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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-06422

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05517 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, regarding the estimated 27% lower impact of incineration over landfill, whether it will confirm that this involves an underlying assumption that (a) it is an estimate of historical (circa 2018) impacts rather than current or anticipated climate impacts of incineration, (b) it is based on sending waste directly to landfill with no biostabilisation component, (c) the impact of displaced energy is modelled using the UK grid rather than the relatively more decarbonised Scotland grid and (d) the technical report that contains the 27% estimate acknowledges data gaps in the composition of municipal waste and the energy outputs of energy from waste (EfW) plants.

All the underlying assumptions used in the analysis, including the information requested by the member, are available in the Zero Waste Scotland report The Climate Change Impacts of Burning Municipal Waste in Scotland and the accompanying technical report. Both are available on the Zero Waste Scotland website: The climate change impact of burning municipal waste in Scotland | Zero Waste Scotland .

Question reference: S6W-06418

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether municipal waste incinerators in Scotland are currently required to accurately measure direct CO2 emissions through the use of calibrated flow rates and calibrated CO2 continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS), and, if not, what plans there are to require this, in line with the approach taken by the UK Government Environment Agency.

As per S6W-06417 answered on 28 February 2022 , measurement of CO2 emissions using calibrated flow meters and CEMS is not a current requirement in SEPA permits for existing MWIs.

All SEPA Permits for existing sites must comply with the requirements of the Waste Incineration BAT Conclusions (WI BATCs) by 3 December 2023. SEPA will review Permits for MWIs to ensure they will be compliant by the deadline. This will include the new requirement for a calibrated flow meter.

The calibration of CO2 CEMS is not required by the WI BATCs. However, as part of the BAT review process, SEPA will consider whether to include a requirement for calibration of CEMS for CO2 and reporting of CO2 mass emissions to align with the approach taken by the Environment Agency. Whether or not each MWI has an appropriate CEMS in place which is able to be calibrated for measurement of CO2 will be confirmed during the BAT Review for each Permit.

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-06417

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown for the most recent year for which data is available of direct CO2 emissions recorded through calibrated flow rates and calibrated CO2 continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) from each municipal waste incinerator in Scotland; what proportion of the CO2 was (a) fossil-based and (b) biogenic, and how this split was derived.

There is no requirement for the direct measurements of CO2 via calibrated flow meters and calibrated CO2 CEMS in SEPA permits for municipal waste incinerators (MWI) in Scotland. The requested information is therefore not available either in total, or as a breakdown by proportion derived from fossil fuel and proportion derived from biogenic sources.

Permit holders are however required to report their annual CO2 emissions via the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory (SPRI) and SEPA can therefore provide this data for the last reported year although this may include CO2 from additional sources to those from the incineration process eg. standby generators. This data can be found in SEPA’s SPRI data tool informatics.sepa.org.uk/SPRI/ . This is usually estimated using emission factors. There is no requirement in SPRI for MWIs to further breakdown their reported CO2 emission data into the proportions derived from fossil fuel or biogenic sources so this data is not available.

Question reference: S6W-06423

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05517 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, whether the 27% figure was calculated without accounting for landfill releasing less biogenic CO2 than incineration, and what its position is on this matter.

Question reference: S6O-00804

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to promote the welfare of dogs.

Question reference: S6W-06177

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05700 by Lorna Slater on 26 January 2022, whether it will confirm, regardless of whether there was a revised launch date or not, whether the minister was aware that there would be a delay to the Deposit Return Scheme (a) on, (b) prior or (c) after 17 November 2021.

Question reference: S6W-06074

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment was carried out to ascertain the suitability of digital technologies for inclusion in the deposit return scheme; which technologies were assessed; what assessment method was used, and who carried out each assessment, and when.

Decisions regarding the use of technology to operate Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) are for industry to take in line with the principle of producer responsibility.

We would anticipate that industry will make extensive use of digital technology in delivering the scheme, for example by developing an IT system to track payments made and received, adopting state-of-the-art reverse vending technology to prevent fraud, and using digital media to communicate with the public regarding DRS.

We are aware of the so-called ‘digital DRS’ as a proposed approach to delivering deposit return whereby consumers redeem deposits on scheme articles by scanning them with a smartphone before placing them in their kerbside recycling. We considered this approach during the policy-development process for DRS and the strong feedback from both industry and environmental NGOs was that the technology is not sufficiently mature for implementation on the timetable for our DRS.

We, and Circularity Scotland Ltd as scheme administrator, are monitoring developments including trials of ‘digital DRS’ in Wales. However, we are focussed on delivering a return-to-retail DRS, in line with international best practice, that will make it as easy to return a bottle or can as it was to buy it.

Question reference: S6W-06123

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05593 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, whether it will confirm whether it holds details of estimated preparedness times for any individual businesses in Scotland, and, if so, whether it will provide that information.

As part of the review into the implementation date for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) we carried out intensive scrutiny of Circularity Scotland Ltd’s (CSL) implementation programme, including through the Gateway Review and Assurance of Action Plan, as well as engagement from Scottish Ministers and officials. I am therefore confident that CSL will be prepared to deliver its obligations by 16 August 2023.

The Gateway Review interviewed a range of other stakeholders and, although it gave a preparedness estimate of 12-24 months for individual stakeholders, did not give a breakdown of preparedness estimates for individual businesses. While businesses interviewed separately by SG tended to endorse this finding, we do not hold exact preparedness times for these individual businesses.

Question reference: S6W-06073

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 17 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05595 by Lorna Slater on 25 January 2022 and without seeking information on Circularity Scotland Ltd’s procurement decisions, whether it will confirm the date on which the minister was made aware that procurement documents indicating a 2023 launch date for the deposit return scheme had been issued.

Question reference: S6W-05932

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 9 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government with which external organisations (not including Zero Waste Scotland) did the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity meet, including virtually and in person, to discuss the deposit return scheme, broken down by (a) the number of meetings that were held with each organisation and (b) when the meetings took place, between 1 September 2021 and 14 December 2021.