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: S5W-07253

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has given assurances to any publicly-owned ferry operator that, if the review into ferry tendering recommends that the Teckal exemption, or any other process that allows ministers to award contracts to publicly-owned operators without a competitive tendering process, should apply, publicly-owned companies would automatically win these contracts.

Question reference: S5W-07254

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will still continue to hold competitive tendering processes for routes if the review into ferry tendering recommends that the Teckal exemption, or any other process that allows ministers to award contracts to publicly-owned operators without a competitive tendering process, should apply, and, if so, what action it will take to ensure that the process will be transparent, based on objective criteria and not weighted in favour of publicly-owned companies.

Question reference: S5W-07005

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it made any formal, stress-tested assessment regarding which designs would be appropriate for Scottish weather conditions when purchasing vessels for Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, and for what reasons decisions were made to purchase vessels that would not be able to sail in unfavourable conditions instead of vessels that would.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd is responsible for the procurement of ferries on behalf of the Scottish Government.

Safety is paramount and, as such, the Scottish Government has made that the top priority for new vessel design.

After safety, reliability is a key criteria in vessel design. For example, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd have confirmed that the 100 metre vessels that are currently being constructed by Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd at Port Glasgow are designed with superior manoeuvring ability and are equipped with twin controllable pitch propellers, twin high lift flap type rudders, fin stabilisers, one stern thruster and three bow thrusters.

The vessels are to be capable of berthing in a 50 knot beam wind, this is Beaufort 9-10 (storm force); weather conditions that a vessel is very unlikely to sail in. As part of the shipyards’ required tender documentation, station holding capability diagrams were submitted. Sea keeping evaluations were also submitted.

Berthing and manoeuvring computer simulations are also being carried out at Glasgow City College’s state of the art maritime facility.

Question reference: S5W-07001

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a health and safety assessment of how it manages ferry ports, including those held by its subsidiaries.

Question reference: S5W-07002

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what criteria it uses for assessing ferry and ferry operating company performance and delays.

Information regarding the Performance Monitoring Regime in respect of the Northern Isles Ferry Services, operated by Serco NorthLink Ferries, and the Gourock-Dunoon Ferry Service, operated by Argyll Ferries Ltd, are available on the Transport Scotland website by following the link below.

The new Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract operated by CalMac from 1 October 2016 will be published on the Transport Scotland website in due course. The contract contains details of the Performance Monitoring Regime.

The Invitation to Tender which was issued for the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service procurement exercise outlines the Performance Management Regime. A copy of the ITT is available on the Transport Scotland website by following the link below.

Question reference: S5W-07004

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 1 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of “incentives to innovate”, and what incentive there is to increase passenger numbers for a publicly-owned transport provider, given that there is no commercial imperative.

Question reference: S5W-07099

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it ensures that any lay-bys that are situated on the approach to a junction have signs for the junction that appear before the sign for the lay-by.

The design of new lay-bys on the Trunk Road Network are required to adhere to the standards detailed within the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) which states that lay-bys must not be sited between a junction advance direction sign and the junction diverge. It should be noted however that, as standards within the DMRB are regularly reviewed and updated, existing lay-bys with historical layouts may not conform to the current requirements for new laybys.

Question reference: S5W-07100

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what policies are in place to ensure that lay-bys on dual carriageways are not situated on right-hand bends or on the approach to a junction.

Question reference: S5W-07252

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the managing director of CalMac has rescinded his decision to resign, and whether it played a role in him persuading him to reach this conclusion.

Question reference: S5W-06960

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its statement on Scottish ferry services on 2 February 2017, and in light of its stated preference for an "in-house provider" of these services, whether this also applies to its rail policy.

In my Statement to Parliament I announced a policy review to identify and consider the legal, policy and financial implications relevant to the procurement of ferry services. I made clear that we could not pre-judge the outcome of that review. If the Teckal exemption applies, if the approach complies with state-aid rules and, crucially, if communities agree, then the Government is minded to make a direct award to an in-house provider in respect of ferry services.

Railway services operate in a different legal context – a specific, largely reserved legal framework, primarily governed by the Railways Act 1993. In 2016, the 1993 Act was amended to lift the prohibition on public sector bodies bidding for rail franchises in Scotland. The Scottish Government has initiated work with relevant stakeholders to consider the potential suitability of various parts of the public sector to bid for a rail franchise. Any such bid would be subject to relevant public procurement requirements and would be in competition with any private sector bids that came forward. The Scottish Ministers, as franchising authority, would evaluate all such bids fairly and properly, in accordance with those requirements. On railway infrastructure, I continue to press the UK Government to provide greater operational devolution of Network Rail functions to Scotland to ensure that our rail industry is better placed to deliver the best possible outcomes for passengers.