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: S6W-10335

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 6 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of wool produced in Scotland is used in (a) Scottish and (b) other UK textile manufacturing.

Question reference: S6W-10251

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 6 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-09483 by Lorna Slater on the 21 July 2022, and in light of the comments by the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport when giving evidence to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on the Scottish Budget 2022-23 on 1 February 2022, what information it has on whether Zero Waste Scotland has plans in place to secure private funding once European Structural and Investment Funds come to an end.

Zero Waste Scotland strategy is to maximise the impact of investment in the circular economy and to partner across private and public sectors. This aims to leverage funding opportunities, and to increase co-investment and partnership models to support and to continue to deliver value across circular economy initiatives.

ZWS is also undertaking multi-party engagement with Scottish Government and Scottish Business Climate Collaboration (SBCC) which is 50:50 funded by public funds and SBCC and is working with several businesses to develop business cases for circular initiatives that will then be funded and delivered by companies themselves. In addition co-investment models have been developed with Social Investment Scotland to create a Net Zero Transition Fund for third sector organisations.

Question reference: S6W-10250

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 6 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether Zero Waste Scotland would be able to provide independent advice to the Scottish Government on the circular economy and other matters in the event that it would also be in receipt of private sector funding.

Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) is an independent not-for-profit company, which is able to locate, apply for and accept funding from a range of sources. As an evidence-led organisation, any expertise and/or advice ZWS provide to Scottish Government would be based on balanced outputs from research by sector specific policy experts.

ZWS is a key delivery partner for the Scottish Government in relation to circular economy policy and it would be for Scottish Government to decide on whether to use the organisations advice in development of policies.

Question reference: S6W-10168

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 1 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide a breakdown of funding provided to local authorities that has been ringfenced for net zero projects, in each of the last three years.

	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
	£m	£m	£m
Cycling, Walking and Safer Routes	8.5	22.3	9.5
Switched on Fleets	9.1	7.7	3.3
Local Authority Installation Programme	8.0	2.2	2.8
Public EV Charging Pathfinder Projects	0.0	0.0	0.4
Switched on Towns & Cities	4.4	4.4	4.5
On Street Residential Charging	0.0	0.0	0.2
Low Emission Zones	4.6	2.2	3.6
Strategic Timber Transport Scheme	5.8	6.2	5.4
Recycling Improvement Fund	0.0	0.0	5.3
Scottish Ultra Low Emission Bus Scheme	0.0	0.0	0.5
Total	40.4	45.0	35.5

Question reference: S6W-10338

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 1 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to ban plastic tree guards and promote the use of delayed biodegradable tree guards.

The Scottish Government is fully supportive of efforts to remove, reduce or recycle plastics used in the woodland and forest environment. Forestry and Land Scotland is moving away from plastic tree shelters and using more biodegradable ones. More work is needed, however, on biodegradable and compostable alternatives before a ban on plastic tree guards is possible. Scottish Forestry is supporting research to test alternatives with partners in the public and private sectors across UK and Ireland.

Question reference: S6W-10162

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 30 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide a breakdown by local authority of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) return points rolled out by retailers.

Question reference: S6W-10161

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 30 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the question S6W-09432 by Lorna Slater on 28 July 2022, for what reason the contract (a) with Biffa was not signed by March 2022 and (b) for IT services has still not been signed, and when it anticipates that the contract for IT services will be finalised.

Question reference: S6W-09987

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-31924 by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 October 2020, whether it will provide an update on the value of turnover that the reuse economy in Scotland has; how many jobs it supports, and what tonnage of material it enables to be reused annually.

The information is not held centrally.

Some data are available for Revolve certified organisations. Revolve is Scotland’s National Reuse Quality Standard and Revolve stores are supported to work to key standards, and are committed to quality.

In 2020-21 sales through Revolve certified community stores reported to Zero Waste Scotland were over £22 million. The 95 Revolve stores which reported to Zero Waste Scotland recorded 680 full time staff employed and 52,873 volunteer hours from 1,095 volunteers recorded in those same organisations, and approximately 22,000 tonnes of material was estimated to be diverted from landfill. It is not appropriate to compare these totals directly with those of previous years, as a different proportion of stores provided monitoring data and, because of COVID-19, stores were operational for only a fraction of the year.

Question reference: S6W-09891

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many GP practices were (a) permanently and (b) temporarily closed to new patients in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board area.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Practices must apply to their Health Boards to close their lists and agree the conditions and timelines for reopening them.

Circumstances will arise where a practice experiences capacity issues and is unable to routinely accept new patients onto its list. We expect Health Boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to help manage the situation and ensure that all patients have access to GP services.

Question reference: S6W-09986

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-09439 by Lorna Slater on 21 July 2022, which local authorities with residual waste treatment arrangements in place beyond 2025 compliant with the forthcoming ban on sending biodegradable municipal waste to landfill have (a) long-term/permanent and (b) interim arrangements in place, and how long any interim arrangements extend for.