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The variability in Scotland’s weather means that we must be prepared to manage the impacts of a variety of severe weather conditions throughout the year. In the face of such changeability, the Scottish Government works closely with local authorities and key resilience stakeholders to ensure robust resilience arrangements are in place all year round.

There are 3 Regional Resilience Partnerships in Scotland, covering the East, West and North of the country. Together they build strong and mutually supportive relationships between the emergency services and responder community, including utility companies and the voluntary sector, which enable them to prepare for and respond to emergencies in a co-ordinated way. These arrangements come to the fore during any period of severe weather. They proved extremely beneficial in terms of information sharing and co-ordination at the start of the year when storms Abigail, Desmond, Frank and others brought repeated and prolonged challenges to communities across much of the country. Each partnership has made extensive preparations for the winter period, to ensure adequate arrangements are in place.

This work is supported by Scotland’s national resilience marketing campaign, which launched earlier this month. The campaign focusses on raising awareness of the measures that the public can take to be risk aware, to be well prepared, and to be a good neighbour to people around them who might find coping with wintry conditions particularly challenging. Just like Scotland’s broader resilience arrangements, it is delivered in close partnership with a wide range of organisations, in the public, private and third sectors. Key partners include Scotland’s local authorities, other emergency responders, and, of course the Met Office. This year the name of the campaign has been changed from “Ready for Winter” to “Ready Scotland”, in order to better reflect the need for year-round preparedness. I would encourage the public to go to ReadyScotland.org for advice about how best to prepare for and cope with severe weather conditions over the coming months.

Transport Scotland’s Multi-Agency Response Team arrangements enable a strategic overview of event and incident handling for severe weather and other challenges to the country’s transport infrastructure. This is a joint process with Police Scotland and includes trunk road operating companies, rail operators, the Met Office and others, as well as seconded personnel from Police Scotland and the Met Office to enhance closer partnership working.

I would also encourage people to sign up to tools such as Floodline and consult the Traffic Scotland website when planning to travel.

In Scottish waters responsibility for ensuring compliance with the Landing Obligation (LO) rests with Marine Scotland, working with Defra and the UK’s other Devolved Administrations to ensure compliance across the UK. After an advisory period, and for the vessels for which it is responsible, Marine Scotland will seek to ensure that fishing vessels comply with LO requirements while working at sea and on landing through inspections.

Fishing vessels are selected for inspection at sea using a risk-based and intelligence-led approach. Any illegal discarding or high grading discovered is dealt with in line with Marine Scotland’s compliance strategy. Marine Scotland Fishery Officers have received guidance and instruction on the LO, covering both pelagic and demersal fisheries. This guidance is updated in line with regulatory changes every year, and Fishery Officers monitor fish markets and landings.

Marine Scotland vessels are certificated by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency with a Safe Manning Document. This specifies the safe manning complement for each vessel. At no time has Marine Scotland sailed any of its vessels below the safe manning complement.

In addition to the safe manning complement each vessel has an operational complement. This is set higher than the safe manning complement to ensure operational flexibility. This allows Marine Scotland to sail vessels when a crew member calls off at the last minute or requires to be landed during the course of a voyage. The occasions where mariners had to be put ashore, from the start of April 2016 to date, are listed in the following table. No delays in sailing have occurred due to shortage of operational complement.

The number of vessels that have participated in the remote electronic monitoring (REM) fully documented fisheries schemes operated by Marine Scotland across the years 2014 to 2016 are shown in the following table.

The Marine Scotland Science (MSS) and the Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) observer schemes cover a random sample of all Scottish demersal and nephrops vessels. The at sea coverage for the period 2014 to 2016 (to 18 October) is shown in the following table. The bracketed values indicate the percentage of all trips covered by the observer programme, while the SFF trips also cover those trips dedicated to other projects.

The Scottish Government and Highlands and Islands Enterprise have maintained dialogue with Rio Tinto throughout the Lochaber strategic review with a view to securing the best outcome for the workers and local community.

We are hopeful that Lochaber smelter will be sold as a going concern and that aluminium production at Fort William, which begun in 1929, will continue for many generations to come.

All efforts of Government and our agencies are directed towards that end.

The Scottish Government, through is agencies Highlands and Island Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland, has been represented at the meetings of the Regional Economic Development Joint Working Group set up by Rio Tinto, to examine economic development opportunities in the Fort William area. Minutes of the meetings are shared with members of the Joint Working Group, the group last met on the 6 September 2016 and is due to meet again on the 6 December.

The Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity met with senior representatives of Rio Tinto regarding the company’s Lochaber strategic review on 4 October 2016. Subsequently on 21 October, Rio Tinto announced to its Lochaber workforce that the company’s Board had agreed to consider a sale of its Lochaber assets.

The Scottish Government and Rio Tinto’s Lochaber workforce were informed on 21 October 2016 that as an outcome of the strategic review the Rio Tinto Board had agreed to consider a sale of its Lochaber assets and that discussions with a potential buyer would begin.

The Government understands that a sale of the assets is not automatic and confidential commercial negotiations are on-going.

While the commercial process continues all parties are bound to respect strict boundaries of commercial confidentiality.

The Scottish Government has met with a range of representatives of Rio Tinto, both from the Lochaber business (Rio Tinto Alcan) and from the parent company. In discussions with Rio Tinto the Government has signalled its willingness to explore options of assistance in the maintenance and creation of employment in Lochaber in the context of promoting sustainable economic growth.

All inspections carried out with regard to pelagic species (from 2015 onwards) and with regard to pelagic and demersal species (2016 onwards) are undertaken with a view to detecting infringements, including landing obligation infringements.

The figures for the years requested are as follows:

*2016 is an incomplete year

To date there have been three infringements of the landing obligation detected where officers referred the case to Marine Scotland Compliance Enforcement Branch for consideration of enforcement action.