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: S4O-01722

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to encourage new business start-ups.

Question reference: S4O-01692

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 January 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what training is given to teachers to help pupils with additional support needs.

Question reference: S4O-01668

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what its plans are for Shambellie House and grounds in the event of the National Museums of Scotland confirming its decision to close the National Museum of Costume.

Question reference: S4W-11668

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 18 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding from the Rural Priorities scheme has been allocated to each Regional Proposal Assessment Committee region in each year since 2007, broken down by axis.

Funds are not allocated to the Regional Priority Assessment Committee (RPAC) regions, rather the RPACs themselves recommend projects to be allocated funds. This is done based on the score that each project has been judged fit to receive by the individual case officers based on a set criteria.

The threshold score that projects need to achieve to be recommended for funding by the RPACs is guided by the National Priority Assessment Committee (NPAC) who agree a threshold score based on the number of projects received, the total amount of funding being sought by those projects and how much funding remains.

The breakdown of funds awarded by the regions per year and by axis is as follows based on agreed contracts, (the current SRDP only commenced in 2008 and any approvals in 2008 are included in 2009 as contracts were issued in that year):

RPAC Region	Axis	2009	2010	2011	2012
Argyll	1	£992,831.66	£842,723.05	£1,031,020.81	£513,896.50
	2	£12,801,051.49	£6,258,090.31	£6,597,236.67	£ 4,574,166.54
	3	£2,405,849.48	£999,837.07	£483,248.26	£299,841.50
Ayrshire	1	£3,906,694.49	£4,508,143.90	£5,972,853.74	£3,865,290.12
	2	£4,095,519.66	£2,658,558.72	£3,604,107.47	£2,925,101.67
	3	£1,082,416.45	£883,048.20	£2,525,976.41	£153,871.50
Borders	1	£2,316,594.53	£4,357,512.26	£1,894,203.24	£1,381,373.03
	2	£14,093,441.76	£14,055,390.79	£5,565,436.65	£4,871,578.65
	3	£3,043,464.03	£2,062,801.41	£1,414,385.76	£523,846.19
Clyde Valley	1	£1,614,633.21	£4,408,907.58	£2,417,794.59	£2,831,201.88
	2	£2,686,104.79	£3,983,691.58	£2,114,302.30	£1,981,354.35
	3	£377,069.61	£1,209,926.47	£389,374.67	£207,994.63
Dumfries & Galloway	1	£13,038,255.33	£14,338,699.57	£10,593,005.97	£5,641,888.00
	2	£11,240,978.33	£9,951,260.64	£5,043,267.64	£3,601,209.98
	3	£1,532,497.35	£695,863.67	£1,308,488.73	£81,217.25
Forth	1	£3,880,309.92	£4,978,286.13	£3,555,561.11	£478,826.85
	2	£5,920,164.28	£7,076,829.87	£3,901,569.50	£3,031,125.66
	3	£3,780,914.87	£5,227,978.62	£992,386.66	£2,592,359.88
Grampian	1	£12,082,793.78	£5,881,136.34	£2,783,623.01	£460,324.87
	2	£33,397,902.93	£24,384,431.73	£12,156,432.66	£8,614,982.56
	3	£3,751,362.35	£2,578,004.67	£315,404.11	£500,637.13
Highland	1	£3,249,431.32	£5,241,960.85	£1,458,423.81	£449,615.41
	2	£24,723,935.52	£28,825,022.50	£19,812,169.81	£19,196,589.55
	3	£5,777,945.63	£3,876,302.89	£2,310,317.95	£1,029,851.94
Northern Isles	1	£1,900,888.49	£2,014,080.86	£1,205,995.74	£890,192.27
	2	£9,056,969.02	£3,830,848.96	£3,537,276.49	£2,287,185.62
	3	£3,771,902.15	£2,696,784.90	£186,976.46
Outer Hebrides	1	£46,897.80	£18,921.00	£6,498.21
	2	£2,857,168.29	£1,395,023.22	£2,647,865.65	£3,653,288.35
	3	£474,059.06	£1,458,591.67	£266,921.83	£145,194.50
Tayside	1	£9,108,190.55	£5,197,583.22	£3,354,578.19	£612,461.05
	2	£6,275,693.38	£6,711,851.14	£6,253,524.71	£4,150,172.14
	3	£3,610,624.50	£1,613,894.80	£2,383,434.69	£663,638.56

Question reference: S4W-11416

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 4 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the usefulness of Scottish Natural Heritage’s Natural Heritage Indicator N3, Visual influence of built development and land use change, in establishing a baseline of protected landscapes with the aim of ensuring adequate protection for the natural heritage.

This indicator shows the theoretical visibility of built development on land and at sea. As such it is useful as one measure of change in human influence across all of Scotland’s landscapes. It does not focus on protected landscapes.

Protection for the natural heritage is provided by a range of international, national and local designations. More information on these can be found on the Scottish Natural Heritage website under “Protected Areas”.

http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/protected-areas/.

Question reference: S4W-11410

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 4 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has sought an update of Scottish Natural Heritage's Natural Heritage Indicator N3, Visual influence of built development and land use change, last produced in June 2010, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

Question reference: S4W-11417

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government when Scottish Natural Heritage will publish its phase 2 wild land mapping exercise, which was to have been published in the spring of 2012.

Question reference: S4W-10643

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 28 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish its cost-benefit analysis of wind energy.

Support for wind generation and all other eligible renewable technologies are delivered through the Renewables Obligation (RO) legislation. The support levels vary between those technologies, and are based on detailed assessments of their costs and deployment potential. We estimate that the RO currently adds between £15-20 per annum to domestic electricity bills.

Following our recent review, our analysis of the consultation responses led us to conclude that a reduction of 10% in the rate of support for onshore wind under the Renewables Obligation was appropriate. This decision was also reached by the UK Government after we announced our intention to reduce the level of support for onshore wind by 10% with effect from April 2013.

Industry surveys suggest that the renewables sector, comprising onshore wind development as well as a host of other technologies, currently supports around 11,000 jobs across Scotland.

Question reference: S4O-01549

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government when it will be in a position to confirm which company will be responsible for trunk road maintenance in south west Scotland for the next contract period.

Question reference: S4W-10948

Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 15 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many shared equity purchases have been made through its Open Market Shared Equity Scheme in (a) remote and (b) accessible rural areas, broken down by local authority area.

<>The Scottish Government does not hold this data centrally. However, I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-08694 on 9 August 2012, as it contains the number of completions for the Scottish Government’s shared equity schemes by local authority area over the past three years. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.