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The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the fishing sector in Scotland.

Our work to secure sustainable fishing opportunities for Scottish vessels through our international negotiations, which is informed by our science advice, is critical to supporting economic growth and development within the fishing industry. Our quota management approach ensures the quota is translated into opportunities for the Scottish industry and licencing supports the proper functioning of the fishing industry and the responsible management by the fishing fleet. Our enforcement efforts underpin sustainable fisheries management, delivering confidence and accountability in our sea fisheries which supports a positive brand and marketplace for Scottish seafood.

In addition to this, we support the fishing sector through a modernisation programme to ensure the long-term sustainability of Scotland’s fish stocks and to provide confidence from an economic perspective. The Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy and the subsequent delivery plan, which apply across the fishing fleet, includes a range of actions focussed on delivering sustainability for Scotland’s fishing sector, including commitments to strengthening and modernising regulation to support sustainable fishing practices, increasing the volume of fish landed into Scottish ports, and increasing resilience within the sector.

We also provide direct financial support through the Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) which provided £14 million this year to support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, research, innovation, and support coastal communities around Scotland. Since 2021, the MFS has awarded £70 million to 390 projects, enabling over £150 million investment. This includes £4.6 million to projects in the North East, including £1.2 million to Peterhead Port Authority.

This MFS support shows how derisory the allocation of just £28 million over 12 years of the £360 million Fishing and Coastal Fund is. It is a hammer blow for our fishing sector given that it equates to only 7.78% of this new funding. Scotland accounts for over 60% of the UK’s fishing capacity and seafood exports, with Scottish vessels landing over 75% of UK quota species. Scotland’s allocation should be at least 46%, reflecting our share of the UK’s EU fisheries funding.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that appropriate and relevant support is available to people when they are released from custody. Individual needs are identified by throughcare support, which allows those with a history of substance use to receive the right support for them. Through collaboration with the third sector, we also aim to ensure that recovery support provided in prisons continues throughout the transition and resettlement process back into the community.

Further integration across services and consistent data collection are essential to fully assess the impacts on post-release re-offending rates.

Website analytics data is not 100% accurate for a number of reasons: including where users have opted out or blocked tracking. Additionally, some data is only retained for a maximum of 13 months.

Gov.scot implemented new cookie banner settings as of the start of September 2024. Previously all users were opted-in to analytics tracking by default (and could opt out); now the default is that all users must choose if they want to opt in or not. This caused a drop in traffic available in the dashboard which has been calculated to be 39% of the total site usage. Each of the figures below are the opted-in analytics users only.

Data from 8 October 2025 up to 9 November 2025

Paper title: A Fresh Start with Independence

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fresh-start-independence/

Main paper publish date: 8 October 2025

Main paper views: 12,233

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fresh-start-independence-easy-read-version/
Easy read publish date: 8 October 2025

Easy read views or download link clicks: 483

Audio URL: https://soundcloud.com/scotgov/a-fresh-start-with-independence

Audio publish date: 17 October 2025

Audio link clicks: 3

Translation publish date: 8 October 2025

Translation downloads:

Arabic: 5

Bengalii: 0

Bulgarian: 0

Cantonese: 1

French: 4

Gaelic: 4

Hindi: 0

Italian: 1

Mandarin: 2

Polish: 3

Punjabi: 0

Romanian: 2

Russian: 4

Spanish: 2

Ukrainian: 2

Urdu: 1

BSL YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpP6-wYXyB0

Date BSL Version Published: 16 October 2025

Views: 3

The Rural Support Plan will launch the new four-tier framework and in the first instance will map legacy CAP support and existing support into it to provide an overview of the available support.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41655 on 18 November 2025. 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.

The sites in the pilot scheme, including which local authority they are located in, are listed in the following table. This list can also be found on the Scottish Government website: Sharing the gains of clean energy - gov.scot.

The performance of social landlords is monitored by the independent Scottish Housing Regulator and not the Scottish Government.

However, the most recent report from the Scottish Housing Regulator showed that the number of homes that meet Scottish Housing Quality Standards increased (87%) for the third consecutive year, with fewer homes failing, exempt or in abeyance from Scottish Housing Quality Standards.

More of Registered Social Landlords’ homes meet Scottish Housing Quality Standards than Local Authorities’ (92% compared to 83%, respectively).

A fuller breakdown can be found on the Scottish Housing Regulator website in the national reports section.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41650 on 18 November 2025. 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.

Ministers regularly meet with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships where a spectrum of issues are discussed. However, there have been no specific meetings at this stage to discuss the expansion of the Armed Forces Covenant into social care.

A summary of the scoring mechanism has already been published on the scheme guidance webpages. This explains how applications were assessed through a combination of eligibility checks, verification of information provided, and merit-based scoring against the scheme objectives.

Variation in the accuracy and completeness of applications was a significant factor in the outcomes. Applicants were expected to provide clear and verifiable information, however a number of submissions contained inconsistencies or responses that could not be supported at inspection. For example, some applicants selected “Yes” to using the grant for electronic identification technology when applying for items such as creep feeders, hoof-trimming equipment, water troughs, or fencing, where EID was not relevant. Had these applications been awarded funding, they would have been unable to evidence how the investment delivered and the grant would have had to be recovered.

These issues may not indicate intent to mislead but demonstrated misunderstanding of the scheme’s contractual requirements. In contrast, applications that provided specific, accurate, and verifiable information were able to be scored properly and offered greater assurance of compliance with the scheme rules. This explains why some applications that appeared similar received different outcomes, and why robust assessment and verification were essential to the scheme