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 1588 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S5W-32573

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 16 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what options there are to treat municipal waste in the event that compositional changes result in the rate of kgCO2e/t from incineration overtaking landfill.

Prevention, reuse and recycling are always preferable waste management options, over energy recovery or disposal of waste.

We have ambitious targets to improve the way we manage materials by reducing waste, increasing recycling and keeping materials at a higher value for longer but still need capacity to dispose of residual waste while we make the transition to a circular economy in Scotland.

This year’s Programme for Government sets out an ambitious set of measures to help make it easier for households and businesses to support this goal, including the establishment of a £70 million fund to improve local authority recycling collection infrastructure. The Parliament has also now passed legislation to implement a deposit return scheme for Scotland which will help to boost recycling, and we are working with the other governments of the UK on reform of the packaging producer responsibility system to reduce waste and improve recycling.

Question reference: S5W-32571

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 16 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on discussions between SEPA and energy-from-waste (EfW) operators in relation to improving data collection to determine the (a) composition and volume of incinerated waste and (b) final destination of waste items that are difficult to incinerate.

Energy from waste (EfW) operators submit quarterly data returns on the types and quantities of waste they accept. These are included in the Official Statistics on Waste Incineration, available at https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/waste/waste-data/waste-data-reporting/

These returns include items that are unsuitable for processing and picked out of the waste before processing or ash after processing. The next destination of waste leaving the site is a voluntary field in the quarterly return form.

EfW operators must report the types of waste they accept by EWC Code. There is no requirement to report a more detailed compositional analysis of the residual waste they accept. There are no plans to include such a requirement in the regulations.

Question reference: S5W-32940

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 16 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the latest household waste statistics from SEPA, which state that the recycling rate in Scotland’s two largest cities either declined or remained stagnant between 2018 and 2019.

Two thirds of local authorities improved their recycling rate between 2018 and 2019. We are aware that some local authorities face specific challenges in improving their recycling rates.

Alongside Zero Waste Scotland, we will continue to work with local authorities to support further progress. As part of this approach, our Programme for Government 2020-21 announced a £70 million recycling fund, to support local authorities in improving recycling collection infrastructure; and the development of a route map to achieving our ambitious 2025 recycling targets.

Question reference: S5W-32910

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 30 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32549 by Michael Matheson on 29 October 2020, whether it will provide the information requested regarding what date it last met representatives of the aviation industry.

Question reference: S5W-32497

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government which hospitality sub-sectors it has prioritised for support to reduce food waste; what best practice guidance has been developed for them, and what proportion of businesses in each of these sub-sectors has received such guidance in the last 12 months.

Certain subsectors have been identified and prioritised but planned work has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Zero Waste Scotland and partners have developed a specific toolkit for the hospitality and food service sector which has been promoted and shared with key stakeholders, including through a regional workshop (which 40 businesses attended), webinars (235 sign-ups) and round table events (12 operators with multiple businesses). The toolkit includes an e-module, a quick start guide and posters for kitchens to reinforce best practice and behaviours. Further sector specific guidance is planned for the next year, and will take into account the impacts of COVID-19 for certain sectors.

Question reference: S5W-32508

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many public waste bins each local authority has had in each year since 2014.

Question reference: S5W-32510

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what behaviour-change marketing campaigns it has run since 2011 aimed at discouraging littering, broken down by the (a) cost of, (b) reach of and (c) outcome in litter reduction achieved by each campaign.

Information on campaigns run by, or in association with, Scottish Government is provided in the following table. A significant proportion of litter prevention communication is led by local authorities in line with their statutory responsibilities.

Name of campaign	Year	Run by	Cost	Reach
Litter Week of Action – Flingin’s Mingin’’	2013	Zero Waste Scotland	£45,288	Press and radio: 300,000 Social Media: 2 million Overall reach: 2.5million
Dirty Little Secret	2014	Scottish Government	£400,000	88.09% of 18-24 year old (target audience)
Managing Our Waste (Flytipping social media portion)	2020	Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government, Keep Scotland Beautiful, COSLA	£907.26	Overall Social media: 236,187 Website views: ‎ 6849 page views 5948 unique page views
Scotland is Stunning – Let’s keep it that way	2020	Scottish Government, Zero Waste Scotland and Keep Scotland Beautiful	£47,600	Overall reach 14.5 million

Question reference: S5W-32511

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many fixed penalty notices for littering have been issued by each public body in each year since 2014.

Question reference: S5W-32948

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been allocated to Scottish Enterprise’s research and development budget in the current fiscal year; on what date this budget was approved, and how it compares with the equivalent budget in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S5W-32506

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) it and (b) its agencies have spent on tackling litter in each of the last five years.

Responsibility for dealing with litter primarily rests with local councils as part of their role in delivering waste services.

Zero Waste Scotland have spent the following amount of money on tackling litter from 2015 to 2020:

Year	Spend on tackling litter
2019-20	£92,397
2018-19	£119,081
2017-18	£379,465
2016-17	£480,786
2015-16	£658,647

The Scottish Government and Crown Estates Scotland have funded Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), for their ‘Upstream Battle’ marine litter campaign. The details are as follows:

	Financial Year	Funding
Scottish Government	2018-2019	£30,000
Crown Estates Scotland	2018-2019	£25,000
Crown Estates Scotland	2020-2021	£20,000

The Scottish Government does not separately account for staff time dedicated to work on tackling litter.

Year	Total (£m)
2020-21	£37.8
2019-20	£35.8
2018-19	£36.2
2017-18	£24.5
2016-17	£21.0