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: S5W-14452

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 23 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many times (a) ministers and (b) officials have met with representatives of the United States developer, Todd Warnock, regarding the proposed golf links development at Dornoch.

Question reference: S5W-14457

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 23 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with the local community regarding the proposed golf links development at Dornoch.

Question reference: S5W-14287

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 23 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are in place to ensure that users of British Sign Language have a qualified interpreter during healthcare appointments.

The Charter of Patient Rights and Responsibilities clearly sets out what everyone can expect when they use NHS Scotland services and receive care. This includes the right to be given the information they need in a way they can understand.

Under the Equality Act 2010, NHS Scotland is required, to provide translation and interpreting services and written material wherever possible and reasonable. All NHS Boards have a published accessibility policy and arrangements in place to support such needs. The responsibility for compliance with legislation is a specific responsibility of individual NHS Boards. The Scottish Government’s commitment is to help NHS Boards understand the legal requirements and to encourage the practical steps that NHS Boards must take to comply with the law.

We are committed to making Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work and visit and our first BSL National Plan sets out 70 actions which we will deliver to help us make progress towards this goal. The BSL National Plan covers the Scottish Government and around 50 national public bodies including regional NHS boards. Regional NHS Boards are required by the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 to consult with BSL users and publish their own BSL plans by October 2018.

Question reference: S5W-14284

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many ScotRail trains have skipped stops in the last year; how this compares to previous years; which stations are most frequently skipped; how many times trains have failed to stop at these stations in the last year; at what times of the day skipped stops normally occur, and what action it is taking to reduce the number of skipped stops.

In terms of how many ScotRail trains have skipped stops in the last year and in previous years, the situation is as follows:

Year/period	Services skip-stopped %
2015-16	0.40%
2016-17	0.58%

2017-18, to period 10 (rolling annual total)	0.78%

These figures clearly show that performance must improve and this is why the ScotRail Alliance has recently appointed a railway industry expert to undertake an independent review of train service performance and propose steps for improvement, and aim to reduce the number of incidents of skip-stopping.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on which stations are most frequently skipped; or the number of times they have been skipped; or the times of the day in which skipped stops normally occur.

Question reference: S5W-14338

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 02 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will cost to replace the three-band income tax rates system with the proposed five-band system, and whether there will be any additional cost to administering the new system.

HMRC estimate total implementation costs of between £20m and £25m for the Scottish Rate of Income Tax, with a further £2.6m for the Scotland Act 2016 income tax powers. These costs are required to implement the income tax powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament in Scotland Acts 2012 and 2016.

HMRC have estimated annual running costs of between £1.5 and £2m if income tax rates and bands were to remain the same as the rest of the UK. A more significant divergence between the rates and bands that apply in Scotland and those applicable in the rest of the UK could increase costs up to a total of £5m.

A more specific cost estimate will be share with Parliament once it has been made available by HMRC.

Question reference: S5W-14352

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 02 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reported incident on the ScotRail Edinburgh to Aberdeen service on 1 February 2018, which involved the evacuation of passengers at Cupar Station due to a fire on the undersection of a 170 Class carriage, whether it will publish a full report of the incident, and whether there are any implications for the rest of the 170 Class stock.

Question reference: S5W-14283

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 21 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-13961 by Humza Yousaf on 30 January 2018, on what date it plans to publish the analysis of responses to the consultation on concessionary travel.

There was a considerable response to our consultation on the National Concessionary Travel Scheme, with over 2,800 members of the public and more than 100 organisations offering their views. We will consider all the views expressed during the consultation process carefully. We are actively working towards the publication of responses, which we expect to be during the course of the next few weeks.

Question reference: S5W-14281

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 20 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-13951 by Fergus Ewing on 29 January 2018, whether the National Basic Payment Scheme loans are funded from the Scottish Government's financial transactions budget; what percentage of this budget has been used for these loans in each year since they were introduced; what other uses there are for this budget, and whether the requirement to establish and continue this loan scheme means that there is less money available for other projects that would otherwise use the financial transactions budget.

Loans for the 2015 and 2016 National Basic Payment Scheme Loans were made in financial year 2016-17. £53.5m or 14.5% of the total financial transactions budget for the year was provided to the Loan Scheme, identified from emerging underspends throughout the financial year prior to Spring Budget revision. Remaining funding for the Scheme was provided via recycled recoveries of LFASS 2015 loans in 2016-17 as well as emerging underspends following Spring Budget revision.

For financial year 2017-18 a net budget of £5m is available to support loans to farmers comprising £70m of financial transactions budget which equates to 16.8% of the total financial transactions budget, offset by capital income budget relating to prior year recoveries, with any additional support required identified from emerging underspends.

Support for loans is provided via the monthly financial management process whereby emerging underspends are directed towards areas which require them.

Any remaining loans will be recovered in 2018-19 and be available to support financial transaction loan activity in 2018-19.

Question reference: S5W-14282

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 20 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-13951 by Fergus Ewing on 29 January 2018, what its position is on Audit Scotland's statement in its document, Common Agricultural Policy Futures programme: further update, issued on 15 June 2017, that funding the National Basic Payment Scheme loan from its financial transactions budget puts this budget "under additional pressure", and what the consequences of this are.

The 2016 Loan Scheme was funded via financial transaction loan recoveries from the LFASS 2015 scheme as well as from emerging underspends identified throughout the financial year.

Financial Transaction and capital support was increased at budget revision which represented the available budgetary provision at that stage of the financial year for the loan scheme.

The further support provided following budget revision was identified via the monthly financial management process whereby emerging underspends were directed towards pressure areas. Additionally, further financial transaction budget allocations as part of Scotland’s Block Grant settlement support this and other government priorities.

As a result of this and active management of requirements across the whole of the Scottish Government, these loans have not led to pressures on the financial transactions budget.

Question reference: S5O-01804

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 February 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the potential environmental impact of developing on the green belt around Aberdeen.