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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 MSPs 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-01447

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on any discussions with the UK Government, in light of the concerns raised with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy regarding the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

Question reference: S6W-11481

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 October 2022
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Shona Robison on 10 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what further support it will provide to low income families this winter.

To enhance the support available for low income families with school age children, the Scottish Government will double the final Bridging Payment due to be paid in December 2022. This will increase the payment from £130 to £260 for every eligible child.

This increase is anticipated to reach in the region of 145,000 children, backed by additional investment of almost £19 million. As a result, Bridging Payments are expected to put around £169 million in the pockets of low income families across 2021 and 2022.

This is in addition to the expansion and further increase in the value of the Scottish Child Payment, which will become available for eligible children under the age of 16 as of 14 November and will be worth £25 per child, per week.

The Scottish Government will continue to assess all opportunities to redirect additional resources to those most in need through the Emergency Budget Review.

Question reference: S6O-01412

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 September 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has carried out of the impact on farmers in Scotland of the UK Government’s energy price cap.

Question reference: S6W-09327

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 July 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an update on the uptake to date of the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel, and what assessment it has made of the impact of the scheme on children in households on the lowest incomes and their ability to access opportunities.

As of close of business on 27 June 2022 a total of 426,397 cards had been issued under the Young Persons Scheme (YPS). This includes the number of cards that have collected a travel product from the Transport Scot Pass Collect mobile application held by Transport Scotland and data supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO). NECPO support the 32 local authorities by assisting with the integration of various national and local public services on the National Entitlement Card (NEC) and are the joint controller with local authorities of this data.

One of the objectives of the YPS is to reduce household outgoings to aid children, particularly those living in poverty. Transport Scotland is undertaking an evaluation of the Scheme to assess its success. As a first step, a baseline study was undertaken prior to the scheme going live and a Baseline Data Report was published on 24 June 2022.

The report stated that as incomes decreased bus use increased for most journey purposes, with those on the lowest incomes most likely to use the bus. In addition, as income reduced the proportions of income spent on a child’s travel tended to increase.

The cost of travel and transport was noted as being a key reason why some children and young people were missing out on opportunities, including social and leisure activities as well as educational, work opportunities and support/respite services. Between 51% (for health care) and 80% (for daytime social activities) of respondents felt that the YPS would allow them to travel more often to their current destinations, and/or to access new destinations.

The evaluation is ongoing and will compare conditions at intervals up to five years after project implementation to assess the outcomes and impact of the scheme on children, young people and their families.

Question reference: S6O-01251

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Christine Grahame (on behalf of the SPCB) on 16 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether an assessment has been made of the chairs in the MSP block for use by members and staff, in relation to occupational health and the latest standards.

Our office furniture contracts require suppliers to ensure that chairs meet all relevant standards in force at the time of purchase. We inspect chairs at regular intervals to ensure that they remain in safe condition and replace them when they reach end of life. If a member or member of staff feels that they require support for a particular health concern, they can contact the people and culture office—formerly human resources—for support. If necessary, a workplace assessment can be arranged with our occupational health provider.

Question reference: S6W-08239

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much it (a) has spent on funding Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) in each year for which it has been responsible for doing so and (b) estimates it will spend on funding DHPs in the current financial year, all broken down by how much was in relation to (i) the removal of the spare room subsidy and (ii) other reasons, and what the (A) administrative costs for DHPs and (B) total value of DHPs made by local authorities was in each year from 2010-11 to 2021-22.

(a) Scotland has budgeted £429 million in total for Discretionary Housing Payments since DHPs were devolved in 2017 to the 2022-23 financial year. This is broken down into £349 million for mitigation of the bedroom tax and £80.4 million for mitigating the impact of other welfare reforms.

SG funding for DHPs 2017-18 to 2022-23

Year	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	Total
Bedroom Tax Budget	£47.6m	£50.1m	£52.3m	£59.7m	£71m	£68.1m	£348.8m
Other DHPs	£10.9m	£10.9m	£10.9m	£18.9m 1	£10.9m	£17.9m 2	£80.4m
Full Budget	£58.5m	£61m	£63.2m	£78.6m	£81.9m	£86m	£429.2m

1. Figure includes additional £8m of Covid-support funds

2. Figure includes £7m for additional benefit cap support

Note: These figures do not include administration funding

(b) (i) (ii) In 2022-23 it is estimated that the Scottish Government will spend £86m on DHPs. From this, £68.1 million is to mitigate the bedroom tax helping over 92,000 households in Scotland to sustain their tenancies. An additional £17.9 million mitigates against the damaging impact of other UK Government welfare cuts including the benefit cap and changes to the Local Housing Allowance rates.

From the £17.9m, £10m will be used to mitigate the benefit cap with the other £7.9m to be allocated to LHA and other non-welfare. We are unable to confirm the exact amounts allocated to each stream at present as allocations are ongoing.

(A) Since DHPs were devolved in 2017 the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with £1.2m in administration funding each year since 2017. In 2021-22 a further £256,255 was allocated to the administration funding as part of the roll-over of the ‘other’ underspend.

(B) The Scottish Government do not hold information on total value of DHPs made by local authorities each year pre 2013-14. Pre 2017 the funding was not broken down into bedroom tax or other. We do not yet have the final spending figures for 2021-22. It is, however, estimated that in 2021-22 there will be £71m for bedroom tax spend and £10.9m for DHP other spend.

Outturn (Spending) 2017-18 to 2020-21

Year	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	Total
Bedroom Tax Spend	-	-	-	-	£48.7m	£52.6m	£56m	£62.7m	£220m
DHP Other Spend	-	-	-	-	£10.5m	£9.9m	£10m	£13.8m	£44.2m
Total Spend	£29.2m	£50.5m	£49.1m	£51.8m	£59.2m	£62.4m	£66m	£76.5m	£264.1m

Note, some local authorities add some of their own funds for local priorities

Question reference: S6W-08184

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 9 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to making food security impact assessments an immediate requirement for any application for largescale forestry expansion on productive agricultural land, in order to ensure that all productive land can be prioritised for food production rather than carbon offsetting by non-agricultural businesses.

The Scottish Government requires that where large scale forestry expansion is proposed, that may impact upon productive agricultural land, that consultation takes place between the applicant, Agriculture and Rural Economy (ARE) and Scottish Forestry (SF) colleagues. This ensures that potential impacts on agricultural productivity are examined and mitigated. This benefits integration with other patterns of land use and allows for the retention of agricultural enterprises. As a result of this approach, Scottish Government does not feel that additional food security impact assessments are necessary.

Question reference: S6W-08185

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 5 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to implementing a rapid food production impact assessment of all existing and new legislation and policy affecting agricultural land use and practice, in order to avoid any undermining of the potential for, or increases to the costs of, food production.

Scottish Ministers have established a short-life Food Security and Supply Taskforce, together with industry. The Taskforce met for the first time on 18 March and again on 01 and 20 April. It will monitor, identify and respond to any current and potential disruption to the food and drink supply chain resulting from the impact of the current situation in Ukraine.

It is currently considering a range of issues and proposals submitted to it and will seek to recommend, any short, medium and longer-term actions that can be taken to mitigate impacts, resolve supply issues and strengthen food security and supply in Scotland. The taskforce will report in due course.

Question reference: S6O-01039

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 April 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 May 2022

To ask what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the potential impact on Scotland of the outcome of the French presidential election.

Question reference: S6W-07436

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 29 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the most recent known levels of charges for (a) NHS prescriptions and (b) eye tests in Scotland, and how this compares with (i) England and (ii) Wales.