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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 3596 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S4W-13546

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 08 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 20 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-13004 by Fergus Ewing on 5 March 2013, what proportion of the progress toward a cumulative benefit to gross value added of £7.1 billion it attributes to the National Renewables Infrastructure Fund.

Question reference: S4W-13547

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 08 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 20 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-13005 by Fergus Ewing on 5 March 2013, how it assesses the economic impact of a project prior to receiving investment from the National Renewables Infrastructure Fund and what assessment it made for each project that the fund has supported.

Question reference: S4W-13556

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 08 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 20 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what changes there have been to the expected spending profile of the Renewable Energy Investment Fund as a result of the Budget (Scotland) (No.2) Bill, passed on 6 February 2013.

Question reference: S4W-13549

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 08 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 20 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-12998 by Fergus Ewing on 5 March 2013, how much private sector investment has been leveraged into the wider renewables industry through projects supported by the National Renewables Infrastructure Fund at (a) Port of Dundee, (b) Port of Leith, (c) Rosyth, (d) Methil, (e) Hunterston, (f) Inchgreen, (g) Westway, (h) Kishorn, (i) Arnish, (j) Machrihanish, (k) Nigg, (l) Wick, (m) Scrabster and (n) Mallaig.

In terms of the wider picture of investment into the renewables industry more generally Scottish Renewables have recently published an assessment of investment into renewables in 2011. This is based on the capacity installed in each technology multiplied by estimates of capital cost per Mega Watt. Their analysis shows projects with a total capital cost of £757.2 million were commissioned in 2011. Similar analysis for the first nine months of 2012, shows that this exceeded over £1.3 billion.

Scottish Renewables also undertook more detailed assessment of investment into offshore wind and this research shows that £164.5 million has been invested in the Scottish economy by the six companies currently developing offshore wind projects in the Scottish Renewable Energy Zone with more than one third of this investment (£63.66 million) delivered in 2012.

Question reference: S4O-01930

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many adults in the NHS Orkney area are on a waiting list to be registered with a NHS dentist.

Question reference: S4W-13323

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what average (a) amount of electricity is produced and (b) number of homes and businesses are heated by each district heating scheme.

Question reference: S4W-13322

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government for how many homes on average each district heating scheme provides electricity and heat.

District heating schemes provide the infrastructure to supply heat from a range of sources. The source can be heat only or can be a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant which also generates electricity.

There is also a wide variety of district heating models, with the largest number being small-scale networks in rural areas, mainly heat only networks using woodfuel. A small number of large systems supply much larger numbers of properties, typically using heat from produced by gas-fired CHP plants.

I would therefore suggest it is more helpful to refer to typical examples of the different models:

typical examples of smaller-scale district heating supply a few buildings up to a few hundred properties with heat. Many are woodfuelled heat only systems such as on farms and estates (case studies are available from the Usewoodfuel website www.usewoodfuel.co.uk/using-woodfuel/case-studies/woodfuel-in-practice-farms-and-estates.aspx) or social housing schemes such as Albyn Housing’s Aviemore North scheme (www.usewoodfuel.co.uk/using-woodfuel/case-studies/starnewstar-albyn-housing-society-district-heating.aspx).

typical examples of large-scale district heating are networks supplied by gas-fired CHP such as Aberdeen Heat & Power’s district heating scheme (www.aberdeenheatandpower.co.uk) and the University of Edinburgh’s campus networks, or by Energy from Waste CHP in Shetland (www.sheap-ltd.co.uk).

Question reference: S4W-13334

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many and what percentage of businesses are not connected to the national electricity grid.

Question reference: S4W-13002

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 08 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will investigate why demand for financial support from the National Renewables Infrastructure Fund has been lower than expected.

The offshore wind industry has enormous potential, and to realise this potential it is essential that investors have confidence. The proposals outlined to date in the UK Energy Bill and Electricity Market Reform programme lack the measures to give investors the confidence beyond 2020.

To deliver market certainty and maintain investor confidence, it is crucial that the UK Government progress the Electricity Market Reform programme to give investment clarity and assurance to the energy sector. The UK Government must also make clear their ongoing support for the offshore wind sector and emulate the Scottish Government’s approach by setting a 2030 electricity decarbonisation target now, not in 2016 as planned under the UK Energy Bill.

Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are working closely with port owners and industry partners to progress the expressions of interest received under the National Renewables Infrastructure Fund programme.

Question reference: S4W-13336

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many combined heat and power plants there are and what each plant’s (a) daily and (b) annual output is.