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-08678

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many meetings of the Cladding Stakeholder Group the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government has attended since the group was established.

Question reference: S6W-08690

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Welsh Government’s plans to establish a support scheme to allow leaseholders to sell their property and where appropriate provide the option for them to either move on or rent the property back, which, reportedly, is to be funded by the Development Bank of Wales, what plans it has to establish such a scheme in Scotland, and whether it has explored the establishment of such a scheme with the Scottish National Investment Bank.

Question reference: S6W-08688

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has chosen a model whereby it provides grants to fund Single Building Assessments rather than commissioning this work to be carried out directly on its behalf.

A grant model was used to enable a quick start to the programme and to test the viability of an arm’s length delivery approach based on established principles behind Scotland’s property systems. Interim learning from this approach shows there is a need to move to a model based on directly procured contracts to speed and scale delivery and at lower overall risk. This change was announced to the Scottish Parliament by myself on 12 May 2022 - Update on cladding remediation programme: Cabinet Secretary's statement - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Question reference: S6W-08684

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to bring forward legislation in similar terms to the Building Safety Act 2022, which was recently passed by the UK Parliament.

The Building Safety Act 2002 is bringing forward a new regime for high rise buildings in England following Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of the building regulation system there, which concluded that the system was broken.

The reviews of compliance and enforcement and fire safety standards in Scotland following the Edinburgh schools report and the Grenfell Tower fire did not reach the same conclusion, but did recommend that strengthening of the system should be undertaken. The Building Standards Futures Board is leading change to improve our system through work streams on Digital Transformation, Workforce Strategy, Certification Strategy, Compliance Plan, Verification Delivery Model, Technical Strategy and Verification Standard.On 22 April new regulations were laid in Parliament to improve the safety of cladding on new buildings in Scotland and to ensure that replacement cladding, beyond minor repair, meets the current standards.

Scottish Government is committed to using all tools at its disposal to encourage and enforce measures by developers and other key actors to ensure buildings are remediated, cost-effectively and at pace. This could include raising additional revenue where there is an anticipated shortfall – to ensure equity between homeowners in unsafely cladded buildings with linked developers, and those without. We will explore the necessity of additional revenue raising as part of the development of the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord – announced to the Scottish Parliament on 12 May 2022 - Update on cladding remediation programme: Cabinet Secretary's statement - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Question reference: S6W-08685

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been recruited to work in its cladding remediation unit in the last 12 months.

Question reference: S6W-08680

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the minutes of the Cladding Stakeholder Group are not available online on the Scottish Government website.

Question reference: S6W-08681

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in connection with the recommendations of the Working Group on Mortgage Lending and Cladding, which reported in March 2021.

With the support of stakeholders across industry, the Single Building Assessment programme started in June 2021. All other recommendations are progressing and will further develop based on evidence from the Single Building Assessment pilot. The update to parliament on the 12 May 2022 provided more detail on progress: https://www.gov.scot/publications/update-cladding-remediation-programme-cabinet-secretarys-statement/ .

Question reference: S6W-08683

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many buildings in Scotland have had combustible cladding (a) removed and (b) remediated since the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017.

Question reference: S6W-08687

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many digital surveys have been completed in Scotland on buildings with suspected combustible cladding.

Question reference: S6W-08919

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 9 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many complaints have been made against Police Scotland in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Government do not hold the data requested.

Since the formation of Police Scotland in 2013, Police Scotland’s Professional Standards Department have been responsible for investigating complaints against officers up to the rank of Chief Superintendent. Any complaints against senior officers are a matter for the Scottish Police Authority (SPA).

The SPA Complaints and Conduct Committee provide annual and quarterly reports on complaints. The most recent annual report covers the period 2020/21: https://www.spa.police.uk/spa-media/mq1jgwsq/spa-complaints-conduct-committee-2020_21-annual-report-final-dp-update.pdf

Further information, including archived reports are available on the SPA website: https://www.spa.police.uk/meetings.

You may also be interested in information published on Police Scotland’s disclosure log where responses to FOIs are published: https://www.scotland.police.uk/access-to-information/freedom-of-information/disclosure-log/