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: S4T-01266

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support those affected by Hawick Knitwear entering administration.

Question reference: S4W-29018

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 6 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in fulfilling commitment (a) 6, (b) 8, (c) 9, (d) 11, (e) 12, (f) 13, (g) 15, (h) 18, (i) 19, (j) 22, (k) 23, (l) 24, (m) 25, (n) 28, (o) 29, (p) 33 and (q) 35 of the Mental Health Strategy for Scotland 2012–2015 and, if the commitment has been achieved, how this was done.

Question reference: S4W-28355

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 26 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to review the Sunday trading laws.

Question reference: S4W-28405

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 24 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support Burgons of Eyemouth and its employees following the recent announcement that a redundancy process will begin and whether it will consider setting up a stakeholders' group to try to prevent closure.

The Scottish Government and its agencies will do everything they can to provide support. The Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Borders Council are already working closely with the company to explore all possible options for the continued use of the site. We are in active discussions with stakeholders in the seafood sector to identify steps that can be taken to develop the sector including for companies such as Burgons. In addition, support for any employees who may be affected by redundancy has been offered through our PACE initiative and a multi-agency redundancy support event will take place within the next few weeks.

Question reference: S4W-27541

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 23 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to improve safety and traffic flow during peak times on the A1 at the junction with the A720.

Question reference: S4W-26894

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost of registering land owned by the public sector has been since December 2014.

Question reference: S4W-26895

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what work has been done to estimate the cost of registering all land owned by the public sector on the Land Register of Scotland by 2019.

There are two areas of cost associated with registration: registration fees and costs incurred by the applicant in preparing their registration application.

Registration fees are set by Scottish Ministers by way of affirmative order in the Scottish Parliament. Fees are charged on an ad valorem basis and with a 25% reduction for applications made on a voluntary basis. Registers of Scotland estimate that voluntary registration fees for the 343,000 public sector titles will be between circa £15.5 million and circa £85 million, depending on a number of factors, most importantly, the value of public sector assets and the number of titles constituting their landholdings.

The costs incurred by an applicant vary considerably and depend on the quality of the records they hold. Organisations which have a digitised, map-based asset register will have low costs; those with a limited understanding of the legal extent of their land holdings will face much higher costs.

Question reference: S4W-26896

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether fees will be charged for keeper-induced registration under the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012.

Question reference: S4W-26892

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done on the costs to homeowners of registering a standard security after 1 April 2016 in cases where the property’s title is on the sasine register.

From 1 April 2016, the General Register of Sasines will be closed to new standard securities. That means that a person who owns land recorded in the sasine register must first voluntarily register their land in the land register so that the standard security can also be registered in that register.

Where a voluntary registration is required to facilitate registration of a new security in this way, no fee will be charged by virtue of article 4(5) of The Registers of Scotland (Voluntary Registration, Amendment of Fees, etc.) Order 2015 (2015 No. 265). The fee for registering the standard security itself remains £60.

Registers of Scotland is working closely with lenders and solicitors who specialise in re-mortgaging work to ensure that the process for registrations of this type is as straightforward as possible in order to keep other costs to homeowners down.

Question reference: S4W-26897

Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains committed to the registration of all land owned by the public sector by 2019 and what percentage of this land has been registered on the Land Register of Scotland since December 2014.

The Scottish Government remains committed to completing the land register by 2024 and the registration of land owned by the public sector by 2019.

As expected, the amount of public land voluntarily registered since December 2014 is small, with nine voluntary registration applications having been received. Public landowners are presently engaged in pre-registration activity and preparing their registration applications. Also, the 25% reduction in registration fee only came into force from 1 July 2015 and applications were not expected to be submitted before then. We expect the level of applications to increase significantly from 2016 onwards.

Registers of Scotland continues to work closely with public landowners to encourage them to voluntarily register their land on the land register by 2019.