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 1891 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-32584

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 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the average ticket price currently is for passengers on Caledonian Sleeper services, and how this compares with the average subsidy per passenger.

Question reference: S6W-32603

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to provide financial support to manufacturers to develop decarbonisation technologies for Scotland’s railways.

The Rail Cluster Builder is a specific example of Scottish Government supporting manufacturers to develop decarbonisation technologies. Funded by Scottish Enterprise, Transport Scotland and Skills Development Scotland, the Rail Cluster Builder Phase 2 is a three-year project building on the momentum of Phase 1, giving opportunities for Scottish SMEs to bring new ideas, new thinking and learning from other industries across Scotland into the railway sector and helping to create innovative, green solutions that will support our net zero targets.

A key element of Phase 2 is ensuring that businesses have access to support to address the skills related challenges faced by organisations in the rail sector. Skills Development Scotland provide support to companies to identify their skills needs and how to develop their existing workforce in order to build capacity, grasp opportunities and increase competitiveness.

Question reference: S6W-32576

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 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many passengers have used the Caledonian Sleeper in each of the last five years, and what the corresponding subsidy per passenger was.

Question reference: S6W-32348

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the cost is of replacing a light (a) bulb and (b) fixture in the Parliament canteen.

The general maintenance of lighting is included within the building maintenance contract and only additional maintenance spends are on parts or replacements if they fail. The cost of bulb varies from fitting to fitting and is sourced through a wholesaler by the current contractor for best value at time of purchase. Both types of fittings in the canteen are original and bespoke to the Parliament. To date no fitting/fixture has been replaced in this area and there are no plans to. Therefore, no cost of fitting/fixture for either is known.

Question reference: S6W-32629

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it will balance investment in large-scale flood protection schemes with property-level flood resilience measures.

The National Flood Resilience Strategy commits to review available flooding budgets to assess how a proportion of flood funding can be directed to support a broader range of flood actions - including smaller flood protection schemes and property level flood resilience.

The Strategy recognises that in order to balance flood resilience actions across a range of locations, communities and situations it will be necessary to understand in more depth relative benefits. The Scottish Government is working with COSLA and local authorities to reform flood resilience funding and governance to maximise benefit to communities.

Question reference: S6W-32347

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how much (a) honey and (b) wax was harvested from the Parliament's bees in each year of the last five years.

In the last 5 years, from January 2020 – January 2025, 144 jars of honey have been received and sold in the Parliament shop, each weighing 227g. The shop was completely closed from March 2020 – April 2022 and no honey was received or sold in that period. No honey was received in 2023.

The beeswax isn’t harvested by the Parliament, it remains the property of our beekeepers, and therefore, we do not have the cost information. The beeswax is harvested by the beekeepers who provide the wax for the Great Seal of Scotland under a separate contract.

Question reference: S6W-32596

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 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the reported decision to delay the decarbonisation of the railway network will impact Scotland’s wider climate targets for 2045.

Question reference: S6W-32346

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the total repair and maintenance cost for the Parliament building was in (a) 2024 and (b) each of the last five years.

Building maintenance of the site is carried out through two separate contracts. Noted below is both the planned and reactive/repair maintenance costs for the last 5 years for each contract. Overall total for both contracts being £8,117,010.95 excluding VAT.

Building Maintenance

Planned Reactive/Repair

2019/20	£654,720	2019/20	£117,319.60
2020/21	£793,088	2020/21	£31,644.30
2021/22	£803,292	2021/22	£39,611.92
2022/23	£851,724	2022/23	£34,639.00
2023/24	£948,231	2023/24	£56,423.41

High Level Maintenance

Planned Reactive/Repair

2019/20	£692,913	2019/20	£20,906.15
2020/21	£710,180	2020/21	£15,120.41
2021/22	£720,441	2021/22	£17,300.00
2022/23	£764,075	2022/23	£15,799.16
2023/24	£829,583	2023/24	£17,254.74

Question reference: S6W-32631

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it will address the funding gaps identified in the Flood Resilience Strategy to ensure timely implementation.

The National Flood Resilience Strategy sets out a long-term vision for a flood resilient Scotland through to 2045, this will continue to require significant public and private investment.

Scottish Government already provides substantial funding to support flood resilience. Since 2008, the Scottish Government has made available £42 million per year to local authorities to invest in flood risk management actions and the 2020 Programme for Government committed an additional £150 million over the course of this Parliament for flood risk management actions. In addition, £15 million has been provided in the draft 2025-2026 Scottish Budget to support the delivery of the Strategy’s actions, wider flooding resilience and coastal adaptation work.

The Strategy will be delivered via an implementation plan which will be developed with partners over the coming months.

Question reference: S6W-32345

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the total cost was of the recent replacement of the heating and window control systems in MSP offices in the Parliament building.

The works referred to in your question is part of an existing project to upgrade the Parliament’s Building and Energy Management System (BEMS). The BEMS is a business-critical tool which provides visibility and control of building services, principally the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and domestic hot water systems in all areas of the Holyrood site. The new BEMS replaces an existing system which was installed 20 years ago and at end of life.

The estimated total value for the BEMS project is £3,900,000. This information is published on the Scottish Parliaments Contracts Register under the contract reference NIC-SER-486 at the following link - Contract register | Scottish Parliament Website.