Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 43516 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-13877

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact that the freeze on the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) capital budget at £32.5 million will have upon the ability of SFRS to modernise its current estate.

Decisions on the allocation of its capital budget, including how to prioritise fleet, equipment or buildings is a matter for SFRS.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with SFRS to ensure it has the resources it needs to keep communities safe. SFRS is currently undertaking an assessment of the risks faced by communities and the assets which are needed to deal with those risks and this will inform future discussions on both capital and resource budgets.

Question reference: S6W-13837

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13629 by Neil Gray on 12 January 2023, when it expects to provide the update mentioned in the response, and whether this will be by the end of January 2023.

Question reference: S6W-13647

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will actively engage with Aberdeen-based North Star Shipping, which has reportedly secured $172.2 million of financing and loan support to begin the next phase of its plan to build 40 Service Operation Vessels, in order to ensure that this long-term ship design and build opportunity is able to be undertaken by the Scottish shipbuilding industry.

Question reference: S6W-13672

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many houses have been completed for the social rent sector in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-13310

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what funding will be allocated as part of its new biodiversity strategy in the current parliamentary session.

The Scottish Government has made significant funding commitments to protect and restore our biodiversity and is committed to invest an additional £500 million in our natural economy over the course of this parliament. Our recent funding package of £2.9 million for biodiversity projects comes on top of a £65 million commitment for nature restoration. This additional funding includes £1.3m for Atlantic rainforest restoration to fund the first phase of a rainforest restoration programme; £0.5m for ‘Species on the Edge’; and £200,000 to expand nature networks.

As set out in the new draft Scottish Biodiversity Strategy we are committed to developing a Biodiversity Investment Plan, to mobilise public, private and philanthropic finance, closing the estimated £20 billion finance gap for nature this coming decade.

Question reference: S6W-13624

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether relevant stakeholders, including PLACE and community councils, were consulted before it took the decision to delay the implementation of commercial short-term let licensing by six months.

We are not delaying the implementation of commercial short-term let licensing. Licensing schemes opened in October 2022, and new hosts must now apply for, and obtain, a licence before accepting bookings or receiving guests. Local authorities continue to receive applications from new and existing hosts

In recognition of the wider cost of living crisis that is placing pressure on existing short-term let hosts and businesses, we have announced that we will introduce legislation in January 2023 to extend the deadline for existing hosts to apply for a licence from 1 April 2023 to 1 October 2023.

This is not a pause and we encourage hosts to keep applying throughout.

Question reference: S6W-13755

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Parole Board (Scotland) Rules 2022 would require parole boards to reject the release of convicted murderers who have failed to disclose information about the location of their victims' remains.

Question reference: S6W-13764

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it had with business organisations ahead of the announcement, contained in the draft Scottish Budget 2023-24, that the Small Business Bonus Scheme relief thresholds would be reformed.

The Scottish Government accepted the independent Barclay Review’s recommendation that the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) be evaluated and commissioned the Fraser of Allander Institute to do so. After the publication of the evaluation on 8 March 2022, the Scottish Government set up a short-term working group, which included business organisations, to consider in particular the recommendation “that the Scottish Government begins to collect new information that will make a more robust assessment of the SBBS (and potentially other reliefs) possible in the future”. The group concluded that the financial support which SBBS relief offers benefits many small businesses, but concerns were raised that collecting more information would place an additional burden on business which would not be welcomed at this time.

The Scottish Government also engages regularly with business and sectoral organisations including in a number of stakeholder roundtables ahead of the budget to help understand tax priorities for all the taxes that the Scottish Government has control over, including non-domestic rates.

Responding to the main ask from 19 business organisations, the Budget announced a freeze to the poundage, delivering the lowest poundage in the UK for the fifth year in a row, and continues to support our businesses and communities with a generous non-domestic rates relief package. The Small Business Bonus Scheme remains the most generous scheme of its kind in the UK, and will continue to take 100,000 properties out of rates altogether.

Question reference: S6W-13756

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the take-up rate has been for the Victim Notification Scheme, as a percentage of all eligible victims, in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23.

The Scottish Government does not hold the data requested.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is responsible for issuing Victim Notification Scheme packs. They have advised that the number of packs issued to eligible victims for 2021-2022 and from April 2022 to 16 Jan 2023 – the information held to date - is as follows:

2021-2022 - Total 1674
2022 to 16 January 2023 – Total 1788

Eligible victims can register for the scheme at any time. The Scottish Prison Service has advised that the numbers of victims who have opted to register for the scheme in the financial year 2021-22 and from 1 April 2022 to 31 December 2022 – the information held to date - are as follows:

2021-2022 – Total 400
1 April 2022 until 31 December 2022 – Total 356

Question reference: S6W-13740

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 20 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what funding is available to local authorities to support Gaelic-medium education.

The Scottish Government has two streams of funding available to local authorities to help support Gaelic medium and Gaelic learner education across Scotland. These are the Scheme of Gaelic Specific Grant, £4.482m, and the Gaelic Schools Capital Fund, £4m. In 2022-23, 26 local authorities applied and were supported from the Scheme of Gaelic Specific Grant and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Highland received support for projects that expanded Gaelic Medium Education educational settings.