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-10638

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 August 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to incorporate use of existing housing stock in order to meet its social homes target, and how many purchases of existing stock are forecast to be made in each year to 2032.

Use of existing stock, whether purchased on the open market or rehabilitated, has and will continue to have a role in delivering affordable homes towards the target in line with strategic local priorities. We do not hold forecasts to 2032. Local authority Strategic Housing Investment Plans set out the funding priorities for affordable housing in their area for the next five years. These may include local authorities’ rationale for supporting use of existing stock and some estimates but will rely on properties becoming available to purchase.

Question reference: S6W-10635

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 August 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether Housing to 2040 remains its housing strategy.

Question reference: S6W-10686

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 September 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) unique households, (b) advice interactions, including advice provided to customers during telephone or email advice discussions and (c) low-income, potentially fuel-poor clients who were offered support Home Energy Scotland (i) has had capacity to support and (ii) has actually supported, in each year of its operation.

Please find data below for Home Energy Scotland advice interactions. Prior to 2013, fuel poverty was not a separate focus for advice services. Specific fuel poverty advice services figures are only available from 2013.

	2013-14	2013-14	2014-15	2014-15	2015-16	2015-16	2016-17	2016-17	2017-18	2017-18
	target	actual	target	actual	target	actual	target	actual	target	actual
Unique households	125,000	90,887	120,000	98,998	110,000	94,411	95,000	92,618	85000	93,962
Advice interactions	200,000	182,158	180,000	326,600	165,000	333,609	260,000	305,672	260,000	313,170
Low-income, potentially fuel poor clients offered support	55,000	49,404	55,000	45,932	55,000	43,148	55,000	33,322	35,000	31,598

	2018-19	2018-19	2019-20	2019-20	2020-21	2020-21	2021-22	2021-22	2022-23
	target	actual	target	actual	target	actual	target	actual	target
Unique households	87,500	89,018	87,500	92,681	77,000	90,468	120,000	114,392	132,000
Advice interactions	260,000	315,912	260,000	314,989	260,000	345,344	400,000	424,083	440,000
Low-income, potentially fuel poor clients offered support	35,000	30,920	35,000	38,737	35,000	46,369	36,000	42,092	44,000

Question reference: S6W-10596

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 August 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many small and medium house builders involved in the affordable housing supply programme have become insolvent in the last year, and how many projects this has affected.

Question reference: S6W-10687

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 September 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government which indicators it currently uses for the housing and regeneration indicators, as set out in its housing and regeneration outcomes framework; on what date each indicator (a) was last updated and (b) is due to be updated, and what the status is of any work to update each indicator.

The Scottish Government published an update to the housing and regeneration outcomes indicators on 16 June 2020. The `Sources, Thresholds & Updates` tab of the master spreadsheet details dates that each indicator was last updated. This spreadsheet also shows each indicator that is used by the Scottish Government.

Work is underway to update indicators with the latest available data where available, and will be published before 9 November 2022. However, some data sources do not have available data for more recent years to allow for the associated indicators to be updated. This is for a number of reasons, including the impact from coronavirus and resulting restrictions, and other changes on data collection. Affected indicators will be detailed in the publication.

Question reference: S6W-10559

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-09497 by Shona Robison on 19 July 2022, what steps it is taking to ensure that any scheme can increase in scale in the event of increased financial hardship as a result of increasing interest rates or a recession.

Question reference: S6W-10558

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 August 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether its monitoring shows whether the situations outlined in the Report on the work of the 2021 Affordable Housing Investment Benchmarks Working Group have materialised, and whether it has convened a meeting of the sector to raise benchmarks ahead of the proposed 1 April 2023 uprating date.

Question reference: S6W-10560

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-09497 by Shona Robison on 19 July 2022, what the scope of the preliminary work is; when the preliminary work began; when ministers requested a proposal be submitted for approval; how many staff have been committed to the preliminary work; which stakeholders it has met to determine the extent of the work; how many homeowners and their representatives it has engaged with, and how it would fund buy-outs.

The work to design a potential homeowner assistance scheme is in the discovery phase which involves defining the scope of any potential scheme and evaluating the suitability of existing forms of assistance. This also includes identifying a resilient funding and delivery model. This discovery phase relies on existing resources until such time as a proposal is approved. This discovery phase work began during summer recess and is scheduled to completed in the coming weeks. Officials have regular engagement with potential delivery partners and homeowners as part of the overall process and additional discussions will be undertaken prior to any scheme launch.

Question reference: S6W-10920

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many representatives of the mortgage lending industry it has met in 2022 to discuss the implications of the cost of living crisis for homeowners with mortgages on their property.

Scottish Ministers and officials regularly meet with representatives of the financial services sector, including lenders, to discuss a range of matters including measures to support households and businesses.

The Deputy First Minister met with the financial services sector (the quarterly Financial Services Growth and Development Board (FISGAD)) on 30 August 2022. Details of the membership of the Board can be found at https://www.gov.scot/groups/financial-services-growth-and-development-board/

Officials also regularly engage with UK Finance (representative body for the banking and Finance Industry). Details of UK Finance membership can be found at https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/

Attendees at such meetings vary according to representatives' availability.

Question reference: S6W-10597

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 August 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the reported rise in insolvencies among small and medium house builders is having on the affordable housing supply programme development pipeline.

We are not aware of any current difficulties affecting the immediate development pipeline related to insolvencies. We are unable to quantify the impact that the reported rise in insolvencies among small and medium house builders is having on the affordable housing supply programme development pipeline as for many projects until they are tendered we do not know who the house builder or construction company will be. Some local authorities and RSLs operate development framework agreements but we have not been made aware of any issues of insolvency affecting these frameworks. Scottish Government does not directly procure housing contracts. It is for Registered Social Landlords and Local Authorities to procure construction delivery partners.