Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-25576

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 7 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has carried out any economic impact analysis regarding an energy policy that has a presumption against any oil and gas exploration.

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.

Question reference: S6W-25542

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 what percentage of the workforce was unemployed in each of the last five financial years, also broken down by local authority area.

Estimates for the unemployment rate for people aged 16 years and over in Scotland, broken down by local authority, are shown in the following table for 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	4.9	2.5	4.7	3.6	4.3
Aberdeenshire	2.6	2.0	3.6	3.0	2.4
Angus	3.7	2.6	4.7	3.1	3.2
Argyll and Bute	3.1	2.6	4.0	2.9	3.1
City of Edinburgh	3.8	2.5	4.3	3.1	2.4
Clackmannanshire	4.3	3.6	4.8	3.4	4.7
Dumfries and Galloway	3.0	2.7	4.7	3.4	4.0
Dundee City	5.8	5.1	5.4	4.6	5.6
East Ayrshire	5.5	4.6	5.2	3.8	3.7
East Dunbartonshire	2.9	2.3	3.7	2.9	2.5
East Lothian	3.6	2.5	4.1	2.8	2.5
East Renfrewshire	3.5	2.4	4.1	3.1	2.5
Falkirk	3.8	3.7	4.2	3.2	3.8
Fife	4.6	4.1	5.0	3.7	3.9
Glasgow City	5.5	4.6	5.6	4.4	4.7
Highland	2.9	2.1	3.8	2.8	2.6
Inverclyde	5.0	4.7	4.9	3.5	3.6
Midlothian	3.5	2.4	4.0	2.3	2.5
Moray	3.7	2.7	4.3	3.2	3.2
Na h-Eileanan Siar	2.5	2.0	3.7	2.6	2.5
North Ayrshire	5.8	5.0	5.9	4.0	3.4
North Lanarkshire	4.4	4.0	5.7	3.7	3.9
Orkney Islands	2.0	1.5	3.1	2.8	2.0
Perth and Kinross	2.9	2.3	4.3	2.5	3.1
Renfrewshire	4.8	3.7	4.4	3.2	3.7
Scottish Borders	3.2	2.8	4.4	3.3	3.5
Shetland Islands	2.1	1.7	3.2	2.1	1.9
South Ayrshire	4.5	3.5	4.9	3.8	4.5
South Lanarkshire	4.0	3.0	4.6	3.1	3.2
Stirling	3.7	3.1	4.0	3.1	3.2
West Dunbartonshire	4.8	4.2	5.2	3.6	4.0
West Lothian	3.9	2.9	4.1	3.0	2.9
Scotland	4.1	3.2	4.7	3.4	3.5

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. Rates are based on unrounded numbers.

4. Rates are rounded to the nearest decimal point.

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

Question reference: S6O-03182

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when the remaining £46 million of deferred funding from the agriculture budget will be returned.

Question reference: S6W-25282

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many of its civil servants are currently employed in the Aberdeen City Council area.

Question reference: S6W-25278

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has distributed in flood recovery grants to (a) homes and (b) businesses affected by Storm Babet.

The Scottish Government has funded Angus, Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross Councils to distribute £516,000 in community recovery grants and £240,000 in business recovery grants to eligible homes and businesses affected by Storm Babet, totalling £756,000.

In addition, £100,000 was provided to Angus Council through the Homelessness Prevention Fund to help families who had been flooded to rebuild their lives, and £1.8m was pledged to support farmers to help repair damaged floodbanks. Ministers also activated the Bellwin Scheme to help affected local authorities with revenue and uninsurable expenditure resulting from the storm, and extended the eligibility period of claims from two to four months.

Question reference: S6W-25266

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of spend from the Just Transition Fund in financial year 2022-23.

The Just Transition Fund has allocated £75 million to date, supporting projects and communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future.

A total of 23 projects were delivered through the Just Transition Fund in 2022-23.

