- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 4 August 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what powers Police Scotland has to search vehicles, and how often these powers have been used in each of the last five financial years.
Answer
Police Scotland has a range of statutory powers to search vehicles where these are provided for in legislation, including where an officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a vehicle contains controlled drugs, offensive weapons, knives, firearms, stolen property or other items specified in legislation. Relevant powers are contained in a range of enactments, including the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, the Firearms Act 1968 and the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.
In certain limited circumstances, legislation also provides powers to search vehicles without individual reasonable suspicion, for example where a senior officer has authorised searches in a specific locality to help prevent serious violence.
Police Scotland is operationally independent, and decisions regarding the use of vehicle search powers in individual cases are a matter for the Chief Constable.
The Scottish Government does not hold data relating to vehicle searches conducted by Police Scotland, this is held by Police Scotland.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 26 June 2026
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 July 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address food fraud, including the deliberate use of misleading labelling to suggest that an item was produced in Scotland and the United Kingdom rather than only packaged in Scotland.
Answer
Tackling food fraud has been one of the main functions of Food Standards Scotland since the Scottish Government decided to set up the organisation from 2015. The Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit combines the investigative and intelligence functions of FSS, and was established to prevent, detect and investigate fraud and deliberate non-compliance across the food and animal feed chain, while supporting public bodies during incidents to protect public health from risks associated with food consumption. Its remit on fraud includes food adulteration, substitution, counterfeit products and document fraud within food and feed supply chains. Examples of fraud cases include the seizure of over 250 bottles of counterfeit vodka in 2024-25 The labelling closely resembled that of genuine products, but the bottles contained potentially lethal isopropyl alcohol. A successful prosecution case in 2025, resulted in a sentence of 3 and a half years following various fraudulent claims and mislabelling of imported tea as Scottish grown.
Specifically, on mis-leading labelling the Scottish Government and FSS recognise the importance of protecting consumer confidence and the reputation of genuine Scottish producers by ensuring origin claims are accurate and evidence-based. Under the Food Information to Consumers Regulation, an indication of country of origin is required where the absence of such information is likely to mislead consumers as to the true country of origin or place of provenance of that food. The place of last substantial change, such as curing pork into bacon or baking ingredients into a cake determines the origin of processed food. Simply packing a food does not constitute a substantial change therefore the origin isn’t affected. Where food businesses are not required to provide origin information, they can still provide this information on a voluntary basis providing such indications are accurate and this is done in the same way as if it were mandatory. However, where businesses falsely present products as Scottish or UK-produced when this is not the case, appropriate enforcement action will be taken to protect consumers and legitimate Scottish producers.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 22 July 2026
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide information regarding the processes that are in place to monitor an individual's interactions through the different stages of the justice system, from their first interaction with the police to their last interaction with the justice system, including whether they receive a single system number until they are sentenced or if this number changes but is linked to others in order to track the process on a macro rather than a micro level.
Answer
As each Justice organisation has their own administrative system to record information for operational purposes, it is not possible to monitor an individual’s interactions throughout the different stages of the justice system. Whilst a Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) number is assigned to an individual and can be used to help identify them within management information systems, doing so is challenging as each organisation has their own approach to measuring activity. For example Police Scotland recording is done at the crime (or incident) level, Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service recording is based at person level and Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service recording is at case level.
SG has developed a Criminal Justice Journey Times dataset in collaboration with colleagues in COPFS and SCTS. This dataset allows times to be calculated for different stages of an accused’s journey through the justice system. The overall journey time is taken to be from the time an offence becomes known to the police to the time a verdict is reached in court.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 22 July 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the time taken to approve a criminal warrant, what was (a) the average time, (b) the longest time and (c) the shortest time, in each of the last five financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Decisions on criminal warrants are judicial decisions taken independently by sheriffs or justices, and the data requested are not routinely recorded.
Search warrants are prepared by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and presented by the officer seeking the warrant to the presiding judicial office holder.
COPFS holds limited information relating to search warrant applications. The time taken to process a request will vary depending on the individual circumstances of each case. COPFS manually records the date on which a request to consider a warrant application is received from Police Scotland or another specialist reporting agency. It also records, where entered by staff, the date on which a final decision on that request was taken by COPFS or a judicial officeholder. However, COPFS are unable to readily provide reliable figures for the average, longest, or shortest time taken in each of the last five financial years due to identified limitations and inconsistencies in the way that the information has historically been recorded and maintained.
COPFS does not hold data on the time taken to execute a warrant after it has been granted by a judicial officeholder.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 20 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the incident of subsidence in Coalsnaughton Road, Tillicoultry, what role it will play regarding compensation for houses that may have to be demolished, repaired and secured.
Answer
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 20 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the incident of subsidence in Coalsnaughton Road, Tillicoultry, what the anticipated cost would be of any additional payments or financial assistance that it is considering providing to support the accommodation of evacuated households.
Answer
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 20 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the incident of subsidence in Coalsnaughton Road, Tillicoultry, how much public money has been spent and paid out to various authorities and organisations throughout the construction period and the subsequent recovery period.
Answer
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 20 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the £1 million funding given to Clackmannanshire Council to support residents of Coalsnaughton Road, Tillicoultry, affected by ground movement in the area, whether this funding was supplied through other agencies to act as grant money and/or security during the construction phases.
Answer
Answer expected on 17 August 2026
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 20 July 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding vehicle searches conducted by Police Scotland, (a) how many were carried out, (b) what reasons were recorded for each search and (c) what proportion of these searches resulted in a positive outcome, in each of the last five financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Data relating to vehicle searches conducted by Police Scotland is held by Police Scotland.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 July 2026
-
Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 17 July 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what the average time taken to process an individual in police custody has been, from arrival at custody to completion of processing, in each of the last five financial years.
Answer
Table 1 shows the average combined police custody waiting and processing times from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
Waiting time is the time spent from the point the person arrested and the arresting officers arrive at a custody centre, to the point police custody officers and staff began to process and in effect book the person into custody. Police Scotland always try to ensure that this time is as minimal as possible, however waiting times can be impacted by a range of operational matters, which include more than one person needing to be processed or booked in at similar times, custody staff responding to a medical emergency etc.
Processing time is the time taken to book the person into custody. This involves the arrested person being searched and asked questions to allow for an assessment of vulnerability, including medical conditions, which is critical to ensure a safe environment for people in police custody.
Table 1: Average Combined Waiting and Processing time in minutes, 2021-22 to 2025-26
Financial Year | Average Waiting Time (minutes) | Average Processing Time (minutes) | Average Total Time taken to process from arrival at police custody to lodge in cell (minutes) |
2021-22 | 20 | 17 | 37 |
2022-23 | 20 | 17 | 37 |
2023-24 | 19 | 17 | 36 |
2024-25 | 18 | 16 | 34 |
2025-26 | 19 | 16 | 35 |
Source: Police Scotland Management Information
