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-04243

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 20 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many electric vehicle charging points have been installed in each year since 2012.

The installation of electric vehicle charge points is supported through a number of funding schemes. Funding supports a number of charging activities: charging by households at home, by business (public and private sector) to support fleet decarbonisation and public charging by EV owners. The date of installation for all supported infrastructure is not routinely collated. The following tables set out details of domestic and workplace charging infrastructure and information on chargepoints commissioned onto the ChargePlace Scotland network.

The ChargePlace Scotland table sets out figures for new chargers installed and commissioned onto the network, this includes charging units that are publicly available and those for public sector and business use. Up to 2014 these figures have been recorded in August of each year, from 2014 this has been recorded as total installs commissioned within each financial year. Over this period some chargers may have been upgraded, replaced or decommissioned meaning the total number of chargepoints currently available will be less than the total commissioned since 2012.

We do not hold information that details the number of private sector charge points installed on other networks from 2012, online platforms such as ZapMap do provide details of publicly available electric vehicle charge points across Scotland, including those on the ChargePlace Scotland and other networks.

Domestic and business use electric vehicle chargers (not on ChargePlace Scotland)

Year	Domestic Installs (not CPS)	Business Fleet Installs (not CPS)
Year	Domestic Installs (not CPS)	Business Fleet Installs (not CPS)
Apr 2011 - Mar 2012	0	0
Apr 2012 - Mar 2013	0	0
Apr 2013 - Mar 2014	102	14
Apr 2014 - Mar 2015	114	14
Apr 2015 - Mar 2016	409	55
Apr 2016 - Mar 2017	491	38
Apr 2017 - Mar 2018	1042	80
Apr 2018 - Mar 2019	1304	76
Apr 2019 - Mar 2020	1966	140
Apr 2020 -Mar 2021	3241	139
Apr 2020 - end June 21	3093	182
Totals	11,762	738

ChargePlace Scotland - all new electric vehicle chargers connected to the ChargePlace Scotland network (public and fleet use)

Year	Chargers commissioned on CPS Network
To Aug 2013	64
Sept 2013 - Mar 2014	71
Apr 2014 - Mar 2015	265
Apr 2015 - Mar 2016	285
Apr 2016 - Mar 2017	114
Apr 2017 - Mar 2018	202
Apr 2018 - Mar 2019	367
Apr 2019 - Mar 2020	990
Apr 2020 - Mar 2021	785
Apr 2020 - end June 21	77
Totals	3,220

Question reference: S6O-00435

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 November 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how its Housing Strategy will support the retrofitting of homes to improve energy efficiency and tackle fuel poverty.

Question reference: S6W-03520

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 2 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce legislation to put into effect the decision to move ScotRail into the public sector when the current ScotRail franchise ends in March 2022.

Further to the answers provided to S6W-00200 on 3 June 2021 and S6W-00776 on 1 July 2021, Scottish Ministers have to work within current UK rail legislation, principally the Railways Act 1993 (the 1993 Act), which neither the Scottish Ministers nor the Scottish Parliament have powers to change.

The Scottish Ministers already have a duty under section 30 of the 1993 Act to provide or secure the provision of passenger rail services where a franchise agreement comes to an end and no further franchise agreement had been entered into in respect of the services. It is this duty that will enable the Scottish Ministers to arrange for a company wholly owned by the Scottish Government (ScotRail Trains Ltd) to provide ScotRail services when the current ScotRail franchise expires. The Scottish Ministers do not need to introduce additional legislation to put this into effect.

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: S6O-00297

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met representatives of Stirling Council, and what was discussed.

Question reference: S6O-00239

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to statistics showing that the number of cyber-crimes recorded has nearly doubled in the last year.

Question reference: S6O-00218

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the expansion of the GlobalScot network.

Question reference: S6O-00174

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on cross-government co-ordination of COVID-19 recovery policies.

Question reference: S6O-00160

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its proposals to establish a publicly-owned energy company that will generate and supply energy.

Question reference: S6W-02325

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 2 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what work has been undertaken to provide information resources to schools in the lead-up to COP26.

Scottish Government collaborates with a range of partners to ensure that schools have the information, advice and support to engage with both COP26 specifically, and climate change issues and climate change education more broadly.

Education Scotland, as the national inspection and improvement agency for education, is taking steps to help schools to engage with the themes of the COP26 summit, and to consider how and in what ways they could further improve their approach to climate education and Learning for Sustainability (LfS) at school level.

Highlights and resources include the following:

'Countdown to COP' will be an online initiative aimed at early years and primary to support engagement with COP26 and its five themes (nature, energy transition, finance, clean transport, adaptation and resilience). Countdown to COP will begin on 13 September and run to 29 October, although resources are not time-sensitive and can therefore be used beyond these dates. Countdown to COP will be promoted through Education Scotland's communications channels and its Local Authorities Network.

Scotland's Assembly , delivered by Education Scotland in partnership with the e-Sgoil initiative and available via the Glow system, will be focusing on COP and hearing from people working in the thematic areas across Scotland.

Education Scotland is working closely with Sustainability Partnerships (a teacher group based in Edinburgh and the Lothians) to develop a template resource pack that can be used by schools, education authorities and others to run their own COP26-style summits both locally and regionally.

The Learning for Sustainability Awards 2021 are being held in partnership with The Daily Record and will help to gather good practice examples of Learning for Sustainability across Scotland. Award categories are: Youth; Practitioner; Leadership; Learning Community; Educational Supporter; and Community Learning and Development.

Local authorities, funded by Scottish Government, also provide a key role in providing their own information resources to schools. A COP26/Learning for Sustainability Local Authority Forum is being run by Education Scotland and enables all 32 local authorities to share and plan activity around COP26 and Learning for Sustainability. Members of this forum are also planning a professional learning programme for post-COP26. One example of information and education resources and activities provided via local authorities is Glasgow City Council's 'Our Dear Green Place' initiative, launched on 12 May 2021. The local authority has put in place a range of resources to ensure access and engagement with both COP26 and Our Dear Green Place resources and professional learning. The resources will be continually updated as practitioner and partner engagement progresses.

An Education Scotland COP26 Partner Forum (jointly chaired with YouthLink Scotland) is providing a means for more than 50 Third Sector partners to co-ordinate their various offers for young people leading up to, during and post-COP26. Partner resources and offers are being shared with schools through a 'Wakelet'.

In addition to the above, Scottish Government funds Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) to provide the Eco-Schools and Climate Ready Classrooms programmes. As part of the lead up to COP26 KSB will be offering three new interactive teaching and training sessions: a week of workshops for upper primary classes; a Continuing Professional Development session for primary and secondary educators; and a climate action workshop for high school pupils and Eco-Committees.

Question reference: S6O-00119

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it will establish the new overseas offices in Warsaw and Copenhagen, as set out in its agreement with the Scottish Green Party.