- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many licence derogations for squid fishing in Scottish waters were issued in each of the five years up to 2024.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information as there is currently no specific licence derogation for squid in Scotland and so none have been issued.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many cataract operations have been conducted per week since 2020, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
Public Health Scotland publish annual information on cataract procedures in our Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information (annual) publication.
The publication does not have weekly figures but annual figures for cataract procedures between financial year 2019-20 to financial year 2023-24 can be found within the ‘Eye’ grouping in table 7 of our publication. This table includes splits by admission type and by health board of treatment and can be downloaded here.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36786 by Mairi Gougeon on 22 April 2025, when it plans to publish the findings from the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan regarding squid bycatch.
Answer
Scottish Ministers have asked the Marine Directorate to undertake a limited trial and pilot project with a number of inshore vessels to help gather further information to support a longer-term policy development on fishing for squid under the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan (NCAP).
The squid pilot project will assess the likely impact of any future squid fishery through the collection of scientific data related to cod and other non-target stocks. Scottish Government will publish findings following evaluation of the pilot project.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the predominant areas are of Scotland’s inshore waters where squid fishing has taken place in each of the five years up to 2024, and what seasonality the fishery exhibits.
Answer
Squid fishing is a sporadic fishery with the majority of landings of squid occurring between May to October. Historically squid has been present in the Moray Firth and is becoming prevalent in Shetland.
The information you have requested to do with the areas of Scotland’s inshore waters where squid fishing has taken place is not held by the Scottish Government. It is not possible to separate landings of squid between inshore and offshore waters and so it is not possible to provide a breakdown of squid fisheries within inshore waters.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many vessels in the Scottish squid fishery are licensed to use (a) trawling gears and (b) jigging gear.
Answer
Squid is a non-quota species and consequently there are no Scottish vessels specifically licenced to fish for this species as their primary catch. Details of the Scottish fishing fleet and primary gears employed can be found in the annual Marine Directorate statistical bulletin at: Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2023 - corrected March 2025 - gov.scot, tables 42 & 43 provide data on the number of active Scottish registered vessels and their main fishing method.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36787 by Mairi Gougeon on 22 April 2025, what the membership is of the co-management group established to develop a squid fishing trial.
Answer
The Squid Co-management Group was established for the purpose of bringing industry and eNGOs together to work collaboratively with Scottish Government officials to support a longer-term policy decision on fishing for squid under the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan (NCAP).
Stakeholder nominations for membership of the Squid Co-development Group were provided by the co-management stakeholder forum Fisheries Management and Conservation Group (FMAC). The first stakeholder Squid Co-management Group meeting took place 1 November 2024.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many fishing vessels registered in Scotland participated in the squid fishery in each of the five years up to 2024.
Answer
Under the landing obligation all Scottish vessels are required to report all catch.
The number of vessels that have reported squid catch or bycatch in the five years up to 2024 are set out in the following table.
year | Number of vessels landing squid catch or bycatch, including under 10metre and over 10metre |
2020 | 258 |
2021 | 231 |
2022 | 228 |
2023 | 226 |
2024 | 204 |
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 2 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time has been for access to palliative care services in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
This information is not held centrally.
Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments. As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector are involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to efficiently and effectively gather this data centrally.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 2 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish the average referral-to-treatment times for patients receiving palliative care in (a) hospital, (b) hospice and (c) community settings for each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
This information is not held centrally.
Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments. As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector are involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to efficiently and effectively gather this data centrally.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 19 May 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 2 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many palliative care nursing and medical posts have remained unfilled in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
Information on the NHS medical and non-medical workforce can be found on the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) website on the following link: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence