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-36498

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 23 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it will take to ensure transparency in how extended producer responsibility scheme funding is allocated to local authorities.

PackUK is the scheme administrator for extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR), operating on behalf of the four nations. PackUK is responsible for calculating and distributing local authority payments.

The requirements that PackUK must consider when assessing funding to local authorities are set out in the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024.

In November 2024 indicative payments were shared with local authorities, along with guidance to help local authorities understand how payments have been calculated and allocated. PackUK has also engaged with local authorities through online forums and gathering stakeholder feedback to ensure accuracy of payments. Scottish Local Authorities have been indicatively allocated a total of £160m in 2025-26, out of a total of £1.4bn in pEPR funding across the UK.

Scottish Government officials have continued to work closely with COSLA throughout the development and implementation of pEPR.

Question reference: S6W-36507

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 23 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to producers in sectors such as brewing, who may not be able to absorb extended producer responsibility costs, in light of it not being categorised as a tax.

Extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR) has exemptions to avoid unnecessarily burden on small producers. Producers with an annual turnover less than £2m and 50 tonnes of packaging supplied are exempt from pEPR payments, but are required to report packaging data. This exempts approximately 70% of the UK's smaller producers from paying scheme fees. The four UK nations will keep these thresholds under review.

Question reference: S6W-36609

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32778 by Ivan McKee on 7 January 2025, what the cost would have been in each year since 2016-17 of bringing the Higher Property Rate into line with that in England, broken down by industry sector.

Table 1 presents the estimated gross cost of setting the Higher Property Rate equal to the Standard Multiplier in England, from 2016-2017 until 2020-2021.

The Higher Property Rate in Scotland was 1.3p higher than the Standard Multiplier in England from 2016-2017 until 2018-2019, and 1.2p higher in 2019-2020 and
2021-2022. The Higher Property Rate and the Standard Multiplier in each year are shown in Table 2.

Figures for years from 2021-2022 until 2025-2026 are available in answers to questions S6W-25972 on 18 March 2024, S6W-25588 on 1 March 2024 and
S6W-32778 on 7 January 2025.

In 2016-2017, the threshold for the Standard Multiplier was £18,000, while the threshold for the Higher Property Rate was £51,000. Both thresholds were set to £51,000 from 2017-2018 until 2019-2020. From 2020-2021, the threshold for the Higher Property Rate was increased to £95,000, while the threshold for the Standard Multiplier remained at £51,000.

All figures are gross estimates, and are not adjusted for any relief. Figures are broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

This table is based on the valuation roll as at 1 October 2016, 1 October 2017, 1 October 2018, 1 October 2019, and 1 October 2020.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000, and may not sum due to rounding.

Table 1: Estimated gross cost of reducing the Higher Property Rate to the level of the English Standard Multiplier (£), broken down by property class

Property class	2016-2017 (£)	2017-2018 (£)	2018-2019 (£)	2019-2020 (£)	2020-2021 (£)
Shops	16,118,000	14,275,000	14,139,000	12,898,000	10,783,000
Public houses and restaurants	802,000	881,000	860,000	733,000	390,000
Offices	11,314,000	9,156,000	9,171,000	8,222,000	6,689,000
Hotels	2,072,000	2,824,000	2,886,000	2,686,000	2,334,000
Industrial subjects	11,080,000	11,145,000	11,184,000	10,374,000	8,814,000
Leisure and entertainment	2,262,000	2,292,000	2,310,000	2,126,000	1,848,000
Garages and petrol stations	518,000	538,000	536,000	499,000	351,000
Cultural	458,000	489,000	496,000	494,000	443,000
Sporting subjects	149,000	143,000	139,000	128,000	113,000
Education and training	6,461,000	6,846,000	6,973,000	6,394,000	5,735,000
Public service subjects	3,244,000	3,406,000	3,420,000	3,161,000	2,741,000
Communications	282,000	294,000	378,000	275,000	249,000
Quarries, mines, etc.	215,000	177,000	168,000	151,000	110,000
Petrochemical	1,533,000	1,579,000	1,565,000	1,442,000	1,432,000
Religious	179,000	99,000	102,000	95,000	41,000
Health and medical	2,360,000	2,473,000	2,531,000	2,345,000	2,120,000
Other	941,000	1,221,000	1,244,000	1,136,000	1,098,000
Care facilities	1,070,000	1,048,000	1,075,000	993,000	611,000
Advertising	29,000	44,000	45,000	43,000	34,000
Statutory undertaking	9,275,000	11,952,000	12,096,000	11,195,000	10,953,000
All	70,361,000	70,881,000	71,320,000	65,392,000	56,889,000

