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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 41367 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-00838

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many Police Scotland officers in U Division (Ayrshire) have been engaged daily in backroom duties in each month since April 2018.

Question reference: S6W-01140

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-00714

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it will help community transport groups to decarbonise.

The Scottish Government through the Energy Savings Trust (EST) delivery a number of initiatives to support local community transport groups to decarbonise, the details of schemes are as follows:

Plugged-in Communities (PiC) programme.

This programme aims to provide access to electric vehicles and the associated infrastructure to low-income communities in the form of shared-use electric vehicle car clubs.

15 organisations have been successful in obtaining grant funding to support 63 new electric vehicles, organisations were also able to apply for funding through the ChargePlace Scotland programme which provided funding to cover the cost of the charge point infrastructure, as a result 45 charge points were installed to support these electric vehicles and the communities they serve.

To date, Grant funding of over £900k to support these communities under the Plugged-in Communities fund has been provided.

The E-bike Grant Fund

This fund supports community groups to adopt e-bikes and e-cargo bikes as more sustainable alternatives to car journeys through providing grants of up to £25,000.

Since 2018 the Scottish Government through the E-bike grant fund has introduced an additional 1145 E-bikes across Scotland and awarded over £2.8m to 156 public sector organisations and community groups.

Climate Challenge Fund (CCF)

The Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) has, since 2008, provided total funding of over £111 million to support more than 1,150 community-led climate action projects across Scotland, including a significant number that have promoted active and sustainable travel.

Community Climate Asset Fund (CCAF)

The £3.2m Community Climate Asset Fund (CCAF), launched late last year, benefited 279 community-based organisations, enabling 31 to specifically purchase e-vehicles.

Through our new framework of community climate action hubs and Climate Action Towns, we will continue to support communities to make the transition to low carbon and climate resilient living.

Question reference: S6W-00776

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what criteria it uses to determine whether a company should be taken into public ownership.

Further to the answer provided to S6W-00200 on 3 June 2021, Scottish Ministers considered all options for the future operation of ScotRail services after the current contract, which is expected to expire in March 2022. We have to work within current UK rail legislation, principally the Railways Act 1993, which neither the Scottish Ministers nor the Scottish Parliament have powers to change.

Having regard to the framework set out in the 1993 Act, the Scottish Ministers’ revised Franchising Policy Statement, the continuing uncertainty arising from the Covid 19 pandemic and the delay in publication of the UK Government’s White Paper on rail, the Scottish Ministers considered that it would not be appropriate to award a franchise agreement to any party at this time. We are therefore undertaking mobilisation arrangements for a wholly owned company of the Scottish Government (ScotRail Trains Ltd.) to provide ScotRail services when the current franchise expires. This is in line with our duty under section 30 of the 1993 Act to provide or secure the provision of passenger rail services where a franchise agreement comes to an end and no further franchise agreement has been entered into in respect of the services.

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 .

Question reference: S6W-00739

Asked by: Paul McLennan, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to allow the public to receive confirmation of their COVID-19 vaccination status online.

Question reference: S6W-00783

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many staff are employed in each of the three specialist endometriosis centres in Scotland, and what the average waiting time is for each.

Question reference: S6W-00787

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have endometriosis, broken down by (a) NHS board area, (b) age cohort and (c) the number who have so-called "deep endometriosis".

Question reference: S6W-00782

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether any of the three specialist endometriosis centres in Scotland serve patients outside the NHS board area in which they are situated.

Question reference: S6W-00687

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many households in each local authority area have received Renewable Heating Incentive payments each year.

Data on Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) accreditations broken down by local authority is routinely published by The Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS): Renewable Heat Incentive statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

Data is published on a monthly basis with supplementary statistical information published on a quarterly basis.Data is available via this link back to June 2019, and earlier data is available from BEIS on request.

Question reference: S6W-00686

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what financial support it will offer (a) commercial and (b) domestic premises to assist with installing renewable energy systems after the Renewable Heating Incentive scheme ends in March 2022.

The Scottish Government has a number of loan schemes open to those interested in RHI which will continue to be available when the RHI ends in 2022.

They include: The Renewables Loan which supports the installation of renewables measures in Scottish domestic properties. Households can fund up to two renewables systems for each home, to a maximum of £17,500 in total and up to £6,000 funding for an energy storage system.

To help first time adopters over the first hurdle to renewables, we also have developed an additional incentive, the Renewable Heat Cashback Scheme, which can offer up to 75% (to a maximum of £7,500) cashback funding.

For commercial properties, we have the SME Loan and cashback scheme. The loan scheme provides unsecured, interest free loans of up to £100,000 to Scottish Small to Medium size enterprises, not-for-profit organisations and charities to finance the installation of renewable heating and energy efficiency measures. Since the inception of the SME loan scheme, it has paid over £29 million in loans, funding more than 1000 projects.

In October 2008, the cashback scheme was launched to stimulate uptake of the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Heat measures in non-domestic properties. SMEs can apply for a 75% cashback grant of up to £10,000 towards the cost of a renewables heating system and a further 30% cashback of up to £10,000 for energy efficiency measures.