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-03556

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the comments by Zero Waste Scotland at the meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 28 September 2021 that consideration should be given to the carbon content of waste, instead of tonnage, when measuring recycling rates, and how it plans to record and report on any such data.

Question reference: S6W-03578

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what information Social Security Scotland holds on current pension credit uptake, and how many people who are currently entitled to pension credit do not claim it.

Question reference: S6W-03512

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 October 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its announcement in March 2021 of a £13 million investment in the year 2021-22 to establish Scotland’s own genomic sequencing service to support the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, what progress has been made on this, and how it will be expanded to include human genomics in line with the genomic strategies across the rest of the UK.

Phase 1 of the upscale of the NHS SARS-CoV-2 Genomics sequencing service from 200 samples to 684 samples/week is complete. Phase 2 to further expand the service will continue throughout the rest of the year to achieve an increase of up to 1000 samples/day.

In phase 3 of the project, due for completion by April 2022, a service review and options appraisal will be undertaken on future development beyond the immediate priority of sequencing for SARS-CoV-2 and how this will support Scotland’s wider public health service.

In line with our support of Genome UK, the Scottish Genomics Leadership Group, our expert group in genomics medicine are providing advice to the Scottish Government to plan our long-term agenda for genomics medicine in Scotland. The group will consider any learnings from the pathogen service and how they may apply to our work on human genomics.

Question reference: S6W-03476

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 04 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it will provide a substantive answer to question S6W-02293, which received a holding response on 13 September 2021.

Question reference: S6W-03429

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it is having with Optometry Scotland regarding its request for a fee uplift and regular yearly review of fees; when it anticipates making an announcement on this, and whether any increase will be backdated to the start of the financial year.

Question reference: S6W-03341

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans (a) it has and (b) its agencies have to include a multi-modal approach to their transport fleets to promote greater use of active travel, including through the use of (i) e-bikes, (ii) pedal bikes, (iii) cargo bikes and (iv) other modes of transport other than electric cars.

The Scottish Government’s corporate travel strategy actively promotes the sustainable travel hierarchy. For example, it sets an expectation that people will limit travel by using video conference technology in the first instance. Where staff need to travel they should walk, cycle or use public transport before considering travel by car. We will shortly be reviewing our business travel policy and will assess the potential for a multi-modal approach in the light of operational lessons learned during Covid.

Government agencies are responsible for their own business travel and fleet policies. The information requested is not held centrally.

Question reference: S6W-03365

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of businesses are currently on track to be able to fully comply with the Deposit Return Scheme at launch.

Question reference: S6W-03359

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government on what date it will announce the outcome of the Gateway Review into the go-live date for the Deposit Return Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-03319

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of vehicles in each local authority bus fleet are low-emission, and how this compares with each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-03629

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the reported repeated occurrences of anti-Irish chants and behaviour of some individuals at Scottish football grounds.

The Scottish Government is committed to eliminating sectarianism, racism and all discrimination from our national game. We believe that there is no place for discrimination of any form in football or society in general and the Scottish Government condemns those who commit any actions.

Since 2012 we have invested £15 million in work to tackle sectarianism which has delivered the broadest and most comprehensive set of activities in response to this issue that there has ever been. This includes 9 projects funded for 2021-22, including the Fair Play Foundation who are working with SFA schools of football and community football clubs along with North Kelvin Sports Development and Sense Over Sectarianism who are now working with the South of Scotland Lowland Development League.

Police Scotland work with clubs to identify and take action against individuals as we appreciate the majority of football fans do not participate in these forms of hatred against others.