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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: S6W-21632

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to pay the real Living Wage or provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.

Question reference: S6W-21604

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of the recommendations of the Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship report, including, as stated in its response to the report, progress on the (a) allocation of "funding to support the report's key recommendations" and (b) development of "proposals for the report's core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports".

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Pathways report.

In this financial year we have:

Continued to provide funding to Women’s Enterprise Scotland, Investing Women and Business Women Scotland to allow existing programmes to continue ahead of a shift to competitive funding in future years;
Renewed funding to Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a further round of the Scottish Ecosystem Fund, widened to offer support to projects that address the Pathways review’s key themes; and
As the first phase of work to develop Pre-Start and Pop-Up business supports we have launched the £1.5 million Pathways Pre-Start Fund allocating funding to projects that offer pre-start support and advice to individuals or groups, with emphasis on widening access to primary carers and under-represented groups.

The Scottish Government will work with our agencies and delivery partners to further develop proposals for the report’s core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports, incorporating the knowledge gained from the Ecosystem and Pathways Pre-Start funds with the intention to allow broader services to commence in 2024.

Question reference: S6W-21635

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 29 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how much of the Scottish Industry Energy Transition Fund has been allocated, and for what purpose.

Question reference: S6W-21653

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it will monitor the impact of Investment Zones in Scotland, including any potential displacement effects.

The Scottish and UK Governments will seek to agree a rigorous monitoring and evaluation framework for Scotland’s Investment Zones, working closely with Regional Economic Partners and drawing on external expertise to agree reporting arrangements. Through this continued collaborative working approach with regional partners, we aim to develop proposals with distinct sectoral focus to maximise cluster building, innovation and economic growth, whilst reducing the risk of any potential displacement effects.

Question reference: S6W-21634

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 29 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how much of the Scottish Industry Energy Transformation Fund has been allocated, and for what purpose.

Question reference: S6W-21627

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a detailed remit of the Small Business Unit that was announced in the Programme for Government 2023-24.

Question reference: S6W-21610

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 29 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its commitment to invest £100 million in green hydrogen projects over the course of the current parliamentary session, including a list of all projects and amounts of funding each has received to date.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to helping the Scottish hydrogen sector develop.

The Hydrogen Action Plan, published in December 2022, confirmed that the Scottish Government will support the emerging hydrogen sector through a programme of capital funding, designed to accelerate and maximise the production of renewable hydrogen in Scotland.

The first tranche of our hydrogen investment programme, the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme was launched in 2022 to support research and innovation in hydrogen production, storage, and distribution. In May, the First Minister announced that over £7m in grants had been offered to 32 projects. Details of these projects are published on the Scottish Government website: Emerging Energy Technologies Fund - Hydrogen Innovation Scheme: successful projects - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . All grants are paid in arrears, and will be awarded on successful completion of key project milestones.

The next tranche of the hydrogen investment programme, the up to £90m Green Hydrogen Fund, will launch later in 2023. This fund will focus on supporting renewable hydrogen production from Scotland’s abundant renewable energy resources, seeking to give Scotland first-mover advantage.

Our investment is aimed at driving Scotland’s hydrogen production capability to meet an ambition of at least 5GW of renewable and low carbon hydrogen by 2030 and 25GW by 2045.

Question reference: S6W-21633

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when the recommendations of its Investor Panel will be published.

Question reference: S6W-20708

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 14 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many applicants there were for every apprenticeship offered by individual employers in the last financial year.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has a dedicated website, Apprenticeships | Apprenticeships.scot: Work, Learn & Earn , where Training Providers and/or employers can advertise their Apprenticeship opportunities. SDS holds data on the vacancies posted there including; total number of vacancies posted, number of applicants and employer location. SDS can provide specific information upon request.

It is worth noting that this information only relates to new vacancies advertised on Apprenticeships.scot and does not capture uptake of Apprenticeships by employers looking to upskill existing members of staff.

Some adverts on Apprenticeships.scot do not have a direct application route, as some employers post a link to their own recruitment portal for applicants. SDS are unable to track information of applications on websites other than their own. In addition, some employers may not advertise vacancies on Apprenticeships.scot and choose to advertise via their own websites, so SDS do not hold this information.

Question reference: S6O-02516

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the recommendation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to "develop statutory guidance on the use of restraint on children to ensure that it is used only as a measure of last resort and exclusively to prevent harm to the child or others and monitor its implementation".