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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6W-17912

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it commenced work to discover an accurate statistic for Scotland's offshore wind potential as a percentage of Europe's generation, following its previously stated erroneous figure of 25%; when it expects to publish this figure, and, if it is the case that it has established a preliminary conclusion regarding this figure, whether it will state what that is.

Question reference: S6W-18276

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the 32 winning projects of the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme, announced on 18 May 2023, received their funding via the Scottish National Investment Bank, and, if not, whether it will provide the rationale for this decision.

The Hydrogen Innovation Scheme is part of the Scottish Government’s £180m Emerging Energy Technologies Fund (EETF), which was announced by Scottish Ministers in the Climate Change Plan Update (December 2020). The EETF will support the development of the hydrogen sector and carbon capture and storage (CCS), including Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) in Scotland by providing capital support until 2026 to accelerate low carbon infrastructure projects that will be essential to deliver net zero. The fund will make £100 million available to support hydrogen projects in line with our Hydrogen Policy Statement. The funding offered to the 32 successful applicants to the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme is the first tranche of this hydrogen funding programme.

Question reference: S6W-17985

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an exhaustive list of which (a) companies and (b) industry bodies from the energy sector the new Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy has met with since taking on this ministerial role.

Question reference: S6O-02297

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what actions it is taking to mitigate any negative effects of commercial forestry on farming.

Question reference: S6W-17909

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 24 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it assesses "offshore wind farm economic activity", as referenced in the publication, Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics 2020, and whether Marine Scotland has concluded its investigations into how to more accurately measure such economic activity, and, if it has not yet concluded this work, when it expects to do so.

The publication, Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics provides details on the sources and calculations used to produce the offshore wind turnover and employment information. It also provides some summary information on the uncertainty present within this data as well as a link to the source, the Office for National Statistics' Low carbon and renewable energy economy survey, data which provides more details on the quality and uncertainty of this data. The Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics publication is currently an experimental statistics publication, which means it is under development. The offshore wind data is one of the areas that will undergo further work as data sources expand.

We have finished our investigation into whether it is possible to more accurately measure the offshore wind farm economic activity. We have concluded that currently there is no more accurate way to measure using existing data sources, however this will be reassessed in future. The reasons for this conclusion are:

The main source for economic data for businesses is the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Business Survey. This uses Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes to classify businesses by main activity. There is a ‘Production of electricity’ SIC code, but the source of the electricity generation (e.g. offshore wind) is not separately identified within the SIC system.
It is currently not possible to accurately calculate the gross value added of offshore wind using existing data or collecting it directly due to business structures. This is why the current source for the offshore wind economic activity, the low carbon and renewable energy economy survey, only estimates turnover and employment.
Financial records at Companies House also use the same SIC codes as the ONS Annual Business Survey so it is difficult to identify relevant businesses. Even when identified their complex and interlinked business structures mean that is it not possible, using current sources, to separately calculate reliable gross value added associated specifically with offshore wind.

There is potential for future improvements in the measurement of the economic activity associated with renewables. As, for example, there is work ongoing led by the United Nations Statistics Division on a revision to the SIC codes, which were last updated in 2007. This planned update should better account for newer sectors such as renewables.

Question reference: S6W-17910

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 23 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs, which it defines as "offshore wind jobs", currently exist in Scotland, broken down by the region in which they are located, and from where it has sourced its definition of such jobs.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) Survey provides estimates of employment in offshore wind across the countries of the UK.

The 2021 LCREE estimates show that 3,100 Full Time Equivalent Staff (FTE) were directly employed in offshore wind in Scotland. There is no regional breakdown of the data available.

The results in LCREE are survey-based, the data is gathered from a sample rather than the whole population. The estimates are therefore subject to uncertainty, which is expressed through the publication of confidence intervals alongside the data.

The latest version of the LCREE publication can be found here: Low carbon and renewable energy economy, UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

Question reference: S6W-17566

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 17 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the latest round of Just Transition Funding, when applications will (a) open and (b) close; what the criteria are for successful applications; who will judge the applications; when successful applicants will receive the funding, and whether previous applicants are able to apply.

The Fund's focus in 2023-24 will be on deploying £25 million in capital grants, as part of the £50 million multi-year programme that was announced last year.

Additionally, £25 million has been allocated to the Scottish National Investment Bank for 2023-24 to invest on a commercial basis, in line with the Bank's Investment Strategy.

Utilising the commercial investment expertise and experience of the Bank offers a key opportunity to unlock third party finance at the scale required to meet our ambitions for a just transition in North East and Moray.

Question reference: S6W-17690

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 17 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what data it holds on the number of sewage discharges by (a) incidence and (b) hours of discharge, into Peterhead Lido, in each year since 2017 up to the latest available data; what the approximate volumes were of any such discharges in each year; what assessment has been made of the potential impact of any such discharges on the health of Lido users; what the reasons were for any such discharges; what action it has taken since 2017 to reduce the number of discharges, and what is currently being done to prevent any further discharges.

There are no sewage discharges into Peterhead Lido, designated bathing water. The recent Scottish Liberal Democrat analysis of Scottish Water’s published Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) spill data stating that ‘sewage was discharged for a staggering 483 hours last year, totalling 337 separate sewage dumps onto the beach’ and widely reported in the media is incorrect.

Peterhead Lido is located within Peterhead Bay Marina harbour walls, which is situated within Peterhead Bay again protected by a second set of harbour walls. Peterhead Wastewater Treatment Works short sea outfall CSO, as highlighted by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, is located 1 km south around a coastal peninsula outside both sets of harbour walls away from Peterhead Lido. Given its location it cannot discharge sewage into Peterhead Lido or impact on its bathing water quality.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is responsible for monitoring, classifying protecting and improving water quality at designated bathing waters. Peterhead Lido is currently classified as having excellent bathing water quality. Overall, 98% of bathing waters currently meet the bathing water standards with more beaches being classified as excellent than ever before.

Question reference: S6W-17179

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 16 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-16276 by Kevin Stewart on 6 April 2023, in which it refers to the publication of the outline business case for the Aberdeen to Central belt rail enhancement project as planned for “later this year”, for what reason the publication has been delayed from 2022; what stage in the process of preparing the business case has been reached to date, and by what specific date later in 2023 it will be published.

As previously explained, the business case for the Aberdeen to Central Belt project was delayed while Network Rail took more time than first expected to complete some of its activities. There is also a fundamental need for the business case to fully recognise the emerging plans for the decarbonisation of the Aberdeen to Central Belt route.

The business case has reached an advanced stage of development and will be published when complete.

Question reference: S6W-17174

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 15 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the average award per property has been for funding awarded from the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund, since the fund was established.