Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-13789

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action is is taking to stop the spread of the Schmallenberg virus.

The Scottish Government provides funding to SAC Consulting Veterinary Services (part of SRUC) in support of its diagnostic service which includes examination for Schmallenberg virus in abortions and stillbirth in cattle, sheep and goats. Information about new cases is publicised by SRUC, so that individual farmers can make informed choices during the breeding season and prevent spread of the disease to their farms.

Question reference: S5O-01711

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 January 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made to add malignant melanoma to the Detect Cancer Early programme.

Question reference: S5O-01639

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 December 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 11 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to develop its policy for land value taxes, in light of the Scottish Land Commission's research on the use of such taxes in other countries.

Question reference: S5W-13365

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 10 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidences of vandalism have taken place on farms in each year since 2007.

The information requested is not held centrally. The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority, and the number cleared up by the police. We don’t receive further details on the specific location of these crimes or their characteristics. This means we are unable to distinguish whether crimes of vandalism have taken place on a farm.

Question reference: S5W-13366

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 10 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidences of livestock theft have taken place in each year since 2007.

The information requested is not held centrally. The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority, and the number cleared up by the police. We don’t receive further details on the characteristics of these crimes. This means we are unable to identify how many thefts involve livestock.

Question reference: S5W-13364

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 10 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidences of machinery theft have taken place on farms in each year since 2007.

The information requested is not held centrally. The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority, and the number cleared up by the police. We don’t receive further details on the specific location of these crimes or their characteristics. This means we are unable to distinguish whether crimes have taken place on a farm or identify what specific items have been stolen.

Question reference: S5W-12989

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 November 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 11 December 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that beaver populations in Tayside are growing and expanding their territory without protection, and that there is evidence of serious environmental damage, wide-scale tree felling, flooding of farmland along the Tay and its tributaries and numbers of beavers in this area already being too high, whether they should be given protected status in 2018.

Scottish Ministers announced on 24 November 2016 that the beaver populations in Knapdale in Argyll and in the Tay and Earn catchments can remain in Scotland, subject to satisfactory completion of a Strategic Environmental Assessment and a Habitats Regulations Assessment. It was also announced that the intention is to place a Scottish Statutory Instrument (SSI) before the Scottish Parliament to add beavers to Schedule 2 of the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994, to grant beavers European Protected Species status. This will be arranged during the course of 2018.

The Habitats Directive provides for licensed control of protected species to allow management actions that would otherwise be unlawful. Licences can be made available to prevent serious damage to livestock, foodstuffs for livestock, crops, vegetables, fruit, growing timber or any other form of property or to fisheries; and preserving public health or public safety.

Question reference: S5W-13026

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 November 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 6 December 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recent vote in the European Parliament against its use, what its position is on the continued use of glyphosate in farming.

The Scottish Government supports the recent five year renewal of the glyphosate licence which allows its continued use in Scotland and the rest of Europe. Glyphosate is important to Scottish farmers who use it to control weeds, manage harvests, and reduce grain drying costs.

We are aware of the importance of effective pesticides, and consider that they should be authorised where the currently available scientific evidence shows they do not pose unacceptable risks to human health, animals and the environment.

Both the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency's Committee for Risk Assessment carried out detailed reviews of glyphosate and concluded that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate as a carcinogen.

We continue to take evidence-based advice from Health Protection Scotland, our national health experts, and also from Public Health England, which routinely assesses scientific literature on this topic, and keeps it under review.

Question reference: S5O-01573

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 6 December 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle the drivers of child poverty.

The Scottish Government is taking a wide range of action to tackle the drivers of child poverty by increasing family incomes and reducing the costs of living. For example, we are investing over £100 million every year to mitigate UKG welfare cuts; we have invested more than £1 billion in the Council Tax Reduction scheme since 2013-14, helping almost half a million households each year; and we remain committed to the Living Wage. Scotland is best performing of UK countries paying the living wage, with 81.6% of employees paid at least that level.

Across government, our actions are delivering benefits for the most disadvantaged people in our society. Since August, every new-born child in Scotland has received a baby box, to give each one the best possible start. We will almost double funded provision of Early Learning and Childcare by 2020. We will deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes over this Parliamentary term. And more than 134,500 P1-P3 children are benefitting from healthy, nutritious free school meals - delivering savings for families of around £380 per child per year.

All of this in the face of continued UK Government welfare cuts, which are set to push 1 million children across the UK into poverty by 2021-22, making our task all the more difficult.

Question reference: S5W-12880

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 5 December 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to reports from the RSPB that corncrake numbers are falling.

The Scottish Government has provided land management options to benefit corncrakes since 1995 through Agri-Environment Climate (AEC) schemes under the Scottish Rural Development Programme. In excess of
£10 million has been spent or committed to specifically protect corncrake habitat in the corncrake strongholds in Argyll and Outer Hebrides, West Highlands and North West Highlands. This equates to over 15,000 hectares of land under management that is beneficial to corncrake.

The next application round of the AEC scheme opens in early 2018 and a promotion effort is underway to encourage land managers to create whole-farm plans to benefit the environment and species such as corncrake.

Full details of the schemes can be found on the Scottish Government website: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/farmingrural/SRDP and detailed information on AEC schemes can also be found here – https://www.ruralpayments.org/publicsite/futures/topics/all-schemes/agri-environment-climate-scheme/

Chamber and committees