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: S6F-00675

Asked by: Maggie Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 January 2022

To ask the First Minister what impact the UK Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill will have on devolved functions.

Question reference: S6F-00671

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 January 2022

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6T-00439

Asked by: Jim Fairlie, MSP for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on any discussions it has had with OVO Energy regarding its reported decision to reduce its workforce by 1,700 employees.

Question reference: S6T-00438

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to a recent report by Enable Scotland that highlights that over 250 people with learning disabilities are living in NHS Scotland inpatient units, with one woman being there for 60 years.

Question reference: S6W-05610

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much money Scottish Water lent to Business Stream in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22 to date; how much Business Stream has repaid of any borrowed money, and in which financial year, and by what date Business Stream is due to have fully repaid any money borrowed in each year.

Scottish Water has not loaned any money to Business Stream (SWBS). Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd (SWBSH) loaned £10million to Business Stream (SWBS) in April 2020 as part of a pre-existing funding facility. Following the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, precautionary Covid-19 funding facilities were put in place for SWBS during 2020-2021. As part of these funding arrangements, the existing £10million loan was converted to equity, thereby strengthening the financial sustainability of SWBS. This £10m was from previous profits earned by SWBS and paid as dividends to SWBSH. To date no further loans have been made to SWBS and there has been no requirement for SWBS to access the precautionary Covid-19 financial support arrangements. Scottish Water customers have not been impacted by these funding arrangements.

Business Stream has continued to support its customers by providing a range of measures to help ease the financial burden for those that have been impacted most by the pandemic, including offering flexible payment plans and an enhanced version of the industry’s charging Deferral Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-05612

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the operating plant that was returned to Scottish Water from previous private finance operators has reportedly been operated by Scottish Water Horizons and not by Scottish Water directly; when it anticipates that the plant will return to direct Scottish Water operational control, and what the cost implications are to Scottish Water of the current arrangements over its direct operational management of the plant.

At this time, none of the outstanding PFI projects have returned operating plant to Scottish Water as they have not yet reached the end of their contracts. The first one to do so will be in May 2022.

Scottish Water Horizons does not operate any plant previously returned from PFI projects. However, in 2018, SW Horizons Holdings Ltd (SWHH) acquired the Aberdeen PFI project companies. This was to protect the operational and environmental performance of the plants over the remaining 13 years of the PFI contract as the previous owner had indicated that they intended to sell the project to a party that did not have experience in operating wastewater treatment works.

The companies acquired included £46.5million of external bank debt funding. The acquisition cost was funded by SWHH and not Scottish Water, so customers were not impacted by the acquisition. Due to the contractual restrictions associated with the external bank debt, these PFI companies have continued to operate under the same structure as before, albeit now owned and controlled by the Scottish Water Group and have been integrated into Scottish Water Group operations to the extent permitted by existing contractual arrangements.

Since the acquisition by SWHH, the operational and environmental performance of the PFI project has continued to improve and, following the refurbishment of the sludge digester and CHP engines, there has also been a very significant increase in renewable energy generation and consequent carbon reduction. Further integration of the PFI project into Scottish Water operations is under active consideration. This would require repayment of the remaining external bank debt of some £33million and would therefore require to be justified by an appropriate cost/benefit business case.

Question reference: S6W-05475

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of children who left primary school in June (a) 2019 and (b) 2020 were able to swim, broken down by (i) sex and (ii) race.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

However, in 2021-22, sport scotland invested approximately £1,315,600 into Scottish Swimming. Over the past five years, sport scotland has invested £6,836,282 into Scottish Swimming. Scottish Swimming developed and introduced a National Learn to Swim Framework in 2014 to support aquatic providers to enhance their community learn to swim programmes.

The Framework, which is supported by Scottish Water and delivered by aquatic partners every week already helps children to become safe, competent, and confident swimmers and these water safety themed lessons are an essential part of the Framework to help educate on water safety.

Question reference: S6W-05365

Asked by: Ariane Burgess, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether the independent review of the aquaculture regulatory and planning framework will publish its recommendations for further work by the end of 2021, as committed to in the Scottish Government’s and Scottish Green Party’s Shared Policy Programme.

Question reference: S6W-05268

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what further consideration it has given to population-based recommendations and guidance on vitamin D supplementation, in light of Scotland's reported low vitamin D status and evidence that the vitamin may be able to play a role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, including in the study, Therapeutic and prognostic role of vitamin D for COVID-19 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 43 observational studies.

Our current advice on vitamin D supplementation is based on the consensus of the scientific evidence, as presented to all UK nations by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).

On 19 June 2021, SACN published a paper summarising the monitoring of recent evidence on nutrition and COVID-19. It is available at

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/992875/SACN_Process_for_monitoring_evidence_on_nutrition_and_COVID-19__June21_.pdf.

SACN concluded that, to date, the monitoring exercise had not identified any new trials in relation to vitamin D and COVID-19 that would change current dietary advice or require the re-review of the rapid guideline published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Public Health England and SACN on 17 December 2020. The rapid guideline states:

people should continue to follow existing advice on vitamin D supplementation to maintain bone and muscle health
there is currently not enough evidence to support taking vitamin D solely to prevent or treat COVID-19

The rapid guideline is available at https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/NG187

The UK COVID-19 Therapeutic Advisory Panel (UK C-TAP) is continuing to monitor ongoing COVID-19 related Vitamin D trials. I understand the SACN secretariat is in contact with the NICE surveillance team and officials supporting UK C-TAP to ensure complementary approaches. Evidence on vitamin D in relation to COVID-19 is also being monitored by the multi-agency initiative ‘Research to Access Pathway for Investigational Drugs in COVID-19’.

We will continue to look to NICE and others who are closely monitoring this evidence base.

Question reference: S6W-05186

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 17 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many lateral flow tests have been issued in Scotland in (a) each month of 2021 and (b) each week of November and December 2021 to date.