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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.

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Question reference: S6W-29796

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-27210 by Angela Constance on 13 May 2024, on how many occasions two prisoners have been required to share a cell against the recommendation of a Cell Sharing Risk Assessment, in each year since the introduction of the current Cell Sharing Risk Assessment framework, also broken down by prison.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29797 on 19 September 2024. 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-29797

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-27210 by Angela Constance on 13 May 2024, whether two prisoners are ever required to share a cell against the recommendation of the Cell Sharing Risk Assessment.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

A Cell Sharing Risk Assessment (CSRA) is conducted on every occasion where two (or more) individuals are required to share one cell.

A CSRA provides a generic assessment of the suitability for individuals to share cells with an option for additional detail and context regarding identified risks to be recorded. Once complete, the CSRA assessment will be used to make an informed decision on the individual’s suitability to share cells, based on known risk and operational necessity.

Individuals will never knowingly be asked to share a cell when it is in direct conflict with what has been recorded in the CSRA.

Question reference: S6W-29542

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 18 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains committed to removing all diesel passenger trains from the Scottish network by 2035.

Question reference: S6W-29543

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 18 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of the Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan.

The route from Glasgow to Barrhead was electrified in December 2023. Electrification from Glasgow to East Kilbride is due to complete in December 2025. Plans to decarbonise the Fife Circle and Borders are in development.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-27663 on 3 June 2024. 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-29541

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 18 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects the electrification of Intercity passenger routes between Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Inverness to be complete.

The Scottish Government is committed to decarbonising its passenger rail network and is continuing with the rolling programme of electrification as funding permits.

This is set out in Transport Scotland’s Decarbonisation Action Plan, which is planned as a dynamic document, with a refresh of the Plan underway. The refresh will examine the electrification programme, informed by progress with rolling stock procurement.

Question reference: S6W-29408

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 30 August 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 17 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when data beyond 2021-22 will be made available on the Scottish Energy Statistics Hub.

The Scottish Energy Statistics Hub is an interactive tool which compiles data from over 70 different sources with different time lags for each data source. The Hub currently contains data beyond 2021-22, such as renewable electricity projects within the planning system in Scotland which is available up to and including the first quarter of 2024.

Due to technical issues there is currently a delay in updating statistics on the Hub. However, key energy statistics are published on the Scottish Government website.

Question reference: S6O-03734

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 September 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its work to explore the feasibility of an islands scholarship to support higher education students studying in Scotland’s islands.

Question reference: S6W-29278

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 26 August 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 9 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many air weapon licence applications made since 1 November 2016 have been (a) received, (b) processed, (c) approved and (d) rejected.

Air Weapons licensing statistics are published by Police Scotland annually. Most recent statistics were published in August 2024 .

A table has been provided below noting the number of Air Weapons Licence applications made since 1 November 2016 including the numbers (a) received, (b) processed, (c) granted and (d) refused.

Total Number of Air Weapon Licence Applications

	Received	Processed	Approved/ Granted	Rejected/ Refused
2016-2017	11224	11224	11097	127
2017-2018	10103	10103	10003	100
2018-2019	3185	3185	3105	80
2019-2020	3098	3098	3063	35
2020-2021	4881	4881	4854	27
2021-2022	3961	3961	3914	47
2022-2023	1515	1515	1498	17
2023-2024	1419	1419	1391	28
Total	39386	39386	38925	461

Question reference: S6O-03660

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 August 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the development of its Green Industrial Strategy and its commitment to leverage up to £500 million over the next five years for Scotland's offshore wind supply chain.

Question reference: S6W-28620

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 July 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 6 August 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on (a) its engagement with the UK Government regarding the banning of plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries and (b) action it is taking to reduce the volume of waste exported from Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that we are able to manage more of our own waste within Scotland both for environmental and economic aims. As part of this, Scottish Government officials and Defra continue to engage regularly on matters regarding international waste exports, a reserved policy area. We are currently seeking confirmation from the new UK Government on its priorities for waste exports policy and continue to encourage Defra to build on work already undertaken to ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD-countries, and will work closely with them on the development of this.

Through our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map consultation, we are actively progressing actions that we can take under devolved powers to boost Scotland's ability domestically to manage its waste and provide greater incentives for domestic reprocessing. This includes new co-designed recycling standards and consulting on a statutory duty on local authorities and others to report on the final destinations of collected material to increase transparency and strengthen public confidence in recycling services. We have also committed to publish a report on Scotland’s existing and planned domestic reprocessing infrastructure. This builds upon existing measures like extended producer responsibility schemes, and the £63 million-worth of investments made via the Recycling Improvement Fund to improve the quality and quantity of recycling collected.