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: S6O-04872

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its discussions with GFG Alliance, Liberty Steel and Alvance British Aluminium regarding the companies’ operations in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-39652

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 600 expressions of interest, which its Cladding Remediation Programme has received via the Single Open Call, relate to buildings that it was already aware may need an assessment or remedial work, broken down by the type of applicant.

Information on the number of expressions of interest submitted to the Cladding Remediation Programme via the Single Open Call by applicant type is now published quarterly on the Scottish Government website: An Official Statistics in Development publication - Scotland’s Cladding Remediation Programme update: Q2 2025 - gov.scot.

The ‘pilot phase’ of the Cladding Remediation Programme began in 2021, and was designed to identify a range of buildings to help inform the development of the Single Building Assessment (SBA) process. As part of this work, several buildings were assessed, and now require a ‘refresh’ to ensure assessments are in line with the SBA specification. This will not mean starting the assessment process again, as all existing information will be made available to the competent, qualified person carrying out the refresh.

The 107 buildings in the ‘pilot phase’ were put on a pathway to assessment, starting with pre-assessment checks made by an appointed fire engineer consultant. 51 were assessed as being out of scope of the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act, following a review by the appointed fire engineering consultants.

Of the 56 buildings within scope:

10 of the buildings have been taken on by the developer
two were identified by the fire engineers as being low risk and not requiring an SBA
12 have had or are undergoing an SBA commission by Scottish Government
32 will require an SBA - these will now have the opportunity to be funded for assessment through the Single Open Call

The Scottish Government Cladding Remediation Programme is providing support to the 32 eligible buildings to apply to the SOC and is working with the applicants at pace through the SOC process.

The Cladding Remediation Programme is aware that expressions of interest have been submitted in respect of some of the buildings included in the information gathering exercises being conducted with Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords, which is referred to in the recently published Cladding Remediation Programme Next Phase Plan of Action (published here: Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action - gov.scot), as well as for other buildings in their ownership. However, until the information submitted as part of that exercise has been quality assured and validated it is not possible to identify how many of those have had an expression of interest submitted via the Single Open Call.

Question reference: S6W-39651

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 11 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to extend its Cladding Remediation Programme Single Open Call beyond 30 September 2025.

The Single Open Call (SOC) has been incredibly successful in identifying buildings at risk within the Single Building Assessment (SBA) specification, with over 600 buildings, as of 30 June 2025, being identified for review. As confirmed in the Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action published 7 August 2025, funding from Stage One of the SOC has doubled to £20 million. The additional £10m funding will ensure that all eligible EOIs received by 31 December 2025 will be able to move forward. We strongly encourage all building owners and their representatives to continue to submit their buildings to the SOC ahead of 31 December 2025.

As well as enhancing funding for Stage One, the Cladding Remediation Programme: Next Phase Plan of Action also confirms the launch of Stage 2 of the Single Open Call. This will allow owners, or their representatives, to seek Scottish Government support for any required mitigation and/or essential cladding remediation works identified through the funded Single Building Assessment at Stage One.

Question reference: S6W-39379

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the information provided in response to Freedom of Information request 202500455118, whether it has received the evidence and further information that it required from GFG Alliance on its global refinancing, and, if not, when it anticipates that it will receive this evidence and information.

Question reference: S6W-39378

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the information provided in response to Freedom of Information request 202500455118, whether GFG Alliance secured finance following the "critical date" of 5 November 2024.

Question reference: S6W-39377

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 30 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the purpose is of the personal guarantee that it has from Sanjeev Gupta, as stated in its response to Freedom of Information request 202500455118.

Question reference: S6W-38780

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 11 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W- 38271 by Alasdair Allan on 12 June 2025, and in light of the commitment in its 2025-26 Programme for Government to simplify the Home Energy Scotland application process, when it expects the detailed analysis of average application and claim processing timescales relating to the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme to be published, and whether it plans to set a target date for publication of such analysis.

Question reference: S6W-38721

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-32419 by Fiona Hyslop on 17 December 2024, when it plans to publish an updated Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan.

Question reference: S6W-38661

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many houses have been built or renovated through the (a) Rural and (b) Islands Housing Fund in each year of its operation.

The following table provides a breakdown of homes delivered through the demand-led Rural and Islands Housing Fund, by financial year, between 1 April 2016 and end March 2025.

Financial Year	Total Rural and Islands Housing Fund Completions	Rural Housing Fund Completions	Islands Housing Fund Completions
2016-2017	2	2	0
2017-2018	25	21	4
2018-2019	1	1	0
2019-2020	40	35	5
2020-2021	20	16	4
2021-2022	53	41	12
2022-2023	44	36	8
2023-2024	21	6	15
2024-2025	59	10	49
Total Homes	265	168	97

Question reference: S6W-38660

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 26 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been (a) allocated to and (b) spent by the (i) Rural and (ii) Islands Housing Fund in each year of its operation.

The following table provides a breakdown of funding allocated to the demand-led Rural and Islands Housing Fund (RIHF), and expenditure, by financial year, between April 2016 and end March 2025.

A total of £14.358 million has been spent through the Rural Housing Fund, and £15.876 million through the Islands Housing Fund.

Financial Year	Rural and Islands Housing Fund Budget (£ millions)	Total Expenditure (£ millions)	Rural Housing Fund Expenditure (£ millions)	Islands Housing Fund Expenditure (£ millions)
2016-2017	6.000	0.134	0.107	0.027
2017-2018	6.000	1.061	0.955	0.106
2018-2019	5.000	1.650	1.431	0.219
2019-2020	4.500	2.823	2.141	0.682
2020-2021	5.000	4.916	3.062	1.854
2021-2022	6.000	4.793	2.392	2.401
2022-2023	6.250	4.083	1.458	2.625
2023-2024	7.200	6.679	2.412	4.268
2024-2025	4.500	4.094	0.400	3.694
Total (£ millions)	50.450	30.233	14.358	15.876

Individual lines in the table may not add up to the totals due to rounding to £0.000 million.

Whilst the demand-led RIHF offers some targeted funding to support rural and island housing delivery, the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) comprises a range of funding mechanisms to enable homes for social rent, mid-market rent, and low-cost home ownership across Scotland, supporting priorities set out in local authorities’ Local Housing Strategies and Strategic Housing Investment Plans.

Between 2016-2017 and 2023-2024, the AHSP, including the Rural and Islands Housing Fund, has supported the delivery of over 12,000 affordable homes in rural and island communities.