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-02165

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 31 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether the forthcoming review of the role of incineration will examine issues beyond waste management such as potential impacts on (a) health, (b) local communities and (c) local authority finances.

Question reference: S6W-02168

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 31 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether the forthcoming review of the role of incineration will take oral evidence from stakeholders, either in person or virtually.

Question reference: S6W-02166

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 31 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether the forthcoming review of the role of incineration will be independent of it, and, if so, who will conduct it.

Question reference: S6O-00082

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it will take to support more sustainable farming.

Question reference: S6W-01362

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 23 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether existing air quality monitoring sites have been verified as best placed for including monitoring of non-exhaust emissions (NEE), and if monitoring of NEE currently takes place.

The Scottish air quality monitoring network consists of around 100 central government and local authority operated sites across the country. Monitoring sites are generally located at known pollution hotspots where there is relevant public exposure, and also at background sites to provide a baseline for comparison.

Air quality monitoring measures the total concentrations of pollutants in ambient air from all sources. Emissions from specific sources such as NEE are estimated taking into account a range of information such as monitoring data, national statistics and other datasets.

Annual emissions estimates for tyre wear, brake wear and road abrasion arising from fine particulate matter and benzo(a)pyrene for the period 1990 to 2018 (the most recent year for which data are available) can be found in the report 'Air Pollutant Inventories for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland:1990-2108' -

Question reference: S6W-01877

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00674 by Michael Matheson on 23 July 2021, whether it will provide a breakdown of the measures that it has implemented since 2014 to increase the amount of plastic waste recycled within Scotland, and what effect these measures have had on the tonnage recycled.

Since 2014, there has been a 45% increase in household plastic waste recycling. Plastic recycling rose to 57,379 tonnes in 2019, which is the most recent data available, continuing the trend of increasing each year for the last eight years. While we don’t have a detailed breakdown of the impact, the measures outlined below will have made a positive contribution.

The Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 set requirements for the separate collection of key materials and prohibit separately collected material going to incineration or landfill.

In 2015, Scottish Government launched the Scottish Household Recycling Charter, supported by a Code of practice. This aims to bring more consistency to household recycling services, which deliver local and national benefits and encourage high levels of citizen participation in waste prevention, recycling and reuse.

The Scottish Material Brokerage Service was introduced in 2015 to deliver collaborative contracts for waste and recyclable materials from local authorities and other public bodies of sufficient scale to help local authorities and public bodies achieve a better deal, and reduce risk from price volatility. It supports the business conditions for investment in domestic reprocessing in Scotland by providing certainty in the volume and duration of supply of valuable materials.

Additionally, the statutory Code of Practice for Materials Recovery Facilities introduced a sampling procedure to improve transparency on material quality in the supply chain and to improve the quality of materials arriving for sorting.

Question reference: S6W-01876

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00674 by Michael Matheson on 23 July 2021, whether it will provide the information that was requested regarding whether it has carried out a feasibility study on building a new plastic recycling plant, whether as part of its deposit return scheme or otherwise, and for what reason it did not provide this information in its response.

A feasibility study has not been carried out on building a new plastic recycling plant. As part of the assessment identified in the answer to S6W-00674, Zero Waste Scotland have commissioned work to better understand and forecast the volumes of materials, including plastics, collected for recycling. Once this work has been finalised, we will consider the next steps.

In the meantime, we will continue to work with local authorities and Circularity Scotland Ltd, as scheme administrator of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme, to explore options that could unlock investment in plastics reprocessing, such as pooling recyclate and longer contractual periods.

Question reference: S6W-01893

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 17 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the welfare of animals that have been stolen.

Question reference: S6W-01890

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 17 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to tackle pet theft.

The primary responsibility for the prevention and investigation of theft lies with Police Scotland. The Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 stipulates that the Chief Constable of Police Scotland is responsible for the policing of Scotland, and is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority for this, rather than to Scottish Ministers directly.

The Scottish Government assists Police Scotland by supporting in any legislative requirements they identify as necessary in their efforts to prevent and detect theft. The Microchipping of Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2016 came into force on 29 January 2016, making it a statutory requirement for all dogs over the age of 8 weeks to be identifiable with an implanted microchip which is registered on a database from which Police and local authority officers can request information on owners.

Question reference: S6W-01361

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00671 by Graeme Dey on 7 July 2021, whether it accepts in full the findings of the 2019 report, Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic.

The Scottish Government accepts in full the Air Quality Expert Group's (AQEG) conclusions and recommendations in this report. The AQEG report concludes that the most effective approaches for reducing NEE are to reduce the overall volume of traffic, lower speeds on trunk roads and motorways, and promote driving behaviours which reduce braking and high speed cornering.

The Government's new air quality strategy 'Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 - Towards a Better Place for Everyone', which was published on 15 July 2021, sets out how we intend to address non-exhaust emissions (NEE) from road traffic. Actions include exploring opportunities across traffic management, behaviours and legislation/standards to reduce NEE, and contributing to research into developing a consistent method for measuring NEE.

Other actions in the new air quality strategy, which links closely to the National Transport Strategy, for example further investment in and promotion of active travel and reducing motor vehicle kilometres by 20% by 2030, will also contribute to NEE reductions.