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 104 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S4W-05977

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 8 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the UK Government’s 5p fuel derogation will apply to hauliers and other companies in Scotland that bulk-buy fuel or whether this is only applicable to forecourt sales.

The UK Government has only made the fuel duty derogation available to sales from forecourts. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth wrote to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 1 March 2012, seeking clarification on the treatment of bulk purchases under the derogation and to emphasise the need for the discount to be made available to all fuel sales made in the areas covered by the scheme including bulk purchases.

The Scottish Government is clear that at a time when fuel costs continue to rise and the broader economic outlook remains challenging, the most effective action the UK Government can take to help many small and medium sized businesses who rely on bulk fuel purchases, is to ensure that the discount applies to all fuel sales.

Question reference: S4O-00699

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what advice it can give to local authorities in the Highlands and Islands region to assist them in achieving sustainable economic growth.

Question reference: S4O-00629

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how it can assist private owners meet the costs of common repairs where councils or housing associations propose significant improvements or repairs to the external fabric of blocks of flats with a proportion of private ownership.

Question reference: S4O-00578

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 19 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of it encouraging pay restraint in the public sector, how it is ensures that employment conditions in its agencies are not eroded.

Although the Scottish Government considers that it is currently necessary to constrain pay settlements where we control pay, our pay policy has always sought to ensure that public sector pay is fair. I do not wish to see this eroded because of the unprecedented budget cuts imposed on us by the UK Government.

As part of the overall framework provided by the government’s pay policy, I am pleased that we are able to extend our position on no compulsory redundancies to 2012-13 pay remits in return for workforce flexibilities. Any changes to the terms and conditions of staff is a matter for individual public bodies, in discussion with staff representatives. The Scottish Government has always sought to work constructively with stakeholders, including trade unions, in developing a pay policy which we believe is right for Scotland and I would expect that, where individual public bodies propose changes to terms and conditions, these will be fair, serve to maintain employment and public services at a time of financial constraint, and will be subject to appropriate consultation.

Question reference: S4O-00468

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it is taking to ensure that the quality of further education is being maintained in rural areas.

Question reference: S4O-00401

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what reassurances it can provide that the quality of rural health services will be maintained, especially in the more remote rural areas of the Highlands and Islands region.

Question reference: S4O-00313

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what it is doing to raise the educational attainment level of young people in rural areas.

Question reference: S4O-00201

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to combat unemployment in the Highlands and Islands.

The Scottish Government is supporting partners in Highlands and Islands to identify opportunities to boost employment and seek solutions to counter local unemployment.

In line with the refreshed Government Economic Strategy (GES) published last week, we continue to support partnership developments across the region to better align skills and employability services and focus partners’ activities on employability-related challenges and opportunities.

This activity is supported by Scottish Government funding, including a total of £51.6 million ESF (European Structural Funds) and ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) funding allocated since the start of the current European Programme to support people into work or help those who are already in work to sustain their employment in these challenging times.

Question reference: S4O-00216

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to speed up the application process for the Scotland Rural Development Programme.

Question reference: S4W-01276

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 1 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it is assisting and supporting the restoration of Castle Tioram.

The owner of Castle Tioram, Mr Brown, has had talks with Historic Scotland to outline his plans to make the castle habitable once more.

It is very early in the process and any proposed works will require scheduled monument consent and will be assessed in line with the Scottish Historic Environment Policy. I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-36642 on 28 October 2010, as I explained to Mary Scanlon MSP, Scottish ministers are keen to ensure that this nationally important monument does not deteriorate.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.