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-01878

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-01103 by Michael Matheson on 21 July 2021, who the attendees were at the meeting.

Question reference: S6W-01360

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of (a) its and (b) each of its agencies' vehicle fleet is comprised of zero-emission vehicles, also broken down by what information it has for other public bodies.

The Scottish Government hold central records for its own and Crown Office Procurator Fiscals Service fleets. The proportion of zero-emission vehicles currently operated is provided in the following table.

Organisation	Zero-emission vehicles (%)
Scottish Government (including Transport Scotland)	13
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service	0

The Scottish Government has committed to decarbonising public sector fleet vehicles and has supported the uptake of ultra-low and zero emission vehicles, through initiatives such as the Switched on Fleets programme. No up-to-date information on the public sector fleet is held centrally, but, according to the most recent information available from 2020 over 10% of the cars in the Scottish public sector fleet were ultra-low or zero emission at that time.

Significant additional investment has continued to be made in decarbonising the public sector fleet since 2020 but will not be reflected in these figures.

To help the public sector lead from the front, since 2014 , we’ve invested over £47 million in 3,463 low and zero emission vehicles across the public sector fleet. We will continue to work with public bodies to achieve the decarbonisation of all public fleets in Scotland, beginning by phasing out the need for new petrol and diesel light vehicles by 2025 and the need for all types of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030.

In addition, we have supported trials of zero emission specialist Heavy Goods Vehicles, such as Dundee’s Council’s electric zero emission Refuse Collection Vehicles, alongside other pioneering work with Scottish Enterprise to enable the development and future procurement of a ground breaking prototype zero emission fire engine.

Question reference: S6W-01361

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00671 by Graeme Dey on 7 July 2021, whether it accepts in full the findings of the 2019 report, Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic.

The Scottish Government accepts in full the Air Quality Expert Group's (AQEG) conclusions and recommendations in this report. The AQEG report concludes that the most effective approaches for reducing NEE are to reduce the overall volume of traffic, lower speeds on trunk roads and motorways, and promote driving behaviours which reduce braking and high speed cornering.

The Government's new air quality strategy 'Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 - Towards a Better Place for Everyone', which was published on 15 July 2021, sets out how we intend to address non-exhaust emissions (NEE) from road traffic. Actions include exploring opportunities across traffic management, behaviours and legislation/standards to reduce NEE, and contributing to research into developing a consistent method for measuring NEE.

Other actions in the new air quality strategy, which links closely to the National Transport Strategy, for example further investment in and promotion of active travel and reducing motor vehicle kilometres by 20% by 2030, will also contribute to NEE reductions.

Question reference: S6W-01891

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 12 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of recent reports regarding an increase in dog theft.

The Scottish Government is dismayed by the reported rise in the theft of dogs and would encourage dog owners to report any concerns to Police Scotland, be extremely vigilant, ensure dogs are microchipped, and also report the loss/theft to the microchip database operators to ensure that if anyone attempts to re-register the microchip number, the rightful owner will be informed.

The primary responsibility for the prevention and investigation of theft lies with Police Scotland and the Chief Constable.

The Scottish Government assists Police Scotland by supporting in any legislative requirements they identify as necessary in their efforts to prevent and detect theft. The Microchipping of Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2016 came into force on 29 January 2016, making it a statutory requirement for all dogs over the age of 8 weeks to be identifiable with an implanted microchip which is registered on a database from which Police and local authority officers can request information on owners.

Question reference: S6W-01892

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 12 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on reviewing whether provision should be made for a specific offence of theft of a pet.

The need for a review of the merits of a specific offence of pet theft is written into the recently enacted Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020, to be completed no later than 1 st April 2025. It is the Scottish Government’s intention to review the issue of pet theft in due course as part of the wider review of animal health, welfare and wildlife legislation required by the Act.

Question reference: S6W-02091

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what projects were funded through the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund in 2020-21, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-01238

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the PFI operators for each of the three hospitals where PFI contracts are in place to discuss long-term parking arrangements.

The PFI contracts in place for car parking are held between each of the NHS Boards, NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and NHS Tayside, and the PFI providers. Therefore discussions with the PFI providers are led by NHS Boards, not the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government attended a meeting between NHS Tayside and the Ninewells Hospital PFI car park operator on 16 December 2020. Further discussions have taken place since that date between NHS Tayside and the PFI car park operator. The Scottish Government has not attended meetings between NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lothian and their PFI car park operators.

Question reference: S6W-01239

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much money it estimates has been saved by (a) patients, (b) visitors and (c) staff as a result of the suspension of car park charges at each of the three hospitals where PFI contracts are in place.

Question reference: S6W-01363

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 6 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what impact its policies to encourage fewer car journeys have had on car mileage figures in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Transport Statistics report an increase in car use from 35,362 to 36,747 million vehicle kilometres driven in Scotland between 2016 and 2019. We do not yet have these figures for 2020, which will have been impacted by the Covid-19 restrictions. This happened alongside significant population and economic growth. During this time period, Scotland’s population grew by almost 60,000 and the country’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 3.6% in real terms.

Transport is Scotland’s highest carbon emitting sector, and the largest source of transport emissions is cars. This is why in the Climate Change Plan Update (published December 2020), we committed to reduce car use in Scotland by 20% by 2030. This is monitored as part of the Climate Change Plan monitoring and evaluation framework , which the Scottish Government reports on annually.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to significant uncertainty for transport, with future trends and people’s work and lifestyle choices difficult to forecast at this point in time. Subject to this uncertainty, we will publish a route-map that sets out how we will meet this target by the end of this year. This is a cross-government and sectoral effort – not all the policy levers and answers rest in transport.

The most direct levers on the attractiveness of buying or running a petrol or diesel car – fuel duty and vehicle excise duty – are reserved to the UK Government. Additionally, transport demand derives from other factors – where people live work, learn and access goods and services are all key to their need to travel. Meeting the commitment will involve reducing people’s need to travel with more local access to goods and services, digital connectivity and flexible and remote working approaches.

Question reference: S6W-00670

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of the plastic that was collected for recycling in each of the last five years was subsequently recycled.

We do not hold the data centrally to accurately report the proportion of plastics collected for recycling that are recycled.

Data on the materials processed at Materials Recovery Facilities, from sampling undertaken by SEPA, is available here: Recyclate quality | Scotland's environment web

We are continuing to work with local authorities to support high quality recycling, and taking steps to improve the quality of waste data. We are working with the UK Government, other devolved governments, and agencies such as SEPA, to develop and implement an electronic waste tracking system.