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: S2W-12883

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings have been held between representatives of independent grocery retail groups and ministers in the last two years; which groups were involved; when any such meetings were held; what issues were discussed, and what the outcomes were.

Question reference: S2W-13039

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Sustainable Scotland plans to give further consideration to "a zero based approach and supporting more locally based solutions" with regard to waste indicators, as noted in the report of its meeting on 5 October 2004.

Question reference: S2W-13038

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made towards meeting each waste indicator target.

There are three sustainable development indicators relating to waste: the amount of municipal waste arisings, the recycling rate for household waste and the amount of biodegradable municipal waste landfilled.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s (SEPA) Local Authority Waste Arisings Survey for 2003-04 is currently being published. Results are available on the SEPA website at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/nws/data/local.htm.

So far as municipal waste arisings are concerned, the SEPA data shows that around 3.32 million tonnes of municipal waste was produced in 2003-04. This is slightly less than the 3.35 million tonnes produced in 2002-03.

In relation to the recycling rate for household waste, the SEPA figures for 2003-04 indicate that 12.8% of household waste was recycled. Comparable figures from SEPA are not available for 2002-03 but figures from Audit Scotland showed that 10.1% of household waste was recycled in 2002-03

In relation to the amount of biodegradable municipal waste landfilled, SEPA figures indicate that around 1.8 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste was landfilled in 2003-04, similar to that landfilled in the previous two years.

SEPA are currently working with local authorities to produce quarterly returns on municipal waste. These will be published once the data has been validated.

Question reference: S2W-12882

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 21 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings have been held between representatives of supermarkets and ministers in the last two years; when any such meetings were held; which supermarkets were involved; what issues were discussed, and what the outcomes were.

Question reference: S2W-12881

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 21 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many independent grocery retailers have gone out of business in the last two years and in which areas.

We do not have information on the number of independent grocery retailers that have gone out of business in the last two years. However, the following table reports the number of independent businesses that closed in the grocery retail sector between 2001 and 2003, where a closure is defined as a business no longer appearing on the Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR).

Local Enterprise Company	Number of Enterprises
Argyll, Bute, Arran and the Cumbraes	10
Ayrshire	55
Borders	10
Caithness and Sutherland	10
Dumfries and Galloway	20
Dunbartonshire	15
Fife	40
Forth Valley	40
Glasgow	95
Grampian	55
Inverness and Nairn	0
Lanarkshire	65
Lochaber	0
Lothian and Edinburgh	90
Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey	15
Orkney	5
Renfrewshire	45
Ross and Cromarty	5
Shetland	0
Skye and Lochalsh	5
Tayside	30
Western Isles	5
Total	620

Note that a business may no longer appear on the IDBR if it has ceased trading, been taken over by another business or the turnover of the business has fallen below the VAT threshold and the business has de-registered for VAT.

Question reference: S2W-12785

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 15 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-11453 by Mr Jim Wallace on 10 November 2004, what the (a) output of all hydro schemes was prior to down-rating, (b) estimated output will be following down-rating and whether it will explain the statement that "down-rating does not necessarily mean that output will also reduce".

Information is available only in respect of calendar years. In 2001, the last year before down-rating, the output of all hydro schemes, including pump storage, was 4,258 GWh. The figure for 2002, the last year for which information is available, is 5,077 GWh.

Scottish and Southern Energy decided to down-rate a number of schemes and to use the income subsequently generated from Renewable Obligation Certificates to refurbish existing large hydro stations which might otherwise have ceased operating, thus retaining or increasing total hydro output. Actual total output over a year will of course depend on a number of factors, including the number of hours over which the schemes are operated and rainfall patterns.

Question reference: S2W-12715

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 14 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much carbon is emitted per annum as a result of domestic energy use.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published data on carbon dioxide emissions by final user, which includes an estimate for aggregate emissions attributable to the domestic sector, for the United Kingdom. This data is available on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/globatmos/kf/gakf07.htm.

No separate estimate is available for emissions attributable to domestic energy use in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-12716

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 14 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much energy the domestic sector consumes per annum.

Figures for gas and electricity consumed by domestic customers are given in the following table (in terawatt hours).

Year	2001	2002
Gas consumed by domestic customers	34.4	33.8
Electricity consumed	34.0	34.7

These figures are estimates calculated by the Department of Trade and Industry and published in “Energy Trends” December 2003, see weblink: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/environment/isds04-15.asp.

Question reference: S2W-12714

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 14 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Sustainable Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-12048

Asked by: Shiona Baird, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 19 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive which agency monitors air emissions from road traffic at sites where residential or business properties lie outwith a 10-metre radius of the sites.