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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: S6O-00783

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to ensure that islanders are not left without food supplies due to the reported lack of resilience of the ferry fleet.

Question reference: S6T-00468

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 31 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported problems with applying for free under-22 bus travel passes.

Question reference: S6O-00635

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to help residents in flats that have unsafe cladding.

Question reference: S6W-04889

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 21 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of the Electric A9 project, including (a) how many electric vehicle (EV) charge points (i) have been installed to date, (ii) will be installed in total and (iii) have been installed by ChargePlace Scotland, and (b) what the planned completion date is for installation of all the EV charge points.

There are now over 150 chargers throughout the Electric A9 corridor, in a variety of locations including charging hubs and rural communities.

The number of chargers will continue to grow as the number of electric vehicles in Scotland does, providing electric vehicle charging provision for long distance journeys, alongside local charging for businesses and residents, and charging at destinations.

To date, the Electric A9 has been funded by Scottish Ministers and chargers are part of the ChargePlace Scotland, which provides the back office provision and network. ChargePlace Scotland don’t own or operate charge points, this is predominantly done by local authorities along the route. We anticipate that commercially funded chargers will also be installed along the route of the A9 increasing the total number of chargers available in future years.

Question reference: S6W-04752

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 21 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether Abellio will be able to report its experience of running the ScotRail franchise after the service has been nationalised.

Question reference: S6W-04750

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what it has spent to date on legal costs associated with the nationalisation of ScotRail, broken down by any work (a) undertaken by Scottish Government solicitors and (b) outsourced to external solicitors, and what the total anticipated legal costs are.

Since the announcement on 17 March 2021 that ScotRail services will be provided through the Scottish Government’s Operator of Last Resort arrangements on expiry of the current franchise agreement, no costs have been charged for legal work in connection with those arrangements undertaken by solicitors of the Scottish Government Legal Directorate.

In terms of external solicitor costs, works to the value of £157,763 have been charged for to date. At this rate, Transport Scotland would estimate legal expenditure to be under £500,000 by the commencement of ScotRail Trains Ltd services on 1 April. It should be noted that this is a substantially lower amount than might have been expected in support of a rail franchise procurement competition.

Question reference: S6W-04756

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has for any ongoing agreements with Abellio once its franchise ends, such as leasing, uniform provision and rolling stock maintenance.

No leasing, uniform provision and rolling stock maintenance agreements are expected to remain in place with Abellio once the current franchise ends. A number of existing contracts between Abellio ScotRail Ltd and its suppliers will transfer from Abellio ScotRail Ltd to the new operator, ScotRail Trains Limited, on 1 April 2022.

An agreement has been entered into with Abellio Transport Holdings for the retention of the Abellio Shared Services Centre based in Glasgow. This will retain jobs in Glasgow handling all customer service calls and correspondence, payroll services and payment processing facilities.

Question reference: S6W-04751

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 17 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has any plans to extend the concessionary travel scheme to include free rail travel for under-22s as part of the nationalised ScotRail fares strategy.

Question reference: S6W-04747

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the age is of ScotRail's (a) newest and (b) oldest rolling stock, and what the average age is of ScotRail's rolling stock.

ScotRail’s (a) newest rolling stock are the seventy class 385 trains which were introduced in 2018-19 and (b) oldest rolling stock are the twenty-five Inter-city High Speed Trains which were introduced from the late 1970s and extensively re-engineered and refurbished in 2017-2020.

The Scottish Government recognises the sustainability advantages of re-engineering older rail vehicle structures, when appropriate, thus avoiding the energy expended in the production of new rail vehicles.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures from 2020-21 calculates that the average age of the 350 trains in the ScotRail fleet is 21.69 years.

Question reference: S6W-04753

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it anticipates any voluntary redundancies or voluntary early retirement schemes to be offered to ScotRail employees as part of the nationalisation of ScotRail.