Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-00656

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment criteria it will use to determine whether the Access Bikes scheme represents good value for money.

Question reference: S6O-00651

Asked by: Maggie Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is planning to introduce to protect communities and ecosystems from land speculation associated with carbon offsetting.

Question reference: S6W-05359

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 24 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many green jobs are expected to be created by its Green Jobs Fund.

The Green Jobs Fund (GJF) is a five year, £100m capital fund offering support to businesses, and their supply chains, to help them better transition to a low carbon economy. In so doing, the GJF will support businesses to create green employment through investment in equipment and premises, and research and development.

During the Just Transition debate on motion S6M-02429, on 7 December 2021, I confirmed that so far, £12.3 million has been awarded through the Green Jobs Fund and this is expected to create and safeguard more than 850 green jobs. As future Green Jobs Fund awards are made, we will continue to update on the progress of the fund and the expected green jobs resulting from this.

Question reference: S6W-05187

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many times since 1 September 2021 (a) Ministers, (b) Scottish Government officials, (c) Zero Waste Scotland and (d) SEPA have met with representatives of the incineration industry.

Representatives from the waste industry may represent multiple areas of the waste sector. For example, companies may operate both incineration and recycling facilities, and trade bodies represent companies which operate across the waste sector.

The information below, therefore, represents the number of meetings with representatives from the waste industry where the intention was to discuss incineration, or topics related to incineration (e.g. carbon capture and storage from energy from waste facilities) in at least part of the meeting.

Since 1 September 2021, (a) Ministers have met once and (b) Scottish Government officials have met twice with representatives from the waste industry to discuss incineration in at least part of the meeting.

Data on the number of times that (c) Zero Waste Scotland and (d) SEPA have met with representatives of the waste industry are not held centrally.

Question reference: S6W-05146

Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 20 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-10494 by Roseanna Cunningham on 15 August 2017, which of the 42 formal flood protection schemes or engineering works have been removed from the list of proposed works since August 2017, broken down by the (a) number of properties that were expected to be protected, (b) reason for removal and (c) (i) initial forecast cost of and (ii) amount that was spent on each.

The only works that have been removed from the list of the 42 formal flood protection schemes or engineering works are those to the Greenock - Coves Burn which were to be taken forward by Inverclyde Council. The number of properties that were expected to be protected is not held by the Scottish Government, the removal was because the required work was carried out by Scottish Water, the initial forecast cost was £0.4m and the amount spent was £0.025m.

Question reference: S6W-05037

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the supplementary question by Jackie Dunbar, during First Minister's Questions on 3 June 2021, that it “will implement the recommendations of the Just Transition Commission”, whether it will list what it considers the recommendations to be, and how many have been implemented to date.

We published our response to the recommendations of the Just Transition Commission’s final report on 7 September 2021 which is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/transition-fairer-greener-scotland/. This confirms our commitment to implement the recommendations of the Just Transition Commission in full, and includes our national just transition planning framework which is guiding our approach to delivery with partners across Scotland. A list of recommendations made by the Commission in their final report and the associated actions are set out on pages 11 - 28.

As referred to in the document, the Scottish Government will also provide an annual ministerial statement to Parliament. This will give a comprehensive update on actions taken across Government to support a just transition, including progress on the Commission’s recommendations.

We published our response to the recommendations of the Just Transition Commission’s final report on 7 September 2021 which is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/transition-fairer-greener-scotland/ .

Question reference: S6W-05168

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it plans to put in place to reduce the reliance on incinerators for the purpose of waste disposal, in light of SEPA household waste data for 2020 that reportedly shows that waste managed by incineration increased by 33.6% since 2019.

In Scotland, it is already illegal to send waste collected separately for recycling to incineration or landfill. However, we need to make sure that how we treat residual waste, which cannot be reused or recycled, aligns with our emissions reduction targets. That is why we have appointed an independent chair to review the role incineration plays in the waste hierarchy.

We also have a range of measures in train to reduce the amount of waste produced and increase the proportion of waste recycled across Scotland. These include laying Regulations before Parliament that ban some of the most problematic single use plastic products; a £70 million Recycling Improvement Fund for local authorities; and implementation of Scotland’s ambitious deposit return scheme.

Question reference: S6W-05184

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether representatives from (a) Scottish Trans Alliance, (b) Stonewall Scotland and (c) any other transgender advocacy group are involved in allocation decisions concerning transgender prisoners, and, if so, what the nature of that involvement is.

have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

Allocation decisions concerning transgender prisoners are the responsibility of SPS.

To inform decisions, a multi-disciplinary case conferencing approach is adopted, to which a range of case specific partner agencies can be invited based on the specific circumstances of the individual being discussed.

A representative from a transgender organisationmay be included in an individual’s case conference however the person in custody must agree to their participation. If agreement is given, then the transgender organisation representative should have relevant expert transgender-specific equality knowledge, information and perspectives to all aspects of the case conference discussion.

Question reference: S6W-05274

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many green jobs have been created in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-05242

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 20 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the inclusion of psychologists in (a) career coaching, (b) development and (c) vocational rehabilitation programmes for those returning to employment.

Fair Start Scotland the national employability support service is available to support those who face the greatest challenges in finding fair and sustainable work. Key workers offer personalised, one to one support, tailored to individual circumstances. Pre-employment support can last up to 18 months depending on the specific needs of the individual and up to 12 months in work support is also available to ensure participants remain supported during employment. This will include referrals to specialist support for employment where this will benefit the individual.

Chamber and committees