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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-14237

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has held with the leaders of the unsuccessful Freeport bids.

Question reference: S6W-14238

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it considers the potential economic impact will be for areas that unsuccessfully bid for Freeports.

Question reference: S6W-13832

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether any assessment has been conducted and will be published regarding its support to Scottish industry in relation to the research and development, manufacturing of, and the required skills to ensure the long-term maintenance of wind turbines.

Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan set out a series of actions, including the development of a refreshed Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan by the end of 2023.

Alongside this, as part of the ScotWind leasing round, developers were required to complete a Supply Chain Development Statement (SCDS). The SCDS outlines the supply chain activity that each project is committing to undertake within Scotland, the UK and overseas. These commitments amount to billions of pounds of investment in the Scottish supply chain and economy, with initial projections showing an average spend of £1.4bn across each of the 20 ScotWind projects.

Our Enterprise Agencies, including Scottish Development International, are engaged with a number of leading businesses that have the products, technology, skills and know-how to support robust supply chain development. We are encouraging developers to work with our Agencies and partners to identify how best to support and anticipate business needs as well as operational challenges to delivery of these projects.

We are already starting to see examples of companies establishing Operations and Maintenance (O&M) bases for their offshore wind farms in Scotland. In addition to the vast potential opened up by ScotWind, the Neart na Gaoithe O&M base was officially opened by the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport on 25 January. This base will bring up to 50 high quality jobs to the Eyemouth area for the 25-year lifespan of the wind farm. The base is also large enough to handle potential staff expansion in summer months when the weather is calmer and maintenance can be increased.

Question reference: S6W-14190

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) projects and (b) people have been supported through the Digital Inclusion Fund.

The Digital Inclusion Fund was initiated in 2020 to enable students who, owing to low incomes, struggled to access online learning during the pandemic.

To date the fund has supported almost 11,000 learners across colleges, universities and within community learning settings. We expect this number to increase on receipt of final reporting on the £5 million investment for 2022-23; which is expected by the end of this academic year.

Question reference: S6W-14120

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, with reference to the recently published Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, whether its commitment to make changes in relation to the provision of secure accommodation and the regulation of secure accommodation services, including those services that take children from other parts of the UK, will include secure transportation services.

The care provided by Scotland’s independent secure providers is highly-regarded. We need to consider how the secure care system operates overall in the coming years, taking in to consideration the asks from the Independent Care Review’s Promise and the incorporation of UNCRC, before embarking on any redesign work.

In the short term, the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill will give effect to the necessary legislative changes to displace all under 18s from custody. Contractual and other non-statutory interventions to guarantee secure capacity and to minimise providers’ reliance on placements from elsewhere in the UK are already in train.

Over the coming years, preparing to keep the Promise by 2030 will likely entail a transformational change to the current secure provision for children in Scotland. A secure estate configured to meet Scotland’s future demands means we will need to undertake significant redesign activity with providers and purchasers. Resource shifts, system and practice change will also be required.

Alongside that, a national service specification for secure transport is being developed by the joint Scottish Government and COSLA led Secure Care Group. This specification aims to bring consistency to the expectations and requirements, wherever secure transport requires to be commissioned.

Question reference: S6W-14063

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) annual and (b) average rate of landlord registration has been since 2010, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-13664

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 1 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many customer complaints ScotRail has received since it was brought into public ownership.

ScotRail has provided the below data for its closed customer complaints since 1 April 2022, by four-weekly rail period, with the prior year (2021-22) and final pre-pandemic year (2019-20) included for comparison:

Rail Year Period	Complaints 2022-23	Complaints 2021-22	Complaints 2019-20
Period 1	1,142	643	2,174
Period 2	1,867	1,079	2,218
Period 3	1,500	1,364	2,228
Period 4	1,015	1,316	2,130
Period 5	1,136	1,543	2,013
Period 6	1,038	924	2,125
Period 7	973	1,313	1,910
Period 8	1,088	1,951	1,482
Period 9	1,491	1,079	2,115
Period 10	1,269	1,034	1,534
Period 11	TBC	970	1,894
Period 12	TBC	575	1,519
Period 13	TBC	1,059	1,447
Total	12,519	14,850	24,789
Complaints as % of total journeys	0.0265%	0.0318%	0.0257%

ScotRail submits complaints data to the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), and this data is published quarterly on the ORR website at https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/passenger-experience/passenger-rail-service-complaints/

Question reference: S6W-14300

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many serious road traffic accidents have been caused by wild deer in the last 12 months.

We do not hold this information in the Transport Scotland injury road accidents database. At the moment, the only information we collect is accidents involving an animal in the carriageway and we cannot determine from the database, what type of animal. The only other information that we are aware of in relation to traffic accidents involving deer, is available in an Nature Scot study publication here: NatureScot Commissioned Report 950 - Deer-vehicle collisions in Scotland - data collection and collation to end 2015 | NatureScot

Question reference: S6W-14275

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much each fire safety check carried out by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service as part of short-term let licensing applications costs the service.

Question reference: S6W-14281

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects to make a decision on whether to establish a public inquiry into the 2014 and 2018 Glasgow School of Art fires, in light of the correspondence with the Scottish Parliament's Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, in 2022, and the reported ongoing concerns about the works to restore the iconic Mackintosh building.