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-24166

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 11 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to accelerate the reopening of historic sites managed by Historic Environment Scotland that are currently closed to the public.

Historic Environment Scotland’s inspection programme will conclude at the end of March 2024. Once completed, Historic Environment Scotland will have a clearer indication on extent of the challenge and the resources required to carry out conservation works. There is now full or partial access at 53 of the 70 sites that had access restricted due to High Level Masonry issues. I am pleased that Historic Environment Scotland continues to put the health and safety of individuals first, reopening sites when safe to do so and I will continue to engage regularly with Historic Environment Scotland on this matter.

Details of the inspection programme and site reopenings are published on the Historic Environment Scotland website.

Question reference: S6W-24163

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 11 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many members of Historic Scotland there were at the end of each month in 2023.

Question reference: S6W-24169

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many businesses have applied to the VisitScotland Quality Assurance scheme in each year since 2016.

VisitScotland has provided the following data:

Year End Date	Count
end Dec 2016	281
end Dec 2017	196
end Dec 2018	181
end Dec 2019	188
end Dec 2020	116
end Mar 2022	204
end Mar 2023	173

It should be noted that:

The figures show only new applicants in each year, the figures do not include renewals.
Figures include re-joined businesses, meaning those who left the scheme and subsequently re-joined.
Figures show unique sites and one business may have multiple sites.
Reporting period changed in 2021 from calendar to fiscal year.

Question reference: S6W-24160

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 11 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many sites that are managed by Historic Environment Scotland and its predecessor agencies have been (a) open, (b) temporarily closed and (c) permanently closed in 2023.

Question reference: S6W-24279

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 January 2024
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 11 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government in what ways (a) Historic Environment Scotland and (b) Creative Scotland supports community organisations with heritage safeguarding.

Question reference: S6W-24284

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 January 2024
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it has offered to local authorities to help schools lower their food waste in line with its commitment to reduce food waste by one third by 2025.

Question reference: S6O-02952

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 December 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support businesses across the Highlands and Islands region.

Question reference: S6W-23643

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 20 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the costs associated with the (a) production and (b) publication of the paper, Social security in an independent Scotland.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a New Scotland paper, ‘Social security in an independent Scotland’, are set out in the following table:

Costs
Task	VAT %	VAT	Net Price
Formatting and Online Publication	20	840.43	4,202.18
Summary Document	20	84.67	423.36
Summary Document – Easy Read Version	20	261.21	1,306.03
Summary Document – Language Translations	20	1,384.48	6,922.38
Summary Document – BSL Translation	20	357.50	1,787.50
Summary Document – Audio Translation	20	35.58	177.90
Printed Copies	0	0	2,487.46

Total		£2,963.87	£17,306.81

Total (including VAT)			£20,270.68

Papers in the Building a New Scotland prospectus series are available at the following link: www.gov.scot/newscotland .

Question reference: S6W-23550

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 14 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether (a) it and (b) NHS boards will start to formally record the number of dog attacks that result in hospitalisation.

Public Health Scotland records inpatient admissions to hospital as a result of a dog attack.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21589 on 5 October 2023, which contains data from Public Health Scotland on the number of inpatient and day case admissions to hospital where a diagnosis of dog attack (bite or strike) was recorded, from 2010 to 2022, in Scotland.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-23549

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 14 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many fixed speed cameras are currently (a) operational and (b) not operational, broken down by local authority area.

Across Scotland, safety cameras are deployed through the Scottish Safety Camera Programme primarily at locations where they have the greatest potential to reduce injury collisions, and where there is evidence of both collisions and speeding.

National management of the Programme is shared between Transport Scotland and Police Scotland. Operational delivery of the Programme is the responsibility of Police Scotland and is managed through three regional Safety Camera Units, North, East and West. The following data is based on information submitted by Police Scotland to Transport Scotland.

	East Unit		North Unit		West Unit		National
	Operation-al	Non-operational	Operation-al	Non-operational	Operation-al	Non-operational	Operation-al	Non-operational
Fixed enforcement locations	55	11	5	9	58	13	118	33
Fixed enforcement camera equipment	18	0	5	2	22	8	45	10

The locations of all safety cameras deployed through the Scottish Safety Camera Programme can be viewed at: www.safetycameras.gov.scot/cameras/safety-camera-locations/ .