- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 20 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the use of the woody residue from filters used to clean emissions from wood drying and board pressing processes, known as crumb waste, as a fuel for electricity generation.
Answer
Answer expected on 20 March 2025
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 6 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much public funding has been given to fossil fuel companies in each year since 2021 for the development of carbon capture and storage technology.
Answer
The Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies have provided £1,354,000 for the development of carbon capture and storage technology in 2025.
The Scottish Government has committed £2m of grant funding support to the National Gas Transmission SCO2T Connect Project and to date, £1,345,000 of this funding has been provided.
The Scottish Government remains wholly committed to supporting the development and deployment of CCUS, including the Acorn Project and the Scottish Cluster. Unfortunately, the UK Government continue to delay making a final decision on the Acorn Project which is risking billions of private sector investment and thousands of jobs.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 6 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government by what date it will bring forward measures relating to the consultation on the review of the regional strategic bodies in the Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions.
Answer
As set within the answer to the question S6W-32198 on 12 December 2024, the Scottish Government will proceed with plans to reform the governance arrangements within the Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions following consultation. Subject to the Parliamentary process, the new arrangements will be in place for the start of academic year 2025-26.
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
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether the Conflict Avoidance Process will be included in the construction contract for the replacement prison for HMP Barlinnie.
Answer
I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:
The contract for HMP Glasgow was awarded under a two-stage design and build contract using the “Scottish Building Contracts Committee (SBCC) Design and Build Contract for use in Scotland 2016 Edition” contract form.
Whilst this contract form does not include a formal Conflict Avoidance Process, it is designed to avoid unnecessary contractual disputes arising during contract delivery.
The standard clauses in the SBCC conditions contract already recognise that mediation should be utilised before resorting to Adjudication in the event of a dispute or disagreement arising. SPS has however also included a specific amendment which provides an explicit undertaking by directors or senior representatives of the parties to the contract to resolve any contractual differences within 5 business days of the matter arising before mediation is considered.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recommendations of the STUC report, Employment and Corporate Practice in Scotland's wind sector, including those regarding trade union membership of the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council.
Answer
The expansion of offshore wind presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create thousands of high-quality jobs. While employment law is reserved, we will continue to use the levers at our disposal to promote fair work practices across the labour market in Scotland.
The STUC is a member of the Scottish Energy Advisory Board and has also been invited to sit on the Offshore Wind Skills Short-Life Working Group being convened by the Scottish Government. This involvement ensures that the STUC can contribute to shaping the development of the offshore wind sector and its alignment with fair work and just transition principles.
We welcome this important research by the Scottish Trades Union Congress and will carefully consider its findings.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with Equinor since December 2023.
Answer
Scottish Government Ministers and Officials engage with major energy companies and employers on a regular basis as part of their duties.
As part of this engagement, Energy and Climate Change Directorate officials most recently met with Equinor in February 2025. The Marine Directorate also regularly engages with offshore oil and gas operators, including Equinor, as part of its chemical assessment contract with the UK Government’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero; and with respect to Equinor’s floating offshore wind project Hywind. Ministers and officials also attend a range of industry events where developers and investors in offshore energy are present.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 4 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason its paper, Scotland’s Circular Economy and Waste Route Map to 2030, does not appear to address artificial turf and crumb rubber.
Answer
The Circular Economy & Waste Route Map to 2030 provides a framework to tackle the environmental impact of priority products, and take a targeted, coordinated approach to managing materials across the waste hierarchy. This approach recognises the variation in emissions or environmental impact of production, consumption or waste management of different materials and products.
As part of the delivery of the Route Map’s priority actions, we will give full consideration to research regarding specific products or materials, such as artificial turf, to ensure we are prioritising action based on products’ environmental and economic impact.
Sportscotland, our national agency for sport, is part of the UK Artificial Grass Pitch forum monitoring work on the long-term viability of these products. Sportscotland continues to engage with sporting bodies, educational bodies and key partners across the sporting sector in the development of synthetic pitches and surfaces.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 3 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Forestry and Land Scotland regarding its biodiversity strategy.
Answer
Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has supported the Scottish Government in the development of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy (SBS) and Delivery Plan, through participation in official working groups ran by the Environment and Forestry Directorate.
FLS provided written evidence to Scottish Forestry officials on forest policy related actions which subsequently fed into the SBS.
FLS are now discussing internally how to support delivery of the Biodiversity Actions which will be summarised in their next corporate plan.
As Scotland’s largest manager of wild deer FLS provided practitioner input to the development of the SBS reflecting the critical dependency for SBS outcomes to be enabled by proactive deer management by all land managers.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 28 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will bring forward amendments at stage 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill to include urban areas.
Answer
As I said at my recent evidence session on the Bill with the NZET Committee, Meeting of the Parliament: lghp/18/02/2025 | Scottish Parliament Website we are not going to fix all the issues in either rural or urban Scotland in this one piece of legislation. Other pieces of work are ongoing that will have an impact on urban areas.
These include the Community Right to Buy review which is looking at how effective existing powers are in both rural and urban areas, as well as work on compulsory sales orders and Compulsory Purchase Reform, a public consultation on the latter being due later this year.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 28 February 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how the proposals in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will impact on people and communities in the Central Scotland region.
Answer
The proposals in the Bill stem from the work and recommendations of the Scottish Land Commission. It found the most pressing land reform issues were in rural areas in relation to the scale and concentration of land ownership and the resultant impact on local communities.
While there will only be a small number of landholdings in the Central Scotland region which will meet the threshold tests in the Bill, the proposals allow for the amending of these thresholds in future, should monitoring suggest this is justified.
