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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-16867

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding was allocated to the Fuel Insecurity Fund in each financial year since it was established, and how much of this was distributed through the Fund in each of those years.

The Fuel Insecurity Fund was first established by The Scottish Government in the winter of 2020, as part of the wider Winter Support Fund, to help households struggling with their energy costs who were at risk of severely rationing their energy use, or self-disconnecting entirely.

The following table gives an overview of the Fuel Insecurity Fund’s budget and distribution since its inception:

Year	Budgeted	Distributed
2020-21	£7m	£3.595m
2021-22	£10m	£10m
2022-23	£20m*	£20m
2023-24	£30m**	N/A

*originally £10m; raised to £20m at Emergency Budget Review

**originally £20m; raised to £30m in March 2023

Question reference: S6W-16799

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has made of the potential impact that advancing generative artificial intelligence will have on the economy and labour market in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has been investigating the potential impacts of AI on our economy and labour market for over five years.

In 2018 , Technological Change and the Scottish Labour Market , a joint Scottish Government and Scottish Trades Union Congress report, already considered AI.

Between 2019 and 2021, evidence on this topic was generated as part of the development of Scotland’s AI Strategy , which included impact assessments, an online public consultation, a citizen engagement programme and expert working groups, including one on the skills of the workforce.

The 2021 Digital Economy Business Survey highlighted key challenges faced by businesses and the importance of supporting a strong technical infrastructure for Scotland.

The 2022 Digital Economy Skills Action Plan details how we intend to ensure all sectors work together to support the people of Scotland in our move to a digital and AI-enabled economy.

Recent press coverage has made Generative Artificial Intelligence a focus of debate on economic and labour market impact. The Scottish Government also follows other strands of AI research which might be expected to have similar levels of impact – like Computer Vision and Causal AI. The impacts of any of these innovations may have many common considerations.

Experts from the Scottish AI Alliance’s Leadership Group will continue to inform and challenge our actions in this area in the coming years, in the face of accelerating technological innovation including generative AI specifically.

Question reference: S6W-16742

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to prevent super trawlers, such as the FV Margris, from (a) causing damage to fish stocks and (b) harming biodiversity in Scottish waters.

Whilst there are currently no supertrawlers in the Scottish fishing fleet, a number of other fleets operate within Scottish waters, including a small number of EU supertrawlers. As well as vessels from the rest of the UK, the UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement allows EU vessels full access to fish shared stocks within UK waters.

It is important to note that all vessels authorised to operate in Scottish waters do so under the appropriate licenses, and are obliged to follow Scottish domestic management rules, including mesh size restrictions and closed areas. These vessels also operate within agreed quotas. The majority of commercial stocks fished are managed by the use of Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits. TAC levels are informed by the best available independent scientific advice, and are used with an aim to ensure sustainable fishing levels in the long term. Vessels, regardless of size or gear, are only permitted to fish the quotas that they have been allocated, in line with TACs set for each stock.

Sustainability, support for biodiversity, and consideration of the wider ecosystem is at the heart of how we manage Scotland’s fisheries and protect our marine environment. This is reflected in the 12 point action plan contained within Scotland Fisheries Management Strategy, and in the Blue Economy Vision for Scotland, which sets out our ambition for the sustainable management and shared stewardship of Scotland’s sea and coasts.

Question reference: S6W-16817

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce legislation to give creditors greater flexibility to reduce the amount of money taken in an earnings arrestment.

Question reference: S6W-16772

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to support third sector organisations to enable them to financially benefit from social prescribing, in order to recoup any additional costs of supporting these programmes such as increased volunteer training and management.

The Scottish Government recognise that social prescribing can be an effective method of improving an individual’s physical, mental and social health. There is growing interest in social prescribing approaches in Scotland and we are currently looking at how we can help develop these further.

At its core, social prescribing is a person-centred approach to supporting people to address the underlying causes of ill-health and an understanding of the importance of non-clinical community resources in helping with these challenges.

The Scottish Government already provides funding to third sector organisations to deliver a range of services, including social prescribing.

Question reference: S6W-16845

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what process informed its decision to adopt a target of 20,000 hectares per year of peatland restoration, and for what reasons it did not act on the Climate Change Committee’s target recommendation of 45,000 hectares per year by 2022.

We arrived at our current target of restoring 20,000 hectares per year of peatland based on evidence from the Scottish Government’s second report on proposals and policies (RPP2) in 2013 which highlighted that it would be technically feasible for Scotland to restore 20,000 hectares of peatland a year.

Based on this the Scottish Government subsequently established firm annual peatland restoration targets in 2018 in its Climate Change Plan: third report on proposals and policies 2018-2032 (RPP3) .

We have adopted this as a target and in 2020 set out ambitious plans to invest more than £250 million over ten years to restore at least 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030.

Question reference: S6W-16814

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to remove the application fee for Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy.

Question reference: S6W-16854

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what key performance indicators it uses to measure the performance of VoiceAbility in assisting with Scottish Social Security claims.

The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) used in monitoring the performance of VoiceAbility are provided below:

No	Key Performance Indicator
1	All requests for support received must be processed and allocated to appropriate advocacy representation within 2 working days.
2	Initial appointments with individuals should be arranged within 3 working days of the referral to the advocacy worker or service partner.
3	Acknowledge receipt of complaint/concern within 2 working days of receipt and provide a formal response within 5 working days of receipt (copied to the Scottish Government contract manager for information).
4	Any complaints which cannot be resolved by Service Provider regarding the system or services must be sent to Scottish Government contract manager within 6 working days of receipt.
5	Serious issues to be escalated to the Scottish Government within 24 hours.
6	Service Provider must issue satisfaction survey to 100% of individuals within two days of their service requirements ending.
7	Service Provider must make payment to any sub-contractors within 30 days of receipt of a valid invoice

VoiceAbility are also contractually obliged to adhere to the Social Security Advocacy Service Standards – set by the Scottish Ministers in regulations as required by section 11 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. These standards set out the following six core principles framing delivery of the Social Security Independent Advocacy Service: Definition of Advocacy, Independence, Person Centred, Accessible, Trained and Quality Assurance.

We will also assess performance of the service through an evaluation exercise, which will consider both KPIs and wider quantitative and qualitative measures.

Question reference: S6T-01335

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 April 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to a recent report by NUS Scotland, which stated that more than a fifth of international students in Scotland have experienced homelessness during their studies.

Question reference: S6T-01332

Asked by: Bill Kidd, MSP for Glasgow Anniesland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 April 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 April 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with the SQA regarding the preparations for this year’s exams.