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-40344

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the £4.9 billion investment in housing will be allocated across each financial year.

Question reference: S6W-40342

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considered extending the Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE) scheme to support other groups, such as low-income households or those at risk of homelessness, and for what reason it chose to focus on first-time buyers.

Question reference: S6W-40358

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what investment and support has been provided to date to facilitate increased housing in Blindwells in East Lothian, and whether it plans to replicate this approach in other high-demand areas.

To date, the Scottish Government has provided grant funding to both the Council and local RSLs to deliver 155 social rented homes through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in Blindwells with another 52 homes planned for approval this year. Funding has also been provided through the Housing Infrastructure Fund to support expert advice for the Blindwells masterplan.

As I set out in my statement on the Housing Emergency on 2 September, the Scottish Government will work with East Lothian Council and private sector partners to unlock investment and growth of the new town of Blindwells.

The Scottish Government works with local authorities in a way appropriate to their local context in facilitating increased housing.

Question reference: S6W-40356

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to support staffing increases in planning departments, and how it will ensure that workforce capacity meets the demands of the Housing Emergency Action Plan.

The overall staffing of planning services is a matter for local authorities and it is up to them to decide how their resources are allocated based on their priorities. The Scottish Government does not dictate to authorities how much money should be allocated to planning services.

We have taken action to improve the financial resources available to planning authorities, introducing an annual inflation linked increase to planning fees with the fees increasing in line with inflation in December 2024 and most recently in June 2025, extended discretionary charging and introduced fees for appealing planning decisions to local review bodies and Scottish Ministers.

The National Planning Hub offers support to planning authorities when requested, including capacity and access to expertise. A priority area for the Hub’s assistance is on housing, to support authorities address the Housing Emergency.

Recognising the pressures in planning authorities, the planning actions in the Housing Emergency Action Plan are limited in their demands on them. They will be undertaken by Scottish Government and the National Planning Improvement Champion to support improvements to the planning system.

To support longer-term growth of the planning profession and reversing the decline in professional planners working in public authorities, we have recently appointed 17 new future planners to support their development and are providing 30 bursaries for post-graduate planning this year.

Question reference: S6W-40355

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what additional funding will be provided to local authority planning departments to support the emergency-led approach to housing delivery.

We have taken action to improve the financial resources available to planning authorities, introducing an annual inflation linked increase to planning fees with those changes increasing fees in line with inflation in December 2024 and most recently in June 2025. We have extended the range of services for which an authority can introduce charges, to include the preparation of processing agreements and the preparation and delivery of Masterplan Consent Areas. In June 2025 we also introduced fees for appealing planning decisions to Local Review Bodies and Scottish Ministers, ensuring that these services can meet customers’ expectations.

In addition, the National Planning Hub is providing targeted support to planning authorities, including capacity and access to expertise, to help them to determine applications for housing projects and to progress their local development plans.

Question reference: S6W-40357

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many additional planning applications it anticipates will be approved as a result of any planning reforms, and what metrics will be used to measure the impact or success of any reforms.

Every planning application must be determined on its own merits. When applying planning judgement all relevant policies and material considerations need to be weighed, following the requirements set by section 25 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1997. As such, it would not be appropriate to set a target number for approval of individual applications. Nevertheless, the planning application approval rate has stayed consistently high for a number of years, with over 92% of applications approved in 2023-24.

A range of planning improvements have and are being progressed to support the housing emergency, including those in the Planning and the Housing Emergency Delivery Plan (November 2024), the Programme for Government (May 2025) and Housing Emergency Action Plan (September 2025). These build on the substantial reforms to legislation and national policy in recent years.

For example, and as committed in the Housing Emergency Action Plan, the Scottish Government issued a notification direction on 2 September to enable close monitoring of the implementation of national planning policy on housing, where a planning application is for 10 or more proposed new homes on land not allocated for housing. This activity will enable Ministerial intervention where required and inform whether further policy action is required.

We regularly engage with stakeholders, including planning authorities and industry representatives to monitor feedback on the impact of changes made through planning reforms.

Question reference: S6O-04936

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the culture secretary last met with Creative Scotland to discuss the future of Cumbernauld Theatre, in light of reported concerns about its funding.

Question reference: S6W-39953

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 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-39952

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 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.

Work related to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax review is ongoing.

Alma Economics has been appointed to undertake independent research on various aspects of the legislation and will engage with a range of relevant organisations to support this. The Scottish Government has also established a working group involving legal, property sector and other organisations to allow for detailed consideration of other specific issues.

As set out in Scottish Budget 2025-26, the review will support decisions in the next Scottish Parliament on whether any legislative changes should be brought forward.

Question reference: S6W-39954

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 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%.

Data on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax Additional Dwelling Supplement transactions, revenues and repayments is collected and published monthly by Revenue Scotland.

There is however no specific and attributable data available on the impact of the Additional Dwelling Supplement increase to 8%. As a range of other tax and non-tax factors may impact on Scotland’s property market, it is not possible to attribute any specific impact of the increase in the rate without a detailed analysis over a longer period.