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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: S6W-36136

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35438 by Gillian Martin on 20 March 2025, whether it has adapted the approach of the UN report and, if so, how it arrived at the specific target of "seeking [a] reduction of Scotland's extraction of raw materials by one third", in light of the country's specific circumstances.

Question reference: S6W-36127

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the May 2028 deadline for farmers and crofters to have completed habitat maps is consistent with its target of reversing biodiversity decline by 2030.

Question reference: S6W-36148

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the support mechanisms in each of the past five years specifically targeted at distributing surplus food from farms showing how much (a) surplus food each programme has distributed and (b) funding was committed.

Question reference: S6W-35598

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the performance of the system for providing grants for the installation of heat pumps in each of the last three years, showing the (a) number of applications (i) received and (ii) approved, (b) average time for approval and (d) number of applications currently outstanding.

The following information provided relates to the Home Energy Scotland (HES) Grant and Loan Scheme, which provides funding to install heat pumps and other measures to domestic owner occupied households in Scotland.

a) Table 1 outlines the number of heat pump applications i) received and ii) approved (i.e. legal commitments made to applicants) from 2022-23 until 28 February 2025.

Table 1:

No of applications	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25 (until 28 February 2025)
i) received	2537	3085	2920
ii) approved	2214	2791	2872

It is important to note that application processing timelines mean that the number of legal commitments made are not a direct subset of the number of applications received, for all there will be substantial crossover between the two.

b) I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24187 on 19 January 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

c) As of 28 February 2025, there were 208 live heat pump applications for which a decision remained outstanding, the majority of which had been submitted in January and February 2025. This number includes applications on hold awaiting further information or supporting documents from applicants.

Question reference: S6W-35573

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 21 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership’s reported decision to end funding for Huntington’s disease specialist services on 31 March 2025, what assessment it has made of the potential impact of this on families living with the disease in the area.

The Scottish Government wants to ensure families affected by Huntington’s Disease are given the best possible care, information and support and I was pleased to meet with the Scottish Huntington’s Association recently to discuss services in Scotland.

The Scottish Government provides funding to Health Boards and Local Authorities, and it is ultimately for local partners to agree a joint, integrated budget which will enable them to meet the needs of local people in line with their Strategic Objectives.

While agreeing budgets is the responsibility of partnerships, we expect that these decisions be made in consultation with people who use services.

Question reference: S6W-35574

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 21 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statement by the First Minister on 7 Nov 2024 that “Huntington’s disease is a devastating condition...all who are affected should be able to access the best possible care and support”, what steps are being taken to ensure that families across Scotland who are impacted by the disease have access to the specialist care and support that they require.

I was pleased to meet with the Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA) recently to discuss the provision of Huntington’s Disease services.

The Scottish Government is currently supporting the SHA’s youth services through the Children, Young People, Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund, to improve the resilience and confidence of young people with Huntington’s and support young carers.

Through the Neurological Care & Support Framework 2020-25, we have been working to ensure that everyone with a neurological condition, including Huntington’s Disease, can access the care and support they need. As the formal Framework strategy concludes, we have been engaging with clinicians, patients, carers and third sector organisations to explore a joined-up policy approach to long-term conditions. A full public consultation will commence shortly, following which a strategy will be developed and published later in 2025.

We have recently established a Neurological Conditions Improvement Network and are working with providers across Scotland to consider ways of ensuring statutory and third sector organisations collaborate on decision-making around the provision of care. This aims to ensure the best use of resources while encouraging person-centred support for people with neurological conditions.

Question reference: S6W-35438

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 20 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the target in Zero Waste Scotland’s Corporate Plan to reduce Scotland’s extraction of raw materials by one third, what the (a) start and (b) end date is for this target; what data this is based on, and for what reason one third was chosen as the target.

Zero Waste Scotland's (ZWS) Corporate Plan for 2025-2030 includes present and future targets beyond the life of this Corporate Plan.

The reference to seeking reduction of Scotland's extraction of raw materials by one third is based on a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report, which stresses the importance of high-income countries reducing their material footprint by bending the resource use curve to achieve economic growth, reduced inequality, improved quality of life and dramatically reduced environmental impacts.

During the lifetime of the current Corporate Plan, Scottish Government will continue to work with ZWS in developing data and policies required to establish a baseline and trajectory for future target setting to measure progress towards a circular economy.

Question reference: S6W-35771

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 1 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether any further data on dog thefts has been compiled by Police Scotland since the release of its last set of figures covering the period up to 2021.

Question reference: S6W-35440

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 14 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when Zero Waste Scotland will publish (a) the 2019 update and (b) other upcoming updates to the Material Flow Accounts and accompanying carbon footprint of waste.

With regards to the 2019 update, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23191 on 7 December 2023 by Lorna Slater MSP. This update to the old model will not be published to ensure clear communication of Scotland’s current material consumption. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The revised Material Flow Accounts model is currently being developed and is expected to be released by June 2025. This will draw on the most recent dataset available from 2020.

Question reference: S6W-35439

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 14 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-23191 by Lorna Slater on 7 December 2023, which states that a review was being conducted by Zero Waste Scotland into methodological changes to the Material Flow Accounts, whether this review has been completed, and, if so, what the main conclusions were.