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-13153

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had regarding a review of the funding formula for local government.

Question reference: S6W-13133

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been recovered from each local authority from COVID-19-related reserves.

The Scottish Government has not recovered and has no plans to recover any COVID-19 related funding from councils. Individual councils continue to have complete autonomy to allocate their reserves based on local needs and priorities.

The Scottish Ministers provided £145 million in Covid support grants to local government between 2019-20 and 2021-22 (TBC).

This included £95m for Hospitality and Leisure, £9.5 million for Public House Table Service, £4.7 million for Nightclub Closure, £1.2 million for Scottish Brewers, £29.4 million for Taxi and Private Hire and £5.5 million for Business Ventilation.

Local authorities have confirmed that £32 million has not been spent. Consideration of amounts to be recovered from local authorities is ongoing and therefore I cannot provide figures at this time. However, I would be happy to provide those figures once they are available.

Question reference: S6O-01759

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what cross-government review it has undertaken of policies supporting children with autism, including any assessment of the links between autism and other conditions, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Question reference: S6W-13141

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many households have been on pre-payment meters in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Government does not hold all of this information. However, a question added to the Scottish Housing Condition Survey in 2016 to allow for more accurate fuel bill estimation means that we are able to provide figures from 2016 in the following table.

Due to enforced changes in response to Covid-19 restrictions the 2020 SHCS was not completed and it was not possible to collect this data as part of the 2021 SHCS. This data is being collected as part of the 2022 SHCS which we expect to publish in late 2023 / early 2024.

Year	Number of households with PPM Meters	Percentage of households with PPM Meters
2016	565,000	23%
2017	529,000	21%
2018	467,000	19%
2019	421,000	17%

Question reference: S6W-13160

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many additional support needs assessments have taken place in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-13142

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many households have been estimated to be in energy debt in each year since 1999.

Energy debt is a matter reserved to the UK Government, so the Scottish Government does not hold this information. I suggest contacting Ofgem in the first instance.

Scottish Government analysts have estimated that the UK Government’s current price cap (Energy Price Guarantee) of £2,500 puts 860,000 (34%) of households in Scotland in fuel poverty and 600,000 (24%) in extreme fuel poverty. In line with the Energy Price Guarantee rising by £500 from April 2023, we estimate that there will be around 980,000 fuel poor households in total (39%) and 860,000 in extreme fuel poverty (34%).

Question reference: S6W-12735

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 19 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is regarding the impact in Scotland of the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry, The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976.

Question reference: S6W-13140

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupils have received swimming lessons as a percentage of the school population in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority.

The information you have requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive at least two hours of physical education per school week in primary schools, and at least two 50-minute periods of physical education per school week in secondary schools - between secondaries 1 and 4.

Under the provisions of Curriculum for Excellence schools and education authorities have the flexibility to decide upon the content of their lessons at the local level by taking into account the needs and circumstances of all children and young people in attendance. This includes taking decisions locally about the content of their PE lessons, where they can offer swimming lessons to their pupils if they wish to do so.

Question reference: S6W-12810

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 16 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it assesses the quality of roads.

Transport Scotland conducts machine-based based surveys using specialist vehicles each year to gather information on the surface integrity of the road; the friction characteristics of the surface; and the structural capacity (strength) of the underling road construction. This is similar in nature to the Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey conducted by Scottish Local Authorities and it provides an annual snapshot of the road condition across the network. This is supplemented with a series of targeted inspections completed under the term maintenance contract to obtain specific information about the road asset. The combined information is used to determine maintenance programmes and investment requirements.

Question reference: S6W-12782

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 16 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when the next Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey is due to be carried out.