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: S4O-04670

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 October 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Bill will maintain democracy in universities.

Question reference: S4W-26251

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 29 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met officials from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to discuss the proposed closure of Longannet power plant and its potential replacement with a combined cycle gas turbine plant.

I have sought a meeting with Amber Rudd to discuss a number of energy matters since her appointment. An agreement was eventually made to meet her on 12 October 2015.

The Scottish Government has had extensive engagement with a range of parties over Longannet. I have set out the full range of this engagement in a series of related parliamentary questions. I refer the member to the answers to questions S4W-25246 and S4W-25247 on 7 May 2015, S4W-25248 on 1 May 2015, S4W-25588, S4W-25589, S4W-25591 and S4W-25895 on 2 June 2015, S4W-25896 and S4W-25897 on 26 June 2015 and S4W-26515 on 4 August 2015.

In terms of new thermal generation in Scotland, I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-26252 on 4 August 2015. I already consented a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) station at Cockenzie in 2011, which Scottish Power confirmed on 18 August 2015 will not now be built, because a combination of high carbon taxes and high transmission charging means that running a thermal plant in Scotland is uneconomic.

In written evidence to the Public Petitions Committee on 16 January 2015 Hugh Finlay, Scottish Power’s Generation Director said:

“There continues to be a number of obstacles in the way of the construction of the CCGT development, undoubtedly the biggest being the continuation of the transmission charging regime that discriminates against new generation in the north.”

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Question reference: S4O-04646

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 September 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to minimise disruption to local residents and motorists during the A9 dualling.

Question reference: S4O-04594

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 September 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 16 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on rural Scotland of its plans to introduce business rates on sporting businesses.

The Scottish Government has published a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment and an Equality Impact Assessment for the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, which includes the proposal to end the exclusion of shootings and deer forests from the valuation roll.

The Scottish Government has also published a screening determination, under the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005, that the Bill is not likely to have significant environmental effects and therefore that a Strategic Environmental Assessment is not required.

Question reference: S4W-27094

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 August 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 9 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) location, (b) size, (c) hub height, (d) number constructed, (e) consent for the building, (f) scope of and (g) other information regarding onshore wind turbines it provides to the Department for Energy and Climate Change's Renewable Energy Planning Database.

The Scottish Government does not provide the Department of Energy and Climate Change with the details referred to in the question. Information about wind farm applications that are determined by Scottish Ministers under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 are available on the Scottish Government website at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Business-Industry/Energy/Infrastructure/Energy-Consents.

Question reference: S4W-27079

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 August 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 9 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what support mechanisms are available to landrace farmers.

Question reference: S4W-26888

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to make changes to environmental impact assessments to ensure that they are conducted by an independent body free from bias.

Question reference: S4W-26887

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to introduce a uniform format for conducting environmental impact assessments to allow for ease of analysis and comparison.

Statutory procedures for conducting environmental impact assessment are set out in legislation in accordance with the requirements of European Directive 2011/92/EU, known as the EIA Directive. Following recent changes to the directive made at European level, the Scottish Government is giving consideration as to what changes may be required to existing statutory EIA regimes. Further details of our proposals for implementing the required changes will be made available in due course.

Question reference: S4W-26730

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 July 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 13 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to (a) reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95% below the 1990 levels or (b) achieve a per capita emissions target of less than two metric tons by 2050.

Scotland has had a statutory target in place since 2009 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050. Substantial progress is being made and Scotland is over three quarters of the way towards meeting the interim 2020 target of a 42% reduction in emissions.

Supporting the transition to a low carbon economy will help to meet our targets and is at the heart of our Programme for Government and Scotland’s Economic Strategy. As highlighted in the second report on proposals and policies, published in 2013, our support for the low carbon economy is provided through six channels: long term legal and institutional certainty; expanding renewable energy production; improvements in energy and resource efficiency in households and industry; transition of transport to a lower carbon basis; expansion of renewable sources of heat; and sustainable land use.

Although we have already made considerable progress, the Scottish Government announced in June 2015 a comprehensive new package of measures covering transport, environment and energy to strengthen the measures already in place, and Cabinet have agreed to embed climate change in this autumn’s budget process. Development of the third report on proposals and policies is underway and will focus on how we deliver our world leading climate change targets.

Our targets are not easy, but they are at the level the international community needs to match if the new climate treaty in Paris this year is to stand a good chance of limiting global temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. That is why we have joined international partners with similar high ambition on the Under 2 Memorandum of Understanding group, and will continue to support efforts to secure an ambitious global deal on climate change this year.

Question reference: S4W-26239

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 5 August 2015

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to discuss the carbon capture and storage commercialisation competition.

Tracking the development of carbon capture storage (CCS) and the progress of the UK’s CCS Commercialisation Competition is managed through the Thermal Generation and CCS Industry Leadership Group (ILG) which I co-chair. The Department of Energy and Climate Change are members of this group.

The ILG last met on 23 June 2015 in Edinburgh where an update on the Peterhead CCS project was given by Shell and SSE (promoters of the project). A significant milestone was reached on the Peterhead CCS Project when planning permission was granted by Aberdeenshire Council on 18 June 2015.