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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: S6W-34612

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the expected lifespan is of any solar panels installed on government-owned buildings, and what the estimated cost is of their (a) maintenance and (b) eventual replacement.

The solar panels installed on core Scottish Government buildings have an output warranty of 25 years. The panels will continue to operate past 25 years, however their output will be lower than new panels. Maintenance costs are included in the overall building maintenance costs and cannot be disaggregated. The cost of replacing the panels at the end of their life cannot be estimated due to the timescales involved.

Question reference: S6W-34611

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the estimated carbon emissions savings have been as a result of installing solar panels on government-owned buildings in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-34169

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the availability of permanent teaching posts.

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing teacher numbers to deliver improved outcomes for children and young people.

The number of teachers in permanent posts has remained stable at more than 80% over the past 10 years. In addition, the number of teachers in Scotland's classrooms has increased by more than 2,500 over the past decade, as a result of investment by the Scottish Government. While we cannot direct teachers where to work, it is important to note that teacher vacancies arise across Scotland throughout the year.

We recently agreed with local government a commitment to working together to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels in 2025-2026, freeze learning hours and make meaningful progress towards reducing class contact time for teachers.

In order to support each of these measures, the Scottish Government is increasing the funding available to local government to £186.5 million in 2025-2026, and will issue £145.5 million to local government in full this financial year.

Local government will also receive additional funding of £28 million from 2025-2026 to develop the Additional Support for Learning (ASL) education workforce with further funding of £1 million being made available to support national initiatives which will help to recruit and train more ASL teachers.

Question reference: S6W-34173

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers who qualified in each of the last five years have secured permanent positions, broken down by (a) subject and (b) local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34170

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers have been signed off work due to stress in each year since 2018, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34171

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupil support assistants are employed in schools, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34168

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers are employed on a (a) permanent, (b) temporary and (c) supply contract, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-34144

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many speeding offences on trunk roads the procurator fiscal decided to take no further action in relation to, in each year since 2018, broken down by the (a) reason for the decision and (b) trunk road.

As referenced in the answer to S6W-34140 on 20 February 2025, the format in which locus information is recorded and in particular whether the locus for each case is a trunk road or otherwise would require a manual check of each case. This question cannot be readily answered by COPFS.

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-34140

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many reports of speeding were submitted to the procurator fiscal by Police Scotland in each year since 2018, broken down by trunk road.

The following table shows the overall speeding numbers grouped by financial year reported. Charges have been identified using the Scottish Government classification of level 2 of speeding. The format in which locus information is recorded and in particular whether the locus for each case is a trunk road or otherwise would require a manual check of each case. This information is not readily available.

All charges reported to COPFS under:-
Scottish government classification level two - 45.Speeding
- count is by charge and grouped by financial year reported
*year to date 5 February 2025

			Financial year reported
Offences	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25*
Speeding offences	15,940	18,127	13,306	15,580	12,382	14,872	13,461

Question reference: S6W-34129

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on legal advice and representation for current and former ministers in relation to public inquiries in the last 10 years, broken down by inquiry.

There are at present five ongoing Scottish statutory public inquiries, and a number of UK statutory inquires which could seek evidence from ministers in Scotland. The Edinburgh Trams Inquiry reported in September 2023 following hearings in 2017-2018 and the Penrose Inquiry reported in 2015, albeit from the records available we do not believe that external legal advice was taken in connection with those inquiries which falls within the scope of this question. The amount spent by the Scottish Government on external legal advice, including representation for current and former ministers, in relation to public inquiries is as follows:

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry	£1,191,298 inclusive of VAT
The Sheku Bayoh Inquiry	£20,160 inclusive of VAT
The Covid-19 Inquiries	There have been no legal costs for current or former ministers for the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry. For the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, we do not hold a breakdown of legal costs per witness. £2,123,692 inclusive of VAT
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry	£673,942 inclusive of VAT
The Eljamel Inquiry	No such costs have been incurred to date.
Infected Blood Inquiry	£432,045 inclusive of VAT between 2018/19 and 2024/25[1]

To note, we are unable to cost the Government’s internal legal advice provided by the Scottish Government Legal Directorate.

[1] These figures are for overall legal advice or support for the Scottish Government and former staff or Ministers, and include some travel and accommodation costs for travel to hearings in London.