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-14034

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of progress made regarding each of the commitments of the Respiratory Care Action Plan according to those (a) achieved, (b) in progress and (c) not yet started.

Question reference: S6T-01146

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to a recent study conducted by the Scottish Retail Consortium, which found that one in six shops are lying empty in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-14037

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 30 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) the UK Government and (a) other devolved governments regarding the (i) marketing, (ii) availability (including flavouring) and (iii) packaging of vaping and e-cigarette products.

Question reference: S6W-13354

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 December 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent, other than the funding allocated to local authorities, for the purpose of tobacco control in each year since 2017-18.

The following table shows the amount spent by the Tobacco Team in each year since 2017-18. Due to way in which spend is recorded it is not possible to disaggregate Tobacco Control spend from overall Tobacco spend. Also please note that 2022-23 spend is not included as this financial year has not yet concluded.

		2017-2018	2018-2019	2019-2020	2020-2021	2021-2022
Regular stakeholder grants	ASH Scotland	£657,268	£610,900	£669,250	£669,250	£724,543
	Scottish Student Sport	£0	£0	£11,500	£26,315	£27,420
	The Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards In Scotland	£30,000	£62,500	£62,500	£55,000	£232,000*
	Rest of Tobacco Funding	£207,334.55	£385,885.73	£82,748.81	£44,325.26	£58,382.24
Total		£894,602.55	£1,059,285.73	£825,998.81	£794,890.26	£1,042,345.24

*Includes funding for Operation CeCe

I also refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-12229 on Health Board funding allocations for cessation services on 30 November 2022 and S6W-12227 on Local Authority Tobacco Control funding on 30 November 2022 which provide additional detail on Scottish Government Tobacco spend. 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: S6W-13336

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 16 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10697 by Tom Arthur on 21 September 2022, and in light of its draft 2023-24 Budget published on 15 December 2022, how it will ensure parity with England for commercial premises liable for the higher property rate, in line with the independent Barclay Review of non-domestic rates recommendation, and its commitment in its Framework For Tax to "reduce the combined poundage rate for the largest properties to match the equivalent rate in England over the course of the Parliament".

On 1 April 2020 the Intermediate Property Rate (poundage +1.3p) was introduced for properties with rateable values between £51,000 and £95,000 which would previously have been liable for the Large Business Supplement (2.6p).

On 1 April 2023 we will further reduce the number of properties liable for the Higher Property Rate, by increasing the rateable value threshold at which this applies from £95,000 to £100,000.

Combined with the lowest poundage in the UK, these reforms mean that over 95% of non-domestic properties are already liable for a lower property tax rate than anywhere else in the UK.

Tax policy decisions are made at annual budgets in line with prevailing economic decisions.

Question reference: S6W-13356

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, have been employed by Public Health Scotland and its predecessors, Health Protection Scotland and NHS Scotland’s Information Services Division, to work on tobacco policy in each year since 2017-18.

Question reference: S6W-13355

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, have worked on tobacco policy within its Health Improvement Division in each year since 2017-18.

The following table details the number of full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, who have worked on tobacco policy within Health Improvement Division since 2017-18.

Please note the following:

numbers do not equate to head count within Health Improvement Division.
vacancies have not been included.
numbers have been compiled using historic Scottish Government HR records
during 2020/21 some staff would have focused on COVID pandemic response work

	31 March 2017	31 March 2018	31 March 2019	31 March 2020	31 March 2021	31 March 2022	10 January 2023
C2	-	-	-	-	0.5	0.5	0.9
C1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0.6
B3	1	1	1	1	1	1	-
B2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
B1	-	1	1	1		1	1
A4	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
Total	4	4	4	4	3.5	4.5	3.5

Question reference: S6O-01790

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has carried out an assessment of the potential impact of its decision to end the Network Support Grant Plus for bus operators.

Question reference: S6W-13346

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 9 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage more local authorities to consider and utilise their existing powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to reduce or remit non-domestic rates.

In 2023-24 the Local Government finance settlement will provide over £13.2 billion to local authorities with a real terms increase in funding of £160.6 million or (1.3%).

The Scottish Government continues to encourage all local authorities to use their powers under the Community Empowerment Act 2015, which grants them the wide-ranging flexibility to offer bespoke local rates relief schemes. The administering of reliefs under these powers is a matter for local authorities who are independent bodies, democratically elected and accountable to their local electorate.

Question reference: S6W-13338

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 5 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many properties will be subject to the higher property rate poundage in 2023-24, broken down by (a) industry sector and (b) local authority area.

The number of properties expected to be liable for the Higher Property Rate (HPR) in 2023-24 before any reliefs are applied is presented in the below tables, broken down in Table 1 by property class, and in Table 2 by local authority. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property. The Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors.

These tables are based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and figures are therefore subject to change.

Figures in these tables are rounded to the nearest 10, with values greater than zero but lower than five displayed as ‘[low]’.

Table 1: Number of properties liable for HPR in 2023-24 by property class

Property class	Properties with a gross HPR liability
Shops	2,390
Public Houses	180
Offices	1,760
Hotels	580
Industrial Subjects	2,520
Leisure, Entertainment, Caravans etc.	510
Garages and Petrol Stations	150
Cultural	90
Sporting Subjects	20
Education and Training	1,390
Public Service Subjects	500
Communications	90
Quarries, Mines, etc.	40
Petrochemical	70
Religious	40
Health and Medical	280
Other	240
Care Facilities	350
Advertising	10
Statutory Undertaking	370
Not in use	0
All	11,570

Table 2: Number of properties liable for HPR in 2023-24 by local authority

Local authority	Properties with a gross HPR liability
Aberdeen City	1,040
Aberdeenshire	530
Angus	140
Argyll & Bute	150
Clackmannanshire	50
Dumfries & Galloway	200
Dundee City	350
East Ayrshire	140
East Dunbartonshire	110
East Lothian	140
East Renfrewshire	80
City of Edinburgh	1,720
Na h-Eileanan Siar	50
Falkirk	290
Fife	510
Glasgow City	1,830
Highland	600
Inverclyde	110
Midlothian	170
Moray	200
North Ayrshire	170
North Lanarkshire	570
Orkney Islands	30
Perth & Kinross	280
Renfrewshire	380
Scottish Borders	170
Shetland Islands	60
South Ayrshire	200
South Lanarkshire	540
Stirling	210
West Dunbartonshire	130
West Lothian	420
Scotland	11,570