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: S4O-03324

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made on developing the tidal energy sector and creating electricity connections to the islands.

This government is determined to make the most of Scotland’s extraordinary tidal stream resource. We are leading the world in the development of marine energy technologies and will do all we can to maintain that lead.

We are working hard with the enterprise agencies to facilitate the progress of the commercial tidal arrays planned for Scottish waters. We have consented MeyGen’s 86MW tidal stream array; provided £2.8 million for innovative projects designed to reduce the costs and risks of the first arrays; offered £3 million for a ‘Marine Farm Accelerator’ to tackle common industry challenges; and Scottish Enterprise has launched a third round of WATERS research and development funding worth £6 million, to further develop wave and tidal energy prototypes.

On islands transmission links, Mr Ewing and the island council leaders have impressed on Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey the need to resolve some of the uncertainty about future support for the islands in its electricity market reform proposals.

The Scottish Islands Renewable Project Grid Access Study published on 28 April 2014 has highlighted further possible ways to overcome the barriers to grid access. The Scottish and UK Governments will establish a delivery forum to overcome these challenges.

Question reference: S4O-03330

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to increase community involvement in the pharmacy application process in remote areas.

Question reference: S4W-21061

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in relation to permitted development rights on battlefields.

The Scottish Government is already taking steps to ensure planning authorities protect, conserve and where appropriate seek to enhance, the key landscape characteristics and special qualities of sites on the current inventory of historic battlefields which includes Culloden.

Last year we consulted on proposals as part of our draft planning policy to reflect recent legislation around the protection and management of battlefields and we will publish the finalised policy in June 2014. We will also amend the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992 to remove the current permitted development rights from agricultural and forestry buildings to ensure that planning applications are required for any new buildings on designated battlefields.

Question reference: S4O-03167

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the impact of the so-called bareboat tax on the North Sea oil and gas industry.

Question reference: S4O-03144

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the UK’s 4.2% share of energy from renewable sources that was published in a recent paper by Eurostat.

Question reference: S4W-20447

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 10 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how long on average each local authority in the Highlands and Islands region has taken to process a building warrant completion certificate application in each of the last five years; how many applications each has processed; how many have taken over (a) one and (b) two months to process, and how these figures compare with the Scottish average.

Question reference: S4W-20444

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 10 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how long on average each local authority in the Highlands and Islands region has taken to process a building warrant application in each of the last five years; how many applications each has processed; how many have taken over (a) one and (b) two months to process, and how these figures compare with the Scottish average.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. From 2005, local authorities’ verification performance has been measured under a balanced scorecard framework. This required them to have in place a customer charter that included measurable performance targets.

Building on the previous approach, a revised performance framework for local authority verifiers was introduced in May 2012. The objectives include improving processing times, driving consistency, and enhancing the customer experience. The Scottish Government intends to publish a report in the autumn on the first full reporting year (April 2013 – March 2014) of the performance framework.

Local authority balanced scorecards from 2006-7 to 2012-13 can be viewed at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Building/Building-standards/publications/publa.

Question reference: S4O-03087

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on Ofgem’s announcement that it will delay the implementation of grid charging reforms.

Question reference: S4W-19581

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on its energy strategy of a further delay in the implementation of Project TransmiT and when it expects the project to be completed.

Project TransmiT, on-going since 2010, has been a long and exhaustive review of the existing charging regime that is applied to electricity generators for use of the transmission system. It is a regime that discriminates against Scottish generators and is acting as a barrier to our transition to a low carbon economy. This is illustrated by the fact that, for example, Luichart Hydro near Dingwall pays around 10 times more per unit of installed generating capacity than Sizewell B nuclear power station in Suffolk.

The recent announcement by Ofgem that the conclusion of TransmiT would be delayed even further is causing continued uncertainty for the industry. It also means that Scottish generators will face at least one more year of discriminatory charges.

Scottish Ministers have repeatedly called on Ofgem to deliver a timely solution from this lengthy and robust process. Whilst the final set of proposals fall short of removing discriminatory charges and finding a solution for future island and high voltage direct current cable network upgrades, they are an improvement to the current regime and have been forecast to offer long-term consumer benefits. A final decision is now expected in March 2014, with any changes not likely to take effect until April 2015 at the earliest.

We are especially concerned that even higher transmission charges will create, for marine energy generators in the Western and Northern Isles, an unfair and potentially critical additional hurdle to the progress of wave and tidal energy on these islands.

Question reference: S4O-02971

Asked by: Mike MacKenzie, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what the latest figures are for crimes involving the handling of offensive weapons.