Chamber and committees

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: S5T-00686

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 September 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Network Rail regarding its decision to withdraw support for the needle exchange programme at Glasgow Central Station.

Question reference: S5O-01268

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 September 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 September 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what funding it provides to encourage access to art, drama and music by young people in South Lanarkshire.

Question reference: S5O-01231

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2017
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 September 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce air pollution in residential areas.

The Cleaner Air for Scotland strategy sets out a series of actions for Government, Transport Scotland, local authorities and others to further reduce air pollution across all areas of Scotland. Financial and other support is provided to local authorities to assist them with monitoring and implementing local actions to improve air quality.

The recently announced Programme for Government reconfirmed our intention to establish Scotland's first Low Emission Zone by 2018. it also significantly increased our level of ambition by committing to establishing Low Emission Zones in all four of Scotland's largest cities by 2020 and, where evidence supports such an approach, in all other Air Quality Management Areas by 2023.

Question reference: S5O-01191

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 June 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on calls to repeal the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.

Question reference: S5O-01162

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 June 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it can take to ensure that bus fare rates in Glasgow are affordable.

Question reference: S5O-01098

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 May 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 7 June 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it supports the provision of adequate bus services in Glasgow.

Question reference: S5O-01028

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 24 May 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to assess the impact of tax policy in relation to future budgets.

The Scottish Government provides 5 year forecasts for tax revenues in Scotland as a part of the Draft Budget process, showing the expected revenues available for expenditure in future budgets. The independent SFC have provided robust challenge to our forecasts over the last three years and found each set of forecasts to be reasonable in terms of the revenue they are expected to generate.

From 1 April 2017, the Commission has a statutory duty to prepare forecasts at least twice a year and the Scottish Government’s expectation is that the forecasts produced by the Commission will be used to inform future Scottish budgets.

Question reference: S5O-01006

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 May 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support bus passengers in Glasgow.

The Scottish Government supports bus services across Scotland, including Glasgow, through the Bus Service Operators Grant. We also support bus passengers through the national concessionary travel schemes, which provide free travel for older and disabled people and discounts for young people.

Local transport authorities, including Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, can choose to support socially necessary services which are not operated commercially.

Question reference: S5W-09048

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 11 May 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment the Council of Economic Advisers has made of setting the top rate of income tax in Scotland at 50p.

The Council of Economic Advisers have been invited by the First Minister to provide advice regarding how and to what extent the revenue risk associated with differential additional rates of income tax between Scotland and the rest of the UK may be mitigated. The Council’s deliberations will help inform decision-making around the Additional Rate for Draft Budget 2018-19.

The Council of Economic Advisers last met on 26-27 January 2017, where as a first step they considered the analysis undertaken to date by the Scottish Government on the Additional Rate. The minutes of the meeting are available at:

https://beta.gov.scot/publications/council-of-economic-advisers-minutes-january-2017/

Question reference: S5W-08677

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 4 May 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, as per ScotRail’s monthly public performance measure (PPM) figures, how many services are scheduled to call each weekday at each station on the Glasgow Central - Cathcart Circle/Neilston/Newton service, and (a) how many and (b) what percentage arrived (i) on time, (ii) up to one minute early and (iii) more than one minute early in each of the last 12 months.

On a normal weekday, 195 trains are booked to run on ScotRail’s Glasgow Central - Cathcart Circle/Neilston/Newton service as a whole. The current timetable can be found at this weblink:

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/assets/download_ct/sr1612_cathcart_circle_neilston_and_newton.pdf

By convention, train performance is reported over the course of the year in thirteen four-weekly periods. In each of the last thirteen periods, the percentage of these trains which met the PPM target (arrival within five minutes of the timetabled time), and the right-time target (arrival within one minute of the timetabled time), was reported to Transport Scotland as follows:

Period	PPM:	Right-time arrivals
1	96.9%	55.5%
2	97.3%	54.0%
3	96.9%	51.6%
4	97.9%	53.7%
5	95.6%	49.3%
6	97.3%	51.6%
7	95.9%	40.9%
8	94.0%	39.4%
9	93.1%	38.1%
10	95.1%	40.1%
11	96.0%	46.9%
12	98.2%	51.4%
13	97.4%	46.8%

The average for the year was over 96 percent, compared with 90.3 percent for the franchise as a whole, and 91.4 percent for the ‘Suburban West’ group. Over the year, somewhat less than 48 percent of trains in this service group met the right-time target.

The contractual target for the franchise as a whole for the 2016-17 year was 90.3 percent.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number or percentage of trains which arrived up to one minute early, in the form requested, at a sector or route level. More information on ScotRail’s performance can be found at this weblink:

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/performance-and-reliability