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-05710

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 March 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what the estimated value of e-commerce sales was in 2014 and 2015.

Question reference: S4O-05504

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what the priorities are for the housing supply budget in 2016-17.

Question reference: S4O-05227

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the condition of the Forth Road Bridge.

Question reference: S4O-04876

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to publish its full analysis of the risk of Office for National Statistics reclassification for universities for the proposed Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Bill.

Question reference: S4W-28315

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide a list of the 20 companies in Scotland with the largest e-commerce sales.

There is no universally accepted definition for e-commerce. For strategic planning purposes, Scottish Enterprise has adopted the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) definition used by the Office for National Statistics and others to define e-commerce. The OECD defines an e-commerce transaction as “the sale or purchase of goods or services, conducted over computer networks by methods specifically designed for the purpose of receiving or placing of orders”. We are not aware of any currently available research that identifies the top 20 companies in Scotland by value of e-commerce sales using this definition.

Question reference: S4W-28313

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether (a) Scottish Enterprise and (b) Scottish Development International has a plan in place to help Scottish companies trade via e-commerce and, if so, whether it is publicly available.

Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International are fully committed to ensuring that e-commerce is incorporated into their wider digital support rather than having a stand-alone plan for e-commerce. This will help to accelerate the adoption of e-commerce across different companies and sectors and ensure that the right investments are made to improve the growth of the Scottish economy.

Recent and current support for e-commerce includes:

Delivery of the two-year E-commerce Scotland Programme of sector briefings and master classes in partnership with ScotlandIS;

Delivery of the E-Commerce Scotland Forum event to over 220 delegates;

Delivery of an international e-commerce workshop at multiple locations around Scotland;

Support of the E-commerce Club’s programme of e-commerce networking events in Scotland;

Development of a dedicated e-commerce theme within the China export programme;

Delivery of the ‘Effective e-Commerce – Reaching New Markets Online’ conference;

Supporting the University of Strathclyde Business School to investigate the feasibility of developing an MSc in e-commerce;

Delivery of bespoke e-commerce and digital marketing advice to around 400 of Scotland's growth companies by ICT Advisors.

Question reference: S4W-28319

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many training courses focused on e-commerce there are in Scotland.

The cross-disciplinary nature of e-commerce means that the many courses in computing, business, marketing and web design will contribute to the skills pool supporting e-commerce. However, the granularity of available data does not allow for the relevance of specific programmes contributing to e-commerce to be confirmed with any certainty. It is also not typical for e-commerce to be demanded by businesses, or supplied by educational institutions, as a standalone discipline. The number of privately run training courses is unknown at this time.

Question reference: S4W-28316

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-20726 by John Swinney on 7 May 2014, whether the methodology for estimating the value of e-commerce sales has since changed.

Question reference: S4W-28314

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the estimated value of e-commerce sales was in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014.

Question reference: S4W-28318

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the estimated value of e-commerce sales by companies account managed by Scottish Enterprise was in each of the last four quarters.

Scottish Enterprise does not include questions about absolute values of online sales in its trends research for account managed companies. However, Scottish Enterprise recently undertook an analysis of account managed companies’ use of IT over a six-month period (October 2014 to March 2015) and the responses suggested that on average, their account managed firms currently conduct 18% of their sales online. They anticipate this to increase to 25% in the next two to three years.