Parliamentary questions
Maurice Golden
1,697 questions tabled in the Scottish Parliament, most recent first.
25 Nov 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, based on ratings used in the School Estate Statistics, what proportion of pupils have been educated in schools in (a) good, (b) satisfactory, (c) poor and (d) bad condition in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.
Answer · Jenny Gilruth: The proportion of schools reported as being in good or satisfactory condition has increased to 91.7% (90.9% in 2023). This is 29 percentage points higher than in April 2007 (62.7%).The proportion of pupils educated in schools in poor or bad condition has decr…
8 Nov 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-30938 by Gillian Martin on 7 November 2024, what modelling it has carried out on potential increases to the household recycling rate from investments made through the Recycling Improvement Fund.
Answer · Gillian Martin: A local authority is required to model projected impacts to local recycling rates of their project during the Recycling Improvement Fund application process.Projected impacts are then reviewed by technical experts and contribute to an estimate of the total im…
5 Nov 2024 · General Question
To ask the Scottish Government what it anticipates the benefits to Scotland will be of a fully circular waste management system.
31 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of IT system faults at Charge Place Scotland over the last three years, also broken down by the downtime and systems affected.
Answer · Fiona Hyslop: IT system faults are unplanned events of a technical nature that result in an IT system that is required to operate the public charging network becoming inoperable or unable to work as intended. Downtime is a period of time when an affected IT system is inope…
29 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government how it has disposed of electric vehicles (EVs) in its fleet, and how much it has (a) spent on new EVs and (b) obtained through the sale or other means of disposal of older EVs, in each year since it purchased its first EV.
Answer · Ivan McKee: All electric vehicles disposed from the fleet have been sold through motor auctions.We first purchased electric vehicles in 1999 however records are no longer held.A breakdown of expenditure on new electric vehicles and income received from sale through motor…
29 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the current level of resources directed towards household recycling is sufficient to meet its household recycling targets.
Answer · Gillian Martin: Although SEPA official statistics for 2023 show that Scotland’s household recycling rate increased slightly to 43.5%, we know that there is more to do to accelerate progress to meet our circular economy aims.The Scottish Government’s Recycling Imp…
29 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the level of progress in household recycling during 2023.
Answer · Gillian Martin: The Scottish Government welcomes the news that recently released statistics from SEPA show that in 2023 both the amount of household waste generated, and the carbon impact of Scotland’s household waste, were at their lowest levels since records began in…
29 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers the increase in tonnage of waste incinerated, outlined in the 2023 household waste statistics, to be a positive or negative market signal for prevention and reuse efforts.
Answer · Gillian Martin: Scotland was the first UK nation to introduce a ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste, which comes into force on 31 December 2025.The increase in waste incinerated reflects preparations for the upcoming ban which have already supported a decrease i…
18 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-02414 byLorna Slater on 8 September 2021, whether Zero Waste Scotland was one of the agencies that worked onthe multi-agency project that resulted in the electronic duty of care (edoc)system, and, if this is the case, for what reason nodetails of th…
Answer · Gillian Martin: The reply to the 2024 PQ S6W-30359 was interpreted as seeking cost information for the Digital Waste Tracking project. The Electronic Duty of Care (edoc) system was a wholly separate project to the ongoing “Digital Waste Tracking” project. As such…
18 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to settle the full £6.9 million sum claimed by Angus Council under the Bellwin Scheme and, if so, when.
Answer · Ivan McKee: The Scottish Government processed payment of £5.7 million (90%) to Angus Council on 10 April this year based on the interim Bellwin claim provided by the council. Following certification of the final claim and the supporting evidence provided, the balan…
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-30360 by Alasdair Allan on 9 October 2024, what funding is being made available to support work in the Central Lowlands, beyond the northern areas.
Answer · Alasdair Allan: As I set out in response to S6W-30360 we are providing a range of support and funding to work that aims to promote red squirrel populations. Alongside the support detailed in my previous answer, we have also recently awarded the Eastern Lowlands Red Squirrel …
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the WWF publication, 2024 Living Planet Report.
Answer · Alasdair Allan: The findings of the WWF Living Planet Report provide further evidence, if any were needed, that the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss represent the existential threat of our times. We know we must take urgent action to address them now.Scotl…
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what the proportion of zero-emissions vehicles in (a) its own fleet, (b) each of its agencies' fleets and (c) the public sector fleet as a whole has been in each of the last five years.
Answer · Fiona Hyslop: A breakdown of the Scottish Government fleet (including pool, Government Car Service and Transport Scotland) over the last 5 years is provided in the following table.YearZero Emission %2020-2113%2021-2227%2022-2327%2023-2427%2024-25 (1)27%Notes1.Data range 01…
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many fault reports have been submitted by members of the public in relation to the public electric vehicle charging network in each month of the last three years.
Answer · Fiona Hyslop: We can only provide information relating to the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) public electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The commercial sector does not make their own charge point fault information readily available to third partie…
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to install new public electric vehicle charging points in each of the last five years, and how many new charging points this has resulted in being installed in each year, broken down by local authority area.
