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: S4W-00160

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S4W-00158

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S4W-00159

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S3W-37735

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 November 2010
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 6 December 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive under what circumstances a planning authority will advise a developer to change the name or description of a planning proposal and what the relevant legislation or regulations would be.

Question reference: S3W-36681

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 October 2010
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 26 October 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what savings are projected for each local authority and public body as a result of the new public sector electricity contracts announced in its news release of 30 April 2009, Public sector power goes greener.

Approximately 98% of in scope public sector demand in Scotland “ some 24,000 buildings “ is now signed up to our national electricity contracts. Given that public bodies migrated to these contracts on an incremental basis from 1 October 2009 until 1 April 2010, the first full year where the majority of participating bodies received power via the national contracts is April 2010 to March 2011. For that year, we estimate that the contracts will deliver total benefits of around £10 million, with similar benefits achieved until contract expiry on 31 March 2013 - equating to around 5% of total contract value.

Given that both the cost of electricity on the wholesale market and distribution charges have increased significantly over the past year and wholesale costs are likely to continue to rise, benefits take the form of cost avoidance.

While it is for individual public bodies to calculate the benefits they have derived and will continue to derive from the new contracts, we estimate that the £10 million annual benefits will accrue to the participating sectors as follows:

Central Government: 5.98%

Local Authority, Fire and Police: 58.48%

NHS Scotland: 21.04%

Higher & Further Education: 13.78%

Third Sector: 0.72%.

Importantly, the contracts also allow increased budgetary certainty for public bodies, as the flexible procurement model adopted involves multiple purchases on the wholesale market, which smooths out the volatility inherent in large, one-off transactions in commodity markets. Significant process savings have also been achieved for public bodies through going to market once for a large part of the public sector.

Question reference: S3W-36680

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 October 2010
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 26 October 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what savings have been achieved by each local authority and public body as a result of the new public sector electricity contracts announced in its news release of 30 April 2009, Public sector power goes greener.

Question reference: S3W-36117

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what speed restrictions are in place for trains passing through Carstairs railway station and Carstairs junction and for what reasons.

The Scottish Executive is aware that there are permanent speed restrictions for trains operating in both directions between Carstairs Station Junction and Carstairs East Junction. These restrictions comprise of 15 mph for a distance of 27 chains (543 metres) and 30 mph for 26 chains (523 metres). For clarity, this is only applicable on the route between Carstairs station and the Edinburgh line. The west coast route from Glasgow to Carlisle is operated at a much higher speed through the Carstairs area.

Specific details of the reasons for operational and engineering speed restrictions on the rail network are the responsibility of Network Rail.

Question reference: S3W-36118

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 15 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what impact speed restrictions on trains passing through Carstairs railway station and Carstairs junction have on timetabling decisions on the west coast main line between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Question reference: S3W-34966

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 30 June 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how it proposes to respond to the determination issued by the sheriff in the fatal accident inquiry into the tragic circumstances of the death of 21-month-old Ben McCreath.

Question reference: S3W-33118

Asked by: Aileen Campbell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 April 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 April 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new criminal offences the Scottish Parliament has created in each parliamentary year since 1999.