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-27673

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much aluminium chemistry has been used by the construction industry in waste water treatment in each year since 2015, and whether firms are required to conduct aluminium assessments to justify the use of this.

SEPA does not hold specific information relating to the scale of use of aluminium-based flocculants in the construction industry since 2015. Where a construction company applies to SEPA to use aluminium-based product in its wastewater treatment, then where a potential risk is identified, SEPA follows the same procedure as described in the answer to question S5W-27671 on 12 March 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-27671

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the use of aluminium chemistry in municipal waste water treatment.

Under its standard regulatory guidance (WAT-SG-13, available on its website), SEPA discourages the use of aluminium dosing due to its toxicity. Aluminium dosing at wastewater treatment works should only be used in situations where ferric dosing is impracticable. The operator also needs to provide full justification for the use of aluminium. If aluminium is proposed, the standards to be followed are those set out in SEPA's regulatory method (WAT-RM-12), which will determine discharge limits. However, to limit discharge levels in high dilution situations, a backstop discharge limit of 10mg/l dissolved aluminium may need to be used.

Where an aluminium-based product is proposed for use in municipal wastewater treatment, SEPA uses a tiered approach to assess the level of risk that the substance's use may pose the environment. This requires the operator in the first instance to share details of the process, the chemicals used and their properties (through for example a safety datasheet). If this information is not sufficient to demonstrate safe use, SEPA would require further information on the process and specific details like discharge and receiving water flow rates, for example. This information could then be used to assess the risk a chemical’s use poses to the environment, as the result of the environmental exposure versus the intrinsic chemical hazard (e.g. the risk quotient as defined by predicted environmental concentration divided by predicted no-effect concentration). SEPA may ask the operator to derive this, but may do so itself if necessary. Further information may then be required if a risk is indicated in an iterative process to refine the risk assessment. If safe use cannot be demonstrated, restrictions may be placed on the use of the substance.

Question reference: S5W-27672

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much aluminium chemistry has been used by Scottish Water in waste water treatment in each year since 2015, and whether the company is required to conduct aluminium assessments to justify the use of this.

Scottish Water have over 1,800 wastewater treatment works across Scotland. However, only a small proportion of these use aluminium as part of the waste water treatment process and it has used an average of around 2.5 million litres of chemicals containing Aluminium per annum over the last 5 years.

In terms of whether the company is required to conduct aluminium assessments, I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-27671 on 12 March 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-27675

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the size of a company or public body has on its application of the regulations regarding the use of aluminium chemistry in water treatment.

Question reference: S5W-27674

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to regulate the use of aluminium chemistry in water treatment by the municipal waste water and construction sectors to the same standards.

Question reference: S5W-27676

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether quantitative chemical risk assessments should be used to justify the use of chemical aids in the (a) municipal and (b) construction waste water sector.

Question reference: S5W-27670

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the environmental impact of, and the risks arising from, the use of waste water treatment by Scottish Water in comparison with other companies.

SEPA is responsible for assessing the environmental impacts and risks arising from wastewater discharging from any company to the water environment.

Generally wastewater treatment processes use few chemicals and SEPA applies its standard regulatory methods to assess the risks arising from wastewater discharges which implement current Scottish regulations on effluent and water quality standards (for example WAT-RM-03 "Regulation of sewage discharges to surface waters", WAT-RM-05 "Regulation of Trade Effluent Discharges to Surface Waters" available from SEPA’s website). Specific guidance is available for certain activities and certain substances (for example WAT-SG-13 “Municipal sewage treatment works” and WAT-RM-12 “Regulation of discharges from Water Treatment Works" which includes guidance on discharges containing aluminium).

To assess impact, SEPA requires certain operators to monitor their effluent and SEPA also carries out monitoring of effluents and the receiving water environment. The ecological status of Scotland's water bodies is reported annually and actions to address any impacts identified are included in the River Basin Management Plans, available on SEPA's website ( https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/water/river-basin-management-planning/ ). These include actions to address pollution impacts from Scottish Water and other companies' wastewater discharges in order to achieve Good Ecological Status where possible.

Question reference: S5W-27640

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 10 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of the 33 recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group.

The LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation Group was established in January 2019 to oversee the implementation of the LGBT inclusive education recommendations.

Significant progress has been achieved by the Group since its formation with targeted work completed including an intermediate guidance note to all schools, training for school inspectors and the beginning of a pilot year of the new approach to recording an monitoring bullying incidents.

The implementation group is continuing to work collegiately on the delivery of the remaining actions. Significant progress has been made in relation to the recommendations for initial teacher education provision, curricular inclusion and SQA course specifications. The Group has also recently commenced work on the development of professional learning on LGBT awareness.

Further updates on the implementation of the recommendations will be published on the Scottish Government’s website: https://www.gov.scot/groups/lgbt-inclusive-education-implementation-group/ .

Question reference: S5O-04241

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 March 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its response to SEPA's consultation on the matter, for what reason it did not object to the application by the MoD to discharge more radioactive waste into Gareloch.

Question reference: S5W-27175

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2020
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 February 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have come to Scotland under the Erasmus+ programme in each of the last five years.

The Erasmus+ UK National Agency reports on the total number of individuals coming to the UK as a whole and does not provide a breakdown of the number of individuals undertaking ERASMUS+ related activities for the devolved nations separately. The available statistics for Scotland in the following table are provided from Higher Education Statistics Agency data and include those reported as being ERASMUS+ incoming students to Scottish Higher Education institutions only. Therefore, these statistics do not include individuals studying on ERASMUS+ programmes at Scottish colleges, nor those who come to Scotland to work or volunteer on ERASMUS+.

ERASMUS+ incoming students to Scottish HEIs
Year	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19
Number of students	2,035	2,920	3,040	2,935
Source: HESA student data, SG Analysis
Excludes dormant and writing-up students
Numbers have been rounded to nearest 5 and include students of all domiciles reported as studying in Scotland under an ERASMUS+ placement.