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-01660

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what crew changeover provisions have been negotiated between CalMac and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company in the time charter agreement for the MV Arrow freight vessel.

Question reference: S6W-01659

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether the current crew of the MV Arrow will be employed on the vessel for the duration of the six-week charter agreement between CalMac and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company.

Question reference: S6W-01654

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government by what date it expects to have electrified the East Coast Mainline between Edinburgh Haymarket and Aberdeen in full.

Question reference: S6W-01590

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings (a) the First Minister, (b) the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture (c) and its special advisors have had with Yes.scot campaign employees.

Question reference: S6W-01661

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the duty periods worked by seafarers on the Serco NorthLink freight vessel (a) Helliar and (b) Hildasay since March 2020.

Question reference: S6W-01600

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to update building standards regulations to require higher energy-efficiency standards for new-build residential developments.

A review of the energy standards of the Scottish building regulations is currently under way. This is considering options to further improve the energy performance of both new residential developments and all other new buildings. It also considers the energy performance requirements where relevant new construction work is carried out to existing buildings.

The consultation can be accessed at:

Scottish Building Regulations: Proposed changes to Energy Standards and associated topics, including Ventilation, Overheating and Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure - Scottish Government - Citizen Space (consult.gov.scot) .

The new energy performance requirements are programmed to take effect in 2022.

Question reference: S6W-01583

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings (a) cabinet secretaries, (b) junior ministers and (c) special advisors have held with the media outlets The National and the Sunday National, since the beginning of the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-01589

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce the date of the independent-led inquiry into its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government is committed to a Scottish public inquiry, and will begin to take the necessary steps during our first 100 Days in office to establish such an inquiry. Since the UK inquiry was announced we have been considering how the Scottish inquiry would interact with that. Detailed work will be done on the terms of reference and the timescale, and we are clear that we expect the inquiry to begin its work by the end of this year.

Question reference: S6W-01582

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 16 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to make the full Native Woodland Survey of Scotland dataset available, given its usefulness for forestry professionals, and if so, when.

Question reference: S6W-01360

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of (a) its and (b) each of its agencies' vehicle fleet is comprised of zero-emission vehicles, also broken down by what information it has for other public bodies.

The Scottish Government hold central records for its own and Crown Office Procurator Fiscals Service fleets. The proportion of zero-emission vehicles currently operated is provided in the following table.

Organisation	Zero-emission vehicles (%)
Scottish Government (including Transport Scotland)	13
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service	0

The Scottish Government has committed to decarbonising public sector fleet vehicles and has supported the uptake of ultra-low and zero emission vehicles, through initiatives such as the Switched on Fleets programme. No up-to-date information on the public sector fleet is held centrally, but, according to the most recent information available from 2020 over 10% of the cars in the Scottish public sector fleet were ultra-low or zero emission at that time.

Significant additional investment has continued to be made in decarbonising the public sector fleet since 2020 but will not be reflected in these figures.

To help the public sector lead from the front, since 2014 , we’ve invested over £47 million in 3,463 low and zero emission vehicles across the public sector fleet. We will continue to work with public bodies to achieve the decarbonisation of all public fleets in Scotland, beginning by phasing out the need for new petrol and diesel light vehicles by 2025 and the need for all types of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030.

In addition, we have supported trials of zero emission specialist Heavy Goods Vehicles, such as Dundee’s Council’s electric zero emission Refuse Collection Vehicles, alongside other pioneering work with Scottish Enterprise to enable the development and future procurement of a ground breaking prototype zero emission fire engine.