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: S5O-02460

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action the health secretary is taking to support those most vulnerable to the effects of winter weather.

Question reference: S5O-02448

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 September 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 4 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local authorities in the Highlands and Islands in advance of setting council budgets for the coming year.

Question reference: S5W-18412

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications were made to the New Entrants Capital Grants scheme in each year since its introduction, also broken down by local authority, and how this compared with the number of (a) spaces available and (b) successful applications.

With regards ‘spaces available’ I refer to my reply to S5W-18409 on 24 September 2018.

In relation to comparing the number of applications made with the number that were successful, no direct correlation can be made as some applications made in one FY may not complete the assessment process until the following FY. What can be said is, over the course of the programme (to date), 882 have been made, 772 have been processed and a decision issued to the applicant and, of these, 597 were approved contracts. This means the rate for applications to the scheme failing to realise an approved contract sits at 22.7%.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-18410

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications were received for support under the New Entrants Capital Grants scheme in each year since its introduction, also broken down by local authority.

Please see the following table with the requested information. Note these details are

held by Area Office, not by Local Authority, and
held by financial year, not by calendar year.

	Year
Area Office	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018 to July ‘18
Ayr	36	40	1	18
Benbecula	0	2	43	0
Dumfries	35	28	6	17
Elgin	7	3	22	0
Galashiels	24	14	2	10
Golspie	10	0	19	3
Hamilton	15	18	27	8
Inverness	25	20	17	15
Inverurie	29	16	23	6
Kirkwall	22	25	50	19
Lerwick	0	1	2	0
Oban	15	22	5	2
Perth	28	21	16	7
Portree	0	1	8	3
Stornoway	0	0	0	0
Thurso	9	22	27	18

Question reference: S5W-18406

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what total budget was available for the New Entrants Capital Grant Scheme in each year since its introduction.

The New Entrants Capital Grant Scheme (NECGS) is part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme 2014-20, which originally assumed £20 million of support for Young Farmer New Entrants and New Entrants more generally across the programme life. This included an indicative budget for the NECGS of £12 million and £8 million of support for Young Farmer and New Entrant business start-ups.

In 2017, the Scottish Government increased the total Young Farmer/New Entrant package to £22 million and revised the indicative scheme budgets (£8 million for NECGS and £14 million for business start-ups) to reflect the importance attached to helping young people in particular enter the agricultural sector.

The additional funding put into the schemes has enabled support to be provided to over 250 new businesses and at least 600 capital projects.

Question reference: S5W-18409

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many places were available in the New Entrants Capital Grants scheme in each year since its introduction, also broken down by local authority.

NECG Scheme did not operate on the basis of a limited/specified number of places being available to prospective applicants in each calendar year. The scheme was instead open all year round and applications could be made at any time. This was specifically intended to reflect and accommodate the demand led nature of the scheme ensuring applicants could submit their proposal when they needed to as opposed to being restricted to defined ‘application windows’.

Question reference: S5W-18411

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many successful applicants there were under the New Entrants Capital Grants scheme in each year since its introduction, also broken down by local authority area.

Please see the following table with the requested information. Note these details are

held by Area Office, not by Local Authority, and
held by financial year, not by calendar year.

	Year
Area Office	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018 to July ‘18
Ayr	3	40	0	8
Benbecula	0	1	34	0
Dumfries	11	30	4	11
Elgin	0	5	17	4
Galashiels	0	28	2	16
Golspie	2	0	14	2
Hamilton	5	22	25	4
Inverness	1	20	14	11
Inverurie	3	21	19	7
Kirkwall	2	26	35	23
Lerwick	0	1	1	1
Oban	0	9	11	2
Perth	0	27	9	6
Portree	0	1	0	6
Stornoway	0	0	0	0
Thurso	4	17	21	11

Question reference: S5W-18413

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the average cost was for a successful application to the New Entrants Capital Grants scheme in each year since its introduction, also broken down by local authority.

Please see the following table with the requested information. Note these details are

held by Area Office, not by Local Authority, and
held by financial year, not by calendar year.

	Year
Area Office	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018 to July ‘18
Ayr	21,254.93	21,601.83	0	19,369.96
Benbecula	0	25,000.00	12,700.60	0
Dumfries	23,367.30	17,944.57	6,888.25	17,501.19
Elgin	0	17,973.80	16,715.03	4,246.20
Galashiels	0	15,281.79	27,692.40	12,534.34
Golspie	17,015.94	0	13,662.82	4,107.24
Hamilton	23,106.59	17,624.55	19,801.07	19,003.60
Inverness	3,076.80	12,043.95	14,966.51	11,819.96
Inverurie	25,000.00	20,258.10	18,004.38	21,799.75
Kirkwall	12,241.84	18,862.85	14,380.70	14,616.65
Lerwick	0	1,697.00	25,000.00	25,000.00
Oban	0	11,316.44	3,854.36	24,801.00
Perth	0	16,130.33	14,044.06	18,603.14
Portree	0	6,708.00	0	6,944.86
Stornoway	0	0	0	0
Thurso	20,817.31	16,056.94	9,518.09	6,814.26

Question reference: S5W-18407

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 19 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what forecasts have been made for expenditure on reducing ferry fares on each of the Northern Isles ferry routes, excluding those administered by local authorities.

Question reference: S5W-18408

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what actual expenditure has been made on reducing ferry fares on each Northern Isles route since their roll-out in July 2018, excluding those administered by local authorities.