 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings have been planned for its delegation that will attend the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and what will be discussed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-05627 on 12 March 2012. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Scottish Ministers have been invited to The Climate Group’s Clean Revolution Summit and World Summit of States and Regions from 17 to 19 June.