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: S6W-00665

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 7 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to undertaking a public awareness campaign on maintaining tyre pressure, as a way to improve road safety and reduce microplastic pollution.

The Scottish Government has published a new Road Safety Framework to 2030 (RSF2030). The Framework sets out a vision for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world by 2030 and an ambitious long term goal where no one is seriously injured or killed on our roads by 2050. We will build on what we have already achieved and our new framework will do so through a sharper road safety focus, improved education and evaluation, mode specific targets and stronger connections between national and local levels.

It is the responsibility of The Scottish Government to plan campaign activity based on statistical data and the identification of the most serious risks to people in Scotland. When attending accidents, Police Scotland record contributory factors, being able to select from a list of 78 possible ones and, in 2019 (the last year for which data are available) almost 7,000 instances of these contributory factors were recorded. “Tyres illegal, defective or under-inflated” was recorded on only 14 occasions, and ranked 57 th out of 78.

Therefore, it is unlikely we would consider a dedicated campaign such as you suggest but, we will continue to support Tyresafe’s annual campaign through Road Safety Scotland’s social media channels as well as having occasional background public messages on Traffic Scotland’s Variable Message Signs advising on checking tyre pressure. A 2019 report, “Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic” concluded the most effective mitigation strategies for reducing wear-generated fine particulate matter are: to reduce overall volumes of traffic; reduce speed limits; and promote good driving behaviour, all of which are part of The Scottish Government’s plans to reduce casualties and improve air quality.

Question reference: S6W-00671

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 7 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it gave to the potentially higher rates of microplastic waste from electric vehicles, when setting a date from which the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles will be banned.

The Scottish Government has made a commitment to phase out the need for new petrol or diesel light commercial vehicles in public bodies by 2025; the need for any new petrol or diesel vehicles in public sector fleets by 2030; and the need for new petrol or diesel cars or vans by 2030.

The Scottish Government is aware of the issue of microplastic and other forms of pollution from road vehicles of all kinds. A 2019 report, “Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic” concluded the most effective mitigation strategies for reducing wear-generated fine particulate matter are: to reduce overall volumes of traffic; reduce speed limits; and promote good driving behaviour, all of which are part of our plans to reduce casualties and improve air quality.

Reducing the number and use of vehicles is central to reducing all types of pollution that they generate. The National Transport Strategy promotes walking, cycling, public transport and bike, car and ride sharing in preference to single occupancy car use. In the Climate Change Plan update published in December 2020, the Scottish Government committed to reducing car kilometres by 20% by 2030.

Question reference: S6W-00667

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what funding it has provided to marine plastic pollution monitoring projects since 2016.

Marine Scotland has spent £115,176 since 2016 on monitoring and supporting science of seabed marine plastics, floating surface microplastics and also beach litter citizen science data collected by the Marine Conservation Society volunteers. These costs do not include the vessel costs associated with monitoring marine plastics at sea as this monitoring is carried out using existing surveys.

Marine Scotland has also spent £213,437 since 2018 on monitoring and maintenance of the marine litter sink case study area of Arrochar to better understand the problem and inform future policies.

In addition, Marine Scotland also funded the Scrapbook project, a partnership between Moray Firth Partnership, Civil Air Support and the Marine Conservation Society, spending £123,000 in 2018/19. This aerial photography project identified marine litter sink hot spots around our coastline, providing a baseline for future monitoring and enabling effective, focused clean-up operations. Marine Scotland has taken the outputs of this project and added this data to the National Marine Plan Interactive (NMPi), which is free to access.

Question reference: S6W-00668

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Marine Scotland on the provision of a dedicated research vessel to monitor marine plastic pollution.

Question reference: S6W-00666

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 24 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to establish a baseline for marine plastic pollution monitoring.

Question reference: S6W-00369

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 21 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-33605 by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 December 2020, whether it will provide an update on the work to establish the new Litter Monitoring System, and by what date it expects the system to go live.

Zero Waste Scotland is continuing to work with Keep Scotland Beautiful, Association for Public Service Excellence, Local Authorities, the Improvement Service and SOLACE to implement a new Litter Monitoring System.

Zero Waste Scotland have been have been providing support to Keep Scotland Beautiful to trial the litter monitoring system. Training will begin over the next few months and will allow Local Authorities to use the system. The Local Environment Audit and Management System will continue to be used during this transition and it is expected to be fully replaced by the Litter Monitoring System for 2022-23.

Question reference: S6W-00371

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 17 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-34080 by Roseanna Cunningham on 23 December 2020, whether a decision has been taken on the distribution of the £70 million recycling fund.

The Scottish Government has worked in partnership with COSLA and Zero Waste Scotland to develop arrangements for the fund. More information on the aims, scope and distribution of the fund is available at:

https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/local-authorities/recycling-improvement-fund

Local authorities are urged to apply to the fund, to help drive new innovations and improvements to recycling in their area and across the country.

Question reference: S6O-00054

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the growth of jobs that will support a greener economy.

Question reference: S6W-00370

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-34419 by Ben Macpherson on 3 February 2021, whether its review of the effectiveness of the Guidance on Dog training Aids has been published.

Question reference: S6W-00292

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether support for the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage will continue regardless of any formal support arrangement that ministers agree with the Scottish Green Party.

The Scottish Government supports the development of carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) as a common whole-system decarbonisation infrastructure with the flexibility to adapt over time to play a central role across the decarbonisation strategies of key sectors such as heat, industry and power. A proven technology, there are more than 50 CCUS facilities worldwide, with an estimated combined capture capacity of 96 million tonnes of CO2 per annum.

The Committee on Climate Change describes CCUS as a “necessity, not an option” to achieve net-zero emissions; indeed, the swift development of CCUS as a cornerstone of our energy transition is vital to achieving Scotland’s net zero emissions reduction targets.

Scotland is the most cost-effective place to begin CCUS in the UK, with existing oil and gas infrastructure available to repurpose for CO2 transport and storage. The development of CCUS could offer a range of transition opportunities for Scottish oil and gas firms and domestic supply chain companies.

We are already supporting efforts to deploy CCUS in Scotland, including through our Emerging Energy Technologies Fund, which will provide £80m over the next five years to support the development of CCUS and negative-emissions technologies. We have also provided funding and policy support to the Acorn CCS project in Aberdeenshire, considered the most advanced CCS project in the UK.