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: S5W-21623

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 26 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to end the use of supplementary planning guidance and, if so, when.

The Planning (Scotland) Bill, which is currently before the Scottish Parliament, proposes to remove section 22 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997. Planning authorities can currently adopt supplementary guidance under section 22 which would form part of the development plan for their area. It will remain open to planning authorities to use planning guidance in connection with their respective plans but changes proposed would mean that this guidance would not itself form part of the development plan.

Question reference: S5W-21465

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much BT has brought forward as a proportion of the Gainshare funding for reinvestment in the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband contracts, and what process was used by public sector partners to accept this offer.

To date, £17.83 million has been brought forward for reinvestment, by BT across the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme through Gainshare: of this, £15.6 million has been invested in the 'Rest of Scotland' and a further £2.23 million in the Highlands and Islands. This has resulted in further deployment in every local authority area across the country.

Gainshare offers were considered and accepted at extra-ordinary meetings of the respective DSSB Strategic Management Boards, which comprise representatives from public sector investors.

Question reference: S5O-02922

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it supports Men's Sheds.

Question reference: S5W-21219

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 5 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the money allocated in its digital connectivity budget for the last three years has occurred as a result of Gainshare.

Gainshare funding does not form part of the Scottish Government's digital connectivity budget.

Gainshare is a mechanism in the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) contracts that allows for reinvestment of additional funds generated if take-up of superfast broadband services exceeds an agreed level. BT offered to bring forward a proportion of the Gainshare funding for reinvestment in both DSSB contracts and this was accepted by public sector partners. This has resulted in new deployment in every local authority area across Scotland and will see build continue throughout 2019.

Question reference: S5W-21166

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 5 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address the reported disparity in average broadband connection speeds between rural and urban areas.

Despite the UK Government having responsibility for investing in broadband across the UK, the clear absence of a UK-wide strategy for improving rural connectivity has meant that the Scottish Government has had to step in, take the lead and use Scottish Government resources, given its economic importance to Scotland.

Scotland's unique geography and dispersed population has meant that speeds are often lower in Scotland's more remote and rural areas. However, the recent Which? report on Local Authority broadband speeds does not represent the full scope of superfast broadband availability; nor are they necessarily accurate.

Through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, we have already delivered truly transformative results across much of rural Scotland. Fibre coverage in Dumfries and Galloway alone has increased from just 18.9% in 2014 to 94.9% now, with superfast coverage of 30Mbps and above increasing from 17% to 83.3%. Average download speeds have increased as a result - from 7.7Mbps in Q1 2014 to 23Mbps now.

The R100 programme will deliver superfast broadband speeds of 30Mbps and above to 100% of premises in Scotland, regardless of remoteness or rurality. We have also excluded urban premises from the R100 procurement, reflecting our view that public spending must be focussed where it is needed most - in rural Scotland and given limitations on our ability to intervene in areas when commercial operators plan to invest.

As the UK’s telecoms regulator, issues such as quality of service are the responsibility of Ofcom to remedy.

Question reference: S5W-21168

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 5 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what specific measures will be taken to ensure that the R100 broadband scheme meets its target by 2021.

We recognise the challenges associated with delivering such an ambitious procurement to deliver the Reaching 100% programme. Our investment of £579 million (96.5%) towards the £600 million R100 programme reflects the complexity of the challenge and represents, at this time of writing, the biggest ever public sector investment in the UK in a single digital connectivity project.

We are currently conducting a detailed, careful and competitive procurement process, designed to maximise competition and drive value, innovation and coverage. In parallel with R100, we are taking forward work to design aligned interventions, so that we can move swiftly to deliver access to any premises not met by the procurement exercise. The detail of which premises will be covered by the main procurement contract and those which may require aligned interventions will be determined later this year, once detail of bids are submitted.

Question reference: S5W-21167

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 31 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason spending on digital connectivity is reported to decrease in 2019-20.

Question reference: S5O-02810

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its policy is on staffing ambulances.

Question reference: S5O-02777

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 January 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 16 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it will put in place to support farmers in adapting and building resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The Scottish Government is developing a new Climate Change Adaptation Programme to be published this year, this will build on the 2014 previous report and will include agriculture.

We support farming and food production with high quality advice and information on environmental and business resilience through the Farm Advisory Service, and via the Agriculture Weather Advisory Panel. We continue to support on the ground actions through avenues such as the Forestry Grant Scheme and the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme which opens to applications shortly. This follows the announcement in December of a further £39.5 million committed, bring our total support under this one scheme to over £150 million since 2015.

Question reference: S5O-02747

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 9 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated in its draft Budget for capital expenditure on digital infrastructure in the next financial year.