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-01002

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs in the forestry sector have been created as a result of the Scottish National Investment Bank.

Question reference: S6W-07796

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 14 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many allotments have been delivered through the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 in each local authority.

The provision of allotments is the responsibility of local authorities as set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.

In accordance with section 121 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, local authorities report annually on provisions of allotments in their areas. Reports are available from each local authority online. The Scottish Government do not hold historic data on allotment provision.

Question reference: S6W-07328

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 24 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many tonnes of wrasse have been used by Scottish fish farms to tackle sea lice issues, in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government does not hold all the data required to determine the tonnage of wrasse used by Scottish fish farms in the past 5 years.

Wrasse used in Scottish aquaculture are sourced from hatcheries or from the wild.

Information on the amount of hatchery-reared wrasse in Scotland is available from the Finfish Production Surveys . An extract is shown in the following table.

2017	3 tonnes (wrasses)
2018	6 tonnes (wrasse)
2019	4 tonnes (wrasse)
2020	19 tonnes (wrasse and lumpfish)

‎Finfish Production Survey 2020

Information on wild wrasse landings into the UK and Scotland is available from the UK Government. An extract is shown in the following table.

	tonnes landed in UK	tonnes landed in Scotland
2017	53	39
2018	73	49
2019	105	92
2020	79	70

UK Government Sea Fisheries Annual Statistics 2020

Specific data on what proportion of the catch was used in Scottish aquaculture is not available.

Question reference: S6W-07087

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding (a) it allocated to and (b) was distributed to successful grant applicants from the Small Woodlands Loan Scheme in (i) 2021 and (ii) 2022.

Question reference: S6W-07086

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 18 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding (a) it allocated to and (b) was distributed to successful grant applicants from the Forestry Grant Scheme in each year from 2016 to 2022.

The amount of funding allocated to, and paid to successful applicants to the Forestry Grant Scheme in each year from 2016 to 2021 is shown in Table 1.

Claimed grant is normally lower than the total grant award as a result of contracts that were not delivered on time due to a range of circumstances including weather conditions during the planting season, succession of land ownership during the contract delivery period and requests for contract variation to subsequent years.

	2016-17 (£)	2017-18 (£)	2018-19 (£)	2019-20 (£)	2020-21 (£)
Budget Allocation	30,100,00	38,400,000	50,200,000	51,000,000	56,800,000
Total Grant Awards	16,966,155	29,452,969	42,676,099	41,641,415	48,682,877
Total Grant Claims Paid	14,068,691	26,947,746	37,636,711	33,847,123	35,605,384

Table 1: Notes: The figures for 2021-22 will be available when Scottish Forestry publishes their audited Annual Accounts for the year in October.

Question reference: S6W-07089

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding (a) it allocated to and (b) was distributed to successful grant applicants from the Croft House Grant scheme in each year from 2016 to 2022.

Financial Year	Budget Allocation	Funding Distributed (£)
2016-17	£1.4m	679,568
2017-18	£2m	1,079,466
2018-19	£1.9m	1,272,058
2019-20	£1.9m	1,183,846
2020-21	£1.9m	1,123,231
2021-22 *	£1.9m	886,120

* As at 8 March 2022.

Funding under the Croft House Grant is provided retrospectively in up to three stages. For this reason, funding committed in any financial year can be claimed by applicants and paid in both the current and following 2-3 financial years. An underspend in any given year is more indicative of agreed grants not being wholly or partially drawn down in the year they were agreed.

Question reference: S6W-07088

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding (a) it allocated to and (b) was distributed to successful grant applicants from the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme in each year from 2016 to 2022.

Question reference: S6W-06480

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 11 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) hectares of peatland and (b) tonnes of peat have been extracted in Scotland in each year since 2007.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. Data on mineral extraction in Great Britain for the period 2009 – 2014 is available online at Minerals surveys - GOV.UK ( ) and from 1999 to 2008 can be found on the Office for National Statistics website. Further data on UK and export sales of peat sourced from Scotland since 2011 is gathered for the UK Growing Media Monitor ( ) and provides insight into the volumes of peat extracted for horticulture in Scotland, the main end use of extracted peat.

The Scottish Government are committed to banning the sale of peat related gardening products, as part of our wider commitment to phase out the use of peat in horticulture, and we are currently preparing to consult on this issue. Our draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) sets out that development proposals for new commercial peat extraction, including extensions to existing sites, should not be supported unless the extracted peat is supporting an industry of national importance to Scotland.

We will also give consideration, through our peatland restoration programme, to whether and what further data may be required to support future monitoring of progress against targets.

Question reference: S6O-00820

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Christine Grahame (On Behalf of the SPCB) on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) whether the business case for the new Scottish Parliament website was presented to, and signed off by, the SPCB in the previous parliamentary session.

The project to put in place the new Parliament website was a significant and complex change project.

The business case for the project was considered and agreed by officials on the Digital Strategy Board. This is the usual governance for digital projects undertaken in the Parliament.

The budget for the project was included in the SPCB’s budget process in each of the financial years that the project was running.

Question reference: S6W-06739

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to create an emergency fund to support farmers and landowners in the wake of Storms Arwen, Barra and others to help with fallen forestry and damage to farm buildings.

Scottish Government, and its forestry agency, Scottish Forestry (SF) has no plans to create an additional emergency fund to support farmers and landowners in the wake of storms, Arwen, Barra and others. SF already provides grants to manage existing woodlands and prepare forest plans. In addition it is supporting effective clear up operations through the fast tracking of felling permissions, new bespoke guidance on clearing and marketing windblown trees, and the establishment of National Windblow Action Group to help shape and guide a collaborative response for the benefit of farmers and landowners.

Financial Year	Budget Allocation	Funding Distributed (£)
2016-2017	£2 m	1,314,024.63
2017-2018	£2 m	2,735,856.73
2018-2019	£2 m	2,930,743.45
2019-2020	£2 m	3,487,571.21
2020-2021	£2 m	3,505,037.00
2021-2022 *	£3.6 m	3,851,652.40