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-08152

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 3 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to consult hosts within its Super Sponsorship Scheme, for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, as part of its development of the scheme.

Question reference: S6T-00664

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the potential impact on Scottish Government standard due diligence of reports of lost documentation related to the Ferguson Marine ferry contract.

Question reference: S6W-07428

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 31 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-06722 by Lorna Slater on 7 March 2022, what modelling it has done regarding the likelihood of producers in the food and drink sector switching from glass packaging to plastic packaging as a result of the inclusion of glass in its Deposit Return Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-07429

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 31 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-06722 by Lorna Slater on 7 March 2022, whether it has considered any international evidence in relation to the potential impact of the inclusion of glass in a Deposit Return Scheme on the willingness of producers to switch from using glass packaging to using aluminium or plastic packaging.

We have drawn extensively on international evidence in the design for our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). Where there has been a movement away from glass in other countries, this is usually attributable to a range of factors e.g. a movement towards increased use of refillables. Evidence suggests that where product or format switching has occurred in other countries with DRS, it is rare that this can only be attributed to DRS. As the answer to question S6W-06722 sets out, we do not consider that there will be extensive switching away from glass due to our DRS.

Question reference: S6W-07427

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 31 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-06722 by Lorna Slater on 7 March 2022, what its position is on whether creating an incentive for producers to switch from using plastic packaging to using glass packaging would be a negative outcome.

Question reference: S6W-07395

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 24 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will clarify whether it is committed to replacing the Common Agricultural Policy with a scheme that directly pays farmers for environmental land management, including all forms of carbon sequestration.

Question reference: S6W-06427

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 8 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the budget underspend was in each year from 2018-19 to 2021-22; what the uplift figures have been in each of the last three years, and what the projected (a) underspend and (b) cash reserve is for the year 2022-23.

The underspend on HM Treasury Funds available for each of the three years is as follows:

2018-19 - £339m (£191m Resource, £147m Financial Transactions and £1m Capital)

2019-20 - £256m (£85m Resource, £97m Financial Transactions and £74m Capital)

2020-21 - £426m (£358m Resource, £61m Financial Transactions and £7m Capital)

This includes all planned and anticipated carry forward commitments built into the following years’ budgets.

For 2021-22 the current carry forward requirement is £511m to fulfil known and forecast 2022-23 obligations. Current forecasting is in line with this requirement but remains subject to final movements and the outturn processes. The final underspend figure for 2021-22 will be the 2022-23 Scotland Reserve opening balance.

It is unclear what is meant by funding uplifts in the question.

Question reference: S6W-06743

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 8 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of (a) how and (b) when the £3 million funding for city centre recovery will be spent, as announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy on 10 February 2022.

In addition to the £3m announced on 10 February 2022, the First Minister announced a further £3m for the City Centre Recovery Fund on 22 February, bringing the total to £6m. Funding is awarded directly to local authorities to take forward local recovery priorities and allocated based on city size. The Scottish Government is working at pace with the seven cities to deliver this fund to support economic recovery, attract visitors and increase footfall back into our city centres in line with priority aims identified City Centre Recovery Task Force.

Question reference: S6W-06722

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what impact assessment was undertaken regarding adding glass to its Deposit Return Scheme, particularly in relation to any rise in plastic packaging use.

The Full Business Case Stage 1 for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), published on 8 May 2019 (pp36-37), considered the costs and benefits of including glass within the scheme and concluded that glass should be included due to the substantial environmental and economic benefits.

We do not consider that there will be extensive switching away from glass containers to other materials as a result of DRS. Format decisions are driven by a range of considerations including practicality, convenience, brand preference and presentation of the product. Indeed, the impact on material choice could be greater if glass were left outside the scope of DRS, creating an incentive to switch towards glass.

Question reference: S6W-06884

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00255 by George Adam on 23 August 2021, whether it plans to publish and maintain an up-to-date list of special advisers and their responsibilities.

Special Advisers are appointed by the First Minister for the purpose of providing assistance to the Scottish Ministers. Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 obligates the Scottish Government to prepare and lay before the Scottish Parliament an annual report about Special Advisers, and additional updates to Special Advisers and their responsibilities are published as appropriate on the Scottish Government website.