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-23306

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 7 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-21689 by Lorna Slater on 3 October 2023, whether (a) Palladium, (b) Lombard Odier or (c) Hampden and Co Bank is contracted by (i) Forestry and Land Scotland, (ii) Scottish Water, (iii) Cairngorms National Park and (iv) Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park to provide support in delivering peatland restoration works or in mobilising private finance into nature; what payments have been made to any of those parties in the (A) last financial year and (B) current financial year to date; what the (aa) value and (ab) duration is of any extant contracts, and what procurement process was followed to secure any such contractual arrangements that are in place.

No payments have been made to Lombard, Hampdens or Palladium from Forestry and Land Scotland or Scottish Water over the last two years. Both Cairngorms National Park Authority and the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority have made payments to Palladium during this period.

Your question regarding what contracts are in place, their value, duration and procurement processes is on operational matters so I have asked the Chief Executives of the National Park Authorities to write to you addressing these points .

Question reference: S6W-23297

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the refreshed Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan that it committed to publishing in its Programme for Government 2023-24, whether the (a) Far North, (b) Highland, (c) Kyle of Lochalsh, (d) West Highland and (e) Inverness-Aberdeen train line will be included in the refreshed plan.

Question reference: S6W-23427

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 7 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what models and approaches have been considered for delivering a public interest test for land reform.

The models and approaches that could be considered for delivering a public interest test for land reform were originally set out by the Scottish Land Commission in their discussion paper, Legislative proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s concentration of land ownership (published February 2021).

Based on the Scottish Land Commission’s recommendations, we put forward our proposals for a Public Interest Test on land transfers in our consultation document, Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation (published July 2022).

The consultation opened on 4 July 2022 and closed on 30 October 2022, asking a total of 51 questions. It also invited respondents to give us views on other ideas and proposals. Our proposals for the criteria which would determine the types of landholdings that would be in scope for the Public Interest Test, and how the Test would be applied, were set out in Parts 4 and 7.

Since the consultation we have commissioned analysis of the responses to it. The responses included a range of views on models for/approaches to a Public Interest Test. We have considered these carefully as we take forward development of our proposals. We have also engaged, and will continue to engage, with a range of internal and external stakeholders over the Test, along with the other measures proposed for the Bill.

Question reference: S6O-02865

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 December 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with its enterprise agencies regarding how to support innovation by small businesses, including in relation to the use of alternative fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil.

Question reference: S6W-22642

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 17 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-22383 by Michael Matheson on 3 November 2023, in relation to the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care, what specific steps are (a) being taken and (b) planned to (i) improve rural primary care staff recruitment and (ii) skills development of remote and rural staff.

The National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care, for the first time, will combine rural specific workforce and service development, with research and evaluation into one National Centre.

The Centre’s initial focus is identifying and promoting approaches that improve rural and island primary care recruitment of staff including: increasing skills of remote and rural GPs and other practitioners to ensure there is the workforce capacity to deliver care close to home, develop further support networks and career development opportunities for rural practitioners and to support development of skilled mixed workforce teams.

Work has already begun on two key pieces of work, improved support and training for remote and rural dispensing practices and developing supervisory training hubs.

Question reference: S6W-22983

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 17 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 28 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost is of the Highland Council's current backlog of outstanding road repairs, and what the cost was at the end of (a) 2022-23, (b) 2021-22, (c) 2020-21 and (d) 2019-20.

Question reference: S6W-22833

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the cost associated with the National Dashcam Safety Portal pilot would have been (a) expected to have been paid from Police Scotland's existing budget and (a) provided by the Scottish Government.

In August 2021, Police Scotland submitted a bid to the Road Safety Framework Fund and received a grant offer of £300,000 for a National Dashcam Safety Portal (NDSP) pilot.

£21,732 of this funding was utilised to undertake initial scoping work on options and Transport Scotland retained the rest of the funding and used it to deliver other road safety measures aimed at reducing casualties on Scotland’s roads. The Scottish Government remained committed to delivering the initiative alongside Police Scotland, and ensured that the budget was available the following financial year.

However, as part of the scoping work, Police Scotland has now concluded that a stand-alone portal is neither the optimum nor best value route to create the capability for digital media to be submitted by members of the public. The Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) Programme, currently in pilot in Dundee, will make it easy for a member of the public to submit digital evidence as part of an investigation following a report to the police. DESC will enable development of further capabilities where scope to further improve the service to the public is identified.

Question reference: S6W-22831

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the full implementation costs were of joining the National Dashcam Safety Portal.

Question reference: S6W-22830

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 21 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability to be rolled out.

Question reference: S6W-22832

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 21 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the full implementation costs will be of the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability.