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-17917

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-16926 by Lorna Slater on 5 May 2023, whether waste packaging collected and recycled through the Deposit Return Scheme will be able to be identified in Scotland's waste statistics.

Question reference: S6W-17997

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) Glasgow City Council and (b) Glasgow Life regarding the long-term future of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Question reference: S6W-17918

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-17316 by Lorna Slater on 5 May 2023, whether it will provide a list of the sites referred to along with the stage of construction and/or operational progress achieved for each.

Question reference: S6W-17960

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-16779 by Patrick Harvie on 27 April 2023, how additional demands on other local authority services, such as planning and building control, will be resourced, particularly in light of the reported national shortage of planners.

In April 2022 increased planning fees came into effect, providing much needed additional resource to Planning Authorities. Whilst the use of this additional resource is a matter for individual authorities, some authorities have reported that the fee increase has allowed them to retain or recruit new members of staff.

Improving the resourcing and performance of the planning system are important priorities and we continue to work with Heads of Planning Scotland, the Royal Town Planning Institute and other stakeholders to implement the recommendations of the Future Planners Project Report which focuses on supporting the growth of entrants into the planning profession.

Through the work of the Building Standards Futures Board, work is being undertaken to support the Local Authority Building Standards Workforce through the development and implementation of a three year workforce strategy. In addition, the Board is overseeing a number of recommendations that aim to strengthen the building standards system. These will require investment in the system and workforce and a public consultation on building warrant fees will be undertaken over the summer.

Question reference: S6W-17919

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-16932 by Lorna Slater on 2 May 2023, what measurable impact those efforts have had in increasing textiles reuse.

Question reference: S6W-17999

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when each of the 32 projects awarded funding from the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme, announced on 10 May 2023, were notified that they had received a funding award, and when they each received the funding.

Question reference: S6W-17862

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on increasing Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) expenditure to £1.75 billion by 2025, as outlined in its strategy for innovation, and what additional funding it has put in place to support this aim.

Provisional data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) expenditure estimate for Scotland in 2021 was £3.12bn. Note that the ONS has recently changed their measurement of BERD. The BERD statistics methodology has been improved to better capture data from smaller businesses, which has led to significant uplift revisions to BERD expenditure estimates. More work is required to further quality assure the new methodology and we will continue to work with the ONS on that. The Scottish Government and its agencies invested an additional £45m to support the increase of BERD between 2018 and 2021.

Question reference: S6W-17899

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government which ministers granted approval for the four settlement agreement cases that exceeded the £95,000 cap, as referenced in its annual report on the use of settlement agreements, April 2021 to March 2022.

All four settlement cases were dealt with in accordance with the procedure set out in the Scottish Public Finance Manual. Business cases for the proposed settlements were submitted to the relevant Cabinet Secretary at that time: Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills (Shirley Anne-Somerville) and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport (Jeanne Freeman). The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy (Kate Forbes) was also sighted on all cases.

Question reference: S6W-17873

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a regional breakdown of collaborations enabled by the Interface programme, also broken down by the estimated Gross Value Added (GVA) for each project.

Since August 2005, when Interface was established, it has played a role in facilitating 3,410 collaborative projects with 2,144 unique businesses. Between August 2018 and April 2023, Interface brokered 1,528 collaborations with universities, research institutes and colleges in Scotland. The regional breakdown of collaborative projects is 331 for Highlands and Islands, 353 for Glasgow City Region, 107 for South of Scotland, 359 for Edinburgh and the Lothians, 90 for Central and 288 for the North East. In 2021, an independent evaluation of Interface activity showed that the contribution to the Scottish economy from research and development projects between businesses and academics enabled by Interface was £88.9m GVA (gross value added) supporting 1,595 jobs, with expectations to reach £222.3m GVA and 3,193 jobs.

Question reference: S6W-17872

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the delay to the launch of the Deposit Return Scheme, how much time will be available to test implementation arrangements ahead of the new launch date, and whether this has been communicated to (a) Circularity Scotland, (b) industry and (c) Zero Waste Scotland.

The Scottish Government and delivery partners such as Circularity Scotland, and Zero Waste Scotland have regularly engaged with businesses on the Deposit Return Scheme.

The new launch date of 1 st of March 2024 provides an additional six and a half months preparation time for businesses and the scheme administrator. This includes time for end to end testing.

Working with partners we have refreshed the system-wide governance for the implementation stage of the programme. This now includes a Ministerial Strategic Assurance Group which will meet for the first time during May 2023 and sectoral groups representing producers, retailers, hospitality and the public sector, most of which have already had their first meeting.