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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 1310 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S3W-36316

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive with which local authorities it discussed local food procurement in 2009.

Question reference: S3W-36319

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive with which NHS boards it has discussed local food procurement in 2010.

Meetings have been held on sustainable public sector food and drink procurement with NHS National Procurement.

In addition, in August, sustainable public sector food and drink procurement was discussed at the NHS Commodity Advisory Panel involving the following Health Boards:

Ayrshire and Arran, Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Grampian, Highland, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Tayside.

Question reference: S3W-36315

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many times it has discussed local food procurement with local authorities in 2010.

Question reference: S3W-35912

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with representatives of South Lanarkshire Council and Scotgen (South Lanarkshire) Ltd regarding the proposed energy-from-waste incinerator plant on Dovesdale Farm, Stonehouse.

Question reference: S3W-36342

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it had or has had, and with what public bodies, regarding the policy, legal and financial implications of increasing the number of allotments across Scotland in (a) December 2008, (b) 2009 and (c) 2010.

Since 2008, the Scottish Government has actively engaged with COSLA to review the barriers that prevent local authorities enacting the Allotment (Scotland) Act 1892. The Scottish Government has also engaged with a number of other organisations including the Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission Scotland as well as other publically funded bodies such as Greenspace Scotland to explore increasing the amount of land available for growing spaces.

The Scottish Government has also established a Grow Your Own working group whose members include the Scottish Allotment and Garden Society, Elmwood College, Soil Association, Landshare, Commonwealth Orchards, Greenbelt Group, Greenspace Scotland, National Farmers Union and Community Food and Health (Scotland) which has a remit to produce best practice guidance, to explore the opportunities to and constraints of opening land up to development of grow-your-own initiatives and to advise the Scottish Government on the most effective way to provide strategic support for allotments.

Question reference: S3W-36318

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive with which NHS boards it discussed local food procurement in 2009.

Question reference: S3W-36320

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 23 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive with what bodies it discussed local food procurement in 2009.

Question reference: S3W-36194

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 21 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to schedule direct talks with the governments of Iceland and the Faroe Islands to discuss the total allowable catch quotas for mackerel set by Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

Scottish Officials have been part of an EU delegation that has had direct talks with the Governments of Faroes (9 to 10 September) and Iceland (21 September) on the issue of the unilateral total allowable catches set by these countries. The EU has the lead responsibility for negotiations with external parties on fisheries issues and I have been liaising closely with Commissioner Damanaki to identify how best we can get Iceland and Faroes back to the negotiating table and agree a multilateral deal that is fair for Scotland and protects the long-term sustainability of the stock.

Question reference: S3W-35911

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what the recycling rate for (a) domestic and (b) municipal waste was in 2009-10, broken down by local authority, also showing the national average compared with the national target.

The Scottish Government does not hold 2009-10 domestic recycling rate data. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is not expected to publish this data until the spring of 2011.

The table below contains the 2009-10 recycling rates for municipal waste collected by local authorities.

Local Authority	MSW Arisings (tonnes)	MSW Landfilled (tonnes)	MSW Incinerated (tonnes)	MSW Other Treatment (tonnes)	MSW Recycled / Composted (tonnes)	% MSW Recycled / Composted	BMW landfilled (tonnes)
Clackmannanshire	32,017	17,295	0	0	14,722	46.0	11,804
Fife	246,462	135,197	0	0	111,265	45.1	85,140
South Ayrshire	86,118	47,305	0	0	38,813	45.1	26,034
North Lanarkshire	221,470	125,610	0	0	95,860	43.3	71,158
West Lothian	108,781	62,034	67	0	46,680	42.9	33,591
Moray	65,144	37,267	0	0	27,877	42.8	22,384
Stirling	52,218	29,911	0	0	22,308	42.7	17,302
East Ayrshire	72,103	41,325	0	0	30,778	42.7	26,322
Falkirk	90,943	52,507	0	0	38,435	42.3	29,932
Perth and Kinross	95,919	55,242	336	0	40,341	42.1	31,039
Argyll & Bute	59,466	34,971	0	0	24,495	41.2	21,863
Midlothian	49,095	29,020	0	0	20,075	40.9	16,592
Angus	76,343	31,769	13,971	0	30,603	40.1	18,173
East Lothian	67,189	40,348	0	0	26,841	39.9	24,809
North Ayrshire	86,958	52,424	0	0	34,534	39.7	30,413
Dundee	95,760	16,388	41,931	0	37,441	39.1	7,074
South Lanarkshire	185,537	113,510	0	0	72,027	38.8	74,048
Dumfries and Galloway	94,210	48,047	9,733	0	36,430	38.7	22,964
Scottish Borders	71,180	44,120	235	0	26,825	37.7	25,594
East Renfrewshire	51,542	32,688	393	0	18,461	35.8	20,052
Renfrewshire	92,800	60,016	0	0	32,783	35.3	38,499
East Dunbartonshire	70,369	45,578	0	0	24,791	35.2	27,881
Highland	160,143	104,457	562	0	55,124	34.4	65,110
Aberdeenshire	150,567	98,961	0	0	51,606	34.3	66,693
Edinburgh	232,040	160,292	53	0	71,695	30.9	97,296
West Dunbartonshire	48,467	33,633	0	0	14,834	30.6	20,807
Inverclyde	48,259	33,946	0	0	14,312	29.7	21,353
Orkney	15,402	3,797	7,160	0	4,445	28.9	579
Aberdeen	125,024	92,417	0	0	32,607	26.1	56,952
Eilean Siar	21,477	16,495	0	0	4,982	23.2	9,956
Glasgow	331,657	264,211	0	0	67,446	20.3	157,062
Shetland Islands	13,659	784	10,122	0	2,752	20.2	575
Total Scotland	3,218,318	1,961,565	84,562	0	1,172,190	36.4	1,179,052

Source: SEPA Waste Data Flow.

Question reference: S3W-36197

Asked by: Jim Hume, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how much was awarded in funding through the European Fisheries Fund programme in 2009-10.