Table 2: The Standard Multiplier in England and the Higher Property Rate in Scotland, 2016-2017 to 2020-2021, pence per £1 of rateable value

Rate	2016-2017	2017-2018	2018-2019	2019-2020	2020-2021
Higher Property Rate (Scotland)	51.0	49.2	50.6	51.6	52.4
Standard Multiplier (England)	49.7	47.9	49.3	50.4	51.2
Difference	1.3	1.3	1.3	1.2	1.2

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-36149

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that eligible businesses in the hospitality sector are aware of and can secure the 40% business rates relief in 2025-26.

The Scottish Government has a range of measures to communicate information and raise awareness about the Non-Domestic Rates (NDR) reliefs which are available in 2025-26, including specific relief for the hospitality sector. This includes:

information on the Scottish Government webpages at Non-domestic rates (business rates) - Local government - gov.scot and Non-domestic rates relief - mygov.scot;
a Short Guide to NDR Rates and Reliefs 2025-26 which is issued to a wide range of stakeholder groups including trade representative bodies;
Local Government Finance Circular 4/25 which provides more detailed information for local authorities on NDR reliefs for 2025-26 and is published on Scottish Government webpages; and
regular engagement and dialogue with industry stakeholders and representatives through the consultative sub-group on Non-Domestic Rates, regular roundtable meetings with Ministers and the Scottish Ratepayer Forum. The membership of these groups includes representatives from the Scottish Hospitality Group, UK Hospitality, Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Licensed Trade Association, Scottish Beer and Pub Association, and Night-Time Industries Association.

Local Authorities also publish information on non-domestic rates reliefs, including hospitality relief, on their individual websites.

Question reference: S6W-36152

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it will update the non-domestic rates relief webpage, mygov.scot, to include information on hospitality business rates relief.

Question reference: S6W-36151

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the final date is for eligible businesses in the hospitality sector to apply for 40% business rates relief in 2025-26.

Question reference: S6W-36150

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that local authority areas are informing eligible business of the 40% business rates relief in 2025-26 to properties in the hospitality sector, including grassroots music venues with a capacity of up to 1,500.

Question reference: S6W-35711

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 31 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to amending the regulations governing the location of battery energy storage systems to account for any community safety concerns where developments are close to housing and other public amenities and services, such as schools and parks.

We have no current plans for legislative change regarding battery energy storage systems. Our Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) guides spatial development, sets out national planning policies, designates national developments and highlights regional spatial priorities. It is an integral part of the development plan and so influences planning decisions across Scotland. NPF4 Policy 11 part e) (energy) recognises that potential impacts on communities and individual dwellings, including residential amenity are important considerations in the decision making process and all applications are subject to site specific assessments.

Question reference: S6W-35654

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 28 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34608 by Shona Robison on 11 March 2025, whether it is aware of any policy decisions having an impact on the fiscal burden on local authorities as a result of (a) non-teaching staff in educational services increasing individual staff costs and (b) a requirement for a quantity of non-teaching staff to deliver the same educational service, and, if so, how it has factored any such increased burden into its decision-making regarding (a) any such policies and (b) its policies relating to local government funding.

More frequent and meaningful engagement with COSLA and Councils, in the spirit of the Fiscal Framework with Local Government, was fundamental to the decisions that led to record funding of over £15 billion for Local Authorities in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget.

All new policy or changes to existing policy that have a financial cost for local government are routinely considered through the formal financial governance processes including assessment through the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Officers’ Settlement and Distribution Group prior to political endorsement from Scottish Ministers and COSLA Leaders.

As independent corporate bodies, it is then for individual councils to manage their own budgets and workforce.

Question reference: S6O-04541

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it projects to spend on social security by 2029-30, including how much of this it estimates will arise from Barnett consequential funding.