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: S5W-22715

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has implemented the recommendations in the report, Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland: review of implementation, and whether it will provide a progress report on each recommendation.

Professor Morrow’s review itself provided an excellent independent evaluation of the progress that the Scottish Government and its partners have made in implementing the recommendations from the Advisory Group’s report – and, as such, the Scottish Government currently has no plans to publish a further evaluation.

The review highlighted the progress that has been made particularly in areas such as education, training and the mainstreaming of anti-sectarian messages. The review – which remains live and continues to form the basis of our work on this issue - also emphasised that more is still to be done to tackle sectarianism by a range of organisations, institutions and sectors across Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-22717

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the recommendations in the report, Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland: review of implementation, should have led to Police Scotland making sectarian a mandatory marker for crime reporting and recording.

Professor Morrow’s report recommended that a review of hate crime legislation should consider how sectarianism and sectarian incidents could be integrated into a more general approach.

Following the Justice Committee’s recommendation, in January 2018, that a definition of sectarianism in Scot’s law should be considered, a working group was set up. The group reported in November 2018 and concluded that a sectarian statutory aggravation should be introduced along with a definition in Scots law. The group’s conclusions were included for all interested parties and individuals to comment within the hate Crime consultation, which closed in February 2019.

No decisions on establishing a statutory aggravation for sectarianism will be taken until the consultation submissions are fully analysed and considered.

Question reference: S5W-22667

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Ash Denham on 15 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21528 by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2019, what discussions it has had with the chief constable regarding the findings in DCC Taylor's report, and whether it will publish the outcome of these (a) discussions and (b) findings.

Question reference: S5O-03230

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when road equivalent tariff will be fully introduced on Orkney and Shetland ferry routes.

Question reference: S5T-01644

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on reports that firearms police were deployed to routine incidents that did not require a weapon more than 5,000 times in the last year.

Question reference: S5W-22619

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many offences have been recorded under section (a) 2, (b) 3 and (c) 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 in each local authority area in each year since 2013, and how many subsequent (i) prosecutions and (ii) convictions there were.

(a), (c) The data received from Police Scotland for producing the National Statistics on Recorded Crime, is a simple count of the number of crimes and offences, for each local authority, which the police have recorded and cleared up. The nature of this data is such that while some crime codes refer to a single act or section of legislation, others include a wider range of legislation. As such we are unable to separately identify any crimes and offences recorded under either Section 2 or Section 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

(b) Number of crimes and offences recorded by the police in Scotland under section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988*, 2013-14 to 2017-18 can be found in the table provided below:

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
Aberdeen City	543	641	570	485	447
Aberdeenshire	532	430	474	427	379
Angus	104	83	192	126	123
Argyll & Bute	292	336	311	269	276
Clackmannanshire	57	47	22	32	29
Dumfries & Galloway	555	577	640	608	428
Dundee	109	74	169	138	180
East Ayrshire	129	190	179	201	150
East Dunbartonshire	142	121	115	134	117
East Lothian	82	65	60	67	63
East Renfrewshire	127	117	104	85	90
Edinburgh City	407	487	548	577	591
Falkirk	205	215	207	196	169
Fife	345	334	338	423	378
Glasgow City	1,842	1,715	1,582	1,404	1,157
Highland	351	378	520	507	471
Inverclyde	128	98	115	144	124
Midlothian	67	59	72	63	68
Moray	193	162	205	198	244
Na h-Eileanan Siar	45	38	46	42	35
North Ayrshire	142	162	232	200	165
North Lanarkshire	472	415	499	535	473
Orkney Islands	38	38	34	50	45
Perth & Kinross	119	72	140	130	160
Renfrewshire	315	251	314	342	314
Scottish Borders	158	145	179	167	142
Shetland Islands	27	12	39	48	31
South Ayrshire	134	153	183	208	159
South Lanarkshire	425	439	513	469	404
Stirling	145	152	144	161	114
West Dunbartonshire	235	206	183	177	155
West Lothian	119	154	260	231	206
All	8,584	8,366	9,189	8,844	7,887

* - does not include sections 3ZA/3ZB/3ZC/3ZD/3A

(i) prosecutions and (ii) convictions: This document has been placed with the Scottish Parliament, bib number 60646.

Question reference: S5W-22749

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of (a) the Victim Surcharge Fund and (b) Police Restitution Orders, and on what date each will be operational.

Regarding the Victim Surcharge Fund, and as set out in my answer to question S5O-02577 on 21 November 2018, we are seeking an Order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998 to facilitate recovery of the surcharge via deduction from benefits and bring Scotland into line with the powers that already exist in England and Wales.

The UK Government have estimated that the Order will come into force in summer 2019, subject to UK Parliamentary timescales. The Victim Surcharge (Scotland) Regulations will be laid before the Scottish Parliament as soon as practicable after the section 104 Order comes into force.

Regarding Restitution Orders, we are working with the Scottish Police Federation, the Police Benevolent Fund and other stakeholders on the detail of implementation. We are also working with the UK Government on necessary changes to UK legislation. No date is set for restitution orders becoming operational.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5T-01619

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 29 April 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Police Federation describing some of the buildings in the police estate as being “unfit for human habitation”.

Question reference: S5W-22569

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has received any complaints regarding the application of rules by environmental health departments or officers in relation to food safety or procedures at zero waste shops.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) produces the Food Law Code of Practice, which has been updated and published in January 2019. FSS provides Local Authorities’ Officers with relevant guidance and training and attends liaison group meetings in order to support the application of food law requirements. There have been no complaints received by Food Standards Scotland (FSS) relating to food safety or procedures at Zero Waste shops.

Question reference: S5W-22571

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has made available in each of the last five years to promote zero waste shops, and how much of this was distributed.

The Scottish Government provides funding to Zero Waste Scotland who distribute grants to various businesses through the Waste Prevention Implementation Fund (WPIF). The Waste Prevention Implementation Fund started in 2016 and has distributed in excess of £100,000 to two zero waste shops specifically, alongside their wider financial support to SMEs looking at waste prevention measures. Zero Waste Scotland also support zero waste shops through the Zero Waste Town Development Fund, which has awarded £315,000 to the Zero Waste Edinburgh initiative, which includes a Food Sharing Hub.