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-14456

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 its position is on granting access for (a) developers and (b) interest groups to (i) ministers and (ii) senior civil service staff and its officials, and what procedures it has in place to ensure that there is fair and transparent access for all developers and interest groups.

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-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-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-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-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-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.