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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: S5T-00479

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 March 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the Queensferry Crossing will not be ready by the revised completion date of the end of May.

Question reference: S5W-07552

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 14 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has cost to erect (a) deer and (b) non-deer fencing in new woodlands of (i) up to two, (ii) two to five, (iii) six to 10, (iv) 11 to 20, (v) 21 to 50, (vi) 51 to 100, (vii) 101 to 200 and (viii) over 200 hectares in each year since 2008.

The Scottish Government does not have data on how much it has cost to erect deer or non-deer fencing in new woodlands. However, grant support at standard payment rates for fencing is provided to ensure the successful establishment of new woodlands. The grant support provided since 2008 for deer and non-deer fencing is given in table one. Because of the way the data is recorded, it is not possible to break this down by woodland size category.

Table 1 – Grant Support for Fencing by Year

Year	Deer Fence Grants	Non-Deer fence Grants
2008-09	£222,409.96	£143,686.94
2009-10	£1,884,665.31	£734,745.90
2010-11	£3,326,704.86	£764,606.55
2011-12	£2,954,909.62	£712,374.75
2012-13	£2,491,324.78	£477,905.69
2013-14	£3,113,641.70	£650,678.03
2014-15	£1,361,452.46	£300,028.87
2015-16	£2,461,657.81	£635,634.36
Total	£17,816,766.48	£4,419,661.08

Question reference: S5T-00421

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 March 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the proposed merger between Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life would have on Scotland’s economy.

Question reference: S5O-00636

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 2 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the business rates revaluation will have on the tourism and hospitality sectors.

As a result of the Assessors independent business rates revaluation the individual rateable value of any property in the tourism and hospitality sectors may increase, decrease or remain the same.

However, many thousands of premises in the sector will be amongst beneficiaries of the package of measures I have announced, which include:

The Small Business Bonus Scheme – which has already saved businesses more than £1.2 billion – will be expanded from April to lift 100,000 properties out of rates completely;

8,000 business properties will no longer pay the Large Business Supplement; and

The overall business rates poundage being cut by 3.7% to 46.6p.

Question reference: S5T-00277

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has downgraded its forecast of revenues from the residential element of Lands and Buildings Transaction Tax.

Question reference: S5O-00465

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 14 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish its bill on a replacement for air passenger duty.

Question reference: S5W-05145

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 12 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government (a) when and (b) how it will consult on the appointment of building standards verifiers.

The Building (Scotland) Act 2003 allows Scottish Ministers to appoint verifiers on such terms or limitations as they feel appropriate. It also allows any appointment to be made, varied or terminated at any time. Local authorities are appointed as verifiers until end the end of April 2017. I am currently reviewing the appointment process for verifiers from May 2017 onwards, however there are no plans for wider consultation on the matter.

Question reference: S5W-05147

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 12 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether local authorities are sufficiently resourced to provide the building standards verification service.

Each of the 32 local authorities is responsible for resourcing their building standards services appropriately.

I have become aware that since the economic downturn of 2008 there have been situations where experienced Building Standards Managers and staff have either retired or taken voluntary exit arrangements from local authorities. At the same time there appears to have been little corresponding intake of trainee or apprentice Building Standards Officers in many areas of Scotland. I understand that as the volume of building projects has been increasing some local authorities have had difficulty in recruiting and replacing staff. The Scottish Government is currently consulting on Building Warrant Fees which includes a proposal to increase fees to provide additional funding to local authorities.

Question reference: S5W-05146

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 12 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the findings of the recent report it commissioned from Pye Tait Consulting, Evaluation of the Performance of local authorities in their role as building standards verifiers.

Question reference: S5W-05150

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 12 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of delays in obtaining building control consent on (a) the industry and (b) its housing targets.

Scottish Government has not made such an assessment but knows that delays may be due to local authority processing, the quality of the submitted plans, or delays in applicants submitted revised details. We are aware that Local Authority Building Standards Scotland who represent local authority building standards services in Scotland have examined this issue and provided the following information:

More than 330 housing development applications were submitted immediately before the October 2015 change in energy standards. As of 1 Dec 2017, 41% of these applications remain unapproved and are sitting with the housebuilder for action.

For the time taken to gain approval for housing applications, the verifier typically works on the application for 30% of the time; the remaining 70% of the time is down to the housebuilder producing essential information to allow approval.