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: S5W-14763

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to carry out an urban land use pilot, which was recommended in Getting the best from our land, a Land Use Strategy for Scotland 2016–2021.

Question reference: S5W-14764

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress that is being made with the development of the regional land use partnerships, which were recommended in Getting the best from our land, a Land Use Strategy for Scotland 2016–2021.

Question reference: S5W-15281

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 March 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 21 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government by what date the remaining 5% of 2016 Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme (LFASS) money will be delivered to claimants.

LFASS 2016 payments started on 21 September 2017, one month ahead of LFASS 2015 payment performance. By the end of that month around 83% had been paid, also well ahead of the previous year. We met our published target of making over 95% of the total value of LFASS payments by the end of February. By 21 March, 10,856 claims had been paid, which equates to 96.3% of 11,272 potentially eligible claims, leaving only 3.7% of claims still to process. We are now down to the normal tail of complex cases which, in any year, take longer to finalise. Some await further input from farmers to complete processing, and not all will ultimately qualify for payment. It is therefore difficult to set a meaningful date for completing all payments, but we will continue to work steadily to a conclusion. The offer of loans also provided interim support to those awaiting an LFASS payment.

Question reference: S5W-15156

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 16 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) SEPA and (b) small oil storage and distribution businesses regarding the roll out of the new oil storage regulations.

Question reference: S5W-15155

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 16 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported concerns that the new authorisation application fees from SEPA for oil distributors do not take account of business size.

The Environmental Regulation (Scotland) Charging Scheme sets charges based on the activity being carried out, not on business size. The authorisation application (licence) fee which applies to oil distribution depots is the minimum fee applicable under the charging scheme. This is a single payment fee of £2040. The operator can include multiple sites on one licence with no annual subsistence charges.

Question reference: S5W-15157

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 16 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) intervention fees and (b) penalties will be for non-compliance with the new oil storage regulations.

There are no intervention fees. The licence fee of £2040 includes any required compliance visits by SEPA.

As is the case for all regulated businesses, non-compliance with authorisation conditions may lead to enforcement action, depending on the circumstances. A range of enforcement options are available to SEPA, as set out in SEPA's Enforcement Policy . These include the potential to issue monetary penalties.

Question reference: S5O-01887

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support NHS Grampian and reduce the board's waiting times.

Question reference: S5W-14444

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what projections it has made of the number of hectares of peatland that will be (a) restored and (b) extracted in each of the next 10 years.

Question reference: S5W-14823

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 1 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-14446 by Fergus Ewing on 21 February 2018, for what reason it stated that it "does not hold telephone or broadband coverage information at exchange level", in light of it providing this information for different locations in the answer to question S4W-29272 by John Swinney on 20 January 2016.

Information provided in the Parliamentary Question of January 2016 did not purport to provide comprehensive coverage information on premises served by individual telephone exchanges. As outlined in the most recent answer, this information is not held by the Scottish Government. What was provided in the previous answer was information on premises connected solely through the DSSB programme.

Please see the number of DSSB connections for each of the exchanges listed, as requested.

Exchange	DSSB deployment at end of Q3 2017-18
Auchnagatt	215
Maud	555
Gardenstown	531
Memsie	267
Cornhill	186
New Aberdour	293
Auchleuchries	no DSSB deployment
Schivas	146
King Edward	60

Question reference: S5O-01856

Asked by: Peter Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 February 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage young people into STEM apprenticeships.