Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-36922

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish a breakdown of the £785 million committed to investment by the Scottish National Investment Bank, including the nature and scale of the returns delivered so far.

Question reference: S6W-36926

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will rule out any strategy that leads to the downgrading or closure of Glasgow International Airport as part of its future transport planning.

Question reference: S6W-36927

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its policy is on ensuring parity of strategic support for Edinburgh and Glasgow Internatonal airports, in the context of international connectivity and aviation resilience.

Question reference: S6W-36924

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to secure the long-term future of Glasgow International Airport as a critical part of the (a) national and (b) regional transport infrastructure.

Question reference: S6W-36864

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will ask the Scottish Funding Council to revise its teaching grant methodology, in light of reports that the current methodology does not adequately reflect institutional financial needs.

Question reference: S6W-36925

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with (a) airlines and (b) industry stakeholders about retaining routes at Glasgow International Airport after the expansion of high-speed rail services.

Question reference: S6W-36923

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers the structure of the Scottish National Investment Bank, in which it is wholly owned by ministers but operating independently, to be optimal for transparency and accountability.

Question reference: S6W-36680

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 16 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that retail crime, including shoplifting and vandalism, cost businesses £420 million in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government understands the impact of retail crime on businesses. Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime. This is in addition to an investment next year of a record
£1.62 billion for policing.

This funding will support the formation of a Retail Crime Taskforce which will provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime and will deliver on the following objectives:

Prevent: Stop people from becoming perpetrators of Retail crime by developing and implementing intervention and diversion mechanisms with partners.
Pursue: Target retail crime by bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals.
Protect: Strengthen the collective protections against Retail Crime by engaging directly with retailers on crime prevention and training.
Prepare: Mitigate against the impact of Retail Crime by exploring innovate opportunities for direct reporting systems.

New technologies will also be utilised to explore ways to make it easier for retail staff to directly report crimes to police, as well as capitalising on Police Scotland’s existing Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC), to secure early criminal justice outcomes.

The Scottish Government continue to urge all retailers and their staff to keep reporting crimes. While it might feel like some minor incidents aren’t worth it, or individual retailers may feel like the police won’t be able to do anything, each crime report aids our collective understanding of who is doing this and why. Local officers may also well have intelligence they can use to catch the perpetrators.

Question reference: S6W-36681

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 16 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the creation of a specific criminal offence of assaulting a retail worker, and what steps it has taken to explore this.

There are no plans to update the current legislation regarding the protection of retail workers. Section 1 of the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 already makes it a specific offence to assault, threaten or abuse a retail worker. Such behaviour can also be prosecuted using other, more general, offences including, for example, common law assault and the offence of threatening or abusive behaviour.

It is essential that those who perpetrate violence are held to account for their actions. Legislation and prosecution form part of our overall response to tackling violence, and sits alongside our preventative approach as set out in the Violence Prevention Framework for Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-36682

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 16 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the reported call by the Scottish Grocers’ Federation for stronger legislative and enforcement action to tackle shoplifting.

The Scottish Government understands the impact of retail crime on businesses and the concerns of retailers including the Scottish Grocers’ Federation.

Sufficient legislation already exists in order to prosecute those who are guilty of shoplifting.

Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime. This is in addition to an investment next year of a record £1.62 billion for policing.

This funding will support the formation of a Retail Crime Taskforce which will provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime and will deliver on the following objectives:

Prevent: Stop people from becoming perpetrators of Retail crime by developing and implementing intervention and diversion mechanisms with partners.
Pursue: Target retail crime by bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals.
Protect: Strengthen the collective protections against Retail Crime by engaging directly with retailers on crime prevention and training.
Prepare: Mitigate against the impact of Retail Crime by exploring innovate opportunities for direct reporting systems.

The Scottish Government continue to urge all retailers and their staff to keep reporting crimes. While it might feel like some minor incidents aren’t worth it, or individual retailers may feel like the police won’t be able to do anything, each crime report aids our collective understanding of who is doing this and why. Local officers may also well have intelligence they can use to catch the perpetrators.

Chamber and committees