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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: S5W-05945

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 2 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what research has been commissioned regarding the commercialisation of hydrogen technology.

The Scottish Government, Transport Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, along with the UK Government, were among the lead organisations in a consortium which, in January 2016, commissioned an independent strategy for hydrogen and fuel cells to play a greater role in the UK’s energy mix. The report, Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Opportunities for Growth: A Roadmap for the UK, was published in November 2016 and is available at http://www.e4tech.com/reports/hydrogen-and-fuel-cells-opportunities-for-growth-a-roadmap-for-the-uk/

The Scottish Government has supported a number of hydrogen gas and hydrogen fuel cell demonstration projects, including the Aberdeen Hydrogen Bus Project and the Levenmouth Community Energy Project and 'Surf 'n' Turf' in the Orkney Islands. These projects showcase the role hydrogen gas and hydrogen fuel cells can play in the deployment of low carbon energy systems, as well as supporting the commercialisation of the technology.

Policies for the further development and deployment of a range of energy solutions, including hydrogen, will be considered as part of the Scottish Government’s draft Energy Strategy, which was published for consultation on 24 January 2017.

Question reference: S5W-05938

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the timescale is for the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Scottish Natural Heritage and other partners to publish a proposal to undertake a full census of breeding seabirds.

Question reference: S5W-06114

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on establishing an environmental grants initiative similar to the Highways England Environment Designated Fund scheme.

Improvements to the existing trunk road network are financed from the Motorways and Trunk Roads Budget. Environmental management can be applied on a prioritised basis during the trunk road and motorway maintenance programme, where reasonably practicable. For example, candidate noise management area locations on the M8 have been resurfaced with a low noise pavement called TS2010. The locations are shown in the following table;

Pavement

M8 locations of low noise pavement treatment

100mm of TS2010 in 2015

Junction 3 to 3A

Westbound:

Lane 1 - Length 3248 m

Lane 2 - Length 2932 m

Lane 3 - Length 571 m

Eastbound:

Lane 1 – Length 1510 m

Lane 2 – Length 1510 m

Full reconstruction of carriageway using TS2010 in 2010 followed by 100mm of TS2010 in 2014

Junction 3A to 4A

Westbound:

Lane 1 - Length 4350 m

Lane 2 - Length 4350 m

Eastbound:

Lane 1 offslip at J4 – Length 410 m

Lane 2 offslip at J4 - Length 410 m

Lane 1 - Length 2302 m

Lane 2 - 590 m

Question reference: S5W-06115

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has provided to each local authority in each year since 2011 to support (a) kerbside recycling systems, excluding food waste collections and (b) the Recycle for Scotland campaign.

The vast majority of Scottish Government revenue funding for local authorities is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

In addition, Zero Waste Scotland has been providing support to individual local authorities to support change and incentivise best practice in improving kerbside recycling services.

The following table shows a breakdown of grants awarded to Scottish local authorities from 2011-12 onwards for kerbside recycling services (excluding food waste) and Recycle for Scotland communications.

	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
	£	£	£	£	£
Argyll & Bute	12,500	-	9,980	29,872	-
Aberdeen City	34,485	45,360	18,000	126,773	82,291
Aberdeenshire	31,500	-	126,506	125,200	-
Angus	14,990	5,400	-	14,799	-
Clackmannanshire	7,000	-	-	-	-
Dumfries & Galloway	23,842	332,553	276,518	128,542	10,000
Dundee	21,500	10,000	108,910	179,565	88,134
East Ayrshire	16,500	-	17,500	5,000	121,335
East Dunbartonshire	13,000	31,202	64,061	-	-
East Lothian	13,000	-	-	104,543	63,765
East Renfrewshire	10,000	-	-	-	-
Edinburgh, City of	15,929	30,000	47,500	118,737	345,129
Falkirk	21,000	-	10,785	71,163	258,327
Fife	48,338	103,545	-	14,553	6,799
Glasgow City	85,000	22,919	44,097	-	1,078,979
Highland	31,315	33,022	-	20,716	30,861
Inverclyde	11,000	14,835	79,970	174,584	-
Midlothian	11,000	18,246	-	42,986	-
Moray	12,000	-	13,563	-	-
North Ayrshire	19,000	-	-	-	-
North Lanarkshire	43,500	20,000	-	71,000	-
Orkney	5,255	-	-	-	-
Perth & Kinross	19,500	111,718	38,846	52,276	10,758
Renfrewshire	11,500	6,131	-	20,012	-
Scottish Borders	14,440	-	-	-	-
Shetland	18,445	-	-	-	-
South Ayrshire	15,267	-	-	15,000	-
South Lanarkshire	41,500	-	26,130	3,575	180,612
Stirling	11,500	38,121	-	54,917	-
West Dunbartonshire	13,832	-	130,000	37,800	-
West Lothian	22,000	-	11,445	3,555	-
Western Isles	5,000	-	65,950	-	-

