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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: S5T-01178

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 June 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that ScotRail missed its punctuality targets for every reporting period in the last year.

Question reference: S5W-17161

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 11 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve the monitoring of public expenditure on harbour dues at harbours that are not owned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd.

Levying and payment of harbour dues is governed by the Harbours Act 1964 and is a commercial arrangement between harbour authorities and harbour users.

In relation to Scottish Government supported ferry services, the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract with CalMac Ferries Ltd places a requirement on the ferry operator to scrutinise and challenge any increases in harbour dues proposed by harbour authorities.

In addition, through Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, we are progressively entering into long-term arrangements with harbour authorities which ensure that harbour dues paid in relation to Scottish Government supported ferry services are reasonable and reflect the costs of operations, maintenance and planned investment.

Question reference: S5W-17156

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 11 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it takes to monitor the functioning of ferry user groups representing passengers on Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service routes.

Ferry User Groups, now known as Ferry Stakeholder Groups, are administered by the Highlands & Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS), who hold responsibility for monitoring the functioning of these groups. The Terms of Reference for each of the Groups were recently reviewed and updated by HITRANS. The Scottish Government does not monitor the functioning of the Ferry Stakeholder Groups, but attends and takes a participative role in the meetings.

Question reference: S5W-17011

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 14 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how it monitors the effectiveness of the Environmental Protection (Restriction on Use of Lead Shot) (Scotland) (No. 2) Regulations 2004.

The Scottish Government monitors the effectiveness of the Environmental Protection (Restriction on Use of Lead Shot) (Scotland) (No. 2) Regulations 2004 through reported crimes and prosecutions. In addition, informal monitoring is undertaken by local and National Nature Reserve wildfowling wardens and local authority rangers where wildfowling on the foreshore is controlled through a permit system.

Question reference: S5W-17010

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 14 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is considering changes to the system for regulating the use of lead firearm ammunition.

Question reference: S5W-17013

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 14 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the level of compliance with the Environmental Protection (Restriction on the Use of Lead Shot) (Scotland) No. 2) Regulations 2004.

Question reference: S5O-02243

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 June 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to fill vacancies at NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

Question reference: S5W-17012

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions have there been each year for breaches of the Environmental Protection (Restriction on Use of Lead Shot) (Scotland) (No. 2) Regulations 2004.

Question reference: S5W-16592

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 May 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 1 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the total annual harvest of mountain hares in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government does not have access to the National Gamebag Census (NGC) dataset held by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT). GWCT routinely publish only summary data, in the form of trend indices.

Following a request from Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) in June 2017, estimates of the number of hares culled were provided by GWCT to SNH up to and including 2015 only. The NGC data for 2016 and 2017 (which are required to derive these estimates) were not available at the time.

The estimated values are:

2013: 29,634

2014: 37,681

2015: 26,952

These figures are derived using modelling and calibration of NGC game bag figures against a historic baseline, namely the figure of 24,529 for 2006-07 as published in SNH commissioned research report 278: The distribution of Mountain Hare (Lepus timidus) in Scotland (2006-07). There is no indication of effort (i.e. number of guns and days of shooting etc) and the population index values from which these estimates are derived are, themselves, subject to varying levels of statistical confidence.

Question reference: S5W-16591

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 May 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 1 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what payments were made by Scottish Natural Heritage to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust for (a) access to and (b) analysis of National Gamebag Census data for mountain hares in (i) 2016, (ii) 2017 and (iii) 2018.