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: S5O-02788

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 January 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support the development of Scotland’s ports.

Question reference: S5O-02631

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 November 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to improve access to air transport for disabled people who wish to travel to and from island communities.

Question reference: S5W-19422

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 14 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what evaluation it has made of the effectiveness of its landslide mitigation measures for roads in each year since 2007.

The effectiveness of landslide mitigation measures can only be evaluated if and when an incident occurs.

Landslide incidents on the Scottish trunk road network since 2007 have focussed on the A83 Rest and Be Thankful, where the landslide mitigation measures have been successful on a number of occasions in achieving their objective of reducing the impact of landslides, thereby helping to keep the region open for business.

Since the installation of the Red Option suite of mitigation measures over 2013 and 2014, it is estimated that these measures have helped keep the A83 open for at least 23 days when it would otherwise have closed.

Question reference: S5W-19420

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 14 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to establish a long-term solution to the reliability of the A83, in particular at the Rest and Be Thankful section.

We are fully committed to the Argyll and Bute region and since 2007 we have invested £69.8 million in the maintenance of the A83. This includes £11 million on landslide mitigation works at the Rest and Be Thankful (including improvements to the Old Military Road local diversion) to help keep Argyll open for business. Work also continues on site on additional roadside catchpits, estimated at £4.4 million from 2017-18 to late 2019-20.

Given recent events and the scale of that landslide, I am also open to looking at whether further measures need to be taken to address the issue. The A83 Taskforce will meet on 15 November and local and regional stakeholders will have the opportunity to discuss the recent incident and these wider issues.

Question reference: S5W-19423

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 14 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been spent on repairing landslide mitigation infrastructure for roads since 2007.

Since 2007, we have spent approximately £918,000 repairing landslide mitigation infrastructure. This total amount covers 2 separate landslide incidents at the Rest and Be Thankful but does not include costs for current repairs to the damaged mitigation measures at the Rest and Be Thankful for the incident on 9 October 2018. This is because the repair efforts are continuing and exact costs have not been submitted by the contractor.

Location	Date of Landslide	Cost to empty/repair/replace damaged items
A83 Rest and Be Thankful	October 2014	£517k
A83 Rest and Be Thankful	December 2015/January 2016	£401k
	Total	£918k

Question reference: S5W-19421

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 14 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the reported £56 million that that has been spent on the A83 since 2007 has been allocated each year to landslide mitigation measures at (a) the Rest and Be Thankful and (b) other sections of that road.

The requested information is provided in the table below. Since April 2007, £69.8 million has been invested in maintaining the A83. This includes‎ £11 million on landslide mitigation measures and improvements to the Old Military Road local diversion. A programme of roadside catchpit works commenced in‎ 2017-18 (currently programmed for completion in late 2019-20). This package is estimated at £4.4 million. Mitigation works have also been delivered at other locations on the A83 as noted in the following table.

The requested information can be provided on an annual basis from 2013-14 onwards (i.e. the current “4G” term maintenance contract) due to how these records are stored. From 2007 to April 2013 during the previous contract, that data was not stored in that format and as such, annual breakdowns cannot be provided. However recently reported figures identify a spend at the Rest and Be Thankful and Old Military Road from 2007-2013 as £3.9 million.

Financial Year	A83 Rest and be Thankful (£)	A83 Other (£)
2013-2014	£2,810,919.07
2014-2015	£1,296,093.33	Glen Kinglas £44,231.73
2015-2016	£613,597.20	Loch Shira £125,181.97 Glen Kinglas £17,176.19
2016-2017	£669,281.02	Glen Kinglas £818.69
2017-2018	£847,621.71	Glen Kinglas £245,000
2018-2019 (includes £0.87M spend to date and £0.9M programmed. It excludes landslide clearance operations for October 2018 as this information is not currently available)	£1,777,281.17

Question reference: S5W-19419

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 14 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure the timely reopening of the Rest and Be Thankful section of the A83, following the recent landslides.

After 48 hours of intensive rainfall (150mm), a landslide overnight into 9 October closed the A83 Rest and Be Thankful until its reopening at 11.20am on 18 October. Over these 9 days, strategic or local diversions were in place.

A diversion via the A819 at Inveraray and the A85 ran until 15 October, when the Old Military Road local diversion became operational until the A83 reopened on 18 October.

During the initial landslide on 9 October, four of the debris nets installed by the Scottish Government’s contractors successfully prevented the 2,500 tonnes of material from reaching the A83. Additional rain that week from Storm Callum led to further landslides of approximately 500 tonnes, giving a total of 3,000 tonnes of material reaching the nets/A83/Old Military Road since 9 October, making it the largest landslide at this location in a decade. The weekly rainfall total from 7 to 13 October was 250mm.

Throughout this incident, our contractors worked around the clock to get the road opened by removing debris, assessing and monitoring the hillside, repairing damaged fences and clearing drainage channels or culverts. Also, Transport Scotland chaired frequent & daily conference calls with BEAR Scotland, Traffic Scotland, Police Scotland and Met Office. Regular communications were then issued to media outlets, radio stations, stakeholders and social media, reinforcing the message that Argyll remained open for business.

Question reference: S5W-19418

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 30 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the economic impact of road closures has been in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5W-18233

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 11 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Expert Ferry Group has not met since December 2017; when it will next meet, and what will be discussed.

The remit of the Expert Ferry Group, which is published on the Transport Scotland website (link below), states that the group will meet up to three times per year. It does not set a minimum number of meetings per year.

https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/ferries/expert-ferry-group/

Officials wrote to members on 7 June 2018 to advise that Transport Scotland would contact them regarding arrangements for the next meeting.

Following a recent Ministerial reshuffle and change in Director of Aviation, Maritime, Freight and Canals, the next meeting of the Expert Ferry Group will now be held before the end of the year.

The agenda for the meeting has not yet been set.

Question reference: S5W-18946

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 September 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether average farm income has increased in real terms between 2017 and 2018, and, if so, by how much.

Information on farm incomes for 2018 is not yet available. First estimates for Total Income from Farming for 2018 will be published on the Government’s website in January 2019.

Initial estimates for Total Income from Farming for 2017 suggested a 34 per cent real terms increase in income in 2017, which, given the fairly constant number of farms means a similar increase in average farm income.

The latest estimates from the Farm Business Survey suggest that in the harvest year 2016-17, the average Farm Business Income for businesses in the survey was £26,400. This represented an increase of 94 per cent (£12,800) in real terms from 2015-16. Farm Business Survey data for 2017-18 will be published on the Government’s website in March 2019.

Statistics relating to farm incomes are available on the Government website at https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Agriculture-Fisheries/Publications .