Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-42197

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 10 December 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the next meeting of the Onshore Wind Strategic Leadership Group will be held, and what will be discussed.

Question reference: S6W-42427

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 December 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 5 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the introduction of legislation in England and Wales to ban single-use wet wipes containing plastic, whether it will provide an update on its plans to introduce equivalent legislation in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-41659

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 18 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason no applications for funding from Scotland's Heat Network Fund were successful in 2024.

Scotland’s Heat Network Fund (SHNF) is a demand-led capital grant scheme designed to support the deployment and expansion of zero-emission heat networks across Scotland. All applications are assessed against mandatory criteria to ensure alignment with the Fund objectives, including reducing carbon emissions, tackling fuel poverty, and demonstrating value for money.

In 2024, no new grant awards were made as no applications progressed through the full assessment process to a successful outcome during that period. Heat network development is a complex, multi-stage process, and projects can take considerable time to reach the point where they are ready to apply for, and secure, capital funding. The Fund launched in 2022 with an initial grant drawdown deadline of March 2026.

The Fund has recently been extended, with a grant claim deadline now set for March 2030. This extension will help maintain momentum in the heat network project pipeline, provide confidence to investors and developers, and support continued growth in the skills and supply chains needed to deliver heat networks in Scotland. As a result, the Fund has seen an increase in the number of successful applications in 2025. To date, Scotland’s Heat Network Fund has awarded approximately £14.6 million to seven heat network projects in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-41658

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 18 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the increase in domestic heat pump installations slowed from 27% between 2022-23 to 17% between 2023-24.

Data for the last full calendar year (2024)indicate that 7,355 heat pumps were installed in Scotland, 1061 more than for the last full calendar year. Over 2,500 heat pumps were funded by the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme in 2024.

Numerous factors will affect heat pump installation rates, including consumer demand, installer availability, and electricity load upgrades by district network operators.

We have allocated £1.67bn of funding through our Heat in Buildings schemes this Parliamentary Session, including committed spend of over £840m for energy efficiency and clean heat projects.

The latest delay to UK Government’s Warm Homes Plan means that we lack essential information on its plans to use its reserved powers to make clean heat systems more affordable– we continue to urge the UK Government to provide this clarity as soon as possible.

Question reference: S6W-41747

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 18 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36723 by Fiona Hyslop on 6 May 2025, whether it will provide an update on Scottish Enterprise’s engagement with companies in the electric vehicle and battery processing industries.

Question reference: S6W-41638

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 17 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what specific data the Circular Jobs Tracker, which is discussed in the Draft Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland, will collect; whether this will be made publicly available, and how frequently it will be updated.

The intention is that the Circular Jobs Tracker will utilise data that is publicly available, including, for example from the Scottish Supply-Use Tables

https://www.gov.scot/publications/input-output-latest and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's Waste from All Sources dataset (https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/waste/waste-data/waste-data-reporting/waste-data-for-scotland/).

The Circular Jobs Tracker will be publicly available, and the publishing frequency is yet to be determined.

Question reference: S6W-41635

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 17 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it defines “circular skills”, and what specific competencies will be prioritised in the education and skills reform programme, as discussed in the Draft Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland.

Circular skills involve a range of skills such as repair, reuse, resource recovery and recycling as set out by Zero Waste Scotland on their website: https://cdn.zerowastescotland.org.uk/managed-downloads/mf-t4rmosgz-1729177635d

The Zero Waste Scotland report ‘The Future of Work: Baseline Employment and Skills Pathways for the Circular Economy in Scotland’ explores this in more detail:

https://cdn.zerowastescotland.org.uk/managed-downloads/mf-ta4osdo0-1677494902d

Learning for Sustainability (LfS), which includes sustainable development education, is an entitlement for all our children and young people through the Curriculum for Excellence. Within the Curriculum Improvement Cycle, which is being led by Education Scotland, LfS is highlighted as one of the cross-cutting themes – with production and consumption, climate change and nature being considered.

In the 2025-26 Programme for Government the First Minister confirmed his commitment to introducing a new Scottish Government-led approach to national skills planning, and strengthening regional skills planning, to ensure that post school provision becomes more responsive to Scotland’s strategic skills needs and priorities.

Question reference: S6W-41633

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 17 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to set (a) a timeline and (b) mandatory quotas for circular economy procurement by public bodies.

In line with the Sustainable Procurement Duty in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2014/12/section/9), public bodies are already required to demonstrate in their annual procurement strategies how they will prioritise and take account of climate and circular economy in their procurement activity and report ongoing progress against these commitments in their annual procurement reports.

Scottish Procurement Policy Note 3/2022: Public Procurement – Taking Account of Climate and Circular Economy Considerations clarifies expectations for public bodies with respect to addressing climate and circular economy considerations in procurement activity. The policy note can be accessed on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/public-procurement-taking-account-of-climate-and-circular-economy-considerations-3-2022/

Regulations under section 82 and 82A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act could potentially enhance circular economy opportunities in relation to the procurement of goods, works or services. These powers allow Ministers to make regulations that require contracting authorities to purchase goods with recycled content, recycled or reused products or recyclable products. We have commissioned research to identify potential candidate products for these regulations.

Question reference: S6W-41637

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 17 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the Draft Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland will ensure that lifelong learning and reskilling opportunities will be made accessible to workers in industries transitioning to circular models.

The draft Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland is intended to work within the wider policy context for lifelong learning. The Scottish Government recognises the critical importance of providing the current and future workforce with high-quality lifelong skills, either acquired through new learning or upskilling and reskilling – and the pivotal role this plays in our plans to unlock Scotland’s green economic potential.

In the 2025-26 Programme for Government the First Minister confirmed his commitment to introducing a new Scottish Government-led approach to national skills planning, and strengthening regional skills planning, to ensure that post school provision becomes more responsive to Scotland’s strategic skills needs and priorities.

The new skills planning approach will develop a better understanding of skills needs at national and regional levels, and how we can address them, particularly where solutions lie within the education and skills system.

Question reference: S6W-41634

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 November 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 17 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what international best practice it examined in drawing up the Draft Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland.

Several international circular economy strategies and approaches, in Europe and elsewhere, were considered during the development of the draft Circular Economy Strategy. This included, for example, international evidence such as the European Circular Economy Stakeholder platform to assist with the identification of priority sectors.

In June 2023, Zero Waste Scotland published an insights paper to support the Circular Economy Bill process which provided an overview and analysis of existing circular economy legislation internationally, including where duties had been placed on governments to publish circular economy or similar strategies. The paper is available on the Zero Waste Scotland website at https://cdn.zerowastescotland.org.uk/managed-downloads/mf-mr2nqf3d-1686671844d

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