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The Scottish Government is working at pace to publish an updated Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy in 2025. We will commence consultation on a draft updated Plan in Spring 2025 and finalise the draft Plan in Autumn 2025 with adoption and publication following as soon as possible thereafter.

The expenditure budget allocated for fisheries harbour grants in 2025-2026 has been maintained at £500,000, the apparent reduction relates to the treatment of financial transactions income which will not impact on the funding available to harbours.

Officials engaged closely with colleagues in UK Government in the lead up to and throughout the negotiations, to discuss the scientific advice and negotiating approaches. Scotland continued to play an active role in the UK delegation throughout negotiations, striving to be a constructive partner, and seeking balanced agreements to protect Scottish interests.

In preparation for all negotiating forums, including those with the EU, Scottish Government officials prepare mandates for ministerial approval which outlines the approach and boundaries within which negotiators can work as part of the UK delegation. These mandates are treated highly confidentially and would not be appropriate for external publication to avoid undermining Scotland’s negotiating positions and protect Scottish fishing interests.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the age of active fishers. However, Seafish, a public body that collects and analyses data on the UK commercial fishing fleet, has published information on fishers employment by age. Their latest employment publication, 2021 employment in the UK fishing fleet contains information on the age of fishers in the Scottish fishing fleet on page 17. The term 'young fishers' is not defined specifically, but an age restriction, to those aged under 40, is applied to applications to the 'young fishers' part of Marine Fund Scotland 2024-25.

Many applications do not proceed to assessment due to them either being withdrawn by the applicant or because they are identified as ineligible. No data is held on the numbers or types of these applications.

Of those eligible applications which are fully assessed the breakdown is in the following tables;

a) Successful applications

The potential cumulative impacts of the ScotWind leasing round are currently being assessed through the sectoral marine planning process. The ScotWind sites, together with the sites leased by Crown Estate Scotland through the Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas Decarbonisation (INTOG) leasing round will form the spatial basis for the updated Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy. The planning process includes undertaking a plan-level social and economic impact assessment which will provide an estimate of the potential impacts that offshore wind developments may have on other marine sectors and activities. This assessment will be made available for public consultation, alongside the draft updated Plan, later this year.

We anticipate the Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) will re-open in 2025-26 with up to £14m available for grant awards.

The Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity and I have not met directly with the Scottish Anglers National Association (SANA).

However, representatives of SANA were part of the stakeholder group that advised on the development of the Wild Salmon Strategy published in 2022. Since then, three Scottish angling governing bodies – SANA, the Scottish Federation for Coarse Angling and Scottish Federation of Sea Anglers - have been brought together under the umbrella of Angling Scotland. Angling Scotland now represents the interests of SANA in Marine Directorate stakeholders groups.

The Scottish Government is using its legislation and policies to maximise the impact procurement can have for public bodies, local suppliers and the Scottish economy.

Local authorities, supported by Scotland Excel, remain committed to using local and sustainable produce in school catering. All local authorities are under a statutory duty to consider the principles of sustainable development (fresh, local, sustainable) when providing food or drink or catering services in schools. This includes seafood procured to meet the oily fish standard set out in the school food and drink Regulations.

To promote local and sustainable produce public bodies have the flexibility to:

• Design menus that include Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) Food;
• Specify food produced according to recognised assurance schemes, e.g. Quality Meat Scotland, MSC, Red Tractor, RSPCA, or equivalent bespoke company systems.

While public bodies are responsible for their own procurement decisions, the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which came into force on 18 April 2016, proposes a range of opportunities to increase the quality and provenance of food and drink procured. The key opportunity is in relation to the form and content for public bodies’ procurement strategies in which they must set out their policy on the procurement of food.? Under the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, a public body with an annual procurement spend of at least £5 million must report each year on how, its procurements improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of an area and facilitate access to procurement for SMEs, the third sector and supported businesses. Statutory Guidance published under the Act sets out this requirement in more detail.

The Scottish Government is also providing Marine Fund Scotland funding towards Seafood Scotland’s “Market Development Project”, which involves work to ensure Scottish seafood’s profile grows in UK markets. This includes specific activity with various stakeholders throughout the supply chain to look at ways of increasing consumption of Scottish seafood in public procurement settings.

The Scottish Government has engaged with energy industry stakeholders on spatial pressures in the marine environment through our current work to update the Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy and the development of the National Marine Plan 2. Ongoing engagement on spatial pressures is also facilitated through the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) - Barriers to Deployment Group.