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: S5W-22785

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many hectares of brownfield land are available for house building, and how this equates to the capacity for building new homes.

Question reference: S5W-22782

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to support house building and associated infrastructure.

The Scottish Government’s More Homes Scotland approach was launched in March 2016, https://www.gov.scot/policies/more-homes/

This supports house building across all tenures, and through a range of mechanisms including:

50,000 affordable homes target is backed by more than £3.3 billion - a 94% increase on our previous 5-year investment and includes 35,000 social rent;
5 year Housing Infrastructure fund - open to all tenures – through which we’ve committed over £24m across rural and urban areas;
Building Scotland Fund which was launched in 2018 and aims to invest £150 million over 3 years. Investment by the Building Scotland Fund will include support for housing development across all tenures. This is over and above our existing target of 50,000 affordable homes over this Parliament.
£110 million is available for the Help to Buy scheme over two years to March 2021 to help over 4000 more households into home ownership

We also recognise that infrastructure delivery is one of the biggest challenges facing Local Authorities at this time. The Planning Bill includes an enabling power for the introduction of an infrastructure levy to support the provision of infrastructure and services. And, we have established a national infrastructure planning delivery group to consider priorities to embed an ‘infrastructure first’ approach to planning. This group includes representation from the Scottish Government and its agencies, public and private sector infrastructure providers and other key stakeholders in the sector including Homes for Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-22788

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to make (a) public and (b) private land available for house building in areas where there is a housing shortage but where market conditions act against this.

The Scottish Planning Policy states that planning authorities should work with developers, service providers and other partners to ensure a continuing supply of effective land to deliver housing, taking a flexible and realistic approach. Development plan action programmes should set out the actions necessary to bring each site forward for housing.

Planning authorities should actively manage the housing land supply, including through an annual housing land audit to review and monitor the availability of effective housing land. We recently completed research on housing land audits to assess their consistency and compliance and will use this work to inform the review of the National Planning Framework and Scottish Planning Policy, following the Planning Bill.

Ongoing planning reform aims to support the delivery of good quality development. The Planning (Scotland) Bill aims to strengthen development plans, with a greater focus on the delivery of development and includes an enabling power for an infrastructure levy which could be used to help unlock sites for development.

Question reference: S5W-22781

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to support (a) smaller house builders and (b) new entrants to the house building sector to increase the availability of good quality homes, including those that specifically meet the needs of an ageing population.

The Scottish Government is working in partnership with Homes for Scotland on a working group looking specifically at the challenges, potential and opportunities for smaller house builders and new entrants to the new build market. This work, independent of Government, will make recommendations on action that can be taken to support this sector of industry to make a greater contribution.

In the meantime, we have a range of support available, including ring-fenced Small Developer support under our Help to Buy (Scotland) Smaller Developers scheme, the Rural & Islands Housing Funds, the National Self Build Loan Fund as well as providing a lower minimum investment requirement under Scottish Government’s Building Scotland Fund housing criteria for SMEs, recognising the different scales and challenges they face when delivering homes.

In October 2017 Scottish Government shared equity schemes were opened up to provide more opportunities for older people to benefit from them. The requirement for a mortgage for the Help to Buy (Scotland) schemes was removed for applicants aged 60 and over and this age group was added to the list of priority access groups for the Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) and New Supply Shared Equity (NSSE) schemes. The aim of these changes was to allow more opportunities for older people to access more suitable housing for example by downsizing, moving closer to family or to homes that are more suitable to their needs.

Question reference: S5W-22786

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much surplus land is owned by (a) central and (b) local government, and how this equates to the capacity for building new homes.

Question reference: S5W-22577

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many women, following self-administration of misoprostol have, (a) had a haemorrhage, (b) had a blood transfusion, (c) been referred to a mental health practitioner and (d) died since its decision to allow the drug to be self-administered.

The Scottish Ministers’ approval of October 2017 does not relate to self-administration of misoprostol as it only relates to permitting a woman’s home as a class of place where misoprostol can be taken as part of treatment for termination of pregnancy. Most patients already chose to self-administer misoprostol tablets prior to the approval.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of women who have had a haemorrhage, had a blood transfusion or been referred to a mental health practitioner following self-administration of misoprostol.

No women in Scotland have died due to self-administering misoprostol as part of abortion treatment following the decision to allow misoprostol to be taken in a woman’s home.

Question reference: S5W-22576

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 3 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to carry out research into the physical and mental health impact associated with the ingestion of the abortion drug, misoprostol.

Misoprostol is a licenced drug, used for a number of purposes, including treatment of miscarriage and as part of abortion treatment. Its use in medical abortion is recommended by a wide range of expert bodies, including the World Health Organization and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. There is no evidence that misoprostol leads to any increased risks to either the physical or mental health of the patient compared to other forms of abortion treatment.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian are undertaking research on women’s experiences of taking misoprostol at home and the effectiveness of early medical abortion at home. This research will be published in due course.

Question reference: S5O-03215

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the noise surveys of the upgraded section of the M74.

Question reference: S5W-22675

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by James Wolffe QC on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service on the establishment of an MP/MSP email and telephone enquiry point of contact.

The Lord Advocate is the head of the system of prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) fulfils prosecution and investigation functions which fall within the Lord Advocate's responsibility.

Elected representatives may write to the Lord Advocate and Solicitor General at 25 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LA or by emailing them at [email protected] The Law Officers’ Private Office manages correspondence received from elected representatives, ensures that the correspondence is referred to the appropriate COPFS function and, where possible, that a response is issued within 20 working days.

Question reference: S5W-22568

Asked by: Richard Lyle, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken an analysis of the anticipated impact of the forthcoming deposit return scheme on local authority kerbside collections, and whether it will publish the findings of this.