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: S4W-03712

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 21 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the scoring threshold for applications for agri-environment options in the Scotland Rural Development Programme Rural Priorities scheme will need to be increased in order to reduce the number of approvals if demand from applicants is greater than the available budget or whether the budget will rise to reflect demand.

The recent 2011 agri-environment approvals and the ongoing assessment under the continuous approval process have the same scoring threshold advice to Regional Proposal Assessment Committees (RPACs) as 2010. This resulted in a record 82% of applications being approved and we remain confident that the agri-environment budget will meet demand in the coming years, and have recently announced that there will be a further agri-environment funding round in September 2012. The budget available for Rural Priorities will depend on the level of demand for other elements of the SRDP and at this stage it is therefore not possible to predict the scoring threshold for the 2012 round.

Question reference: S4W-03710

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 15 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the decision to suspend the Axis 2 Management of Hedgerows option in the Scotland Rural Development Programme Rural Priorities scheme is a result of budgetary constraints caused by spending reductions in 2010-11.

The decision to suspend the “Management of Hedgerows” rural priorities option was taken following discussion with stakeholders over how to target agri-environment support most effectively. This was driven by the need to ensure that the balance of spend among agri-environment options reflects priorities, in order to create the maximum benefit for the natural heritage. Some agri-environment options have been more popular than others and the “Management of Hedgerows” option attracted high uptake, with contracts worth over £33 million supporting the management or creation of 2,600 km of hedgerows to benefit biodiversity. Because this support has already secured a significant benefit, the option was temporarily suspended in January 2011 in order to focus spend towards other agri-environment projects where support is more critical.

Question reference: S4W-03199

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 October 2011
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 27 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much had been spent on the tender process for the Borders Railway project prior to the announcement that it would be delivered by Transport Scotland and Network Rail.

Question reference: S4O-00321

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it plans to develop vocational skills training in the Scottish Borders.

Question reference: S4W-03057

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S4W-02363 and S4W-00597 by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2011 and 17 June 2011 respectively, how much will be spent on the programme in the current spending review period, broken down by delivery scheme.

Delivery Scheme	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Rural Development Contracts – Rural Priorities	62.900	54.700	60.900
Rural Development Contracts – Land Managers Options	18.000	18.000	18.000
Leader	10.500	10.500	10.500
Skills Development Scheme	1.000	1.000	1.000
Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation Grant Scheme	9.000	9.500	10.000
Crofting Counties Agricultural Grant Scheme	2.000	2.000	2.000
Less Favoured Area Support Scheme	65.500	65.500	65.500
Technical Assistance	0.300	0.300	0.300
Land Management Contract Menu Scheme	2.000	0.000	0.000
Agri-Environment Legacy	3.000	2.500	1.500
Farm Woodland Legacy	3.500	2.700	2.400
Forestry Legacy	0.100	0.100	0.100
Total	177.800	166.800	172.200

Note: £ million.

This projected spend for the Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP) is shown the table for the three UK financial years from 2012-13 as £ million. Please note that actual expenditure will be demand-led and will be subject to the submission of claims. Furthermore, the projections for 2014-15 may be subject to change with regard to the implementation of a new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Agri-Environment Legacy schemes include Organic Aid Scheme, Countryside Premium Scheme, Rural Stewardship Scheme, Habitats Scheme.

Farm Woodland Legacy schemes include Farm Woodland Scheme, Farm Woodland Premium Scheme, Scottish Forestry Grant Scheme – Farmland Premium.

Forestry Legacy schemes include Woodland Grant Scheme and Scottish Forestry Grant Scheme.

Question reference: S4W-02967

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new entrants to farming there were in each of the four years preceding the introduction of the new entrants to farming scheme.

Question reference: S4W-02965

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new farmers have entered the industry since the introduction of the new entrants to farming scheme.

New entrants who meet the European Union definition of a new entrant to farming can apply for support under the “Setting up young farmers – interest rate relief” option within the Scotland Rural Development Programme Rural Priorities scheme.

On the number of new entrant farmers to have accessed the scheme since its introduction in 2008, I refer the member to the question to question S4W-02964 on 7 October 2011. 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/Apps2/MAQASearch/QAndMSearch.aspx.

The Scottish Government does not collect statistics on other new entrants or new entrants who do not apply for that specific measure.

Question reference: S4W-02963

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding has been allocated through the new entrants to farming scheme in each year since its introduction.

The following table shows the current funding allocation per year under the “Setting Up Young Farmers – Interest Rate Relief” Option in Rural Priorities, part of the Scotland Rural Development Programme.

Year	Value
2009	£305,933
2010	£301,094
2011	£307,424
2012	£172,788
2013	£4,843
2014	£3,965
2015	£1,506
2016	£587
2017	£13
Total	£1,098,153

Note: These figures are based on approved rural priorities cases with finalised contracts.

Question reference: S4W-03003

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-02365 by Richard Lochhead on 13 September 2011, whether sheep farmers are exempt from the need to obtain 100% accuracy on their on-farm sheep flock registers.

It is firstly important that we distinguish the sheep keeper’s requirements from the requirements of the cattle identification regulations. Cattle farmers must ensure that the details in their herd register match those on the central database, and that all animals are presented, correctly identified and with a passport to match (i.e 100% accuracy). Under the sheep inspection regime it is recognised that in many circumstances not every single animal will be gathered, that animals die and it may not always be possible to identify and record the dead animal’s identity, sometimes tags will be lost and these can be replaced without cross referencing to the original identity where that identity is not known.

EC Regulation 21/2004 requires farmers to maintain an up to date register which must contain certain specified information including individual details for animals born after 31 December 2009. (except where advantage has been taken of the derogation to allow sheep keepers selling animals intended for slaughter before 12 months of age to be identified with a single EID tag).

The flexibility that Scottish Government obtained from the EU Commission allows those farmers who are selling sheep through a Critical Control Point (CCP) to choose to rely on the CCP reads uploaded to the ScotEID database to provide the individual IDs required as part of their flock records. Where a 100% read rate has not been achieved the flexibility obtained will ensure that the farmer does not incur a cross compliance penalty for this particular element of the Regulation.

Farmers purchasing animals through a CCP may also choose to rely on the CCP reads uploaded to the ScotEID database, however the flexibility obtained in relation to moves onto a holding for fully identified EID sheep means that farmers are advised to monitor their read rates. Clearly the further read rates are from the average the more likely it is that a farmer may face the risk of penalties. However if a farmer obtains read rates that are near the national average, they can take comfort that they are less likely to fall foul of the inspectors.

Farmers must still comply with all other elements of the sheep identification legislation.

Question reference: S4W-02964

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 October 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many claims have been submitted for funding from the new entrants to farming scheme and how many were successful in each year since its introduction.

There have been 79 applications to date under the Rural Priorities Option ‘Setting Up Young Farmers – Interest Rate Relief’. 63 of these have been successful, as detailed in the following table:

Year	Number of approved applications
2008	0
2009	17
2010	19
2011	27
Total	63

Note: These figures are based on approved Rural Priorities cases with finalised contracts.