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-08647

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on travel expenses for ministers, civil servants or other staff to travel on Edinburgh’s trams network, in each year since 2014.

Edinburgh Tram tickets can be purchased in three ways: centrally via the Travel Management Team; via electronic procurement card (ePC); or the cost claimed back via a Travel and Subsistence (T&S) expenses claim. The total costs for Lothian Bus/Tram tickets are shown in the following table.

In all cases the tickets can be used on either Lothian Buses or Edinburgh Trams and it is not possible to disaggregate the cost for Trams only.

The cost of all tickets bought centrally in 2014 and 2015, and ePC transactions prior to 2019, are not held.

Calendar year	Lothian Bus/ Edinburgh Tram total spend
2014	n/a
2015	n/a
2016	£76,523
2017	£86,296
2018	£100,220
2019	£119,365
2020	£31,721
2021	£245
2022 to date	£153

The total spend includes all travel by Ministers and Civil Servants for travel to and from a range of government buildings, meetings and other government business in and around Edinburgh. Ministers and Civil Servants are encouraged to travel sustainably for work related travel and we are working to encourage more use of public transport by everyone in government in the future.

Question reference: S6W-08648

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 10 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many vehicles are currently in its fleet, including its agencies, broken down by the number of (a) electric, (b) hybrid, (c) diesel and (d) petrol vehicles.

Question reference: S6W-08588

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with (a) industry and (b) local authorities regarding making data from waste, particularly for incineration, more transparent and accessible to stakeholders.

We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report on the Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy, and will set out our initial response in June. This includes the recommendation that industry, local authorities and the Scottish Government should do more to make data around waste in general, and around incineration in particular, more transparent and accessible for all stakeholders.

Question reference: S6W-08584

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the recommendations in the report of Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy in Scotland it has already adopted, and how many it is planning to adopt.

Question reference: S6W-08587

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will develop an incentive gap, that declines over time, for the amount of residual waste treatment as Scotland transitions towards a fully circular economy.

The recently published report of the Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy recommends that the Scottish Government should develop an indicative cap that declines over time for the amount of residual waste treatment needed as Scotland transitions towards a fully circular economy. We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report and will set out our initial response in June.

Question reference: S6W-08589

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to help local authorities ensure that they have a solution to waste management, in light of its plans to ban all non-household biodegradable waste from entering landfill by 2025.

Scottish Ministers have committed to ending the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. In the update to our Climate Change Plan, we also committed to extend the ban to include biodegradable non-municipal waste, subject to appropriate consultation and work to provide assurance around some specific waste streams..

The Scottish Government, working with Zero Waste Scotland and local government partners, is providing centrally co-ordinated procurement support for local authorities without a solution in place in preparation for the ban coming into force in 2025. As part of this collaborative procurement programme, we are funding the provision of expert procurement, legal and technical support to local authorities to enable them to secure alternative solutions for their residual waste.

Question reference: S6W-08586

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done with (a) industry and (b) local authorities to develop a strategic approach to planning and developing waste collection, reprocessing and management facilities.

The recently published report on the Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy recommends that Scottish Government and local authorities should work with industry to develop a strategic approach to planning and deploying waste collection, reprocessing and management facilities. We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report and will set out our initial response in June.

In the meantime, we have launched our consultation on Delivering Scotland's circular economy– a Route Map to 2025 and beyond. The Route Map takes a whole systems approach to set out interventions to reduce waste and meet our recycling and waste targets in a way that maximises carbon saving potential. The consultation paper is available here: Delivering Scotland’s circular economy: A Route Map to 2025 and beyond - Scottish Government - Citizen Space (consult.gov.scot)

Question reference: S6W-08585

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to report greenhouse gas emissions from incineration separately from other energy-related emissions.

Official Statistics on Scottish greenhouse gas emissions are published annually ( Scottish Greenhouse Gas statistics: 1990-2019 ) and are based on a disaggregation of the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory, overseen by the UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

At the time of writing, the UK Inventory does not allow for the isolation of data for emissions from incineration as opposed to other energy-related emissions. Such decisions are a matter for BEIS and are informed by the UK National Inventory Steering Committee of which the Scottish Government is a member. If in future, data from energy-related emissions in the UK Inventory is disaggregated to show emissions from incineration separately, we would expect this to also then be reflected in the Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics publication.

Question reference: S6O-01199

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is ensuring uptake by farmers of rural payments schemes, including in relation to agroforestry.

Question reference: S6W-08650

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 31 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of businesses and projects which have received money from the Scottish National Investment Bank, since it was established, specifically with the aim of helping Scotland meet its net zero targets.

Since the Scottish National Investment Bank opened for business in November 2020 it has committed £206.9 million in 16 investments in line with its strategic missions.

Details of the each of the Bank’s investments, including the alignment to missions, are published on the Bank’s ‘Our Portfolio’ page: https://www.thebank.scot/our-portfolio/ .

Many of these investments support our net zero targets and some meet more than one mission.

Fuel type	Number on fleet
Electric vehicle (EV)	52
Range extender electric (REV)	5
Plug in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV)	75
Hybrid	5
Diesel	17
Petrol	47
Total	204