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: S6O-00181

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support Scotland’s move to a more circular economy.

Question reference: S6W-02457

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of households (a) participates in local authority provided food waste collections, and (b) has access to food waste collections.

The Scottish Household Survey 2017 shows that there has been a steady increase in the number of people using food waste recycling caddies, rather than throwing food out with general waste. Less than half (48%) of households now dispose of food waste with their general rubbish. The proportion of households making use of local authority-provided food caddies was 55 % in 2017

In response to (b), the duty to segregate food waste in the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 covers approximately 80% of Scotland’s population. The latest figures are from September 2015 and can be found in Zero Waste Scotland’s report: , published in 2016, showing that over 1.5 million Scottish households had access to food waste collection.

The upcoming review of the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan in addition to the development of a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets will consider improvements to the data collection and monitoring relating to food waste.

Question reference: S6W-02456

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32341 by Roseanna Cunningham on 6 October 2020, what progress has been made in considering the rural exemption for food waste.

The planned consultation on the range of commitments identified in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan has been delayed by a number of factors, including the recent Covid-19 crisis.

We are developing a Routemap to deliver our ambitious 2025 waste and recycling targets which will inform the development of the new Circular Economy Bill and there will also be further engagement and consultation to shape the Bill’s contents. A review of the rural exemption for food waste will be considered as part of this.

Question reference: S6W-02439

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has undertaken of managing market influenced budgets in local authorities.

The Scottish Government work in partnership with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities to negotiate a financial settlement that ensures local authorities can continue to provide the high quality frontline services that the people of Scotland expect and deserve.

The vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets, including those that are influenced by external markets forces, and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Question reference: S6W-02458

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of households uses local authority provided food waste caddies.

Question reference: S6W-02443

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what modelling work it has undertaken on any requirement for residual waste treatment capacity in Scotland, and whether it will provide a breakdown of any forecasts since 2016 for such requirements.

In April 2019, we published the Waste Markets Study which assessed the treatment options for Scottish biodegradable municipal waste. The study is available here:

We have also commissioned work to assess the residual waste treatment capacity needs up to 2025, in light of our commitment to end the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. This work is ongoing and we will publish it in due course.

Question reference: S6W-02435

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done to model future recycling performance.

Question reference: S6W-02634

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many enquiries (a) it and (b) local authorities have received since March 2020 regarding a lack of provision of free personal care for under-65s.

Question reference: S6W-02461

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on food waste prevention and reduction programmes since 2013.

Since 2016 - which is when a specific food waste support programme came in - up to April 2021, approx. £1.23 million has been spent.

Table 1 also provides a breakdown of Scottish Government’s advertising spend targeted at food waste prevention and reduction since 2013.

Table 1. Scottish Government food waste advertising spend
Year	Campaign	Advertising spend
2013-14	Eat In Season	£79,903.03
2013-14	Food Waste	£573,102.70
2014-15	Food Provenance	£80,049.11
2015-16	Greener Scotland	£53,042.18
2016-17	Greener Scotland	£103,742.55
2017-18	Greener Scotland	£88,893.75
2018-19	Greener Scotland	£217,737.81
2018-19	Food waste	£303,516.65
2019-2020	Food waste	£53,042.18
TOTAL		£1,553,029.96

A breakdown of Zero Waste Scotland’s spend on advertising and outreach activities to promote food waste reduction for 2019-20 and during 2020-21 (to date) and the outcomes of these are set out in Table 2. This forms part of the overall approx. £1.23 million spend mentioned above.

Table 2. Zero Waste Scotland advertising spend and outcomes
Year	Advertising spend	Outreach spend	Pieces of PR coverage	Increase in social media following	Training delivered on 'Love Food Hate Waste'
2019-20	£193,000	£76,000	437	17,000	1269 individuals
2020-21 (to date)	£105,000	£20,000	137	13,000	166 individuals
TOTAL	£298,000	£96,000

Question reference: S6W-02460

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32196 by Roseanna Cunningham on 30 September 2020, whether it will provide updated figures on Zero Waste Scotland audits for 2019-20, regarding (a) reductions in (i) food waste and (ii) CO2 emissions and (b) monetary savings.

Year	Food waste reduction (tonnes)	Food waste CO2	Food waste cost	Food: raw material (tonnes)	Food: raw material CO2	Food: raw material cost
2019-20	968	2944tCO2e	£228,516	636	1547tCO2e	£259,446