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-39955

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to further review the change in the Additional Dwelling Supplement rate following the completion of the current Land and Buildings Transaction Tax review.

Question reference: S6W-39953

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what stakeholders it has engaged with during its current review of Land and Buildings Transaction Tax.

Question reference: S6W-39951

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown by local authority of the number of times that Land and Buildings Transaction Tax first-time buyer relief has been used in each year from 2021 to 2024.

Question reference: S6W-39952

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made on its review of Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, as committed to during consideration of the 2025-26 Scottish Budget, and when the findings of the review will be published.

Question reference: S6W-39954

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what data is available on the impact of the increase in the Additional Dwelling Supplement rate for Land and Buildings Transaction Tax from 6% to 8%.

Question reference: S6W-39636

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 15 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many homes have been approved by local authorities in each year since the period considered by the Competition and Markets Authority, which considered the number of approvals to be on average 29,000 per year to the end of 2022.

The Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) asks planning authorities to indicate the number of planning applications they have decided for major housing developments (50 or more dwellings or a site area that is or exceeds two hectares) and local housing developments (less than 50 dwellings or a site area of less than two hectares). The PAS does not include the number of new homes approved in each reporting period.

The number of decisions made on local planning applications for housing for the period 2021-22 - 2023-24 is:

2021-22 - 4608
2022-23 - 4194
2023-24 - 3653

The number of decisions made on major planning applications for housing for the period 2021-22 - 2023-24 is:

2021-22 - 123
2022-23 - 97
2023-24 - 77

Total numbers of approvals can vary from year to year in line with numbers of applications submitted in any given period. The overall rate of approvals of applications in 2023-24 was 92.3%.

The CMA’s Housebuilding Market Study included figures for the number of housing units given planning approval from 2014-15 – 2021-22, informed by the Home Builders Federation’s (HBF) quarterly “New Housing Pipeline” report. This report is published on the HBF’s website, and the most recent edition records a figure for the number of housing units given planning consent for all of Scotland in the years 2022 - 2024 as:

2022: 26,301
2023: 23,867
2024: 24,054

The Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply records the number of new dwellings started in Scotland for the years 2022 - 2024 as:

2022: 22,088
2023: 16,849
2024: 15,759

The Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply records the number of new dwellings completed in Scotland for the years 2022 - 2024 as:

2022: 23,486
2023: 21,318
2024: 19,988

Question reference: S6W-39632

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 14 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Planning and the Housing Emergency - Delivery Plan does not mandate new methods to monitor planning approvals and build-out in relation to planning consents for new homes.

The ‘Planning and the Housing Emergency – Delivery Plan’ (November 2024) committed to new guidance on housing land audits (HLAs) and this was published in January 2025. HLAs provide information on past housing completions and future programming of new homes in an area. The guidance will embed a consistent approach to monitoring of housing land across all local authorities, whilst still allowing flexibility to reflect local circumstances. At a national level, approval rates for all planning applications and starts and completions are recorded in official statistics.

Question reference: S6W-39639

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 14 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the methodology is for collecting the data included in its planning application statistics publications, and whether this process is (a) manual or (b) automated.

The methodology used to collect Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) is an Excel-based survey which is completed biannually by planning authorities. The production of PAS uses a combination of manual and automated methods including Excel without macros, Excel with macros, R programming and Word. The PAS are Scottish Government official statistics meaning they are quality assured to a very high standard and they have been reviewed by Office of Statistics Regulation (OSR) which is independent of Scottish Government.

Question reference: S6W-39631

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 14 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the data collected for its planning application statistics is sufficient to detail the (a) number and (b) percentage of (i) housing developments and (ii) new homes approved in each reporting period.

The Scottish Government Planning Application Statistics (PAS) asks planning authorities to indicate the number of planning applications they have decided for major housing developments (50 or more dwellings or a site area that is or exceeds two hectares) and local housing developments (less than 50 dwellings or a site area of less than two hectares). This is expressed as a number in the published statistics, but it can also be expressed as a percentage.

The PAS does not include the number and percentage of new homes approved in each reporting period. However, the Scottish Government does publish statistics on the number of new build properties completed in its Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update: New Housebuilding and Affordable Housing Supply to end March.

Question reference: S6W-39634

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 13 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what management information systems and dashboards it uses to track the number of homes granted planning permission, including from external data providers.

The Scottish Government uses existing, publicly available information collated by planning authorities in Housing Land Audits (HLA) that monitor past housing completions and future programming of new homes.

In January 2025, the Scottish Government updated guidance to support preparation of HLAs and improve consistency in data collection. The HLA guidance was published alongside a template spreadsheet, which supports inclusion of information on site planning status and capacity.

The Scottish Government has a subscription to Glenigan, which is also used to inform policy development as appropriate.