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: S4O-03249

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the role of massive open online courses in improving the employment prospects of women and young people.

Question reference: S4F-02102

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2014

To ask the First Minister what steps Revenue Scotland would take to prevent tax avoidance practices in the event that Scotland had greater responsibility for taxation.

Question reference: S4W-20876

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 8 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether the UK Government's proposed Infrastructure Bill, which is to include provision aimed at allowing companies to run shale gas pipelines under private land, will apply to Scotland and, if so, what the Scottish Government's position would be on legislative consent for devolved aspects.

Question reference: S4W-20837

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 8 May 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds regarding the membership of the Confederation of British Industry, broken down by (a) public bodies, (b) organisations receiving public funds and (c) other bodies.

Five Scottish public bodies were members of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI): Visit Scotland, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Scottish Qualifications Authority. All resigned following the registration of the CBI as a permitted participant in the upcoming referendum.

While Universities are not public bodies media reports suggest that Heriot-Watt, Highlands and Islands, Aberdeen, Glasgow Caledonian, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Strathclyde resigned their membership of the CBI. Media reports also indicate that The Law Society of Scotland, Aquamarine Power, the Balhousie Care Group and STV have also resigned. The BBC issued a statement confirming that it had suspended its membership during the registration period.

The CBI news release of 25 April 2014, which confirmed that it has asked the Electoral Commission to nullify its registration, also states that it has 190,000 members across the UK of which 1,200 are registered and operating in Scotland. No further information is held about the membership of the .

Question reference: S4W-20492

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 30 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish a draft of the letting agent code of practice before the stage 3 debate on the Housing (Scotland) Bill.

Subject to the Scottish Parliament passing the Housing (Scotland) Bill, the Scottish Government has committed to working with stakeholders to develop a draft letting agent code of practice, and subsequently will consult publicly on that draft. The code of practice will be a statutory code setting out the standard of service that landlords and tenants can expect of letting agents. As such, the Scottish Government wishes to allow sufficient time to enable meaningful stakeholder engagement. The intention is for this engagement to begin later this year. The Scottish Government intends to give Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the code before it is issued.

Question reference: S4W-20451

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 28 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation includes drive time to a range of services and facilities but not walking or cycling times.

This response relates to S4W-20451 and S4W-20452 as they are specifically relating to individuals who experience deprivations in ‘access to services’.

Indicators included in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) must fulfil a number of criteria that accurately reflect deprivations experienced by people and satisfy the conditions of an ‘official statistic’. These criteria include data being available at ‘datazone’ level for the entirety of Scotland and indicators being statistical correlated to other measures of deprivation in Scotland.

This domain was introduced in 2006 to address the perceived lack of access to services of individuals who live in rural areas. It is made up of several indicators, statistically correlated with other measures of deprivation, and includes journey times to the following amenities:

GP surgeries; petrol stations, post office, primary and secondary schools and retail centres.

Journey times to primary and secondary schools are only measured in drive times as there is no consistent timetable information across every datazone for school buses. The focus of SIMD is to measure deprivation, there is currently no consistent data available that statistically explains an individual’s experience of deprivation with walking and cycling times to local amenities.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

Question reference: S4W-20452

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 28 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation includes drive time to primary and secondary schools but not public transport times or availability.

Question reference: S4W-20347

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 3 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the third supplementary to question S4F-00845 by Alex Salmond on 13 September 2012 (Official Report, c.11415), in which the First Minister said that it was the Scottish Government's "responsibility to put forward an estimate" of the impact on climate change of its policy on air passenger duty, for what reason this estimate has not been made and, in light of the finding of the Committee on Climate Change’s report, Reducing emissions in Scotland: 2014 progress report, that, in 2011, emissions from international aviation and shipping were 2.5 MtCO2e, which represents an increase of 4% on the previous year, when it will publish this estimate.

As part of the detailed consideration of reforms to the UK Government’s air passenger duty following independence or devolution of the tax to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government will conduct analysis on the environmental impact of proposals. That will be undertaken and the results made available in due course. We recognise the need to monitor the impact of activities on emissions as part of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act.

Question reference: S4W-20179

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 March 2014
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 27 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the third supplementary to question S4O-03007 by Fergus Ewing on 13 March 2014 (Official Report, c. 28892), what the basis was for the assertion by the minister that “no contradiction exists” between the government’s climate and energy policies; whether the reported comment by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change in The Guardian on 9 October 2013 that “I accept that we can’t burn all the fossil fuels that there are, and that applies to Scotland as with every nation" reflects the government’s position and, if so, how it will calculate the proportion of the country's fossil fuel sources that will remain unused.

The Scottish oil and gas strategy sets out the Scottish Government’s aim to maximise the recovery of oil and gas, which is responsible stewardship of a national resource.

However, it is clear from our actions that we are equally committed to the transition to a low carbon economy. This is evidenced in our ambitious renewables targets, climate change targets and our draft Heat Generation Policy Statement, which will reduce our use of fossil fuels.

Question reference: S4F-02007

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 March 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 March 2014

To ask the First Minister what role a constitutional convention would play in developing a written constitution in an independent Scotland.