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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 2124 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-40517

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what funding is available to support Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) in delivering the next steps of its franchise framework assessment, and whether it will commit to ensuring that adequate resources are provided to support this work.

Question reference: S6W-40518

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the decision by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) to progress with its franchise framework assessment, and what engagement its ministers have had with SPT regarding this process.

Question reference: S6W-40519

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that regional transport partnerships (RTPs) are adequately funded, in light of its reported position that public transport is best delivered at a regional level and the Verity House Agreement’s reported lack of reference to regional bodies in funding frameworks.

Question reference: S6W-40516

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what capital funding is currently available to regional transport partnerships (RTPs) for the delivery of regional transport infrastructure, and whether the criteria for the People and Place Programme will be amended to include regional capital projects such as park and ride facilities that contribute to a sustainable transport network.

Question reference: S6W-40356

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to support staffing increases in planning departments, and how it will ensure that workforce capacity meets the demands of the Housing Emergency Action Plan.

The overall staffing of planning services is a matter for local authorities and it is up to them to decide how their resources are allocated based on their priorities. The Scottish Government does not dictate to authorities how much money should be allocated to planning services.

We have taken action to improve the financial resources available to planning authorities, introducing an annual inflation linked increase to planning fees with the fees increasing in line with inflation in December 2024 and most recently in June 2025, extended discretionary charging and introduced fees for appealing planning decisions to local review bodies and Scottish Ministers.

The National Planning Hub offers support to planning authorities when requested, including capacity and access to expertise. A priority area for the Hub’s assistance is on housing, to support authorities address the Housing Emergency.

Recognising the pressures in planning authorities, the planning actions in the Housing Emergency Action Plan are limited in their demands on them. They will be undertaken by Scottish Government and the National Planning Improvement Champion to support improvements to the planning system.

To support longer-term growth of the planning profession and reversing the decline in professional planners working in public authorities, we have recently appointed 17 new future planners to support their development and are providing 30 bursaries for post-graduate planning this year.

Question reference: S6W-40357

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many additional planning applications it anticipates will be approved as a result of any planning reforms, and what metrics will be used to measure the impact or success of any reforms.

Every planning application must be determined on its own merits. When applying planning judgement all relevant policies and material considerations need to be weighed, following the requirements set by section 25 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1997. As such, it would not be appropriate to set a target number for approval of individual applications. Nevertheless, the planning application approval rate has stayed consistently high for a number of years, with over 92% of applications approved in 2023-24.

A range of planning improvements have and are being progressed to support the housing emergency, including those in the Planning and the Housing Emergency Delivery Plan (November 2024), the Programme for Government (May 2025) and Housing Emergency Action Plan (September 2025). These build on the substantial reforms to legislation and national policy in recent years.

For example, and as committed in the Housing Emergency Action Plan, the Scottish Government issued a notification direction on 2 September to enable close monitoring of the implementation of national planning policy on housing, where a planning application is for 10 or more proposed new homes on land not allocated for housing. This activity will enable Ministerial intervention where required and inform whether further policy action is required.

We regularly engage with stakeholders, including planning authorities and industry representatives to monitor feedback on the impact of changes made through planning reforms.

Question reference: S6W-40355

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what additional funding will be provided to local authority planning departments to support the emergency-led approach to housing delivery.

We have taken action to improve the financial resources available to planning authorities, introducing an annual inflation linked increase to planning fees with those changes increasing fees in line with inflation in December 2024 and most recently in June 2025. We have extended the range of services for which an authority can introduce charges, to include the preparation of processing agreements and the preparation and delivery of Masterplan Consent Areas. In June 2025 we also introduced fees for appealing planning decisions to Local Review Bodies and Scottish Ministers, ensuring that these services can meet customers’ expectations.

In addition, the National Planning Hub is providing targeted support to planning authorities, including capacity and access to expertise, to help them to determine applications for housing projects and to progress their local development plans.

Question reference: S6W-40486

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 26 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what process is in place for a complainant to make representations to the Scottish Ministers following a report from the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) regarding a property factor’s failure to comply with a Property Factor Enforcement Order, and whether it will consider extending the same right of representation to complainants as is currently afforded to property factors under the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011.

Question reference: S6O-04936

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the culture secretary last met with Creative Scotland to discuss the future of Cumbernauld Theatre, in light of reported concerns about its funding.

Question reference: S6W-39955

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 9 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to further review the change in the Additional Dwelling Supplement rate following the completion of the current Land and Buildings Transaction Tax review.