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 759 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S4W-13860

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 19 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many people in each year since 2007, with no prior convictions in the previous 10 years, have been given alternatives to prosecution, broken down by alternative.

The information requested is shown in the following table. No information on non-court disposals is held for years before 2008-09.

Disposals received by individuals with no previous court convictions in past 10 years,

2008-09 to 2011-12

Disposal types	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Police Disposals
Anti-social behaviour Fixed Penalty Notice	23,999	29,461	25,758	24,798
Police Formal Adult Warning	5,240	5,827	5,283	5,802
Police Restorative Justice	2,299	2,171	1,658	942
Other Police Warning	70	84	212	2,021
Warning Letter (police/children's report)	2,460	2,032	1,897	1,707
COPFS Disposal
Fiscal Fine	14,299	13,936	13,977	16,322
Fiscal Fixed Penalty Notice (Road Traffic Offences)	12,353	12,443	13,302	13,858
Fiscal Combined Fine and Compensation	507	766	836	1,043
Fiscal Compensation	1,014	1,088	1,015	639
Fiscal Fixed Penalties (Pre-SJR codes)	1,541	214	57	25

1. People who are given more than one disposal in a single financial year will appear on more than one row but will be counted in each disposal once. For example, a person who receives three non-court disposals in 2011-12, two of which are Anti-social Behaviour Fixed Penalty Notices (ASBFPN) and one Police Formal Adult Warning will appear once in the row for ASBFPN and once in Police Formal Adult Warnings.

2. Information on the number of people with no previous convictions marked for social work diversion has not been included as the information cannot be extracted from the database.

3. Number of pre-Summary Justice Reform procurator fiscal fixed penalty codes. It is known that this category contains both fiscal fines and fixed penalties, however it is not possible to separate the numbers of each.

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings Database.

Question reference: S4W-14108

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 April 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the UK Government about upgrading the A1.

Question reference: S4W-14109

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 April 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to upgrade the A1.

Question reference: S4W-13726

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to Scenario 4 in the March 2013 Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin, what (a) assumptions were made and (b) statistical model was used regarding the increasing operating costs and lower profitability that could result.

Question reference: S4W-13725

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what decommissioning costs it assumed in each of the scenarios in the March 2013 Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin.

Question reference: S4W-13723

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how it modelled the (a) future profitability and (b) operating costs of extraction for each of the scenarios in the March 2013 Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin.

<>The Scottish Government’s Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin provides forecasts for oil and gas tax revenue from the “Scottish” portion of the UK Continental Shelf under five scenarios. Further information on the assumptions used in each scenario are provided in the Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin which is available from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0041/00416072.pdf

The analysis was undertaken using projections for future production on the UK Continental Shelf. This was complemented by field level analysis using in-house datasets developed by the Scottish Government and subscriptions to commercial models providing field level information on production, costs, profitability and tax revenue.

Scenario 1 in the Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin is based on the assumptions about future production and prices published in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) December 2012 Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The assumptions about operating costs and profitability in scenario 1 are consistent with those used by the OBR.

The other four scenarios presented in the Bulletin use a range of estimates about future operating costs, capital expenditure and profitability to reflect the impact that different assumptions about future prices and production levels are expected to have on costs in the oil and gas industry. The scenarios assume that as oil prices and production rise, there is a corresponding increase in operation and capital costs. The rise in costs serve to dampen profits and tax revenues relative to that which would have been the case in the absence of these additional cost pressures.

Question reference: S4W-13724

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it modelled extraction rates and operating or other costs for individual field production for all scenarios in the March 2013 Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin and, if so, what field-extraction model it used.

Question reference: S4W-13727

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the effect of higher oil and gas prices on tax revenues in an independent Scotland.

Box 8.02 of the Fiscal Commission Working Group’s First Report provides an assessment of the impact that higher oil and gas prices would have on Scottish tax revenues. The report estimates that a temporary increase of £10 in the price of oil would increase Scottish North Sea revenues by an estimated £2.2 billion. Whilst there are estimated to be reductions in some onshore taxes these are of a relatively smaller magnitude. Consequently, the net impact on Scotland’s public finances would be to reduce borrowing by an estimated £1.9 billion over two years. For the UK as a whole, the report concludes that higher oil prices would increase borrowing, as higher offshore receipts are estimated to be more than offset by a reduction in onshore tax revenues.

The Fiscal Commission Working Group’s First Report is available from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0041/00414291.pdf.

Question reference: S4T-00304

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 15 April 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report, Shaping Scotland's Court Services.

Question reference: S4W-12642

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 28 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many non-UK nationals are employed in the development of wind farms.