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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: S5W-25342

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the suitability of current Scottish Medicine Consortium processes and methods for the assessment of gene therapies.

The Scottish Government notes that the Scottish Medicines Consortium has undertaken recently an assessment of the “CAR-T” cell therapy submission Kymriah ® (tisagenlecleucel) for paediatric patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ( SMC2129 ) and adult patients with diffuse large cell B lymphoma ( SMC2200 ). In this assessment, the SMC’s existing methods and processes proved to be suitable for the consideration of gene therapies. The independent SMC does of course keep these matters under review.

Question reference: S5W-25353

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had to take forward a "red bag" scheme to help safeguard patients' belongings while they are in hospital.

Question reference: S5W-25352

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government which GP surgeries have closed in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5O-03583

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase biodiversity in Edinburgh.

Question reference: S5W-25038

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 18 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how the creation of a separate Scottish market for soft and alcoholic drinks would impact on (a) Scottish-based and (b) foreign producers' access to the Scottish market and (c) consumers in Scotland.

As per the answer to question S5W-25037 on ‎ 18 September 2019, the Scottish Government’s draft Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020 propose the introduction of new legal obligations on all producers wishing to sell single-use drinks containers to consumers in Scotland. In the case of articles produced outside the United Kingdom, the Regulations define a producer as the importer.

Question reference: S5W-25034

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 18 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its estimate is of the producer fee for glass bottles that will be required to be paid in the first years of the deposit return fee in addition to the 20p deposit rate.

Question reference: S5W-25035

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 18 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has carried out of the impact of the introduction of a deposit return system on Scottish businesses' ability to access markets in the rest of the UK and Europe.

Question reference: S5W-25033

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 18 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what assessments it has carried out of how the introduction of a deposit return system will impact on consumer choice.

Decisions concerning the marketing of products are ultimately a matter for individual producers. The Scottish Government’s Deposit Return Scheme Full Business Case Stage 1 concludes that industry is best placed to deliver an efficient and effective scheme which minimises additional cost for business. This model, supported by an industry-led approach to the adoption of fraud prevention measures, is intended to limit the potential impact of deposit return on consumer choice.

Question reference: S5W-25039

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 18 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the introduction of a deposit return system will have on the viability of kerbside recycling for local authorities.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting local authority collection arrangements for a range of packaging materials alongside DRS. Under our proposed reforms of wider packaging producer responsibility arrangements, the costs to local authorities of delivering these services will in future be met by producers.

Zero Waste Scotland continues to work with local authorities to assess the impact of deposit return on their waste collection services.

Question reference: S5W-25036

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 18 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many drinks containers are sold in Scotland, broken down by (a) container (PET, Glass, Aluminium, HDPE, etc.) and (b) beverage type.

The following table is from Zero Waste Scotland container data used to model a deposit return scheme (DRS) for Scotland.

Product category	Can*	Glass	PET	Grand Total
Alcohol	221,893,000	295,870,000	20,905,000	538,668,000
Soft drinks and fruit juice	364,637,000	24,888,000	332,522,000	722,047,000
Water	11,000	588,000	200,787,000	201,386,000
Dairy	228,000	10,058,000	91,198,000	101,484,000
Other	52,591,000	1,607,000	48,704,000	102,902,000
Grand Total	639,361,000	333,011,000	694,115,000	1,666,487,000

* Of the total drinks sold in cans, Zero Waste Scotland modelling assumes 99% are aluminium and 1% steel.

Figures are based on Kantar consumer panel data for in-home soft drinks, in-home alcohol, and out-of-home soft drinks, rounded to the nearest thousand. Out-of-home alcohol estimates are based on a combination of NHS Scotland’s estimates of on-premise alcohol sales and British Beer and Pub Association statistics. Due to the planned exclusion of HDPE from DRS, data on HDPE are not available to the same level of detail. Zero Waste Scotland is currently working with industry to improve estimates for all containers placed on the market in Scotland, using manufacturer and point-of-sale data sources.