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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-09049

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when a final decision will be taken regarding the location of a new national park.

The Scottish Government has recently closed an initial consultation to start a national discussion about our National Parks. We will be working with NatureScot over the summer to engage further with the general public and stakeholders to help develop the evaluation framework that will be needed to determine which area or areas should be designated as National Parks. We will soon share further information about the process and timescales which will be followed to progress one or more areas to statutory designation.

Question reference: S6W-09050

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the timescale is for the full designation of a new national park, including the public consultation process.

Question reference: S6W-09100

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many publicly available electric vehicle (EV) charging points have been created in the Galloway and West Dumfries constituency in the last year.

The Transport Scotland, Scottish Transport Statistics 2020 reported 66 publicly available electric vehicle charge points in the Dumfries & Galloway Boundary Area. This figure has increased in 2021 to 80 publicly available charge points in the Dumfries & Galloway Boundary Area. The 2022 statistics will be released in January 2023.

We don’t routinely collect or analyse data on a constituency area basis, and there may be additional commercially financed and operated charge points that aren’t routinely captured in the Scottish Transport Statistics.

Question reference: S6W-09045

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the timescale is for implementation of the decarbonised railway line between Stranraer and Girvan; what work has been carried out on this, and what progress has been made.

Question reference: S6O-01282

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will address the reported shortage of nurses in rural areas.

Question reference: S6O-01222

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what support it is providing to unpaid carers who are experiencing poor mental health.

Question reference: S6W-08070

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 9 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what research it is carrying out on the potential impact of (a) increases in land prices on rural communities, in light of reports of people buying farmland to get closer to nature, increase tree planting and for renewable energy schemes, and (b) a concentration of land ownership on local communities.

The Scottish Government is currently funding two research projects into land values, landownership, and land use change, through the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Strategic Research Programme (SRP) 2022-27. One is at the James Hutton Institute on supporting community engagement in land use decision-making. The second at Scotland’s Rural College, is on impacts of land-based funding mechanisms on land values, and related outcomes for landownership diversification and land use change. These are multi-year projects which will provide a range of outputs over the coming years to inform Scottish Government policy and the wider public debate. Details of all of the projects commissioned through the SRP will be published on the Scottish Government website by the end of June 2022.

In April 2022 the Scottish Land Commission also published research on Scotland's Rural Land Market which is available on their website https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/ .

Question reference: S6O-01080

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on infrastructure investment in the south of Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-00990

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of the delivery of a cross-government Covid Recovery Strategy, what efforts it is making to ensure the resilience of Scotland’s response to any future pandemic.

Question reference: S6W-07580

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 14 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what additional resources will be made available for rural transport infrastructure.

Jenny Gilruth: The Scottish Government ambitions for future investment in rural transport infrastructure are included in the 45 draft recommendations within the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2 ), published on the 20 January 2022. The recommendations form the future transport infrastructure investment priorities for Scotland over the next twenty years and cover the whole country with a focus on active travel; bus priority; getting more freight onto rail; improving the safety and resilience of the transport network and the decarbonisation of the transport system. STPR2 provides the necessary evidence base required to help secure the future funding of these projects, including those that have potential to transform the way we travel in rural areas.

More specifically, STPR2 recommends investment in Demand Responsive Transport and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to support improved public transport connectivity, including in rural areas where conventional fixed route services may not be suitable or viable. In addition, much of Scotland’s rural population resides in towns and villages and there are a number of draft active travel recommendations for these settlements. This includes connecting towns and villages, improving active travel on trunk roads through communities and long distance active travel networks.

Investing in our Trunk Road and Motorway network is important in order to improve safety and resilience of the network for the communities and businesses of Scotland. STPR2 recommendations for strategic roads focus on safety, climate change adaptation and resilience. For safety improvements these will be a primary, but not exclusive, focused on rural sections. Specifically for South West Scotland, STPR2 recommends that safety, resilience and reliability improvements are made on the A75 and A77 strategic road corridors, in turn supporting placemaking opportunities. While to encourage greater use of public transport and support wider town regeneration proposals, STPR2 recommends that consideration should also be given to upgrading or relocating Stranraer rail station.