- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many (a) plastic, (b) paper, (c) metal and (d) glass straws (i) it and (ii) its suppliers have procured, and what the average cost of each straw was, in each of the last 10 years.
Answer
Our catering services contractor does not hold data on straws that were purchased prior to 2022. We do not procure plastic straws for use in the catering services, the table below shows the data held for paper and metal straws.
| Paper straws | Metal straws |
| Year | Straws purchased | Average price | Straws purchased | Average price |
| 2022 | 250 | 0.005p | 0 | n/a |
| 2023 | 500 | 0.005p | 20 | 0.78p |
| 2024 | 500 | 0.005p | 0 | n/a |
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many Parliament passes have been reported lost or stolen in each of the last five years.
Answer
The total number of Parliament passes that have been reported as lost or stolen for the last five calendar years are set out below:
- 2020 – 14
- 2021 – 12
- 2022 – 15
- 2023 – 20
- 2024 – 21
These numbers do not include passes that were reported as lost or stolen but were subsequently found.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the total cost has been of maintaining any flags that it owns in each of the last 15 years.
Answer
No cost for maintenance of flags has been incurred in the past 15 years. If a flag is damaged it is replaced with a new one.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many flags it has purchased in each of the last 15 years, and what flags were purchased.
Answer
We do not hold this information.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 27 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on hospitality for visitors to its buildings in each of the last five years.
Answer
The following table summarises the value of hospitality costs on the Scottish Government’s financial reporting system for each of the last 5 full financial years.
2019-20 £s | 2020-21 £s | 2021-22 £s | 2022-23 £s | 2023-24 £s |
578,181 | 90,748 | 82,875 | 234,643 | 258,828 |
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how much has been spent on new and replacement (a) televisions and (b) monitors in each of the last 10 years.
Answer
The information held by our Building Maintenance, Mechanical and Engineering contractor, shows the following spend on TVs via the FM Works Requests budget.
2015-2016 - £1317.60
2016-2017 - £1784.60
2017-2018 - £296
2018-2019 - £6393.88
2019-2020 - £5075.71
2020-2021 - £11,160.00
2021-2022 - £12,133.18
2022-2023 - £6520.20
2023-2024 - £699.56
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what bee disease mitigation measures it has in place.
Answer
The beekeeper takes measures to prevent diseases and pests, maintains the hygiene and safety of the bee colonies and ensures that all disease prevention treatments are provided. This includes checking for notifiable pests and diseases, which if found would be reported to the Honey Bee Health Inspectors.
The beekeeper maintains accurate beekeeping records, carries out hive inspections during the summer months and provides appropriate care and/or preventative maintenance as required.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many flags it owns, and whether it will publish a list of them.
Answer
The Parliament currently owns 180 flags for external and internal use. There is not a published list of which flags we own.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it has conducted a review into the environmental impact of supplying sauce sachets and salt and pepper sachets.
Answer
We consistently monitor and review the use of single-use items throughout the catering services with our contractor, with sauce sachets now only available by request at the till to minimise waste. We have previously tried using pump-style dispensers to reduce the number of sachets, however there were several challenges around stocking, cleaning, and maintenance. We will continue to work with our service provider to identify measures to reduce single-use items across the services where possible.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many desk chairs it has purchased, and what the total cost of this has been, in each of the last five years.
Answer
During the last five years 500 desk chairs have been purchased – these include chairs for Local Offices, Holyrood and Homeworkers (which include the covid years). We cannot provide the costs due to commercial confidentiality.