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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

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Question reference: S6F-01433

Asked by: Stephanie Callaghan, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2022

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government is taking to curb the reported sharp rise in e-cigarette use amongst teenagers.

Question reference: S6F-01422

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2022

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, Poverty in Scotland 2022.

Question reference: S6F-01423

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2022

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government is doing to reduce deaths in custody, including suicides, in light of reports of a 60% year-on-year increase.

Question reference: S6F-01419

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2022

To ask the First Minister what discussions she has had with the UK Government about new investment zones for Scotland.

Question reference: S6F-01410

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2022

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-01409

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2022

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6W-11078

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 3 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its commitment to continue to support national museums and galleries in order to ensure they remain free to access, during the current cost of living crisis, what support it is providing to smaller organisations that face rising costs and falling incomes.

While funding for the national collections is a direct responsibility of the Scottish Government, other museums and galleries are core funded from a variety of sources including local government. The Scottish Government is in discussion with Museums Galleries Scotland to understand the current challenges facing smaller organisations. Museums Galleries Scotland provides development and project funding to the sector on behalf of the Scottish Government. In view of cost increases museums across Scotland are facing, Museums Galleries Scotland has decided to pause its planned grants programme in order to review whether it is the most effective way to meet the needs of the sector at this challenging time. They are working on this as a matter of urgency and will announce any revisions to their programme to the sector as soon as possible.

Question reference: S6W-10986

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 3 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is addressing any concerns of rural communities regarding the use of agricultural land for tree planting.

Tree planting in Scotland is supported through the Forestry Grant Scheme, managed by Scottish Forestry.

To be eligible for support, proposals for tree planting must be developed in line with the Woodland Creation Application Guidance published in 2018. Stakeholder and community engagement is an essential part of this development and assessment process. This helps to ensure that planting proposals take community concerns into consideration and select the right trees to be planted in the right places.

Our commitment to enhance the Forestry Grant Scheme in the latest Programme for Government includes measures to improve public engagement over woodland creation.

All tree planting proposals need to follow published guidance, which seeks to avoid large scale planting on better agricultural land and requires assessments to be carried out for projects with planting on better land.

Where projects involve significant planting on agricultural land, the Scottish Government’s Rural Payments and Inspections Division are consulted to help determine whether proposals are acceptable or whether they need to be amended.

Local Authority spatial strategies have been prepared to identify where woodland creation may be appropriate and these strategies follow the Woodland Expansion Advisory Group’s recommendations to direct woodland creation away from better agricultural land. These strategies are considered when making decisions around the suitability of tree planting proposals.

Farming and forestry can co-exist, forestry is not extensively replacing agricultural land across Scotland. Analysis of the Forestry Grant Scheme shows that in the twelve months to the end of August 2022, Scottish Forestry received 331 new applications to plant 9,931 hectares of new woodland, which is equivalent to less than 0.2% of farmland.

Question reference: S6W-11023

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 3 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been raised by the Additional Dwelling Supplement in each year, broken down by local authority area.

As the tax authority with responsibility for the collection and management of Scotland’s devolved taxes, Revenue Scotland publishes monthly and annual data on its website regarding the number of property conveyances and non-residential leases subject to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) and the associated tax liabilities. These are available at https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics .

Local authority level data is published on an annual basis, as part of Revenue Scotland’s Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes. The report for‎ 2020-21, which provides data for the period from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2021, is available at: Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2020-2021 | Revenue Scotland . The report for 2021-2022 is due to be published in November or December 2022.

In particular, the ‘Data for Figure 19’ tab in the figures and tables file of this publication includes estimates of gross ADS declared due for qualifying conveyances by local authority and year. This tab also includes information on the proportion of ADS revenue which taxpayers did or did not intend to reclaim in each local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-10978

Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 3 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many new claims for Adult Disability Payment it estimates will be received during the first six months of operation by Social Security Scotland.

Adult Disability Payment opened for new applications across Scotland on 29 August 2022, following successful pilots that began in March.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission is responsible for forecasting spending on Adult Disability Payment and publishes estimates on the number of people expected to receive Adult Disability Payment in each financial year. In their May 2022 forecast, the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimated that there would be 34,000 recipients of Adult Disability Payment in 2022-23 in Scotland. This would include successful new claims and cases transferred from Personal Independence Payment and Working Age Disability Living Allowance. They attached a high degree of uncertainty to their estimates and they have indicated they will revise the assumptions as more data becomes available.

The Commission does not forecast the number of new claims per month for Adult Disability Payment. However, internal Scottish Government analysis estimates that approximately 44,000 new claims for Adult Disability Payment will be received by the end of February 2023.