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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-06427

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 8 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the budget underspend was in each year from 2018-19 to 2021-22; what the uplift figures have been in each of the last three years, and what the projected (a) underspend and (b) cash reserve is for the year 2022-23.

The underspend on HM Treasury Funds available for each of the three years is as follows:

2018-19 - £339m (£191m Resource, £147m Financial Transactions and £1m Capital)

2019-20 - £256m (£85m Resource, £97m Financial Transactions and £74m Capital)

2020-21 - £426m (£358m Resource, £61m Financial Transactions and £7m Capital)

This includes all planned and anticipated carry forward commitments built into the following years’ budgets.

For 2021-22 the current carry forward requirement is £511m to fulfil known and forecast 2022-23 obligations. Current forecasting is in line with this requirement but remains subject to final movements and the outturn processes. The final underspend figure for 2021-22 will be the 2022-23 Scotland Reserve opening balance.

It is unclear what is meant by funding uplifts in the question.

Question reference: S6W-06722

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what impact assessment was undertaken regarding adding glass to its Deposit Return Scheme, particularly in relation to any rise in plastic packaging use.

The Full Business Case Stage 1 for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), published on 8 May 2019 (pp36-37), considered the costs and benefits of including glass within the scheme and concluded that glass should be included due to the substantial environmental and economic benefits.

We do not consider that there will be extensive switching away from glass containers to other materials as a result of DRS. Format decisions are driven by a range of considerations including practicality, convenience, brand preference and presentation of the product. Indeed, the impact on material choice could be greater if glass were left outside the scope of DRS, creating an incentive to switch towards glass.

Question reference: S6W-06884

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00255 by George Adam on 23 August 2021, whether it plans to publish and maintain an up-to-date list of special advisers and their responsibilities.

Special Advisers are appointed by the First Minister for the purpose of providing assistance to the Scottish Ministers. Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 obligates the Scottish Government to prepare and lay before the Scottish Parliament an annual report about Special Advisers, and additional updates to Special Advisers and their responsibilities are published as appropriate on the Scottish Government website.

Question reference: S6O-00855

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-06721

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 3 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason glass has been included in its Deposit Return Scheme.

Including glass in our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) will bring significant environmental and economic benefits. The inclusion of glass will save over 1.2 megatonnes CO 2 equivalent over 25 years. DRS will also reduce the amount of harmful glass litter in our environment.

In addition, DRS will significantly increase the quantity and quality of glass recyclate, creating an aggregated and high-quality feedstock for reprocessing. This will include clear glass which we understand to be in high demand.

Question reference: S6O-00851

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-06337

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether the net benefit figure for Business, in table 2 of annex F of the publication, A Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland: Final Business Regulatory Impact Assessment, of £333 million is calculated as the sum of -£1,291 and £920 million, and, if so, whether the figure is correct, and, if not, how the figure is calculated.

Annex F of the updated Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), which we published alongside the draft DRS Regulations on 15 December 2021, provides a sensitivity analysis of the economic case for DRS by analysing two assumptions for key scheme parameters raised by industry: a figure of 2.7bn containers per year placed on the market (compared to the 2.2bn originally modelled) and a figure of 37,000 return points (compared to the 17,000 originally modelled).

Although the original assumptions published in Table 3 of the same BRIA remain our final, and best, estimate of the costs and benefits associated with DRS, we analysed the impact on the 25-year net present value (NPV) based on these two figures suggested by industry.

Annex F, Table 2 sets out an overall NPV of £583m if the two industry assumptions are taken into account, and provides a breakdown of this figure by sector. The overall figure of £583m has been re-validated and is correct. However, a manual error was made in copying over some of the data cells in this table. The corrected figures are set out in the table below. It is important to note that the error does not affect the overall findings of the BRIA; nor does it change the overall net present value that was presented in Table 2, Annex F.

When we were notified of this error we immediately corrected it by writing to the Convener of the Net Zero, Energy, and Transport Committee. We have amended the published Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment on the Scottish Government website. To provide further reassurance following the detection of this error, all other data presented in the BRIA have been re-validated and confirmed to be correct.

Actor Name	Costs (£m)	Benefits (£m)	Net Benefit (£m)
Local Authorities	- 45	219	173
Business	- 1,325	931	- 394
Regulator	- 17	0	- 17
System Operator	- 603	1,331	727
Society	- 1,116	1,209	94
Total	- 3,106	3,690	583
Note. The DRS for Scotland is designed to optimise delivery against the four strategic outcomes and to be complementary to any future packaging EPR scheme.

Figures may not sum due to rounding

Question reference: S6W-06286

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether additional funding will be allocated to the Deposit Return Scheme, in light of the reported estimation by Circularity Scotland Limited that there are 37,000 return points, rather than the 17,000 outlined in business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA) and, if so, how much more will be allocated.

Question reference: S6W-06336

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 24 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) time period and (b) discount rate of return was used to calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) figures in table 2 of annex F of the publication, A Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland: Final Business Regulatory Impact Assessment.

Question reference: S6W-05978

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ivan Mckee on 3 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05645 by Ivan McKee on 19 January 2022, what epidemiological evidence it considered when classifying the bingo sector as a live event.

As I noted in my previous response to the member, the indoor events capacity limits were introduced in regulations from 26 December 2021 in order to mitigate the greatly increased transmission rates of the omicron COVID-19 variant, recognising that large capacity events indoors pose a high risk of transmission of the virus. The capacity limits were removed from 24 January. The Scottish Government does not assess risk on a sector by sector basis as the risks of a significant number of people gathering together indoors is the same regardless of the activity that brings them together. For the purposes of the capacity limits on indoor gatherings the Scottish Government considers a live event to be something that brings together a significant number of people for communal participation in a leisure or entertainment activity.