Seòmar agus comataidhean

Barra, Benbecula and Sumburgh Airports were closed during the strike action on 19 and 22 December 2022 while Kirkwall and Stornoway Airports operated with reduced services.

I met with the Chair and Chief Executive of Loganair, HIAL’s largest customer, on 20 December 2022 to discuss the industrial action at HIAL’s airports and the measures that Loganair had put in place to minimise the disruption for passengers.

HIAL worked to limit the impact of the industrial action where possible and were able to keep Campbeltown, Dundee, Inverness, Islay, Tiree and Wick John O’Groats Airports fully operational during the strikes. They were also able to facilitate reduced operations at Kirkwall and Stornoway Airports. Safety, however, is paramount and where there are insufficient staff available for airports to operate in a safe and regulatory compliant way, flights are not able to operate.

Marine Scotland Science, as a statutory consultee in the fish farm planning application process and part of Scottish Government Marine Scotland Directorate, provided advice to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Planning Authority and is available to view on the planning portal; 2021/0357/DET | Installation of a Marine Fish Farm and associated development including shore base, slipway and pontoon and road upgrades | Beinn Reithe Loch Long (lochlomond-trossachs.org).

Advice from Scottish Government aquaculture policy unit was provided to the park authority on the national significance of the project, as the first application for a semi-enclosed marine loch fish farm in Scotland. Advice is available to view on the planning portal; 2021/0357/DET | Installation of a Marine Fish Farm and associated development including shore base, slipway and pontoon and road upgrades | Beinn Reithe Loch Long (lochlomond-trossachs.org).

Scottish Ministers approved new Scottish Environment Protection Agency fish farm Controlled Activity Regulation charges in September 2022. Where an operator achieves a reduction in 80% of expected emissions, SEPA will halve the application fee.

In terms of support for emerging technologies, the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre, part funded by the Scottish Funding Council, was established in 2014 to fund and support collaborative research, applied science and innovation to reduce the environmental footprint and increase the economic impact of aquaculture.

Assistance may be available through the Marine Fund Scotland, where projects require public funding to proceed, and deliver outcomes in Scotland’s Blue Economy Vision.

The Scottish Government will consider how innovation can be further supported through the regulatory review of fish farm consenting, the Vision for sustainable aquaculture and National Marine Plan 2.

New innovative technologies, including semi-closed containment systems, have the potential to make a significant contribution to Scotland’s aquaculture industry. Systems must be designed to operate in the conditions in the surrounding environment, meaning that there is no one size fits all approach.

Waste capture technologies can result in a significantly longer return on economic investment, however, they have the potential to reduce interactions with the environment and reduce some of the operational costs of fish farming, for example, by lowering the cost and number of fish health treatments required in a production cycle.

No assessment of the potential of semi-closed containment aquaculture to support jobs in rural Scotland has been made by the Scottish Government. Employment opportunities and benefits are considered as part of the statutory fish farm planning process.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13304 on
‎ 5 January 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Scotland is leading the way on electric vehicle charging infrastructure, with more EV chargers per capita than the rest of the UK. The latest figures showing that Scottish electric vehicle drivers benefit from 60 public charge points per 100,000 population. This compares to the UK as a whole at 45.2, England 53, Wales 34.9 and Northern Ireland at 18.4 charge points per 100,000 population.

A) Scottish Government only holds information on charge points registered on the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) network, we do not hold charge point information for the wider public charging network run by commercial operators. The total number of publicly available charge points registered on the CPS network broken down by Local Authority area in the Highlands and Islands region is shown below. These charge points are owned by councils, other public bodies, charities and businesses who received grant funding from the Scottish Government.

Organisations which develop and install wind projects should always allow for a sinking fund for repair and maintenance costs, or take out insurance for repairs, maintenance, breakdown and loss of earnings.

Our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) does not provide funding for continued maintenance of wind turbines. However, it has provided ad hoc support to communities looking to repair small scale wind turbines.

Local Energy Scotland has delivered CARES on our behalf since 2013. Since then, CARES has offered approximately £128,000 in funding support towards the repair of community-owned wind turbines, including associated viability studies. This is as follows;

2014: £12,362;

2016: £16,189;

2018: £20,000;

2019: £41,472;

2020: £14,375;

2021: £24,000.