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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: S4W-28268

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost is to it of money loaned by the Student Loans Company.

Costs to the Scottish Government include those associated with supporting the student loan system to operate in Scotland, and those relating to the award of loans to individual students.

Taking 2015-16 as an example, £302.1 million was set aside in the Scottish Government budget to cover costs linked to provision of the student loans system overall.

In 2015-16, the cost of net student loan advances to individuals was
£468.3 million. The budget to support this, and the budget to support the student loans system overall can only be spent to support the system or advance individual awards.

Question reference: S4W-28340

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 09 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers its sale of student loan debt in 2013-14 to be privatisation.

Following discussions initiated by the UK Government, the Scottish Government agreed to participate in the sale of ‘mortgage style' student loans in 2013, alongside the UK Government and the devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Due to the increasing age of these loans it was becoming increasingly difficult to collect repayments, leading to reduced income and increased costs for the Student Loans Company related to the on-going administration of the loan book.

The sale of loans was conducted on the understanding that there would be no detrimental impact on those students who had taken out these loans.

The Scottish Government does not consider the sale of ‘mortgage style’ loans to be privatisation and has no plans to participate in any future sale of student loan debt.

Question reference: S4W-28271

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 16 November 2015

Two tables have been provided below which set out 1) the maximum bursary support available for students living at home; and 2) the maximum bursary support for students living away from home for years (a) 1979, (b) 1988, (c) 1997, (d) 2007. The figure for e) today is the same in both tables.

The maximum student bursary for each year prior to the current time was converted into 2015-16 (financial year) prices using the most recent HM Treasury deflators and guidance.

Students at home:

Year	Maximum student grant	Real term value (Financial year 2015-16 prices)
2015-16	£1,875	£1,875
2007-08	£1,550	£1,815
1997-98	£1,290	£1,904
1988-89	£1,500	£3,169
1979-80	£985	£3,952

Sources: HM Treasury GDP deflators (October 2015)

Note: Converted to real terms based on the financial year the first payment of student grant issued

Students living away from home:

Year	Maximum student grant	Real term value (Financial Year 2015-16 prices)
2015-16	£1,875	£1,875
2007-08	£2,510	£2,939
1997-98	£1,685	£2,488
1988-89	£1,990	£4,204
1979-80	£1,245	£4,995

Sources: HM Treasury GDP deflators (October 2015)

Note: Converted to real terms based on the financial year the first payment of student grant issued

Question reference: S4W-28270

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 16 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many deferral applications the Student Loans Company has received in each year of its operation, and what percentage this represents of all students due to make repayments.

The Student Loans Company (SLC) holds details of the number of deferral applications received from academic year 2006-07 onwards. The amount of deferral applications received per academic year was:

2006-07 426,554

2007-08 329,620

2008-09 311,731

2009-10 277,305

2010-11 261,638

2011-12 252,248

2012-13 252,180

2013-14 214,267

2014-15 91,861

2015- to date 76,873

The ability to defer repayment is only available to individuals with ‘mortgage style’ student loans. As these were sold to Erudio Student Loans Limited in November 2013, the SLC reports that it is unable to provide the Scottish Government with details of what percentage of students due to make payments applied for deferral.

Question reference: S4W-28272

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 13 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost of funding the road equivalent tariff has been since 2008, also broken down by each ferry network subsidy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-25144 on 22 April 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I confirm that the final road equivalent tariff (RET) figure for financial year 2014-15 was £5,034 million.

In the financial year 2015-16, the estimated cost of RET is £7,938 million.

Question reference: S4T-01155

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 09 November 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the awarding of the Saltire Prize for marine renewables.

Question reference: S4W-28193

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 October 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 6 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with residents of East Dunbartonshire about setting up a new free school outside local authority control.

Question reference: S4W-28194

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 October 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 6 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much financial support it has provided to free schools outside local authority control.

Question reference: S4W-28192

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 October 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 6 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the setting up of free schools outside local authority control.

Schools in Scotland are operated by local councils to make them accountable to the communities they serve.

Whilst we continue to be interested in discussing new ideas for improving our education system, we are clear that our approach to raising standards must be based on robust evidence of what works. We have seen little evidence to suggest that the free school model adopted by the UK Government should be replicated in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-27777

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 2 November 2015

To ask the Government what action it has taken to promote its Statement of principles for parcel deliveries.

In February 2013 I chaired a Parcel Delivery Summit which involved a range of stakeholders and built on a previous one held in November 2012. This led to the establishment of a short-life working group to develop a Statement of principles for parcel deliveries. The Scottish Government has regularly highlighted the statement in our own news releases, which have been taken up by news outlets. In addition, I wrote jointly with the Director for Scotland at Consumer Futures to the main internet retailers about the statement. The Scottish Government was pleased in 2014 when the UK Government announced that the principles had been adopted across the UK, and will continue to encourage the UK Government to do more to increase buy-in of the principles, as recommended by the Citizens Advice Scotland report of 8 September 2015 on parcel deliveries. This is vital as many internet retailers are based outside Scotland. The costs were absorbed in normal running costs.