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.

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Question reference: S6W-32337

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average time taken to complete a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) is.

The following table details the average times taken to complete a FAI, up to the conclusion of evidence. This does not include the average time of issue by the court of any determination, following an inquiry, the issue of which is the statutory definition of its conclusion in terms of Section 30(4) of the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths etc (Scotland) Act 2016.

Year	Average Time taken to complete FAI in days
2018-19	872
2019-20	897
2020-21	1096
2021-22	1110
2022-23	626
2023-24	1209
2024 to 07-11-2024	1288

Question reference: S6W-32342

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many prosecutions there have been for suspected environmental crime in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database only contains information for offences that have records of at least one prosecution under which that offence was the main crime.

The Environmental Regulation (Enforcement Measures) (Scotland) Order 2015 provides SEPA with the power to issue penalties and accept undertakings for a range of environmental offences.

The latest available information is for the financial year 2022-23 and is provided in the following table.

Number of people prosecuted for environmental crimes, where main crime, 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Year (last 5 years)	2018-2019	2019-20	2020-2021	2021-2022	2022-2023
Number of prosecutions for environmental crime	62	36	14	15	31

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database

Please note: Data for 2020-21 and 2021-22 are affected by the pandemic, subsequent court closures, reduced court capacity due to physical distancing measures and delays to cases where key participants were forced to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19, and should not be considered indicative of long term trends.

Question reference: S6W-32331

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases referred to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in the last five years have resulted in no further action being taken.

Question reference: S6W-32309

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many deferred sentences have been issued in cases prosecuted by the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in each of the last three years.

The assigning of a hearing for deferral of sentence is an order of the court and is recorded within the court’s interlocutor for each case.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis.

Information in respect of cases brought to court is produced by the Scottish Government, using data provided both by COPFS and SCTS. These are national figures and are not produced for individual courts or Procurator Fiscal Offices.

Question reference: S6W-32315

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what training and development opportunities to address complex case types are available to staff in the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

The Scottish Prosecution College delivers a variety of training courses including online and in-person training which is available to all staff within COPFS. This encompasses a wide range of topics, and case types, ranging from domestic abuse and sexual offence case training through to High Court and Sheriff and Jury case preparation. Specialist units within COPFS also provide additional training to staff within those units.

Question reference: S6W-31644

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many seal licences have been issued in each local authority area in each of the last 10 years, also broken down by how many have been exercised.

Seal licences are not issued on a Local Authority basis. Marine Directorate – Licensing Operations Team (on behalf of Scottish Ministers) determine applications and issue licences to kill or take seals under Part 6 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 for the whole of Scotland. The regional consideration is of the designated Seal Management Areas (SMA), which allow applications to kill or take seals to be balanced against local seal population dynamics and the supporting data provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrew’s University). The data for seals licenced to be killed or taken and the licences subsequently exercised within each SMA is shown in the following table:

	East Coast	Moray Firth	Orkney North Coast	Shetland	Western Isles	South West	West Scotland
Issued 2014
Rivers	7	2	6	0	2	2	4
Fish Farms	0	0	2	6	9	2	13

Exercised 2014
Rivers	1	2	4	0	1	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	1	5	4	1	7

Total seals killed 2014
Rivers	11	31	53	0	6	0	5
Fish Farms	0	0	12	29	12	3	43
Combined	11	31	65	29	18	3	48

Issued 2015
Rivers	6	2	6	0	2	2	3
Fish Farms	0	0	2	6	7	2	13

Exercised 2015
Rivers	2	2	4	0	1	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	2	3	3	1	7

Total seals killed 2015
Rivers	6	37	29	0	5	0	6
Fish Farms	0	0	10	10	8	1	50
Combined	6	37	39	10	13	1	56

Issued 2016
Rivers	5	1	5	0	2	2	3
Fish Farms	0	0	2	5	8	2	13

Exercised 2016
Rivers	1	1	3	0	1	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	1	3	3	1	6

Total seals killed 2016
Rivers	2	18	5	0	1	0	12
Fish Farms	0	0	7	11	13	1	31
Combined	2	18	12	11	14	1	43

Issued 2017
Rivers	5	1	5	0	2	2	3
Fish Farms	0	0	2	3	7	2	14

Exercised 2017
Rivers	2	1	1	0	0	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	1	1	3	1	5

Total seals killed 2017
Rivers	2	15	2	0	0	0	8
Fish Farms	0	0	1	8	17	1	22
Combined	2	15	3	8	17	1	30

Issued 2018
Rivers	4	1	5	0	3	2	3
Fish Farms	0	0	2	3	7	2	13

Exercised 2018
Rivers	1	1	3	0	1	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	2	1	2	1	4

Total seals killed 2018
Rivers	1	18	8	0	2	0	7
Fish Farms	0	0	2	13	9	2	24
Combined	1	18	10	13	11	2	31

Issued 2019
Rivers	4	1	5	0	3	2	3
Fish Farms	0	0	2	3	7	0	13

Exercised 2019
Rivers	1	1	3	0	2	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	2	2	3	0	5

Total seals killed 2019
Rivers	1	16	7	0	3	0	5
Fish Farms	0	0	5	8	28	0	19
Combined	1	16	12	8	31	0	24

Issued 2020
Rivers	5	1	5	0	5	2	3
Fish Farms	0	0	2	3	7	2	9

Exercised 2020
Rivers	1	1	1	0	0	0	2
Fish Farms	0	0	1	2	3	2	8

Question reference: S6W-32555

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many free journeys have been taken by (a) ScotRail employees, (b) partners of ScotRail employees and (c) dependants of ScotRail employees, over the last three years.

Question reference: S6W-32554

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 8 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Scottish Renewables regarding the draft Scottish Budget 2025-26.

Question reference: S6W-32580

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the long-term viability of the Caledonian Sleeper as a public service obligation.

Question reference: S6W-32558

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people are currently eligible for free rail travel as a result of being a (a) ScotRail employee, (b) partner of a ScotRail employee and (c) dependant of a ScotRail employee.

Financial year marking applied	No Further Action cases
2019-2020	17,734
2020-2021	16,437
2021-2022	23,581
2022-2023	24,585
2023-2024	28,462