- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much VisitScotland has spent on marketing in each of the last five years, broken down by expenditure (a) within and (b) outside Scotland.
Answer
The following table summarises VisitScotland’s paid media advertising spend in the UK and Republic of Ireland and international markets over the previous five financial years.
Year | UK&RoI | Rest of the World | Total |
2018-19 | £470,000 | £2,103,218 | £2,573,218 |
2019-20 | £434,100 | £1,591,927 | £2,026,027 |
2020-21 | £3,897,944 | £1,051,547 | £4,949,491 |
2021-22 | £5,137,157 | £7,456,266 | £12,593,423 |
2022-23 | £1,370,273 | £1,381,859 | £2,752,132 |
2023-24 | £1,215,703 | £1,229,650 | £2,445,353 |
Please note:
Due to the way VisitScotland plans its budgets, it is not straightforward to segregate Scotland-only spend, so domestic (UK and Republic of Ireland) spend has been supplied.
2021-2022 includes additional funds allocated that year as part of the COVID-19 tourism recovery programme. The programme supported the delivery of 10 priority recovery projects, dedicated to initiatives over and above the scope of existing public agency funding. This accelerated recovery in the short term, whilst providing the foundation for a sustainable recovery of Scottish tourism in the medium to long term.
VisitScotland’s grant in aid and spend on activities per year is outlined in its annual performance report, which is published at https://www.visitscotland.org/about-us/annual-corporate-reports/annual-report
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 March 2025
-
Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of referrals to audiology services at NHS Grampian are seen within the 18-week target.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2025
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what financial support it has given to the Aberdeen Energy Transition Zone in each of the last three financial years.
Answer
A breakdown of the funding support provided by the Scottish Government to the Energy Transition Zone project over the past three financial years is provided in the following table.
| | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | Total |
Energy Transition Fund | £9,000,000 | £5,541,000 | £2,505,000 | £17,046,000 |
Just Transition Fund - National Energy Skills Accelerator | £39,960 | £960,040 | Nil | £1,000,000 |
Just Transition Fund - Energy Transition Skills Hub | £1,180,000 | £470,000 | £2,850,000 | £4,500,000 |
Just Transition Fund - Supply Chain Pathway and Energy Transition Challenge Fund | £1,280,000 | £2,840,000 | £2,840,000 | £6,960,000 |
Total | £11,499,960 | £9,811,040 | £8,195,000 | £29,506,000 |
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners released under any early release programmes in each of the last five years have subsequently reoffended within (a) six months and (b) one year of their release.
Answer
There have been two instances where groups of prisoners have been granted early release from their sentence at the order of Scottish Ministers in the last five years – firstly in May 2020, and secondly in June and July 2024.
Data was made available on the number of individuals who returned to prison custody (either held on remand or sentenced) amongst the individuals released in those processes. For the May 2020 Coronavirus specific emergency early release process, as of November 2020, 142 of the original 348 individuals who were released early had returned to custody.
For the June and July 2024 emergency early release process, as of December 2024, 61 of the 477 individuals who were released early had returned to custody before their original date of liberation.
The information requested on reoffending is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Angus Robertson on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many times it has corresponded with (a) Hampton Group International, (b) the UK Chinese Business Association and (c) Pitch@Palace in the last 12 years; what any such correspondence related to; whether Yang Tengbo is named in any such correspondence, and, if so, whether it will conduct an urgent review of any correspondence relating to Yang Tengbo.
Answer
There is no record that Scottish Government has had any correspondence with Hampton Group International, Pitch@Palace or the UK Chinese Business Association, nor with Mr Yang Tengbo, in the last 12 years.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is implementing or considering to support homeowners in the North East Scotland region who are experiencing property value depreciation due to new energy infrastructure projects in their vicinity.
Answer
Compensation provisions do exist where land, or rights over land, are acquired by compulsion for the development of energy infrastructure under the Electricity Act 1989. However, there is no statutory provision or process set out in the Act to financially compensate those who consider their property value may be affected.
More generally, the Scottish Government continues to use all levers available to deliver sustainable, meaningful and impactful outcomes from the energy transition, informed by the voices of our diverse communities. Voluntary community benefits schemes from renewable energy developments are well-established in Scotland, enabling communities to benefit from their local resources, as well as helping to foster better relationships with the renewables sector. Despite the powers to mandate community benefits being reserved to the UK Government, over £30 million worth of benefits has been offered to communities in the last 12 months supported by our Good Practice Principles. We continue to press the UK Government for mandatory action in this area.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure a fair consulting process for electricity infrastructure, in light of reports that it could benefit financially by £4 million per year for each GW of power from ScotWind that is installed and has a grid connection agreement.
Answer
The consulting process provided for under sections 36 and 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 and the Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 ensures that public bodies, communities and members of the public are consulted on proposals for electricity infrastructure. The decision whether to grant consent is taken only after careful and fair consideration of environmental information, consultee responses and public representations. The Scottish Government is committed to strengthening the pre-application consultation process by working with the UK Government on their proposed reforms to electricity infrastructure consenting in Scotland.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact of zonal pricing in the electricity market on (a) electricity prices for consumers in Scotland, (b) investment in renewable energy projects in Scotland and (c) the overall development of Scotland's energy infrastructure.
Answer
The Scottish Government is working closely with the UK Government on their review of electricity market arrangements (REMA), including on any potential impacts that zonal pricing could have on all market participants, including consumers, communities and industry. The UK Government is working on modelling to further understand this, and we will continue to scrutinise this closely. Modelling conducted for UK Government by LCP Delta and Grant Thornton indicates that indicates that Scotland’s consumers could potentially benefit from lower wholesale electricity prices. However, we are also aware of modelling which suggests potentially negative impacts for Scotland’s renewables industry.
We are engaging with a range of stakeholders, including the renewable industry and consumer organisations to ensure that the impacts of zonal pricing are fully considered by the UK Government ahead of any decisions on market reform. We have also gathered views on electricity reform via the first Scottish Forum on Future Electricity Markets held in December 2024 and our Scottish Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) which meets four times a year.
The Scottish Government commissioned independent research through ClimateXChange to assess the potential impact of locational pricing for a just transition to net zero, which was published on 12 August 2024.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the ScotWind leasing round, how many jobs have been created to date as a result; how many of these jobs are based in Scotland; how it monitors the number and location of jobs created through ScotWind projects, and what assessment it has made of the effectiveness of any such monitoring mechanisms.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-33255 on 23 January 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 28 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many cases of food fraud Food Standards Scotland has referred for prosecution in each year since 2018.
Answer
Cases of alleged food fraud reported to Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) by FSS:
2019: 1
2020: 1
2021: 1
