Jackie Baillie

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish detailed action plans to underpin Scotland's Economic Strategy.

Answer · John Swinney: Scotland’s Economic Strategy sets out an overarching framework for all Scottish Government policy and our delivery partners. It brings focus on increasing competitiveness and tackling inequality as two mutually supporting goals. Since its publication, poli…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding will be available to the proposed Scottish business development bank and when it will be launched.

Answer · John Swinney: I will be publishing more information shortly on the business development bank. I also refer the member to the answer to questions S4W-24736 on 11 March 2015 and S4W-24853 on 20 March 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the P…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in relation to the Scottish business development bank.

Answer · John Swinney: I will be publishing more information shortly on the business development bank.

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what contingency arrangements are in place in the event of a shortfall in revenue from the (a) Landfill Tax and (b) Land and Buildings Transaction Tax.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government has taken a prudent approach to the preparation of forecasts for the devolved taxes. These forecasts have been endorsed as reasonable by the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission. The Scotland Act 2012 sets out provisions for managin…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much was or has been raised in Land and Buildings Transaction Tax in (a) April and (b) May 2015 and how many transactions this relates to for each month.

Answer · John Swinney: The information requested for April 2015 was published by Revenue Scotland on 21 May 2015 and is available at: https://www.revenue.scot/who-we-are/publications/statistics Revenue Scotland will publish Land and Buildings Transaction Tax monthly statistics f…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much it forecasts will be raised by the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax in 2015-16, broken down by month.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government forecasts that Land and Buildings Transaction Tax will generate revenue of £381 million in 2015-16, comprising £235 million from residential transactions and £146 million from non-residential transactions. These forecasts were endorsed…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much was or has been raised in Landfill Tax in (a) April and (b) May 2015 and how many transactions this relates to for each month.

Answer · John Swinney: I refer the member to the question S4F-02821 answered on 28 May 2015 which is available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/13595.aspx

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much it forecasts will be raised by the Landfill Tax in 2015-16, broken down by month.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government forecasts that the Scottish Landfill Tax will generate revenue of £117 million in 2015-16, as set out in Table 2.03 on page 16 of the Scottish Draft Budget. This forecast was endorsed as reasonable by the independent Scottish Fiscal Co…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken or commissioned, or plans to undertake or commission, a review of the operation of the planning regime to assess whether the reforms introduced by the Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006 and related legislation and guidance have created a planning service that is …

Answer · Alex Neil: Scottish Ministers undertook a review one year after the introduction of the development management regulations which showed that the system was bedding down well but identified some issues. Legislation was subsequently amended to alleviate some of these. We …

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much its Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals has invoiced each planning authority for examinations into (a) strategic and (b) local development plans, broken down by (i) administrative costs, (ii) staff costs and (iii) overheads.

Answer · John Swinney: Planning authorities have been invoiced by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division of the Scottish Government as follows in respect of local and strategic development plan examinations in the period 1 April 2011 to the current date. Planning Author…

25 May 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how it discharges its responsibility for overseeing the effective functioning of land-use planning with reference to local review bodies.

Answer · Alex Neil: Responsibility for the delivery of the planning service in Scotland lies with individual planning authorities. Where a case comes before a local review body for consideration, that review must be undertaken in accordance with The Town and Country Planning (Sc…

11 May 2015 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on disabled people in Scotland of the Department for Work and Pensions' proposal to cap the Access to Work scheme.

22 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether a specialist neuromuscular care adviser is (a) in post and (b) providing a service in the north of Scotland.

Answer · Jamie Hepburn: There is currently no neuromuscular care advisor (NCA) post in the north. The NCA post in the north of Scotland was a project funded for two years with an end date of 31 December 2014. The North of Scotland Planning Group (NOSPG) did not support continued fun…

22 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many specialist neuromuscular care advisers the NHS employs; what their specific responsibilities are, and where they are based.

Answer · Jamie Hepburn: Workforce data published by Public Health Information (PHI, formerly Information Services Division) does not specify the number of specialist neuromuscular care adviser (NCA) posts in Scotland. The Scottish Government funded a two year pilot project to asses…

22 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether funding for the drug, Translarna, would be available from the New Medicines Fund and, if so, in what circumstances.

Answer · Shona Robison: The manufacturer of Ataluren (Translarna®) has not yet launched this product in the UK.

22 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how the New Medicines Fund was spent in 2014-15.

