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-26628

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 December 2019
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 16 December 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23380 by Derek MacKay on 4 June 2019, whether it will provide a breakdown of the methodology reported as "experimental statistics on the expenditure approach to GDP in real terms" in the publication, GDP Quarterly National Accounts, Scotland, 2018 Q4.

Question reference: S5O-03905

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 December 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 December 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support hospitality businesses negatively impacted by the introduction of transient visitor levies.

Question reference: S5W-26550

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 November 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 4 December 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23390 by Roseanna Cunningham on 6 June 2019, what method it uses to provide assistance to Aberdeen City Council in undertaking air quality assessment, and how much funding (a) has been allocated for this purpose in each of the last three and (b) is expected to be allocated in the next two years.

The Scottish Government provides annual funding of
‎ £1 million to support local authorities in undertaking air quality assessment. Authorities are required to apply for the funding each year. Those authorities where air quality objectives are being exceeded are prioritised for funding.

The funding provided to Aberdeen City Council for air quality assessment in each of the last three years is shown in the following table. For each of these years, the Council has received the full amount for which it applied. Allocations for subsequent years are made following the completion of the Scottish budget process.

	2017-18 (£)	2018-19 (£)	2019-20 (£)
Air Quality Assessment	50,330	35,000	8,660

Question reference: S5O-03757

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 November 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has received from the Permanent Secretary regarding its legislative priorities for the remainder of the parliamentary session.

Question reference: S5W-25794

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 31 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in recruiting a psychologist for NHS Grampian to resume its pain psychology service.

There is currently a Senior Psychology vacancy equating to 0.4 WTE due to the previous post holder moving on to another role. This post will be advertised in the coming weeks as a 0.5 WTE position.

In addition, NHS Grampian has allocated significant new resource, with support from the Scottish Government, to their pain management service. This includes most recently an additional £220,000 which will be used to employ two psychology practitioners and two physiotherapists. These new posts will complement the existing senior physiotherapist and half-time senior psychology posts.

NHS Grampian expect to also advertise these new posts in the coming weeks with this investment increasing their ability to deliver pain management programmes in the community.

Question reference: S5W-25783

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 31 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the effectiveness of the facilities available in the North East Scotland region to meet the future care demands of an aging population.

The Scottish Government expects each regional area to work collaboratively to develop a Regional Asset Management Plan and the North Regional Asset Management Plan, which involves NHS Grampian, NHS Highland, NHS Tayside, NHS Orkney, NHS Western Isles and NHS Shetland, can be accessed at:

https://www.shb.scot.nhs.uk/board/foi/2019/01/2019-043a.pdf

The plan notes that the region is committed to reducing the reliance on properties and making a case for significant investment in technology to support major service redesign, taking their services closer to their patients, whilst at the same time supporting the workforce issues and improving efficiency and patient care in a clinically safe manner.

Question reference: S5O-03721

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the proposed Agri-Food and Nutrition Hub for Innovation for Aberdeen.

Question reference: S5W-25617

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 25 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Ecosystem Service Accounts 2019 published in March, which reported that "despite more Scottish vessels fishing in Scottish waters their proportional contribution to total fish capture in Scottish waters has decreased from 50.9% in 2008 to 35.9% in 2016", what the proportion of fish capture by (a) Scottish, (b) UK and (c) EU vessels in Scottish waters was in each year in that period.

Between the 2008 and 2016, the trends in the proportion of fish landed from Scottish waters
excluding third countries activity are:

by Scottish vessels: from 46% in 2008 to 36% in 2016;
by Rest of UK vessels: from 9% in 2008 to 6% in 2016; and,
by Rest of EU vessels: from 45% in 2008 to 58% in 2016.

The following table presents the proportions for each year from 2008 to 2016.

While the proportion of EU landings from Scottish waters by Scottish vessels has fallen
during this time period, the tonnage landed by Scottish vessels has increased from
around 217,000 tonnes to 382,000 tonnes.

Scottish vessels also fished in non-UK EU waters during this time, for instance in 2016
Scottish vessels are estimated to have landed around 453,000 tonnes of which
around 41,000 tonnes are estimated to have been from non-UK EU waters.

Table 1: Tonnages of fish landed by Scottish, rest of UK, and non-UK EU vessels
as a proportion of total EU landings from Scottish waters, 2003 to 2016 (%).

Vessel Nationality	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Scottish	46%	51%	38%	47%	40%	39%	36%	37%	36%
Rest of UK	9%	7%	9%	10%	9%	8%	7%	8%	6%
Non-UK EU	45%	42%	54%	43%	51%	53%	56%	55%	58%

Source: Office for National Statistics, 2019 derived from the European Commission’s Scientific,
Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) data.

Because Scottish waters are not defined in EU regulation, a further estimation has been
required to separate Scottish Waters from the rest of the UK waters.
This means that these figures should be treated with caution and could be substantially
different depending on where fishing vessels are actually fishing in an ICES rectangle.
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has recently released a lower and upper
bound of these estimates which highlights the uncertainty around these figures,
for instance North Sea Haddock has a lower estimate of around 84,000 tonnes from
UK waters and an upper estimate of 102,000 tonnes – while the spatial estimate is
at around 101,000 tonnes. These lower and upper estimates can be viewed at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/743916/
Quota_landings_by_UK_and_OMS_in_UK_EEZ_2012_to_2016.xlsx

Question reference: S5W-25616

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how significant it considers the independent care sector is to overall health and care in Scotland, and what its response is to reports that the owner of 12 care homes has said that the independent care sector is "teetering towards the edge of a cliff".

The independent care sector plays a vital contribution to achieving the Scottish Government’s vision of enabling people to live independently at home, or in a homely setting. We recognise that a sustainable residential care sector, plays a key role in achieving this vision. That’s why the National Care Home Contract, which defines the terms of local authority placements into independent or third sector care homes, has been a good foundation for care home sustainability for over 10 years. It allows independent care providers to invest in their staff, the quality of their service, and to take a reasonable return out of the business. Considerable progress has been made in reforming the contract including the development of an evidenced-based care home cost model, used to determine fees in a clear and transparent manner that takes account of changes in cost pressures.

In June 2019, the Scottish Government launched a national programme to support local reform of social care support. It is being jointly led with partners, including the independent sector, whose members are responsible for delivering and procuring these vital services. As part of this, we are progressing a substantial review into the future role and support of care homes, in light of a growing care home population with increasingly complex needs.

Question reference: S5O-03682

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what correspondence it has had with Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire councils regarding the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Bill.