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: S6O-03269

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it has allocated the funding raised through ScotWind option fees in the 2024-25 Scottish Budget.

Question reference: S6O-03253

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will provide an update on its plans to increase access to childcare in the creche beyond three hours per day.

Question reference: S6O-03246

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that the voices of Highland communities are appropriately considered by the Energy Consents Unit when assessing applications from developers.

Question reference: S6O-03190

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with NHS Highland about progressing planning and design work for the new Belford Hospital in Fort William.

Question reference: S6O-03120

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-24999

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 January 2024
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 31 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its Programme for Government commitment to pilot a new aquaculture consenting process to help deliver a more streamlined regime across Scotland.

In the 2023-24 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government committed to pilot a new aquaculture consenting process in two local authority areas to help deliver a more streamlined regime across Scotland.

I am pleased to inform Parliament that pilots for a new pre-application consenting process for fish farm developments are underway in the Shetland and Highland local authority areas.

The commencement of these pilots is a result of the work undertaken by the Consenting Task Group, which I established in November 2022 to consider the recommendations of the Independent Review of Aquaculture Consenting and to identify and pilot improvements to the consenting system.

The Consenting Task Group, which includes representatives from the fish farming sector, SEPA, local authorities and other regulators, have worked together to co-design a new management process which maintains robust assessment of development proposals, but which coordinates and enables appropriately informed regulatory decisions to be made as quickly as possible.

During the pilot phase, the Consenting Task Group will continue to meet on a quarterly basis to share key learnings and make improvements as part of an iterative review process.

I would like to thank the Consenting Task Group’s Chair, Professor Dickon Howell, and all the task group members for their contributions to the pilots and I look forward to further progress. Information on the work of the Consenting Task Group is available on the Scottish Government webpages.

Question reference: S6W-24472

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 January 2024
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 23 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-22531 by Paul McLennan on 13 November 2023, by what date in early 2024 it will provide an implementation update on short-term let licensing.

Question reference: S6O-02799

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to tackle the increasing risk of wildfires in rural areas.

Question reference: S6O-02747

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will provide an update on its work to ensure that the crèche facility can offer more than four hours per week per child.

Question reference: S6W-22531

Asked by: Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 13 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its post-implementation review into short-term let licensing, whether it plans to undertake any stakeholder engagement and consultation ahead of the review, and what the nature of any stakeholder involvement in the review will be.

I wrote to the Local Government Housing and Planning Committee on 27 October 2023 to set out the scope of the implementation update on short-term let licensing. In this letter I have committed to provide an update to Parliament in early 2024. A copy of this letter is available on the Scottish Parliament website at:

https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/local-gov/correspondence/2023/shorttermlets27oct.pdf