Answer · Fiona Hyslop: On Monday 4 November 2024 I announced that, through a combination of public and increasing private sector investment, Scotland has achieved its target of 6,000 publicly available EV charge points two years ahead of its 2026 target and this was achieved throug…
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an overview of the public electric vehicle charging network, including what the (a) number of installed chargers, (b) potential uptime, (c) recorded downtime and (d) proportion of uptime and downtime served to the public has been in each month of the last three ye…
Answer · Fiona Hyslop: We can only provide information relating to the Scottish Government funded ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) public electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The commercial sector does not make their own charge point fault information readily available to third partie…
17 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether any of its current electric vehicle fleet was purchased through loan or other credit agreements, and, if so, whether it will provide a breakdown of the (a) value of those agreements at purchase, (b) amounts outstanding and (c) amount of interest payable on any agreements.
Answer · Ivan McKee: There are no Scottish Government vehicles purchased through loan or credit agreements.
4 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its previous announcement that it plans to align with other UK administrations to deliver a UK-wide ban on single-use vapes, whether it expects that this ban will come into effect from 1 April 2025.
Answer · Gillian Martin: The Scottish Government is committed to aligning with a four-nation approach towards banning the sale and supply of single-use vapes.In order to align with timescales recently announced by the Welsh and UK governments and provide consistency across the four n…
1 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what work is being carried out to (a) expand the red-only squirrel areas of Scotland and (b) facilitate grey squirrel control.
Answer · Alasdair Allan: The Scottish Government fully supports the work being undertaken by the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) partnership project. The project has been working in strategic areas to protect, maintain and promote existing red squirrel populations, and t…
1 Oct 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29916 by Gillian Martin on 30 September 2024, whether it will provide details of the work that (a) it, (b) Zero Waste Scotland and (c) SEPA has carried out on digital waste tracking since 2010, including a breakdown of (i) how much ha…
Answer · Gillian Martin: Officials operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of their work at any given time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time spent working on particular project. It is the…
1 Oct 2024 · General Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its work to support the introduction of a ban on biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill.
24 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it stated that the terms of reference of the Zero Waste Scotland landfill ban and infrastructure capacity report were "incomplete" and "under final review" on 19 June 2024, in correspondence with Friends of the Earth Scotland in response to freedom of information request …
Answer · Gillian Martin: The landfill ban and infrastructure capacity report was published by Zero Waste Scotland on 11 October 2024. At the time of the Environmental Information Regulations request (EIR), 19 June 2024, the report was still being reviewed by ZWS. Scottish Government …
24 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its current recycling targets are for (a) all and (b) household waste.
Answer · Gillian Martin: The Scottish Government’s Zero Waste Plan, published in 2010, set out targets to recycle 70% of all waste by 2025 and 60% of household waste by 2020.Scotland has made significant progress in reducing waste, increasing recycling and decarbonising the was…
24 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comments by the then Minister for Climate Action during the stage 3 proceedings for the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill on 25 June 2024 that the Scottish Government "intend[s] to consider targets for separate waste streams and carbon-based metrics", and that this "approa…
Answer · Gillian Martin: Page 161 of the ‘Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland: 2022 Report to Parliament’ by the Climate Change Committee (Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland 2022 Report to Parliament (theccc.org.uk)) contains the following recommendation:&l…
24 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-27871 by Gillian Martin on 7 June 2024, when it will publish Zero Waste Scotland's landfill ban and infrastructure capacity report.
Answer · Gillian Martin: Zero Waste Scotland intends to publish the report on their website on 11 October 2024.
18 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the area of (a) prime and (b) other agriculture land that is currently used for renewable energy projects, also broken down by the type of renewable energy project.
Answer · Mairi Gougeon: The Scottish Government does not hold any data on the area of renewable energy projects, as described.Department for Energy Security and Net Zero publishes a quarterly Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD)[1] that lists renewable energy projects at the fo…
17 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29352 by Gillian Martin on 17 September 2024, what approaches have been made to (a) academia and (b) the private sector to explore the potential for new recovery solutions.
Answer · Gillian Martin: Scottish Water engages extensively with academia and the private sector to explore the potential for new recovery solutions. As examples Scottish Water is:1.Working in partnership with the Hydro Nation Chair and Glasgow Caledonian University to investigate ad…
17 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29523 by Alasdair Allan on 16 September 2024, how it accurately monitors the total installed solar capacity, of all types, approved by local authorities.
Answer · Alasdair Allan: The approval, construction and installation of Solar photovoltaic projects over 150kW is monitored through the Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD). Information is provided both as a spreadsheet and as an interactive map which provides the location and c…
17 Sep 2024 · General Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to concerns over its reported plans to downgrade the neonatal intensive care unit at Ninewells Hospital.
15 Sep 2024 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made towards developing an indicative declining cap on residual waste treatment capacity, as outlined in the Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy in Scotland.
Answer · Gillian Martin: To support future planning decisions, we accepted the review’s recommendation to develop an indicative capacity cap. It is important that any indicative cap is as robust as possible and developing such a cap is a significant piece of work.For that reaso…