It is not practical to separate out costs for kerbside recycling and Recycle for Scotland as Zero Waste Scotland funding for changing or improving local services usually combines support such as communications, training and temporary ‘implementation’ staff in a single grant award. The exception to this is 2011-12 where all identified expenditure (other than the grant for Shetland council) was specifically for Recycle for Scotland.

The Scottish Government is now supporting Councils with the implementation of the Household Recycling Charter and it has been made clear that support to local authorities for best practice in recycling (through Zero Waste Scotland) will be
re-aligned to support the Charter. To date, 23 Councils have signed up to the Charter with more authorities expected to follow suit.

Question reference: S5W-05943

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much carpet material has been sent to landfill in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority.

This information is not available.

Local authority waste data held by SEPA does not include specific information about how much carpet material has been sent to landfill over the last five years. It is likely that carpet material is included within the categories of ‘textile wastes’ and ‘household and similar wastes’. This information, including breakdown by local authority and waste management is available via the Discover Data tools on the SEPA website at:

https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/waste/waste-data/waste-data-reporting/waste-data-for-scotland/

Question reference: S5W-05940

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether its circular economy strategy is on course to deliver 5,700 remanufacturing jobs by 2020, as outlined in its Making Things Last report.

‘Making Things Last’ sets out our ambition and priorities to move Scotland towards a more circular economy, where products and materials are kept in high value use for as long as possible. The strategy does not include job creation targets but identifies the potential economic and environmental opportunities underpinning the prioritisation of our actions, including those noted for remanufacturing. We would expect the employment benefits of these interventions to become clearer as implementation proceeds.

Question reference: S5W-05939

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what benefit has been derived from lowering the rate of non-hazardous soil treatment of recyclable soils.

The introduction of Scottish Landfill Tax in April 2015 did not result in any changes to the liability of soils for the purposes of Landfill Tax. From 1996 to 2008 contaminated land had a blanket exemption under UK Landfill Tax. Since 2008, soils removed from hazardous and non-hazardous contaminated land and disposed of to landfill have been taxed at the standard rate under both the UK and Scottish landfill tax systems. Sub-soils qualify at the lower rate of Scottish Landfill Tax.

The Scottish Government is not currently aware of any evidence to suggest that the amount of soil being treated has changed.

Question reference: S5W-05942

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to reduce the amount of carpet material being sent to landfill.

The Scottish Government is working to divert a wide range of materials, including carpets, from landfill through increasing the rate of recycling, and where appropriate remanufacture and re-use. These measures include supporting the Recycle for Scotland website, which has advice on recycling many materials; the Re-use Line which helps people pass products on; and Revolve accreditation which is a re-use quality standard that is held, for instance, by Spruce Carpets in Glasgow which takes unwanted carpet and prepares it for sale.

Furthermore, in 'Making Things Last - A Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland', we have committed to examining how producer responsibility can increase recycling, remanufacture and re-use for a number of materials that are difficult to deal with.

Question reference: S5O-00610

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what assurance it can give communities that objections to proposed developments will be fully considered in the appeals process, given the reported 25% increase in the last year in the number of local authority planning rejections overruled by ministers.

Question reference: S5W-05941

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 19 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government which stakeholders it has held discussions with regarding a review of animal welfare legislation, and whether it will provide details of discussions it has had involving the possibility of licensing animal rehoming agencies.

My officials held meetings with stakeholders on 23 November 2015 and 3 June 2016 in connection with the ongoing review of pet welfare. Discussion at those meeting covered a range of issues, including that of licensing animal rehoming agencies. Officials have also discussed that issue at meetings with individual stakeholders.

The minutes of the meetings of November 2015 and June 2016, with participants listed, are available on the Scottish Government website at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/farmingrural/Agriculture/animal-welfare/AnimalWelfare/companion/welfarestakeholder. Representatives from the pet industry, animal welfare, local government and veterinary organisations presented their views.