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-22296

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 15 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what employment-based routes are available to students who wish to enter the teaching profession.

The Scottish Government supports the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) to offer a part-time PGDE Primary programme. UHI plan to extend this to their PGDE Secondary programmes. The Scottish Government has had discussions with universities about the need for flexibility in delivery of ITE programmes and will continue to engage with them on this issue.

The Scottish Government’s Teaching bursary scheme provides bursaries of £20,000 for career changers wishing to undertake a one year PGDE in hard to fill STEM subjects. These are Physics, Maths, Technical Education, Computing Science, Chemistry and Home Economics. The scheme has recently been extended to include Gaelic as a secondary subject, and Gaelic medium across all secondary subjects and in primary.

Additionally, the Strategic Board for Teacher Education, which is made up of a range of key education stakeholders, is considering issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland in detail.

Question reference: S6O-02739

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Transport Scotland about motorway gantry signage ahead of winter.

Question reference: S6O-02692

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the winter COVID-19 vaccination programme.

Question reference: S6T-01598

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 October 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement issued by COSLA that the handling of the recent announcement about the council tax freeze undermined the spirit and the letter of the Verity House Agreement.

Question reference: S6O-02611

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that the V&A Dundee has generated £304 million for the Scottish economy over the last five years, whether it will be pursuing any further joint projects with UK institutions.

Question reference: S6F-02404

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 September 2023

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking in response to reports of widespread contamination at many of Scotland’s outdoor swimming sites.

Question reference: S6W-21198

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether its Tax Advisory Group is tasked with considering whether new taxes on households or businesses should be introduced.

The Tax Advisory Group has been set up to look across a broad spectrum of views to ensure we continue to offer a fair and progressive but sustainable system. Tax policy for 2024-25 will be set out at the Budget later this year.

The group will be a long-term feature of how we engage on tax, and I will chair a quarterly meeting of the group. The minutes of their meetings will be posted on the Scottish Government website.

Question reference: S6W-21194

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to make eligibility for business rate reliefs conditional on payment of the real living wage, as part of its Fair Work Action Plan, and, if so, which rate reliefs it anticipates will be in scope.

The Scottish Government’s Fair Work Action Plan sets out actions to promote fair and inclusive workplaces across Scotland. We are committed to using all levers at our disposal to extend Fair Work conditionality with clear standards and minimum requirements to cover all forms of Scottish Government support within the limits of devolved competence. The action to consider including the use of reliefs and licensing powers is an investigatory action, and not a definitive position on if and how these can be used. Officials will continue to monitor implementation of Fair Work conditions to ensure the approach remains fair and proportionate.

Non-domestic rates are levied on the private, public and charitable sectors and on a very diverse array of properties, from shops and offices to telephone masts, railways lines, harbours, bothies and advertising boards. Certain properties may have no employees linked with them, or properties may be operated by individuals rather than businesses, and therefore may not have any employees, and we will therefore need to consider carefully the potential role of fair work conditionality in the non-domestic rates system, within the limits of devolved competence.

Question reference: S6W-21204

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage more local authorities to consider and utilise their existing powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to reduce non-domestic rates.

It is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities.

Local authorities have powers to award discretionary local relief under section 3A of the Local Government (Financial Provisions etc.) (Scotland) Act 1962, as inserted by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. When considering the use of these powers, local authorities are statutorily required to have regard to their expenditure and income, and the interests of persons liable to pay council tax set by them.

The Scottish Government devolved empty property relief on 1 April 2023 with a generous additional revenue transfer of £105m annually to local government guaranteed for the next three years. Councils can use this funding as they see fit, including to offer local relief to empty property. All councils have introduced local relief schemes for empty property in their area for 2023-24, details of which may differ by council.

Question reference: S6W-21202

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much revenue raised by the business rates incentivisation scheme was retained by each local authority, in each year since its inception.

Table 1 presents the amounts retained through the Business Rates Incentivisation Scheme (BRIS) by each council in each financial year since 2015-2016. The years relate to years in which amounts were actually retained by the councils and include ongoing retentions (as a result of continued growth within the cycle) as well as new retention amounts awarded.

BRIS was suspended from 2020-2021 due to the pandemic. Due to the exceptional value of non-domestic rates reliefs introduced in 2020-2021, no council increased their non-domestic rates income in that year. Amounts retained in 2020-2021 and later relate to additional income generated, but not retained, before 2020-2021.

Figures are rounded to the nearest £1,000, and may not sum due to rounding.

Table 1: Amounts retained through the Business Rates Incentivisation Scheme, by council and year of retention

Local Authority	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018	2018-2019	2019-2020	2020-2021	2021-2022	2022-2023
Aberdeen City	533,000	3,904,000	0	3,904,000	0	0	0	0
Aberdeenshire	471,000	1,403,000	79,000	1,403,000	483,000	0	0	0
Angus	0	71,000	0	0	0	0	14,000	0
Argyll & Bute	0	0	39,000	0	102,000	102,000	0	0
City of Edinburgh	0	0	0	0	775,000	0	0	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0	0	66,000	0
Dumfries & Galloway	0	0	0	0	4,556,000	3,074,000	0	0
Dundee City	0	0	0	0	518,000	0	85,000	0
East Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	308,000	0	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	0	0	0	0	724,000	0	268,000	0
East Renfrewshire	188,000	188,000	0	-63,000	0	0	0	0
Falkirk	0	0	272,000	0	0	0	78,000	0
Fife	892,000	892,000	0	892,000	0	0	0	0
Glasgow City	0	1,514,000	0	1,514,000	0	0	0	0
Highland	214,000	585,000	585,000	0	2,418,000	0	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	59,000	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	111,000	176,000	0	104,000	0
Moray	137,000	153,000	0	452,000	1,859,000	1,859,000	23,000	0
Na h-Eileanan Siar	57,000	72,000	0	72,000	18,000	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	240,000	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0	0	563,000	0
Orkney Islands	0	0	0	0	0	0	197,000	0
Perth & Kinross	0	0	0	42,000	0	0	0	0
Renfrewshire	68,000	68,000	0	68,000	0	0	0	0
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0	0	16,000	0
Shetland Islands	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	0	30,000	0	30,000	326,000	0	0	0
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	17,000	0	225,000	0
Stirling	0	0	0	119,000	292,000	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	111,000	55,000	0	0
West Lothian	0	0	0	0	289,000	0	0	0
Scotland	2,560,000	8,879,000	1,034,000	8,784,000	12,971,000	5,090,000	1,640,000	0