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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-00537

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 18 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will support ports by (a) reviewing planning regulations, (b) incentivising diversification and (c) ensuring that they benefit from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The Scottish Government recognises that a diverse and successful ports sector contributes significantly to national, regional and local economies. We continue to work with the ports sector to explore avenues of funding for diversifying and reducing the carbon impact of port operations.

Scotland’s ongoing programme of planning reform is refocusing planning on improving the quality of our places. We are undertaking a review of National Planning Policy in Scotland with a view to publishing National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in 2022. This will be Scotland’s long-term development strategy, the direction of travel for which is set out in the NPF4 Position Statement published in November 2020. Permitted development rights (PDR) refer to those types of development for which planning permission is granted by national legislation, meaning they can be carried out without needing to submit a planning application. Port operators in Scotland already have broad PDR under Part 13 of Schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992. As we noted in the draft Green Port Applicant Prospectus published in March 2021, the Scottish Government will consider whether port operators’ existing PDR remain fit-for-purpose.

Despite its forthcoming launch, there has been little detail shared or dialogue with Scotland on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. It remains unclear how much Scotland will receive or on what basis our allocation will be decided. It is extremely disappointing that the UK Government has again decided to use the powers it has given itself in the Internal Market Act to introduce a scheme which bypasses the Scottish Government and stakeholders.

Question reference: S6W-00545

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 18 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00237 by Graeme Dey on 3 June 2021, whether it is confident that a solution to the build-up of ice on the Queensferry Crossing will be put in place before winter.

Every effort is being made to investigate possible solutions and trial the most promising of these in the run up to this coming winter. Transport Scotland’s Operating Company, BEAR Scotland, will be undertaking laboratory tests ahead of winter 2021 and on-site trials during winter 2021 of potential solutions. Options currently under consideration to prevent or reduce ice formation include coatings and de-icing compounds applied to the stay cables and towers and cleaning of the stay cables to remove deposited air borne particulates from the external surface of the stay cables. Should a viable solution be found, it will be subject to Peer review and Value for Money assessment before full-scale deployment.

Question reference: S6W-00539

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 18 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide opportunities for ports to apply to become enterprise areas.

Question reference: S6W-00546

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether Transport Scotland’s growth target for rail freight will be achieved by 2024.

Network Rail is on track to meet our innovative growth target for rail freight. Despite the health pandemic, rail freight demand has held up well and 216 new freight trains ran on the network in Scotland in the past 12 months. Supported by Scottish Government and third party investment more new freight services in Scotland are planned in the next 18 months, in addition to new cross border express logistics services. Modal shift to rail will play a key part in decarbonising the overall transport network to meet our ambitious climate change targets.

Question reference: S6W-00551

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government further to the answer to question S5W-35465 by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2021, whether it will provide an update on the electrification projects on the (a) East Kilbride and (b) Barrhead railway lines.

Network Rails Contractor, SPL, is undertaking on-site activities between Muirhouse South Junction and Busby Junction as part of the East Kilbride / Barrhead Enhancements project. This includes piling and the construction of steelwork foundations to support future electrification.

This demonstrates that positive progress is being made with early construction activities whilst the necessary development work for the complete project is progressed.

Future updates can be sourced via the dedicated project pages in the Scotland’s Railway website:-

https://scotlandsrailway.com/projects/east-kilbride-enhancements

Question reference: S6W-00236

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 10 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many delays to ferry services operated by CalMac have been caused by mechanical complications in the last five years.

The number of times a mechanical problem has resulted in a delay to ferry services operated by CalMac Ferries Ltd between October 2016 to March 2021 is detailed in the following table.

Period	Scheduled Sailings	No. of Sailings Delayed	% of sailings delayed
Contract Year 1 Oct 2016 – Sept 2017	156,820	213	0.14
Contract Year 2 Oct 2017 – Sept 2018	163,892	198	0.12
Contract Year 3 Oct 2018 – Sept 2019	164,161	249	0.15
Contract Year 4 Oct 2019 – Sept 2020	119,651	272	0.23
Contract Year 5 Oct 2020 – March 2021	68,966	86	0.12
TOTAL	673,490	1,018	0.15

Question reference: S6O-00029

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support local government in the delivery of community services.

Question reference: S6W-00233

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 7 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of the travel budget will be spent on active travel in the next five years.

Full details of active travel funding for the next five years has not yet been agreed and will form part of the annual Budget process. The Active Travel budget for 2021-22 increased by £15 million to £115.5 million, and in the Programme for Government 2020 we committed to spending over £500 million on active travel over the next five years. This Government has given a further commitment to spending 10% of the Transport Scotland capital budget on active travel by the end of the parliament.

Question reference: S6W-00234

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 4 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to put the role of the Active Nation Commissioner on a statutory footing.

Question reference: S6W-00235

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when provisions in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 to allow local transport authorities to propose bus services will be implemented.

Following a necessary pause to the implementation of Part 3 (Bus Services) of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 last year owing to the reallocation of national and local government resources to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, work resumed with a virtual stakeholder event held in March this year.

The outputs of that and ongoing engagement will feed into a consultation paper for launch later this year. That will inform the development of secondary legislation and supporting guidance. The timetable for the introduction of secondary legislation will be dependent, to an extent, on parliamentary process.