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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.

The Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) is focused on supporting projects that deliver outcomes relating to Scotland's Blue Economy Vision. This aims to support projects & investments that are innovative, entrepreneurial, productive and internationally competitive; resilient to climate change, contributing to climate change mitigation and adaption; to achieve marine sectors which are decarbonised, resource efficient and supporting Scotland's Net Zero commitments.

An example of the innovative circular economy approaches that this funding supports include projects such as Tiny Fish LTD, who won the Global Seafood Alliance 2024 Responsible Seafood Innovation Award. This project is finding unique markets for juvenile salmon that are removed from hatcheries prior to transfer of the best fish to sea pens. It received grant funding support via the MFS of over £118,000.

The Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) provides support to new entrants through the young fishers grant funding. Since 2021 the MFS has awarded 37 young fishers over £2.5m grant to enable them to purchase their first fishing vessel (or share in a vessel).

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.

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

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 Scottish Government conducted an internal review and mapping exercise of port waste reception facilities relevant to the fishing sector in Scotland in both 2023 and 2024 in order to inform future policy development. Of the nine main ports and harbours which have dedicated collection facilities for the disposal of end-of-life fishing gear, see the answer to question S6W-33889 on 30 January 2025, two apply additional charges for the use of these facilities. The provision of adequate waste facilities available to all vessels, including fishing vessels, encourages responsible disposal behaviour. Information on the individual numbers of fishing vessel owners being charged these additional costs was not collected. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

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 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.