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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-31405

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 27 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether any public funding has been provided to Stream Bioenergy in the last five years; if so, how much was provided, and for what purpose.

Question reference: S6W-31393

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 27 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the recycling of medical packaging, including blister packs, in its circular economy strategy and associated guidance.

Medical packaging, such as blister packaging, is not easily recycled due to strict regulatory requirements for pharmaceutical packaging set by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. However, the Scottish Government is taking steps to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of packaging waste and to improve recycling through implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging from 2025. This includes obligations for producers of pharmaceutical packaging.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 requires that Scottish Ministers publish a circular economy strategy, which will be developed over the next two years. In advance of that, we will shortly be publishing a final version of our circular economy and waste route map, which will set out actions to deliver sustainable use of our resources and progress a circular economy to 2030. As part of these we will continue to consider medical packaging items.

Question reference: S6W-31215

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 26 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs (a) are currently supported by and (b) have been created through the Nature Restoration Fund.

Question reference: S6W-31404

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 26 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken an assessment of any public health impacts of anaerobic digestion and biogas infrastructure.

The Scottish Government has had no applications for consent under s36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to construct an electricity generating station that uses biogas as its fuel source and has therefore not been required to assess any environmental impacts in relation to anaerobic digestion and biogas infrastructure.

The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 requires those preparing qualifying projects to undertake and prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report. An EIA Report is required to describe the factors specified in Regulation 4(3) within those 2017 Regulations that are likely to be significantly affected by the development. This can include population, human health, biodiversity, land, soil, water, air, climate, material assets, cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological aspects, and landscape.

The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 (legislation.gov.uk) creates a statutory obligation for those preparing qualifying public plans and programmes to assess their likely environment effects and to seek ways to minimise adverse effects, if they are likely to be significant. A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) offers an opportunity to judge the likely environmental impacts of plan, programme or strategy across a number of receptors, including biodiversity; population; human health; fauna; flora; soil; water; air; climatic factors; material assets; cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological heritage; landscape; and the inter-relationship between these topics.

Question reference: S6W-31403

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 26 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the (a) expansion of anaerobic digestion and biogas capacity and (b) reported potential negative impact of any such developments on efforts to tackle the climate crisis and their increased reliance on the existing gas network.

The Scottish Government supports the expansion of anaerobic digestion and biogas capacity, where it adheres to the guiding principles for bioenergy use as set out in our draft Bioenergy Policy Statement (BPS). These include the use of biomass, when in compliance with SEPA environmental regulations and stringent sustainability criteria. Bioenergy use must support emissions reduction and facilitate Scotland’s sustainable development goals.

The draft BPS also sets out that in the longer term, bioenergy should be prioritised towards applications with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) - which will support decarbonisation across relevant sectors and contribute to efforts to meet Scotland’s net zero targets.

Question reference: S6W-31196

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will prohibit employers who make use of unpaid trial shifts from receiving public funding or procurement contracts, as it committed to exploring in its 2024-25 Budget.

The Scottish Government is committed to using all levers at our disposal to extend Fair Work First conditionality with clear standards and minimum requirements to cover all forms of Scottish Government support within the limits of devolved competence. We are currently focussed on implementing Fair Work conditionality in public sector grants and will be undertaking an evaluation which will inform options for future focus and further strengthening of Fair Work First.

Question reference: S6O-04040

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-30846

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what any underspend was on capital funding of flood protection schemes in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of capital funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on flood protection, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities. Individual local authorities hold information on spending in this area.

Question reference: S6O-04000

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with East Dunbartonshire Council regarding the condition of Milngavie Primary School.

Question reference: S6W-30626

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how and (b) when it plans to deliver its commitment to allow local authorities to increase council tax rates on second and holiday homes, beyond the current cap of 200%.

The Scottish Government believes that local councils should decide how to achieve the right balance in the use of housing to meet local needs and to support thriving communities. We delivered secondary legislation to enable councils to apply a 100% Council Tax premium to second homes from 1 April 2024.

To enable increases beyond the 100% premium would require primary legislation. We are continuing to explore and consider this change, in partnership with COSLA, as part of the Joint Working Group on Sources of Local Government Funding and Council Tax Reform.