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: S6W-05406

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 27 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government to what extent it has explored prototypes for an online registration system, similar to the system paid for and presented to it by former members of its working group on short-term lets.

Question reference: S6O-00712

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to help increase the numbers of allotments and community garden spaces available in Edinburgh.

Question reference: S6W-05270

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what financial support it has provided to local authorities to cover the costs associated with the COVID-19 passport scheme.

The Scottish Government has not provided additional financial support to local authorities specifically relating to the Covid certification scheme.

We are working closely with Local Authorities, the Health and Safety Executive and Police Scotland to ensure that we are taking a joint approach on the enforcement of regulations and wider workplace health measures. We have committed to £2.9m in funding to support Covid related work carried out by Local Authority Environmental Health and Trading Standards Officers to year end 2021-22. We continue to engage with the Local Authorities to understand how this funding is being used to ensure they have the capacity to support businesses to comply with the regulations and guidance, including the Covid status certification requirements. Local authorities are responsible for prioritising enforcement work within their area, and they are doing so using a risk based and 4 Es approach (Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce).

We continue to engage with Local Authorities over this funding, and any potential extensions that may be required.

Question reference: S6W-05410

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the estimated costs are of its proposed legislative process for regulating short-term lets, and how this compares with the previously proposed process that it did not pursue.

The costs associated with The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2021, which we withdrew in February 2021, are set out in the draft Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment published in December 2020.

The costs associated with The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022 are set out in our updated Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment which we published in November 2021.

Question reference: S6W-05418

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on two reported independent economic impact assessments, which stated that, in Scotland, economic activity connected to short-term let and self-catering properties generated over £670 million in annual GVA prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and what data it has to support its position.

Question reference: S6W-05416

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it (a) has considered and (b) will consider using its power of veto on plans to designate all of Edinburgh a short-term let control zone.

Question reference: S6W-05415

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local authorities regarding its plans to regulate short-term lets.

Question reference: S6W-05421

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what role it has planned for VisitScotland regarding the implementation and management of planned short-term let restrictions.

Question reference: S6W-05290

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) individuals and (b) families are living in accommodation that is subject to an Unsuitable Accommodation Order, broken down by local authority area.

Scotland’s strong homelessness rights mean households are placed in temporary accommodation as a legal right, with three quarters of families with children in temporary accommodation housed in social housing. Temporary accommodation should always be a short term option, and local authorities are working hard to ensure people have the appropriate support and move as rapidly as possible into settled accommodation.

The Scottish Government collects information on individual temporary accommodation placements and whether or not they are unsuitable, as defined by the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 2014.

Temporary exceptions were put in place to allow local authorities to provide households with accommodation in response to COVID-19. The legislation noted that a placement was not considered unsuitable if:

a person in the household has symptoms of coronavirus and the household requires to isolate; or
the accommodation is required to provide temporary accommodation to ensure that a distance of 2 metres can be maintained between a member of the household and a person who is not a member of the household; or
the local authority is unable to place the household in suitable accommodation as a result of the impacts of coronavirus on temporary accommodation supply in the area, provided that where a household includes a child or a pregnant woman the household is not placed in unsuitable accommodation for more than 7 days.

(To note: the first two of these were introduced in May 2020 and the third in September 2020.)

It is possible that local authorities applied the COVID-19 exceptions in different ways, which may impact upon comparability in data reporting and the figures in the below table.

A household placed in unsuitable accommodation where an exception did not apply must still be recorded as an unsuitable accommodation placement.

The most recent data available is up to 31 March 2021. The following table shows snapshot data of the number of individuals and households in unsuitable temporary accommodation as at 31 March 2021, defined as above.

In the absence of a definition of ‘families’, this has been taken to mean any household with children.

The Scottish Government collects information on the composition of households making homelessness applications through the HL1 data collection. The HL3 data collection gathers information about temporary accommodation placements connected to homelessness applications.

Therefore, information relating to the number of individuals and household composition of those within temporary accommodation placements has been derived by linking household records between the HL1 and HL3 data collections. However, it is important to note that the household composition included in the HL1 return may not be a true reflection of those who are present in the associated temporary accommodation placement(s). This can be particularly the case for children e.g. where households make alternative arrangements for children when entering temporary accommodation.

Households and individuals in unsuitable temporary accommodation as at 31st March 2021

	Households without children in unsuitable TA		Households with children in unsuitable TA		All households in unsuitable TA
LA	Number of households	Number of individuals	Number of households	Number of individuals	Number of households	Number of individuals
Scotland	95	100	30	90	125	185
Aberdeen City	0	0	0	0	0	0
Aberdeenshire	10	10	<5	5	10	15
Angus	<5	<5	0	0	<5	<5
Argyll & Bute	0	0	0	0	0	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries & Galloway	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dundee City	0	0	<5	5	<5	5
East Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	<5	<5	<5	<5
East Lothian	50	50	<5	<5	50	50
East Renfrewshire	<5	<5	<5	<5	<5	5
Edinburgh	<5	<5	<5	10	<5	10
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0	0
Falkirk	0	0	0	0	0	0
Fife	<5	<5	0	0	<5	<5
Glasgow City	<5	<5	10	35	10	35
Highland	30	30	<5	10	35	40
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	0	0	0
Moray	0	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0
Perth & Kinross	0	0	0	0	0	0
Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
Stirling	0	0	<5	15	<5	15
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	0	0
West Lothian	0	0	<5	<5	<5	<5

Source: HL1 & HL3

Note 1: The number of individuals refers to the number of adults and children in the household
‎ Note 2: Figures have been rounded to the nearest 5 for confidentiality purposes. Values of 1, 2, 3 or 4 are denoted by ‘<5’.

Question reference: S6W-05407

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what impact it expects new regulations on short-term lets to have on (a) the supply of affordable homes and (b) tackling Scotland’s reported housing crisis.

Our regulatory proposals will give local authorities powers to strike a balance between the needs and concerns of their local communities, with the wider economic and tourism benefits of short-term lets. In certain areas, achieving this balance may require a reduction in numbers of whole homes offered for short-term lets and local authorities have been given powers through the planning control area regulations to help manage activity in their area.

We do not have an estimate of how many short-term lets will return to the long-term housing market as this depends on how local authorities use the powers they are being given.