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-40559

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Friday, 19 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 30 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding any potential environmental impact in Scotland, whether it will propose the scheduling of time for a parliamentary debate on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s draft strategy and any proposals to transfer major defence nuclear liabilities, including Vulcan, into the civil nuclear sector in Scotland, in light of the concerns expressed in the Parliament on 11 March 2014 by the then Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment regarding a culture of secrecy at the Ministry of Defence and Vulcan.

The NDAs are currently updating their 5 year strategy to cover the period 2026 to 2031. This is a routine exercise and so we do not intend to propose a parliamentary debate on this issue.

We will consider the requirement for a parliamentary debate on any proposals to transfer major nuclear defence liabilities, including the potential transfer of the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment, near to Caithness, to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) if and when any such formal proposal is received.

Question reference: S6W-40556

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Friday, 19 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 30 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has carried out any risk assessments, regarding any potential environmental and financial impact in Scotland, of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Ministry of Defence civil defence nuclear cooperation programme and any proposals to transfer defence nuclear liabilities, including Vulcan, into the civil sector in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has not carried out any formal risk assessment regarding Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Ministry of Defence (MOD) civil defence co-operation and the proposal to transfer any defence liabilities to the civil sector as no formal proposal to transfer any such liabilities has been presented to us.

We are aware of technical work being conducted by NDA and MOD to evaluate the potential transfer of the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment, near to Caithness, to the NDA when the site reaches the end of its operational life, not expected to be before April 2027, and we will consider the results of this in due course. Under the terms of the Energy Act 2004 any proposal to give the NDA additional responsibilities, including defence liabilities, in Scotland requires agreement from Scottish Ministers and a Designation Direction under the Energy Act 2004 would require to be to be laid in the Scottish Parliament.

Any transfer of Vulcan to the NDA would also require the relevant authorisation under the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018 issued by SEPA and so would be subject to robust independent scrutiny.

Question reference: S6W-40558

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Friday, 19 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 30 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding any potential environmental impact in Scotland, whether it (a) can give and (b) has given the (i) Ministry of Defence and (ii) Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) any mandate to transfer defence nuclear liabilities, including Vulcan, into the civil sector in Scotland.

A) Under the terms of the Energy Act 2004 any proposal to give the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) additional responsibilities in Scotland, including defence liabilities, requires agreement from Scottish Ministers and a Designation Direction under the Energy Act 2004 would require to be laid at the Scottish Parliament.

B) Scottish Ministers have not agreed any transfer of defence liabilities in Scotland from the Ministry of Defence to the NDA as no formal proposal to transfer any such liabilities has been presented to us.

Question reference: S6W-40557

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Friday, 19 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 30 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding any potential environmental impact in Scotland, whether its ministers have been informed of, endorsed or approved any Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Ministry of Defence memoranda of understanding and associated business cases relating to proposals on nuclear liability transfers.

Scottish Government has been informed of a memorandum of understanding and initial business case between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Ministry of Defence (MOD) to carry out technical work to evaluate the potential transfer of the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment, near to Caithness, from the MOD to the NDA when the site reaches the end of its operational life. As this relates to initial work to consider the viability of a potential transfer, Scottish Ministers are not required to endorse or approve this.

Under the terms of the Energy Act 2004 any proposal to give the NDA additional responsibilities, including any defence liabilities, in Scotland requires agreement from Scottish Ministers and a Designation Direction under the Energy Act 2004 would require to be laid at the Scottish Parliament so Scottish Ministers agreement would be required for any transfer. We expect that Vulcan will continue operations until at least April 2027.

Question reference: S6W-40531

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what recent analysis it has carried out of the expenditure of its non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs); what savings have been identified; whether such reviews of NDPBs are currently ongoing and, if so, in what areas it considers saving of a substantial amount might be achieved.

In November 2024, the Scottish Government published a report on public bodies expenditure for 2022-23 (Public bodies expenditure: aggregated data for 2022-23 - gov.scot). The data was supplied by public bodies and indicates that total resource expenditure by public bodies was over £23 billion to deliver a huge range of services, including in Health, Education and Justice. Of this, public bodies spent almost £1.3 billion on running their corporate functions and another £2.3 billion was spent by those corporate functions. Public bodies passed through funding of over £7.6 billion to other organisations, including third and public sector organisations as well as private individuals. An additional £800 million was spent on the Scottish Government's own total operating costs.

This data has been used as a basis to set the savings target in the Public Service Reform (PSR) Strategy to reduce annualised Scottish Government and public body corporate costs by £1 billion over the next five years, representing around 20% of the identified public body corporate and core government operating costs.

We have a range of programmes to improve services that are saving money from corporate expenditure, including the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework, Single Scottish Estate, National Collaborative Procurement, Commercial Value for Money and digital programmes, which are securing cost avoiding and cash releasing savings. We will continue to collect data to enable identification of further opportunities for cost reductions through the removal of duplication and increased efficiency in service delivery.

Question reference: S6O-05000

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the existing conditions and regime, which seek to protect inshore fishing from the impact of any loss of fishing grounds due to the seabed installation of cables for, and construction of, offshore wind installations, require to be reformed in order to provide full compensation for any loss of fishing revenue as a result of having to avoid an area of 0.25 nautical miles from any such cables.

Question reference: S6W-40216

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 24 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, since the inception of (a) the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and (b) the NatureScot guidance regarding the grounds permitted for granting licences, how many (i) applications and (ii) grants have been made for licences to control mountain hares.

Some of the information you have requested – i) the number of licences applications made, and ii) how many licences were granted from 2012 to April 2025 to control mountain hares, is already in the public domain and can be found on NatureScot’s website at:

https://www.nature.scot/doc/freedom-information-request-licences-mountain-hare

The figures from April 2025 to-date are as follows:

Licences granted – 8

Licences Refused – 1

Licences in Progress – 1

Question reference: S6W-40532

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) full- and (b) part-time staff have been employed each year by (i) Cairngorms and (ii) Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, also broken down by (A) area of work employed and (B) pay grade.

Question reference: S6W-40528

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the future of environmental public bodies, in light of reports that the UK Government plans to do similar.

As set out in the letter from the Minister for Public Finance found here Letter from the Minister for Public Finance to the Convener of 23 September 2024, to the Convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, on 23rd September 2024, Scottish Government is working with the environmental public bodies to review both short-medium and long-term reform opportunities. By the end of 2025, the Group will have developed options for future operating models building on a prior programme of short-medium term improvement projects covering estates, digital, data & HR. This reform effort is focused on delivery of the environment strategy outcomes by using Public Service Reform principles as set out in the strategy published on 19 June 2025.

Question reference: S6W-40529

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Independent
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to (a) reform or (b) abolish NatureScot and transfer its functions to local and/or central government.