Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 1879 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-32567

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the A96 Corridor Review was first reviewed by one of its ministers.

Question reference: S6W-32589

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the replacement of ScotRail’s high-speed trains aligns with its interim decarbonisation goals.

Question reference: S6W-32342

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many prosecutions there have been for suspected environmental crime in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database only contains information for offences that have records of at least one prosecution under which that offence was the main crime.

The Environmental Regulation (Enforcement Measures) (Scotland) Order 2015 provides SEPA with the power to issue penalties and accept undertakings for a range of environmental offences.

The latest available information is for the financial year 2022-23 and is provided in the following table.

Number of people prosecuted for environmental crimes, where main crime, 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Year (last 5 years)	2018-2019	2019-20	2020-2021	2021-2022	2022-2023
Number of prosecutions for environmental crime	62	36	14	15	31

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database

Please note: Data for 2020-21 and 2021-22 are affected by the pandemic, subsequent court closures, reduced court capacity due to physical distancing measures and delays to cases where key participants were forced to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19, and should not be considered indicative of long term trends.

Question reference: S6W-32331

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases referred to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in the last five years have resulted in no further action being taken.

Question reference: S6W-32315

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what training and development opportunities to address complex case types are available to staff in the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

The Scottish Prosecution College delivers a variety of training courses including online and in-person training which is available to all staff within COPFS. This encompasses a wide range of topics, and case types, ranging from domestic abuse and sexual offence case training through to High Court and Sheriff and Jury case preparation. Specialist units within COPFS also provide additional training to staff within those units.

Question reference: S6W-32337

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average time taken to complete a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) is.

The following table details the average times taken to complete a FAI, up to the conclusion of evidence. This does not include the average time of issue by the court of any determination, following an inquiry, the issue of which is the statutory definition of its conclusion in terms of Section 30(4) of the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths etc (Scotland) Act 2016.

Year	Average Time taken to complete FAI in days
2018-19	872
2019-20	897
2020-21	1096
2021-22	1110
2022-23	626
2023-24	1209
2024 to 07-11-2024	1288

Question reference: S6W-31642

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many seal licences have been issued to parties along the River (a) Dee and (b) Don in each of the last 10 years, also broken down by how many have been exercised.

Question reference: S6W-31639

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many seal licences have been issued in each of the last 10 years, also broken down by how many have been exercised.

Question reference: S6W-32569

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the total annual subsidy provided to ScotRail has been in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-32340

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many criminal cases in the last year have been discontinued by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) due to lack of evidence.

Financial year marking applied	No Further Action cases
2019-2020	17,734
2020-2021	16,437
2021-2022	23,581
2022-2023	24,585
2023-2024	28,462

Issued	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Dee	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0	0	1
Don	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Exercised
Dee	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Don	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

	2023-2024
No further action - Now Insufficient Evidence	6,609