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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6W-34547

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what initiatives are in place to promote whisky tourism.

Question reference: S6W-34546

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is collaborating with communities to enhance the whisky tourism experience.

Question reference: S6W-34512

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the previous announcement by the former First Minister, Humza Yousaf, in October 2023, how much has been spent to date on preparation work for it issuing bonds.

Question reference: S6W-34548

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what marketing campaigns aimed at international tourists are in place to highlight Scotland’s whisky heritage.

Question reference: S6W-34549

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support the development of whisky trails that connect multiple distilleries and regions.

Question reference: S6W-34544

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working with the hospitality sector to create comprehensive whisky tourism packages.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of whisky to our nation's tourism and hospitality sector, as well as the Scottish economy in general.

There were just over 2 million visits made to Scotch Whisky visitor centres in Scotland in 2022. This was the second highest number on record and more than double the number in 2021. The associated spend of these visits was £85 million in 2022. The Scotch Whisky industry employed around 1,200 people at Scotch Whisky visitor centres in 2022. (Source: Scotch Whisky Tourism Survey 2022).

The Scottish Government continues to do everything we can to support tourism and hospitality businesses to thrive.

Spirits distilleries looking to expand their visitor facilities can access funding through economic development agencies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). HIE provides a range of financial support to independent whisky distilleries for projects specifically focused on the development of visitor facilities, as well as increased production volumes. Recent examples include Deerness Distillery, Lerwick Distillery and Dunnet Bay Distillers.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with business organisations and leaders to discuss current challenges and solutions, while pressing the UK Government to help businesses and ensure sustainable development within the visitor economy.

The whisky tourism sector brings in huge numbers of visitors to some of our most rural communities. These visitors help support much needed jobs, both on the mainland and in our Island communities. In partnership with Scotland Food and Drink, VisitScotland has created an industry guide to help businesses share some of the world class products we have (such as whisky) through the creation of memorable tourism experiences. The guide encourages businesses to think about the opportunity quality food and drink experiences can provide, including visitors’ desire to learn more about the region behind the produce and the local culture and history that influences it.

At a regional level, VisitScotland works closely with key partners and stakeholders to develop regional/destination strategies and support the development of regional investments. VisitScotland works with individual businesses as it looks to develop new products and help them to identify opportunities linked to trends, marketing etc.

In 2024, VisitScotland ran several regional workshops throughout Scotland and plans to continue to deliver these in 2025. The aim of the workshops is for tourism businesses to reach new markets and encourage longer dwell time.

VisitScotland also works in partnership with local Direct Marketing Organisations, to encourage integrated food and drink experiences, whisky tasting and storytelling into broader tourism offerings. This helps to enrich the overall visitor experience and helps attract visitors to the region. The Scottish Government also supports and promotes Whisky Trails through its other economic development agencies. For instance, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) provided funding for the Hebridean Whisky Trail. HIE also supported an ambitious community-led distillery project ‘Cabrach Distillery’ with up to £0.5m funding towards the £5m development to create a new distillery in the most rural area of Moray, well known for its history in distilling. HIE’s funding will help with the refurbishment of the farm steadings. The new distillery hopes to attract thousands of new visitors to the area

VisitScotland supports and promotes whisky related tourism businesses across its activity including marketing (owned, earned and paid), industry support, travel trade engagement. VisitScotland weaves whisky imagery and content into its seasonal global marketing campaign activity including current activity with Expedia, TripAdvisor and SkyScanner. Whisky tourism experiences also feature across all VisitScotland’s owned channels – email marketing, website, social media etc. Through consumer PR activity, VisitScotland has generated 117 media articles globally with an inclusion of whisky from 1 April 2024 – 13 February 2025.

Whisky remains a key driver of visits, with 21% of visitors indicating that they visited a whisky distillery as part of their trip to Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-04418

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of referrals to audiology services at NHS Grampian are seen within the 18-week target.

Question reference: S6W-32896

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many times it has corresponded with (a) Hampton Group International, (b) the UK Chinese Business Association and (c) Pitch@Palace in the last 12 years; what any such correspondence related to; whether Yang Tengbo is named in any such correspondence, and, if so, whether it will conduct an urgent review of any correspondence relating to Yang Tengbo.

Question reference: S6W-34638

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners released under any early release programmes in each of the last five years have subsequently reoffended within (a) six months and (b) one year of their release.

There have been two instances where groups of prisoners have been granted early release from their sentence at the order of Scottish Ministers in the last five years – firstly in May 2020, and secondly in June and July 2024.

Data was made available on the number of individuals who returned to prison custody (either held on remand or sentenced) amongst the individuals released in those processes. For the May 2020 Coronavirus specific emergency early release process, as of November 2020, 142 of the original 348 individuals who were released early had returned to custody.

For the June and July 2024 emergency early release process, as of December 2024, 61 of the 477 individuals who were released early had returned to custody before their original date of liberation.

The information requested on reoffending is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.

Question reference: S6W-34514

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure a fair consulting process for electricity infrastructure, in light of reports that it could benefit financially by £4 million per year for each GW of power from ScotWind that is installed and has a grid connection agreement.

The consulting process provided for under sections 36 and 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 and the Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 ensures that public bodies, communities and members of the public are consulted on proposals for electricity infrastructure. The decision whether to grant consent is taken only after careful and fair consideration of environmental information, consultee responses and public representations. The Scottish Government is committed to strengthening the pre-application consultation process by working with the UK Government on their proposed reforms to electricity infrastructure consenting in Scotland.