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: S4W-03896

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of the funds raised by the proposed public health levy will be spent on projects directly related to reducing harm caused by alcohol and tobacco use.

Question reference: S4W-03885

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 15 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that an independent Scotland could retain membership of the EU without having to adopt the euro and, if so, on what evidence.

An independent Scotland would not be forced into adopting the Euro as a condition for joining the EU. Scotland is currently in the EU and an independent Scotland would continue to be a member of the EU, on exactly the same basis as the rest of the UK.

It is the practice of successive governments, reflected in the Scottish Government Ministerial code and FOI (Scotland) Act 2002, that the fact and legal content of legal advice is not disclosed.

Question reference: S4W-03887

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the proposed public health levy will be (a) in addition to or (b) a replacement for the large business supplement.

Question reference: S4W-03894

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the revenue from the proposed public health levy will be by 2014-15 as a proportion of (a) total retail profits, (b) retail profits by companies liable for it and (c) retail profits in the premises liable for it.

Question reference: S4F-00271

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 14 November 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 November 2011

To ask the First Minister what measures the Scottish Government is taking to tackle female unemployment in light of concerns that women are being disproportionately affected by job losses.

Question reference: S4W-03401

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2011
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 10 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken to address the skills shortage in the oil and gas sector since the publication of the OPITO labour market intelligence survey in March 2011.

Skills is one of the six strategic priorities being addressed by the Oil and Gas Industry Advisory Group co-chaired by the Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism.

The recently established industry led Energy Skills Action Group (ESAG) is developing a cross sectoral approach to addressing the skills needs of the energy sector as a whole. The oil and gas industry is a key priority for the ESAG. OPITO is represented on this group.

Following a request from the ESAG for information on skills needs, the Oil and Gas Industry Advisory Group has agreed to set up a short life working group with a small number of companies from across the industry to focus on increasing the labour supply.

This approach has support from Oil and Gas UK, OPITO, Sub Sea UK, Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Government, and will build on the existing activity already taking place to improve the supply of skilled labour for the sector.

Question reference: S4W-03397

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2011
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 10 November 2011

Question reference: S4W-03398

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2011
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 10 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding it has allocated to Skills Development Scotland for modern apprenticeships in the oil and gas sector for 2011-12.

Question reference: S4W-03184

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2011
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 9 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the expenditure on the (a) Energy Assistance Package, (b) Home Insulation Scheme, (c) Universal Home Insulation Scheme, (d) Central Heating Programme, (e) Warm Deal, (f) Boiler Scrappage Scheme, (g) Energy Saving Scotland Home Loans pilot scheme and (h) any other energy saving or fuel poverty alleviation scheme has been in each year from 2007-08.

The Energy Assistance Package, the Home Insulation Scheme, and the Universal Home Insulation Scheme were not in operation prior to 2009-10. For expenditure on these schemes for 2009-10 and 2010-11, please refer to the answer to question S4W-00775 on 30 June 2011. 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.

In relation to the remaining schemes specified in the question, each has been operational at different times since 2007. Information on expenditure is as follows:

Year (Million)	Central Heating Programme	Warm Deal	Boiler Scrappage Scheme	Home Loans Pilot
2007-08	£48.96	£6.64
2008-09	£51.21	£4.68
2009-10				£1.7
2010-11			£3.1 ⁽²⁾	£0.5

Notes:

1. Where no figures are given, this indicates that the scheme was not operational in that year.

2. This figure is subject to final reconciliation.

In addition to these schemes, the Scottish Government has provided, and continues to provide, funding for a wide range of other programmes and projects which directly or indirectly alleviate fuel poverty and improve energy efficiency. These include core funding for the Energy Saving Scotland Advice Network, to enable them to deliver a range of services to the public to help them save energy, money and carbon emissions; and the Climate Challenge Fund, which supports a variety of community projects.

Other projects funded by the Scottish Government aim to maximise the flow into Scotland of UK-wide sustainable energy investment from the Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT); the Community Energy Programme (CESP) and Feed-in Tariff (FITs). Funding is also provided for the maintenance of the Home Energy Efficiency Database, which assists councils in developing strategies for improving domestic energy efficiency, and for web-based advice services. Funding for these programmes, along with a range of other initiatives (for example, support for private sector landlords and home renewables advice) is summarised under “Other Schemes” in the following table:

Year (Million)	Energy Saving Scotland Advice Centre Network	Climate Challenge Fund (1)	Other Schemes
2007-08	£1.273	Did not operate	£0.704
2008-09	£3.835	£0.778	£1.277
2009-10	£4.03	£3.390	£3.102
2010-11	£4.357	£8.512	£4.923

Note: 1. Many projects funded by the Climate Challenge fund contain multiple strands, for example, as well as promoting energy efficiency, a project may also promote other behavioural change, such as recycling. Figures given include these projects, as well as those which are exclusively aimed at promoting energy efficiency.

Question reference: S4W-03185

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 14 October 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 8 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much energy it estimates has been saved through the (a) Energy Efficiency Commitment, (b) Carbon Emissions Reduction Target and (c) Community Energy Saving Programme in each year from 2007-08.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change had responsibility for the Energy Efficiency Commitment and is responsible for the Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) and Community Energy Saving Programme, both administered by Ofgem.

The CERT contacts at Ofgem can be found at the following link:

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/EnergyEff/Contact/Pages/Contact.aspx.

For your information, the Scottish Government responded to a previous answer to a similar question (S4W-01913) on carbon savings from CERT set out the data available on CERT delivery in Scotland in detail.