Chamber and committees

Scottish Government plans to increase the number of farm visits and event opportunities for young people were announced at the Royal Highland Show on 21 June as part of the new Good Food Futures programme.

The farm visits and events will be delivered in partnership with the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET). RHET are currently planning these visits and events for the 2019-2020 school year and further details will be announced in due course.

Microplastics are present nearly everywhere in modern life; in the air we breathe and in the water environment. They have been found in fish, shellfish, table salt, beer, honey and chicken, and have been intentionally used in goods such as toothpaste and chewing gum. The best way of reducing their unintended ingress into the food supply chain is to reduce their source.

The Scottish Government has taken action on primary microplastic pollution. In June 2018 we introduced legislation to ban the manufacture and sale of plastic microbeads in rinse-off personal care products which passed through water treatment systems and entered our waters directly. We are also working in partnership with industry to build on their best practice guidance in Operation Clean Sweep to ensure pellet loss is minimised in the future.

Secondary microplastics, resulting from the degradation of macroplastics, are best reduced by taking action at source. As part of the Scottish Government focus to grow our circular economy, there are many actions in the Marine Litter Strategy and National Litter Strategy to lower the amount of plastic that enters our waters. We are the first UK administration to commit to establishing a deposit return scheme, and to introducing legislation to ban plastic-stemmed cotton buds, which is expected to come into force this year.

The SPFL also shared the data – with the same conditions attached – with the Scottish FA and Police Scotland.

The many actions under our Marine Litter Strategy, published in 2014, support our obligations for OSPAR and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive to achieve Good Environmental Status. These include;

Strategic Direction 1 – Improve public and business attitudes and behaviours around marine and coastal litter, in co-ordination with the national litter strategy.

The Scottish Government is working to promote marine litter education within schools and the fishing industry, and I was delighted to host the British-Irish Council (BIC) Marine Litter Symposium in February to encourage other administrations to commit to the same ambition.

We are also encouraging behaviour change through participatory projects focused on marine litter removal, such as:

• KIMO’s Fishing for Litter scheme, which involves over 300 Scottish vessels, who have landed over 1400 tonnes of waste since 2005.
• Local Coastal Partnerships with funding around our coastline to promote beach cleans and other initiatives to reduce marine litter.
• SCRAPbook, to map the litter hot spots round Scotland’s mainland coastline and support their clean-ups.

In addition we have committed to run a campaign in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland to promote the use of reusable sanitary products in an effort to reduce marine litter, help address social inequality and work towards Scotland’s vision for a low carbon economy.

Strategic Direction 2 – Reduce marine and coastal based sources of litter, in coordination with land sourced litter being reduce by the national litter strategy.

We are the first UK administration to commit to establishing a deposit return scheme which is expected to reduce littering, and also to introducing legislation to ban plastic-stemmed cotton buds which we expect to come into force later this year. Furthermore, in June 2018 we introduced legislation to ban the use of plastic microbeads in rinse-off personal care products.

We are taking action on nurdles, which are small pieces of pre-production pellets, flakes and powders that enter water ways when accidental spills are not cleared up sufficiently. We are working with the plastics industry and other relevant parties including SEPA to expand on the industry’s Operation Clean Sweep initiative of best handling practice guidance. We are taking a fully transparent supply chain approach to ensure nurdle loss is minimised in the future, developing a system for auditing that can be applied across industries.

We have also pledged our support of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative to ensure that the issue of loss or abandoned fishing gear, often made of plastic is addressed around the world.

Strategic Direction 3 – Contribute to a low carbon economy by treating ‘waste as a resource’ and seizing the economic and environmental opportunities associated with the Zero Waste Plan.

As well as our Marine Litter Strategy and National Litter Strategy, we also have a Circular Economy Strategy to keep our resources in high value use as long as possible, and help cut both waste and carbon emissions.

Our deposit return scheme is envisaged to increase recycling rates, reduce littering, and will cut an estimated 160,000 tonnes from Scotland’s carbon footprint. This is expected to become operational in 2021-2022. We have also set up an Expert Panel to advise on environmental charges or other measures to tackle our throwaway culture and the impact of single-use items.

In addition to this work, Marine Scotland partnered with Zero Waste Scotland last year to provide up to £1m funding for innovative solutions to minimise, remove and recycle marine plastics from litter sink areas, creating a use and value for marine litter. Applications are currently being processed. We have also committed, with BIC administrations, to improving recycling routes for End of Life fishing gear.

Strategic Direction 4 – Improve monitoring at a Scottish scale and develop measures for strategy evaluation.

Work continues under the 2017-18 Programme for Government commitment to begin to address litter sinks. Arrochar shore is monitored as a case study to better understand the concept of litter sinks. The area has been maintained with debris removal and analysis in 2018 of 185 tonnes, and in 2019, 220 tonnes.

Furthermore, Marine Scotland Science has modelled marine litter deposition and developed Pilot Scottish Beach Litter Performance Indicators using data collected within Marine Conservation Society’s Beachwatch programme, which continues to monitor beach litter around Scotland’s coastline.

Strategic Direction 5 – Maintain and strengthen stakeholder co-ordination at the UK, EU and international scales.

In February the Scottish Government was proud to hold Scotland’s first ever Marine Conference focussing on marine conservation and marine litter with speakers and delegates from around the world. Sessions encouraged transboundary understanding of marine litter issues, with discussions led by experts from Scotland to South Africa. Conference proceedings can be viewed at https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/marine/marine-environment/litter/marineconference2019 .

I hosted the BIC Marine Litter Symposium the day after the conference. Here, Environment Ministers and senior officials from the BIC region agreed a number of commitments to tackle marine litter and agreed to register these as a joint voluntary pledge in the UN Communities of Ocean Action registry of voluntary commitments, for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14.

The Scottish Government is represented internationally on the OSPAR Intercessional Correspondence Group for Marine Litter (ICG-ML). The work of Marine Scotland in partnership with the plastics industry will inform work under the OSPAR convention on marine protection and future actions by the European Commission. Marine Scotland’s work to address fishing sector waste also informs participants of the OSPAR ICG-ML, and we continue to feedback monitoring data for Scotland’s marine litter to this group.

There is no contract.

Following the 2016 Scottish Cup Final, the SPFL agreed to our request to provide data on unacceptable conduct.

To date, we have only received in confidence data for the 2017-18 season. We do not have a record of how many times this document has been accessed.

We meet the SPFL – and other stakeholders in Scottish football – regularly and therefore do not have a record of how many times we have met in the last two years.

Unacceptable conduct – and the data provided by the SPFL in confidence – was discussed at a number of these meetings.

I wrote to SPFL chief executive Neil Donaster on 18 June 2019, reiterating our view that the SPFL should publish the data.

The Scottish Government has taken action on primary microplastic pollution. In June 2018 we introduced legislation to ban the manufacture and sale of plastic microbeads in rinse-off personal care products which passed through water treatment systems and entered our waters directly. We are also working in partnership with industry to build on their best practice guidance in Operation Clean Sweep to ensure pellet loss is minimised in the future.

Secondary microplastics, resulting from the degradation of macroplastics, are best reduced by taking action at source. As part of the Scottish Government focus to grow our circular economy, there are many actions in the Marine Litter Strategy and National Litter Strategy to lower the amount of plastic that enters our waters. We are the first UK administration to commit to establishing a deposit return scheme, and to introducing legislation to ban plastic-stemmed cotton buds, which is expected to come into force this year.

The table shows the number of laboratory confirmed cases of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria which causes Lyme disease , reported to Health Protection Scotland (HPS) between June 2014 and May 2019.