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: S6O-00181

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support Scotland’s move to a more circular economy.

Question reference: S6W-02457

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of households (a) participates in local authority provided food waste collections, and (b) has access to food waste collections.

The Scottish Household Survey 2017 shows that there has been a steady increase in the number of people using food waste recycling caddies, rather than throwing food out with general waste. Less than half (48%) of households now dispose of food waste with their general rubbish. The proportion of households making use of local authority-provided food caddies was 55 % in 2017

In response to (b), the duty to segregate food waste in the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 covers approximately 80% of Scotland’s population. The latest figures are from September 2015 and can be found in Zero Waste Scotland’s report: How Much Food Waste Is There in Scotland? , published in 2016, showing that over 1.5 million Scottish households had access to food waste collection.

The upcoming review of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan in addition to the development of a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets will consider improvements to the data collection and monitoring relating to food waste.

Question reference: S6W-02456

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32341 by Roseanna Cunningham on 6 October 2020, what progress has been made in considering the rural exemption for food waste.

The planned consultation on the range of commitments identified in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan has been delayed by a number of factors, including the recent Covid-19 crisis.

We are developing a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets which will inform the development of the new Circular Economy Bill and there will also be further engagement and consultation to shape the Bill’s contents. A review of the rural exemption for food waste will be considered as part of this.

Question reference: S6W-02458

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of households uses local authority provided food waste caddies.

Question reference: S6W-02439

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has undertaken of managing market influenced budgets in local authorities.

The Scottish Government work in partnership with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities to negotiate a financial settlement that ensures local authorities can continue to provide the high quality frontline services that the people of Scotland expect and deserve.

The vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets, including those that are influenced by external markets forces, and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Question reference: S6W-02631

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-31723 by Jeane Freeman on 9 November 2020, whether it will clarify if data on the provision of free personal care for under-65s has continued to be collected throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and, if so, whether it will provide an update on when it expects to publish this data.

Data on the implementation of free personal care to under 65’s, in line with other non-Covid-19 data collections, was temporarily postponed due to the pandemic and redirection of the Scottish Government and Local Authority resources to the pandemic response. The Scottish Government recommenced the collection of data on the implementation of free personal care to under 65’s in August 2021. This data will be collected and quality assured ahead of publication of results in 2022.

Question reference: S6W-02459

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of relevant businesses (a) has access to and (b) participates in separate food waste collections.

Question reference: S6W-02441

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) baseline material input standards have been established for material recovery facilities (MRFs) and (b) improvement in output quality from MRFs has been delivered since 2016.

This information is publically available through the SEPA Recyclate Quality Reporting Tool, which can be accessed here: https://informatics.sepa.org.uk/RecyclateQuality/

The tool presents data from samples taken from material streams entering and exiting material recovery facilities (MFRs). The tool reports the percentage of materials collected that are considered to be ‘target’ materials for recycling.

Question reference: S6W-02443

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what modelling work it has undertaken on any requirement for residual waste treatment capacity in Scotland, and whether it will provide a breakdown of any forecasts since 2016 for such requirements.

In April 2019, we published the Waste Markets Study which assessed the treatment options for Scottish biodegradable municipal waste. The study is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/waste-markets-study-full-report/

We have also commissioned work to assess the residual waste treatment capacity needs up to 2025, in light of our commitment to end the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. This work is ongoing and we will publish it in due course.

Question reference: S6W-02435

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done to model future recycling performance.