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: S4W-17778

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 8 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many hospital admissions there have been of people who have taken so-called legal highs in each NHS board area in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S4W-17780

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 8 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether shops or internet sites selling so-called legal highs and drug paraphernalia are subject to any licensing regime.

The subject matter of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is reserved to the UK Government, as is the regulation of internet services. Section 9A of the UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 makes it an offence to supply any article (often referred to as paraphernalia) used for administering a controlled drug unlawfully (i.e. without a doctor’s prescription). ‘Legal highs’ or Novel/New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) as they are also known, are substances which produce similar effects to illegal drugs, but they are not controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. In response to the availability of NPS, the UK Government’s Home Office introduced a new temporary class drug order (15 November 2011). See UK Government website:

Some substances sold as NPS have also been found to contain drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. There is no other specific legislation outwith the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and temporary class drug order that uniquely deals with the supply of NPS. However, Police Scotland together with partners are exploring other options, including Trading Standards powers. The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Home Office and the Police Scotland to understand more about the use and supply of these substances and options to tackle their supply.

The planning system in Scotland does not generally seek to control the types of goods and services sold from shops, offices and other premises. Where products or services have potentially negative health or social implications, their availability or sale is usually subject to other statutory controls, for example, licensing as in the case of the sale of alcohol or knives. There is no licensing that is specific to the sale of NPS and drug paraphernalia.

Question reference: S4W-17776

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities run (a) household and (b) business oil and fat recycling collection services.

In 2012, 8 local authorities ran a waste vegetable oil collection service for households, collecting 62.2 tonnes of oil. Three local authorities ran a similar service for businesses and collected 23.3 tonnes.

With regard to waste mineral oils, 29 local authorities provided a collection service to households in 2012, collecting 490.2 tonnes. Seven local authorities ran the same service for businesses and 73.6 tonnes was collected.

Question reference: S4W-17781

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 31 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has carried out an analysis of how many steroid users are using needle exchanges.

There has been no analysis carried out on the number of Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs (PIEDs) users accessing needle exchange services in Scotland.

The distribution of needles/syringes and other injecting paraphernalia by needle exchange outlets in Scotland has been monitored by ISD Scotland since 2009. Community and pharmacy outlets are surveyed annually to obtain information on the volume of such items distributed, number of attendances, number and characteristics of individuals attending and drugs injected. However, it is not possible from this centrally held information to analyse how many PIED users are using needle exchanges.

Question reference: S4O-02479

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with Aberdeen City Council regarding economic development.

Question reference: S4O-02434

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to universities to attract students from overseas.

Question reference: S4W-16705

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 10 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many complaints have been received by each local authority regarding nuisance gulls in each of the last 10 years.

Question reference: S4W-16706

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 10 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to review the protection offered to gulls by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

All wild birds are protected by law in Scotland. The Scottish Government has no plans to review the protection offered to gulls.

Scottish Natural Heritage General Licence 03/2013, which allows local authorities and authorised persons to control or manage certain birds, including herring gulls, greater black-backed gulls, and lesser black-backed gulls, for the protection of public health, public safety and to prevent the spread of disease, is reviewed on an annual basis by Scottish Natural Heritage.

In recognition of the scale of the difficulties that can arise where gulls interact in urban environments, the Scottish Government has funded a study on control of gulls in Dumfries which provided a number of recommendations which should be of use to local authorities in their efforts to tackle similar difficulties regarding urban gull populations.

Question reference: S4W-16695

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 10 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local authorities regarding the impact of the so-called bedroom tax on discretionary housing payments (DHP), and what information it has on how many DHP (a) applications have been made and (b) awards have been granted by each local authority since April 2013, broken down by tenants in (i) council house, (ii) registered social landlord and (iii) privately-rented accommodation.

Social security payments, including Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs), are a reserved matter.

However the Scottish Government has been working closely with local authority representatives since the UK Government announced its welfare reforms in autumn 2010 to help understand, influence and, as far as reasonably possible, mitigate the impact of changes to housing benefit. A questionnaire was developed jointly between the Scottish Government and COSLA and was sent by COSLA to all local authorities on 24 May 2012. A summary of findings, which includes information on DHPs, is available at:

The available information from the survey on the number of DHP applications received by individual councils and the number of awards made by end May or nearest available date is contained in the following table (rounded to the nearest 10). The survey did not gather information on the tenure of households applying for or receiving DHPs.

The number of awards only provides a snapshot between 1 April and the end of May 2013 (or nearest available date) and takes no account of the number of applications that were received and still being processed.

In October 2013 the Department for Work and Pensions is gathering data from councils on the numbers and total amounts of DHPs granted in the period April – September 2013. This will provide a more reliable indication of the scale and nature of DHPs being awarded by councils, set against their DHP allocation. The survey will not gather information on applications which were refused, nor on the tenure of the households being awarded DHPs.

Local Authority	Number of DHP Applications	Number of DHP Awards
Aberdeen City	530	250
Aberdeenshire	170	100
Angus	230	30
Argyll and Bute	260	30
Clackmannanshire	No data supplied	No data supplied
Dumfries and Galloway	480	260
Dundee City	830	60
East Ayrshire	530	270
East Dunbartonshire	150	50
East Lothian	150	120
East Renfrewshire	160	10
Edinburgh, City of	1,830	900
Eilean Siar	Incomplete data	Incomplete data
Falkirk	400	10
Fife	1,490	910
Glasgow City	7,020	3,430
Highland	Incomplete data	Incomplete data
Inverclyde	480	190
Midlothian	260	190
Moray	No data supplied	No data supplied
North Ayrshire	880	330
North Lanarkshire	2,100	120
Orkney Islands	70	70
Perth and Kinross	230	140
Renfrewshire	880	440
Scottish Borders	180	120
Shetland Islands	20	20
South Ayrshire	No data supplied	No data supplied
South Lanarkshire	700	300
Stirling	300	160
West Dunbartonshire	1,400	1,120
West Lothian	430	140
Total	22,000	9,850

Source – COSLA/Scottish Government Survey of Councils – 24 May 2013.

Question reference: S4W-16704

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 9 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many breeding pairs of gull there have been in each of the last 10 years, broken down by species.

<>Seabird 2000 which took place between 1998 and 2002 was the last national census of seabird populations. Further details of Seabird 2000 can be found at:

Between national censuses, the Seabird Monitoring Programme (SMP) collects data on breeding numbers and breeding success of 26 species of seabirds which enables populations to be estimated, where there is sufficient data to do so. Further details of the SMP and the data held can be found at:

For the gull species the following estimates can be derived;

Gull Species	Seabird 2000 population estimate of breeding pairs for Scotland	% Population change between Seabird 2000 population estimate and 2012	Estimated 2012 population of breeding pairs for Scotland
Black-headed gull	43,191	n/a	n/a
Common gull	20,467	-36	c. 13,000
Lesser black-backed gull	25,057	n/a	n/a
Herring gull	72,130	-20	c. 58,000
Great black-backed gull	14,776	-60	c. 6,000
Black-legged kittiwake	282,213	-59	c. 116,000

Notes:

All figures refer to the number of breeding pairs.

Figures quoted for 2012 are derived estimates, not actual population counts.

The data for common gull refers to coastal populations only (which held only 42% of the total population during Seabird 2000).