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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: S6O-04876

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what role the finance secretary has in authorising any continued expenditure of public bodies that incur substantial legal costs, including those covered by the Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-39564

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided towards the construction of cycle lanes in each of the last five years.

We have recently published an Active Travel Infrastructure Investment Report for 2023-24, which reports on Transport Scotland’s active travel capital investment in infrastructure.

The active travel budget does not allocate funding to specific infrastructure types, rather is available for the delivery of all active travel infrastructure projects. The individual project expenditure information we hold from delivery partners does not always disaggregate or identify distinct infrastructure types such as cycle lanes. However, the active travel infrastructure investment in each of the last five years is presented in the following table:

Year	Investment
2020-21	£85,821,798
2021-22	£92,928,802
2022-23	£122,343,823
2023-24	£150,548,994
2024-25	£119,549,631

In 2025-26 we will invest over £188 million to support high quality active travel and bus infrastructure, sustainable travel integration, and behaviour change activity to promote walking, wheeling and cycling for everyday shorter journeys. This investment has and will continue to transform communities, enabling more people to walk and cycle, helping to improve their health and wellbeing.

Question reference: S6W-39565

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many train stations operated by ScotRail in Scotland are not step-free, and what action it is taking to ensure better accessibility to all train stations.

Question reference: S6W-39558

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on whether an independent Scotland would seek to join the Nuclear Energy Agency.

Question reference: S6W-39559

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on who would represent an independent Scotland in any participation at a G20 summit.

Question reference: S6W-39557

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on whether an independent Scotland would seek to join NATO.

Question reference: S6W-39556

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on whether an independent Scotland would (a) take a share of UK debt in exchange for assets or (b) adopt a position of no shared assets, no shared debt.

Question reference: S6W-39566

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 19 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of the £2 million made available in its 2025-26 Budget to progress free bus travel for people seeking asylum, how many asylum seekers have accessed free bus travel through this funding to date, and what assessment it has carried out on any potential benefits of this scheme.

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 25 February, has funding allocated to provide free bus travel for people seeking asylum. My officials have reconvened the Working Group with Third Sector representatives and other interested parties to work through delivery options for a pilot scheme this financial year.

The pilot will provide free bus travel for those people seeking asylum who are not eligible for the existing statutory free bus travel schemes. It is anticipated that the pilot will commence in the Autumn. Delivery of the pilot will be monitored and an evaluation carried out to determine demand, costs and potential benefits of free bus travel to people seeking asylum in Scotland.

People seeking asylum in Scotland who are aged under 22, aged 60 or over or have an eligible disability are already entitled to concessionary travel through the existing National Concessionary Travel schemes.

Question reference: S6W-39562

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 15 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the total value is of any Freight Facilities Grants that have been paid out in each of the last three financial years, broken down by the (a) value of each grant and (b) organisation that received the funding.

Question reference: S6W-39563

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 15 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its work to help local authorities deliver Low Emissions Zones (LEZs) in Scotland’s four largest cities, what assessment it has made of the impact of LEZs on air quality in each LEZ area since their introduction.

The annual assessment and reporting of air quality and Low Emission Zone (LEZ) performance is a statutory responsibility of the relevant local authorities.

Glasgow City Council published their most recent annual air quality report in August 2025. The report found that when comparing 2024 with 2022, the last full year before enforcement of the LEZ, locations within the zone experienced an average reduction of the air pollutant nitrogen dioxide (NO2) of 34% whilst locations outside of the zone observed an annual reduction of 21%.

More generally, in 2024, the first full year of Glasgow’s LEZ enforcement, air quality within the whole of the city met all applicable statutory objectives. This is the first time full compliance has been recorded since the Local Air Quality Management process was established under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995.

In addition, in June 2025 an LEZ Update Report produced by Scottish Environment Protection Agency considered air quality in the zone since the introduction of Phase 1 of Glasgow’s LEZ (which applied only to buses from December 2018). This report found that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels on Hope Street (historically the most polluted street in Scotland) fell from 61 µg/m³ in 2018—above the legal limit of 40 µg/m³—to 34 µg/m³ in 2024. Furthermore, tailpipe emissions of particulate matter (PM10) had reduced by over 80%, with CO2 emissions also declining.

The City Council’s for Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh will publish their annual air quality reports in the coming months. However, as enforcement of LEZs in these cities only began in mid-2024, the 2024 air quality data will not fully reflect the impact of LEZs in these cities.

While it is therefore too early to assess the impact of the LEZs in all four of Scotland’s cities, Glasgow’s LEZ demonstrates a clear and direct link between a specific policy intervention and air quality benefits.

Year	Value of Award	Applicant
2022-23	£718,231	Highland Spring
2023-24	£357,000	Carr's
2024-25	No Budget Available	-