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.

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Question reference: S6W-40021

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on posting letters abroad in each year since 2021.

The Scottish Government’s expenditure on international letter postage for each year from 2021 is as follows.

Year	International Letters Postage Spend
Jan – Dec 2021	£6,165.00
Jan – Dec 2022	£1,100.75
Jan – Dec 2023	£7,725.60
Jan – Dec 2024	£6,576.75
Jan – 26th Aug 2025	£2,656.90

These figures reflect the costs incurred for sending official correspondence overseas and are based on records held by Help Central between January 2021 – July 2023 and records retrieved directly from the franking machines from Aug 2023 – 26 Aug 2025.

Question reference: S6W-39852

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains committed to allocating all of the £97.1 million received in Barnett consequential funding for replacing flammable cladding for that purpose.

Question reference: S6W-39851

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £97.1 million allocated to it in Barnett consequential funding for replacing flammable cladding has been spent in each year since it was received.

Question reference: S6W-39850

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 5 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether any of the £97.1 million allocated to it in Barnett consequential funding for replacing flammable cladding has been repurposed in each year since it was received, and, if so, whether it can provide details of this.

Scottish Ministers are committed to spending on cladding remediation at least the equivalent of the £97.1 million consequentials received from UKG in relation to cladding.

The Scottish Government expects the cost of cladding remediation work to be met through a combination of responsible developers assessing and remediating their own buildings, consequential funding from the UK Government, and a devolved Building Safety Levy. This effectively matches the funding approach that the UK Government is taking in England.

We publish spend relating to the programme on a quarterly basis. The latest figure for the programme can be found at . These figures will be updated in due course to reflect latest spend.

Our spending on remediation costs can only follow a full end to end process - checking buildings are in scope, commissioning a Single Building Assessment, completing that robust technical assessment, identifying the works that need to be carried out, designing those works and gaining the necessary approvals, and then carrying out the remediation itself.

Now that we have the necessary statutory basis, the Cladding Remediation Programme is making rapid progress, and we anticipate spending the entirety of this year’s budget of £46.7 million. Since the launch of the Single Open Call in March 2025, we have received 600 expressions of interest as of 30 June 2025 and 480 grant offers letters have been issued as of 22 August 2025.

Question reference: S6W-40098

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Monday, 25 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 4 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many organisations that applied for funding from the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund were (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful in securing funding in each year since 2021.

Question reference: S6W-40093

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost to produce a single Baby Box was in each year since they were introduced, also broken down by the component parts and items included.

Scotland’s Baby Box is a universal demand led programme and the cost for the programme fluctuates according to Scotland’s birth rates. The specific cost of the items contained within the Baby Box and the box itself are subject to commercial sensitivity of the contract the Scottish Government has with its managing agent APS (Scotland) Group.

The total cost of an individual Baby Box which includes contents and all logistics is provided in the following table.

Year	Estimated cost per Baby Box
2018	£182
2019	£188
2020	£181
2021	£183
2022	£167
2023	£194
2024	£148

Question reference: S6W-40164

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 4 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-39896 by Angus Robertson on 27 August 2025, whether it will provide the information requested regarding whether the topic of Scottish independence was discussed in the meeting between the First Minister and the President of the European Commission on 26 July 2025.

Question reference: S6W-40152

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 4 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has paid consultants related to its work to support (a) the introduction and development of AI across the public sector and (b) staff training on the use of AI.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on payments to consultants for (a) the introduction and development of AI across the public sector or (b) staff training on the use of AI.

However, the Scottish Government has prioritised building internal capability and expertise to ensure sustainable and responsible adoption of AI technologies.

Work to support the development and implementation of AI has been led by civil servants, supported by specialist input from The Data Lab, in line with the Scottish Government’s AI Strategy which promotes inclusive, ethical, and trustworthy use of AI. Staff training and upskilling in AI have also been delivered internally including by the Scottish Digital Academy.

Question reference: S6O-04917

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support it can offer to help local authorities protect council-run and arm’s-length external organisation-run community facilities.

Question reference: S6W-40075

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 3 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what specialist equipment the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has to extinguish fires that originate in the nacelles of wind turbines, and whether it can provide details of how widely available any such equipment is.

Fires within wind turbine nacelles are rare, but they present significant challenges due to height, access limitations, and associated electrical and mechanical hazards.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) does not hold specific specialist equipment to extinguish nacelle fires. SFRS adopts a defensive strategy that prioritises public and firefighter safety, containment of the incident, and protection of the environment. Firefighting operations are not undertaken within the nacelle or tower itself. This approach is consistent with UK-wide national operational guidance.

Year	Applications received	Successful	Unsuccessful
2021	15	5	10
2022	21	7	14
2023	15	4	11
2024	23	7	16
Total for period	74	23	51