Questions and answers

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 ��˿�� 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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 1721 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-27062

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has held with its New Deal for Business Group regarding using Air Departure Tax for "demand management".

Question reference: S6W-27001

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-20679, S6W-22695 and S6W-24757 by Neil Gray on 31 August 2023, 15 November 2023 and 1 February 2024 respectively, whether it will provide an update on the establishment of an advisory group as required under section 29 of the Scottish National Investment Bank Act 2020.

Question reference: S6W-27066

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will significantly increase investment aimed at reducing rail journey times to the north east and north of Scotland, in the event that it proceeds with proposals to use Air Departure Tax for "demand management".

Question reference: S6W-27063

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential economic impact of using Air Departure Tax for "demand management".

Question reference: S6O-03368

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the implications are for future tax revenue of reports that the economic recovery outlook for Scotland continues to lag behind the UK average.

Question reference: S6W-26765

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 19 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to Sistema Scotland in the financial years (a) 2023-24 and (b) 2024-25.

Question reference: S6O-03354

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its plans to achieve net zero by 2045, what its response is to the Electricity System Operator's report, Beyond 2030.

Question reference: S6O-03277

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an update on when it will make a decision on the continued ban on the consumption of alcohol at all times on trains, in light of ScotRail's confirmation in evidence to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee that the consultation findings have been passed to Transport Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-25577

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 12 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs have been created in the renewables sector in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.

Statistics from the ONS Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy (LCREE) survey provide estimates of renewables employment in Scotland. No data is available to provide additional geographic breakdowns below the Scotland level at present.

As the flowing table shows, the estimated number of direct jobs in renewable electricity was 8,000 in 2022 and 5,400 in 2018.

Employment (Full-time equivalent)	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Scotland	5,400	5,400	6,700	9,700	8,000

The LCREE estimates presented in the table above are survey-based and are therefore subject to a degree of uncertainty.

Other estimates of FTE employment in the renewable sector exist, such as those in the linked 2023 study by Fraser of Allander Institute (totalling around 42,000 FTE in 2021). This also includes indirect and induced employment estimates.

Question reference: S6W-25543

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 7 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many people were unemployed in each of the last five financial years, also broken down by local authority area.

Estimates for the number of unemployed people aged 16 years and over in Scotland, broken down by local authority, are shown in the following table for each of the last five financial years.

Area	Apr 2018 - Mar 2019	Apr 2019 - Mar 2020	Apr 2020 - Mar 2021	Apr 2021 - Mar 2022	Apr 2022 - Mar 2023
Aberdeen City	6,300	3,400	5,900	4,400	5,200
Aberdeenshire	3,700	2,900	4,900	4,100	3,500
Angus	2,100	1,500	2,500	1,700	1,800
Argyll and Bute	1,300	1,100	1,600	1,200	1,200
City of Edinburgh	11,000	6,900	12,500	9,000	7,100
Clackmannanshire	1,100	900	1,200	800	1,100
Dumfries and Galloway	2,100	1,800	3,000	2,200	2,400
Dundee City	4,000	3,700	3,900	3,300	3,900
East Ayrshire	3,200	2,700	3,000	2,200	2,200
East Dunbartonshire	1,600	1,200	1,900	1,400	1,300
East Lothian	2,000	1,300	2,200	1,600	1,300
East Renfrewshire	1,600	1,100	1,800	1,300	1,200
Falkirk	3,100	2,900	3,500	2,600	3,100
Fife	8,500	7,100	8,800	6,100	7,000
Glasgow City	16,900	14,100	18,700	14,800	15,800
Highland	3,600	2,600	4,700	3,100	3,100
Inverclyde	1,900	1,700	1,800	1,300	1,400
Midlothian	1,700	1,200	1,800	1,200	1,200
Moray	1,800	1,300	2,000	1,500	1,600
Na h-Eileanan Siar	300	300	500	400	400
North Ayrshire	3,700	3,000	3,400	2,300	2,000
North Lanarkshire	7,800	6,800	9,000	6,100	6,500
Orkney Islands	300	200	400	300	200
Perth and Kinross	2,300	1,800	3,200	1,900	2,300
Renfrewshire	4,300	3,400	4,000	2,900	3,200
Scottish Borders	1,800	1,500	2,400	1,800	2,000
Shetland Islands	300	200	400	300	300
South Ayrshire	2,200	1,800	2,500	1,900	2,100
South Lanarkshire	6,600	4,900	7,500	5,200	5,500
Stirling	1,700	1,400	1,900	1,400	1,600
West Dunbartonshire	2,200	1,900	2,300	1,600	1,800
West Lothian	3,700	2,700	3,800	2,800	2,700
Scotland	114,300	89,200	126,800	92,600	95,800

Source: Annual Population Survey, April to March data, ONS and Claimant Count, ONS

Notes:

1. Unemployment figures for local authorities are model-based, except for the Scotland estimates which have been taken directly from the ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) dataset. The model-based estimates improve on the APS estimates by borrowing strength from the claimant count to produce an estimate that is more precise.

2. Data is subject to sampling variation.

3. Levels are rounded to the nearest hundred.

4. Estimates are based on those aged 16 and over.