Answer · Shona Robison: The New Medicines Fund provided additional support to NHS boards for the cost of medicines approved under the new process implemented by the Scottish Medicines Consortium in line with the Task and Finish Group report provided to the Scottish Government and pu…

22 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether people with muscular dystrophy can be prescribed the drug, Translarna, by the NHS.

Answer · Shona Robison: The manufacturer of Ataluren (Translarna®) has not yet launched this product in the UK and a submission has not yet been made to the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

20 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to introduce a national action plan on hate crime similar to the action plan, Challenge it, Report it, Stop it, in England and Wales.

Answer · Alex Neil: Tackling hate crime in partnership with key stakeholders and affected communities is a key priority. The Scottish Government believes hate crime to be unacceptable in modern day Scotland, and we are committed to eradicating it from society. We have already st…

20 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what more the (a) police and (b) criminal justice system can do to support people who report a disability-related hate crime.

Answer · Michael Matheson: Police Scotland have made considerable progress in recent years through the development of third party reporting centres and online reporting of hate crime to help support people affected by hate crime including disability-related hate crime. In addition, spe…

20 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how it monitors the number of reports of disability-related hate crime that do not result in a prosecution.

Answer · Michael Matheson: Responsibility for prosecution of any crime including hate crime falls on the independent Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. In July 2014, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service published their annual Hate Crime in Scotland publication. T…

20 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made on developing third party reporting systems for disability-related hate crime.

Answer · Michael Matheson: In some cases, it can be that victims and witnesses of hate crime including disability-related hate crime do not feel comfortable reporting the matter directly to Police Scotland and may be more comfortable reporting it to someone they are familiar with. Tha…

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the costings produced by the UK Treasury that the fiscal loss under full fiscal autonomy will increase across the next parliamentary session from £7.7 billion in 2015-16 to £8.4 billion in 2019-20.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government believes that the analysis by the UK Treasury does not provide a meaningful description of the fiscal position in a fiscally autonomous Scotland as it simply projects forward Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland. The fiscal pos…

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Council of Economic Advisers agrees with the assessment by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that there will be a budget shortfall of £7.6 billion a year with full fiscal autonomy.

Answer · John Swinney: The Institute of Fiscal Studies published the analysis referred to on 19 March 2015. The latest meeting of the Council of Economic Advisers was held on 3 March 2015, prior to this publication.

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has consulted the Council of Economic Advisers on full fiscal autonomy and, if so, what view it expressed.

Answer · John Swinney: The Council of Economic Advisers meets twice a year and provides advice on improving the competitiveness of the Scottish economy and tackling inequality in Scotland.

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what the spend for (a) the NHS, (b) schools and (c) pensions in Scotland was in 2014-15.

Answer · John Swinney: In line with previous years, I will provide details of the Scottish Government’s provisional outturn for 2014-15 to Parliament when it becomes available in June 2015.

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it accepts the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that there would be a £7.6 billion gap in public finances with full fiscal autonomy.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government believes that the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies does not provide a meaningful description of the fiscal position in a fiscally autonomous Scotland as it simply projects forward Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland…

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish an assessment of the cost of its proposals for (a) freezing the retirement age, (b) scrapping the so-called bedroom tax, (c) fully retaining child benefit and (d) increasing universal credit.

Answer · John Swinney: Whether these proposals are taken forward will be a matter for the new UK Government. However, the Scottish Government will continue to press the UK Government to take action on these priorities, making a case for modest spending increases of 0.5 per cent abo…

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has taken account of spending on extra welfare and pensions costs in its proposals to boost UK spending by £165 billion and, if not, how these would be paid for.

Answer · John Swinney: The Scottish Government will make it a priority to press the incoming UK Government for an end to the current austerity agenda. Our proposal is to increase spending on public services by 0.5% a year in real terms from 2016-17 to 2019-20. This is estimated to …

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that its estimate of boosting UK spending by £180 billion is incorrect while asserting that debt would reduce in every year from 2016-17 onwards and that the correct figure is £165 billion.

Answer · John Swinney: The First Minister set out a proposal to boost UK spending by £180 billion over the next Parliament on 11 February 2015. The figure of £165 billion is based on HM Treasury analysis published on 9 March 2015. The Scottish Government published a comparison of …

10 Apr 2015 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains its position that the referendum on independence will be a once in a generation opportunity, as noted in the response to question 557 on page 556 of its white paper on independence.

Answer · John Swinney: The First Minister set out the Scottish Government’s position on this matter at First Minister’s Questions on 30 April 2015.