- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 08 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 18 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many recipients of Social Security Scotland support owe overpaid benefits, and what proportion of these debts is more than one year old.
Answer
Social Security Scotland has established a Debt Management Service to oversee the recovery of overpayments, ensuring that recovered funds are redistributed in line with Scottish public spending priorities. Recovery processes are carried out with respect for clients’ dignity.
While internal systems are in place to track and prevent overpayments, detailed statistics—such as the number of overpayments or the age profile of debts—are not routinely published. As such, we are unable to provide further breakdowns.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 08 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 18 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to recover the reported £36 million of benefit overpayments currently held by Social Security Scotland.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to recovering benefit overpayments wherever it is considered economic and reasonable to do so in line with the principles set out in the Scottish Public Finance Manual.
The Scottish Government is actively exploring all available options to recover approximately £36 million in historical debt which has accrued under Agency Agreements between the Scottish Ministers and the Department for Work and Pensions since the transfer of executive competence.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 08 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 18 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its forecast is for devolved welfare spending for the next five years.
Answer
The Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) published its most recent independent forecasts on 25 June 2025, which sets out its latest five-year economic and fiscal forecasts to 2030-31.
The publication can be found on the SFC’s website: Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts Update – June 2025 | Scottish Fiscal Commission.
Based on those forecasts and Scottish Government’s estimates of Young Carer Grant and Job Start Payment, expenditure on the range of Social Security Assistance provided by the Scottish Government is forecast to increase from £6.8 billion this year, to £9.3 billion by 2030-31, as shown in the following table.
£ million | 2025-26 | 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2028-29 | 2029-30 | 2030-31 |
Total Social Security Assistance | 6,774 | 7,546 | 7,979 | 8,382 | 8,827 | 9,286 |
The SFC will publish its next set of five-year economic and fiscal forecasts alongside the 2026-27 Scottish Budget and Scottish Spending Review.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 08 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 18 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it is working with UK defence contractors to safeguard Scotland’s role in shipbuilding supply chains.
Answer
The shipbuilding sector plays a vital role in supporting jobs and driving economic growth across Scotland. We are committed to promoting manufacturing and innovation, and Ministers continue to engage with businesses in the sector as part of that commitment.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 September 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 24 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with COSLA about increasing the transparency of senior officer pay and conditions alongside improved democratic oversight and accountability.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 24 September 2025
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 August 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 17 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response it to reports of a recent trend of businesses increasingly relocating production from Scotland to other parts of the UK.
Answer
Thriving businesses are key to Scotland’s prosperity, and their success is critical to delivering the First Minister’s priorities.
That’s why our Programme for Government includes measures that will make it easier to invest and do business by creating better certainty and stability for business. The programme includes actions to improve regulatory best practice, support entrepreneurs, boost planning capacity and reduce barriers to delivery.
NatWest’s New Startup Index shows Scotland's strong performance in business formations, with the fastest relative growth in new companies being incorporated from H2 2024 led by the North East of England (19.0%), followed by Scotland (17.9%).
According to the latest EY Attractiveness Survey, Scotland remains the best-performing part of the United Kingdom for inward investment, outside London, for the 10th year in a row.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 August 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 17 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of Scotland’s economic growth in the last two years has been attributable to (a) public and (b) private sector activity.
Answer
The statistics for Scotland’s gross domestic product (GDP) cannot be split precisely into separate contributions from the public and private sectors. This is because they are produced using data classified by industry and there are public sector bodies in many part of the economy. As an approximation, the contribution to GDP growth over the last two years from the public sector dominated industries of public administration and defence, education, health and social work is presented in the following table. Note that there are some public sector bodies in the rest of the economy, and the education, health and social work industries also contain private sector businesses and organisations. These contributions are calculated using the latest quarterly GDP statistics available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/first-estimate-of-gdp-2025-q2/.
| | Total GDP | Public administration and defence, education, health and social work | Rest of Economy |
Percentage growth: 2023 Q2 to 2025 Q2 | 2.0% | 2.6% | 1.9% |
Weighted contribution to Total GDP growth: 2023 Q2 to 2025 Q2 (percentage points) | 2.0p.p | 0.6p.p | 1.5p.p. |
Proportion of Total GDP growth: 2023 Q2 to 2025 Q2 | 100% | 28% | 72% |
Note: contributions may not sum to the total due to rounding
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 17 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what conditions are attached to any grant funding for equalities organisations to help ensure their (a) political neutrality, (b) value for money and (c) measurable outcomes.
Answer
Conditions attached to Scottish Government grant funding will vary based on the organisation and project being funded. Some organisations are given core funding to meet general costs while others receive funding strictly associated to a specific project. The specific details of these conditions are set out individually in grant offer letters for each piece of funding.
All grants are actively managed in line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual: Grant and grant in aid - Scottish Public Finance Manual - gov.scot. In particular, grants have outcomes and objectives associated to them which mean that payments are only made when the grant manager is content that value for money is being achieved. Furthermore, all Scottish Government grant offer letters specify that funds are not to be used for party political purposes. Beyond the auspices of projects for which organisations have been given grant funding, organisations are free to campaign on any issues as we would expect in a democratic society. It is not for the Scottish Government to interfere with this freedom, to ensure that the third sector can have an independent voice.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 17 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided in each year since 2017 to third sector organisations that publicly campaign for gender self-identification, also broken down by organisation.
Answer
The information as requested is not held centrally. The Scottish Government funds hundreds of organisations and does not monitor which organisations have campaigned for gender self-identification.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 17 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the most recent forecast is for the prison population to the end of 2025-26, and how this compares to the design capacity of the prison estate.
Answer
On 7 August, the Scottish Government published the latest 6-month prison population projections, based on court activity and prison population data, up to the end of 2025. Due to the uncertainty surrounding factors that influence prison population flows - such as crime rates and justice system activity - the projections included several possible scenarios, including a reasonable upper estimate and a reasonable lower estimate. Taking the scenarios together and assuming that recent trends in justice demand, policy and practice continue, it was projected that the average daily prison population could be between 7,950 and 8,750 in December 2025. The design capacity of the prison estate is currently 7,805.
