- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 7 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many houses have been bought as second homes or investment properties at a value of less than £40,000, thus making them exempt from liabilty to the additional dwelling supplement, in each year since the supplement was introduced.
Answer
The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013 provides that land transactions with a chargeable consideration of less than £40,000 are not notifiable and that no tax return is therefore required. As such, this information is not available.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 7 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much potential tax revenue it estimates is lost by maintaining the additional dwelling supplement threshold of £40,000.
Answer
As transactions with a value of under £40,000 are not liable to make an LBTT return, this information is not held.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 7 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how much of the £500 million Just Transition Fund for the north east and Moray has been allocated to date.
Answer
The Just Transition Fund has allocated £75 million to date, supporting projects and communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 6 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the £25 million allocated in its draft Budget 2025-26 to increase jobs in the green energy supply chain.
Answer
In line with our Green Industrial Strategy, we are continuing to support Scotland’s energy transition. The draft 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an allocation of £25m to support the development of hydrogen and carbon capture technologies, as well as initiatives to support Scotland’s businesses and industries to decarbonise and innovative projects such as the Energy Transition Zone in Aberdeen.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 6 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it will publish its Energy Strategy.
Answer
The judgements and issues in the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan are informed and influenced by recent developments in UK Government energy policy and by court decisions.
This is a rapidly changing landscape and we are taking time to reflect on those developments before drawing any conclusions and publishing a final strategy.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 3 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of how the capital funding of £150 million in its draft Budget 2025-26 to support the offshore wind sector will be allocated.
Answer
The Scottish Government is working closely with public sector delivery partners to identify priority investment opportunities designed to mobilise private investment in ports, manufacturing and fabrication, to maximise the economic opportunities from offshore wind. As set out in our Offshore Wind Focus paper, the approach to prioritisation is underpinned by a strategic assessment of current market opportunities, considering the combined impact of a programme of public sector investments. We are working with delivery partners to target funding at projects that will have a catalytic effect on wider economic growth, and identifying and prioritising those with potentially high Benefit Cost Ratios.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 3 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy
last met (a) Aberdeenshire, (b) Angus, (c) Highland and (d) Moray Council to
discuss the impact of (i) major electricity infrastructure and (ii) energy
infrastructure consenting reforms.
Answer
I have not recently met any of the local authorities listed to discuss the impact of major electricity infrastructure or energy infrastructure consenting reforms.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 3 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much private investment it expects to attract from the capital funding of £150 million to support the offshore wind sector, and how it has calculated this.
Answer
This investment is year two of our five-year commitment to invest up to £500m over five years, which is expected to leverage additional private investment of £1.5 billion in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to growing the offshore wind sector. This is based on the assessment of current pipeline of potential projects, conducted with public sector delivery partners, which estimates a multiplier effect of an average of three times the original public investment.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 3 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government where the capital funding of £150 million in its draft Budget 2025-26 to support the offshore wind sector will be spent, broken down by region.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s Offshore Wind Focus paper identifies key strategic opportunities across ports & harbours infrastructure and the wider offshore wind supply chain. The strategic assessment conducted with public sector delivery partners, drawing from a range of evidence, industry reports and wider market intelligence, concluded that a cluster approach would be essential for Ports and Harbours, and identified priority clusters in Cromarty/Moray and Forth &Tay with supporting investments in the broader North East, West Coast and Shetland clusters. We are not releasing details of the projects or the full potential pipeline of opportunities at this time as this is commercially sensitive, and the individual investment opportunities are subject to rigorous due diligence and value for money assurance processes.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 24 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recently declared critical incident at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, and the chief executive of NHS Grampian's reported comment that the factors causing a trigger point to declare a critical incident are becoming more common, whether it plans to allocate additional resources to NHS Grampian.
Answer
We are working closely with NHS Grampian on the development of a sustainable plan to support improvements in capacity.
We know that system wide capacity challenges are driving pressure on our Emergency Departments. To address this we have a clear plan to reduce delayed discharges, release acute capacity and bring down A&E waiting times.
The plan will be supported by £200 million targeted investment through the 2025-26 Budget, if approved by parliament, with NHS Grampian receiving a share of this funding. We will focus on shifting the balance of care from acute, to community and will bring about this change by ensuring every A&E department has a frailty unit linked to community re-enablement.