Spend totalled £10.9 million comprised of £9.93 million in capital, £500,000 in financial transactions and £465,000 in resource funding support. A breakdown across projects is detailed in the flowing table:

Energy Transition Skills Hub (formerly Advanced Manufacturing Skills Hub	£1,180,000 (capital)
Cabrach Distillery	£361,767.25 (capital)
Climate Assemblies Pilot	£214,055 (resource)
Community Capacity Support	£23,968 (resource)
Digital Innovation Lab	£313,982.04 (capital)
Easter Anguston Farm	£504,446.86 (capital)
Energy Skills Passport	1,871,967.88 (capital)
Findhorn Ecovillage	£226,775 (capital)
Findhorn Watershed Initiative	£139,972.45 (capital)
Hydrogen Offshore Production (HOP2)	£126,000 (capital)
Hydroglen	£262,270.09 (capital)
Just Transition Hub	£243,601.16 (capital)
Moray Council Just Transition Masterplan	£250,544.62 (capital)
NESS Carbon Capture Feasibility Study	£96,750 (capital)
North East Adventure Tourism (NEAT)	£397,000 (capital)
Participatory Budgeting	£1 million (capital), £200,000 (resource)
Pilot Energy Skills Project	£39,960 (capital)
SeedPod	£500,000 (capital)
Social Enterprise Just Transition Fund	£476k (capital), £500k (FT’s), £27,180 (resource)
Sustainable Solvent Recovery/EV Battery Recycling	£457,559 (capital)
Supply Chain Pathway and Energy Transition Challenge Fund	£1,299,598 (capital)
Tidal Rotor Generator	£71,200 (capital)
Moray Net Zero Bottlenecks	£41,596.47 (capital)
Wave Energy Converter	£70,000 (capital)

Question reference: S6W-25265

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the percentage change in the amount allocated to the Just Transition Fund is from financial year 2023-24 to 2024-25.

In 2024-25 there has been a regrettable 51.2% reduction in capital allocated to the Just Transition Fund in 2024-25.

There has been a 100% reduction in financial transactions allocated to the Just Transition Fund in 2024-25.

The change in budget allocation to the Just Transition Fund is due to a reduction in capital and financial transactions funding allocations from the UK Government which the Fund relies on. I remain entirely committed to the multi-annual funding commitment to provide £500m over ten years. 75m has been provided to date and 16m will be spent in 24/25.

Question reference: S6W-25267

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of spend from the Just Transition Fund in financial year 2023-24.

A total of 20 projects are currently being delivered through the Just Transition Fund in 2023-24.

Spend is still ongoing to March end 2024 with just under £12 million drawn down by projects to date. This is comprised of £10.3 million in capital, £1 million in financial transactions and £671,000 in resource.

A further £3.15 million of 2023-24 forecast spend has been reprofiled into 2024-25 financial year.

In addition, £25 million was allocated to the Scottish National Investment Bank for 2023-24, to be invested in the North East on a commercial basis, in line with the Bank’s Investment Strategy and its Missions, including to support a Just Transition to net zero.

Question reference: S6W-25284

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 4 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what total value of government-funded grants for heat pumps has been awarded to homes in the Aberdeen City Council area in each year since 2022.

The Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme, launched in December 2022, offers homeowners and self-builders in Scotland a grant, interest free loan or a combination of both to support the installation of clean heating systems and energy efficiency measures. Prior to this, homeowners could access support for installation via the HES Loan and Cashback Scheme.

The following table details grant funding awarded for the installation of air, water or ground source heat pumps to homeowners in the Aberdeen City Council area in financial years through the HES Loan and Cashback Scheme or HES Grant and Loan Scheme, up to the end of the Quarter 3, December 2023. This does not include funding for other interventions such as energy efficiency.

Financial Year	Total Grant funding awarded
2021-22	£148,720
2022-23	£244,648
2023-24 to December 2023	£189,876

The Scottish Government also funds the installation of heating systems and insulation measures for homeowners through Warmer Homes Scotland and Area Based Schemes. Overall these schemes are of a comparable scale to the HES scheme. However, as these are government-funded installations rather than grants awarded to homeowners, and because they fund a range of measures sometimes including heat pumps, they are not included in the figures provided.

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