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: S4T-00982

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the farming sector to transition to the new Rural Payments and Services system.

Question reference: S4W-24613

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 17 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many successful applications for air source heat pump installations there have been since 2007, broken down by local authority.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

However, you may find the statistics at the attached link useful information. These relate to the UK Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI):

Within this link:

Table 1.6 - shows the breakdown of non-domestic RHI accreditation by local authority (this is not technology specific).

Table 2.10 - shows the breakdown of domestic RHI accreditations by local authority (this is not technology specific).

Table 2.7 - shows the domestic RHI accreditations split by technology in Scotland for both on and off-grid.

The Scottish Government’s home renewable loans scheme provides interest free loans to householders of up to £10,000 (max of up to 75% of the total cost) for owner-occupiers in Scotland who wish to install a domestic renewable system or up to £5,000 (max 100% of the costs) of connecting to a district heating scheme.

To date there has been 275 air source heat pump applications supported through the home renewable loans scheme.

Prior to this scheme the Scottish Government has supported the installation of air source heat pumps through the Energy Saving Scotland home renewables grant.

Question reference: S4W-24617

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it holds data on beef imports to Scotland from Canada.

Question reference: S4W-24639

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list all of the land disposed of by Forestry Commission Scotland since 1 June 2010, broken down by size, and whether this was (a) native woodland, (b) open ground or (c) commercial timber.

Since 2005 details of all land bought and sold by Forestry Commission Scotland has been made available via their website and the link to this information is as follows:

The website provides details of the type of land sold categorised as either forest, buildings, other or sale to communities/NGOs under the National Forest Land Scheme, the forest district, property name, size and date of sale. Forest Commission Scotland does not routinely record the composition of how much native woodland the disposals contain.

Question reference: S4W-24640

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what advice Forestry Commission Scotland seeks from Scottish Natural Heritage, National Parks, conservation NGOs and other expert bodies before land is identified for disposal to ensure that its ability to be restored for priority species and or habitats is not overlooked.

Forestry Commission Scotland’s (FCS) repositioning programme started in 2007. The programme involves selling areas with low potential to deliver public benefits to invest in land for delivery of greater public benefits, such as the creation of urban woodland.

At the beginning of the programme all areas that were selected for sale were identified via a portfolio evaluation exercise.

The properties identified for sale had typically all or some of the following characteristics: relatively low levels of public access and use; relatively remote from significant communities and with limited or no community involvement; no significant natural and cultural heritage assets that would be put at risk by sale; no prominent landscape features that would be put at risk by sale; and likely to be expensive to manage and/or to generate low levels of income.

Prior to any sale FCS sends details of the area being considered for sale to the Scottish Government property controls team. This team alerts other government departments and also other NGOs including the Community Woodland Association, the Community Land Unit, Scottish Environment Link, National Trust for Scotland, RSPB, and Woodland Trust (Scotland), who are able to contact FCS directly with any concerns or opportunities.

Question reference: S4W-24641

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what work Forestry Commission Scotland is undertaking to restore land that has priority open ground habitats and was afforested in the past, and where such investment is underway.

Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) provides grant support through the Scottish Rural Development Programme to fund the restoration of priority open ground habitats. FCS administers a habitat and species grant which funds, for example, works to remove woodland on peatland sites. FCS also provides funding for research and publishes guidance on the restoration of priority open ground habitats.

The budget for this grant is approximately £0.5 million per year and is available nationally. Since 2009, a large proportion has been awarded to projects associated with the Caithness and Sutherland Special Area of Conservation/Special Protection Area, using Scottish Rural Development Programme funding or via FCS approving an unconditional felling license. This has resulted in 1,060 hectares of previously afforested land being cleared or approved for clearance. In addition over the last 15 years 2,500 hectares of forest have been cleared, and a further 1,000 hectares are in the planning stages for approval.

On the National Forest Estate, Forest Enterprise Scotland is completing a survey of all the open habitat and this is 63% complete. To date 84,633 hectares of open UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) priority habitats have been identified out of 133,000 hectares surveyed. Alongside the ongoing survey work, since 2000 Forest Enterprise Scotland has undertaken almost 3,000 hectares of open UKBAP priority habitat restoration to open ground. Significant progress has been made over the last year with more than 1,000 hectares of peatland habitat being restored with funding from the Scottish Natural Heritage Peatland Action Fund.

In addition, just over 9,000 hectares of habitat condition improvement work has been undertaken on twenty open UKBAP priority habitats. This work has involved the introduction of conservation grazing regimes, particularly on upland heathland, as well as the removal of tree regeneration from peatland areas combined with drain blocking.

Question reference: S4W-24638

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 10 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-24433 by Aileen McLeod on 24 February 2015, what monitoring it has put in place to assess progress in meeting its target of 100,000 hectares of new woodland by 2022.

The Scottish Government monitors the progress of the 100,000 hectares target of new woodland during the course of each year.

Monitoring is undertaken at two stages: at the ‘woodland creation approval’ stage which is when woodland creation applications become contracts and also at the ‘woodland creation paid’ stage which is when grant claims are paid for the planting.

The area of planting achieved each year is published as part of the national statistics on forestry produced by the Forestry Commission.

Question reference: S4W-24642

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 5 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-24398 by Aileen McLeod on 19 February 2015, whether it will outline the policy options identified in each of the topic areas.

Question reference: S4O-04120

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on how long patients with type 1 diabetes should have to wait for access to an insulin pump.

Question reference: S4W-24614

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) action it is taking to monitor and (b) discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding confirmed cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada.

Scottish Government officials continue to work with officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on transmissible spongiform encephalopathy controls that impact the UK. There have been no specific discussions on the recent confirmed BSE case in Canada. However, Canada is listed as having a controlled BSE risk and there are appropriate import conditions in place to protect public and animal health. Therefore it should not be necessary for the EU or the UK to take any further action.