Questions and answers

Question reference: S6T-02121

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that pensioners can afford to heat their homes this winter.

Question reference: S6W-29928

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 30 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-28938 by Fiona Hyslop on 9 September 2024, whether its restatement of the position is confirmation that it has not made an assessment of the scope of the role of Transport Scotland, including any duplication of (a) responsibility and (b) funding in the period (i) before and (ii) after the new structures were put in place regarding the nationalisation of ScotRail, and, if this is not the case, and it has made such an assessment, whether it will provide the information requested.

Transport Scotland considered carefully the respective roles of ScotRail Trains, Scottish Rail Holdings and Transport Scotland when establishing the appropriate arrangements under the requirements of the current flawed UK rail legislation.

An important consideration has been that the cost of these arrangements would be significantly less than the alternative management and contract costs associated with the previous private franchise arrangements.

Question reference: S6W-30048

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether the regeneration capital grant fund for the community element of the Victoria Road School project in Torry has been allowed to roll over into 2024-25.

Question reference: S6O-03755

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will set out how it measures economic growth, including what metrics it uses to assess success in economic growth.

Question reference: S6W-29416

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs there have been in the hospitality sector in each of the last 10 years.

The Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES), produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), is the preferred source for jobs estimates for industry sectors. The latest available BRES jobs estimates are for 2022 with consistent time series available back to 2015. Jobs estimates for the Accommodation and Food Service Activities sector for 2015 to 2022 are shown in the following table.

Table 1: Estimated jobs in the Accommodation and Food Service Activities sector, Scotland, 2015 to 2022

YEAR	JOBS ESTIMATE
2015	210,000
2016	191,000
2017	197,000
2018	207,000
2019	214,000
2020	179,000
2021	196,000
2022	216,000

Source: Business Register and Employment Survey

Notes:

1.These data are available from Table 2.5 of the Scottish Government Industry Statistics Database: Industry statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

2.Estimates are rounded to the nearest thousand.

3.Estimates include all employee jobs within VAT/PAYE registered enterprises, and also working owners of VAT/PAYE registered enterprises. However, the employment jobs estimate does not include those that are self-employed in enterprises that are not registered for VAT/PAYE i.e. the smallest sole traders/partnerships.

Question reference: S6W-29414

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 16 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what economic assessment it has made of the recovery of the hospitality sector since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Latest data shows that both output and employment in the hospitality sector are above pre-pandemic levels. However, the sector continues to face challenges related to rising costs, squeezed household budgets and staff shortages. Whilst cost rises and recruitment difficulties have eased somewhat over the last 12 months, the sector remains more impacted than the economy overall. These challenges appear to be affecting business viability, with insolvencies and business closures in the sector rising over the past two years. However, the insolvency rate in the sector remains lower than that in the rest of Great Britain and the business closure rate remains lower than in the UK as a whole and is broadly in-line with the pre-pandemic period. The total number of businesses in the sector is growing modestly, with business births marginally exceeding closures.

The Scottish Government’s Evaluation of COVID-19 Business Support Measures in Scotland, published in June 2022, found that the Accommodation and Food Services sector had the highest proportion of firms receiving support from Scottish Government grants out of all sectors and was also one of the sectors that benefited most from the support provided by the Scottish and UK Governments, in terms of the proportion of businesses reporting that the support helped them continue trading.

The forthcoming Fair Work Convention Hospitality Inquiry Report, which will be published on 24 September 2024, includes a high-level assessment of the recovery of the hospitality sector since the pandemic and subsequent cost crisis as underpinning evidence for its more detailed assessment of fair work within the sector.

The Scottish Government wants a strong and high value hospitality sector in Scotland. We will do all we can to support businesses to be successful and resilient and will continue to engage directly with the sector, to monitor evolving impacts of the ongoing cost crisis, and to work with the UK Government to support Scottish businesses. The 2024-25 Scottish Budget delivers a competitive non-domestic rates regime with the lowest poundage in the UK for the sixth year in a row, and a package of reliefs worth an estimated £685 million, including the Small Business Bonus Scheme which continues to be the most generous relief of its kind in the UK. We estimate around half the properties in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors are eligible for 100% Small Business Bonus Scheme relief in 2024-25.

Question reference: S6W-29421

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 13 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its announcement on 28 August 2024 of £2.6 million being provided to Sistema Scotland, when that funding will be provided to Sistema Scotland; whether the funding will be provided in full or in tranches, and whether the Scottish Government will decide how the funding will be allocated across the Sistema organisation or whether Sistema Scotland has total control and decision-making powers.

As with any grant agreement, in providing funds to Sistema Scotland, the Scottish Government and Sistema Scotland agree how funds will be used and when payments will be made. In 2024-25 the Scottish Government will provide £2.6m to Sistema Scotland from the culture budget to sustain and develop the Big Noise programmes which give almost 4,000 children and young people the opportunity to realise their potential through music education. This will be paid in three equal tranches. The first tranche was paid in August 2024. The next 2 payments will be made in November 2024 and February 2025.

Question reference: S6W-29417

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what data it holds on how many job vacancies there have been in the hospitality sector in each of the last 10 years.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of job vacancies by sector.

However, the Scottish Government monitors vacancies in the hospitality sector using data and intelligence from a number of sources including the Business Insights and Conditions Survey, the Employer Skills Survey and Sectoral Skills Assessments.

The latest data from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey, published by the Scottish Government, shows that 29% of businesses in the Accommodation and Food Services sector were experiencing recruitment difficulties in July 2024 and 23% were experiencing worker shortages in August 2024. The latest data is available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/bics-weighted-scotland-estimates-data-to-wave-114/documents/.

The latest data from the Employer Skills Survey, published by the Scottish Government, shows that in 2022, 30% of businesses in the Hotels and Restaurants sector had at least one vacancy and 13% had at least one skills-shortage vacancy. The latest data is available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/uk-employer-skills-survey-2022-scotland-report/documents/.

Sectoral Skills Assessments, published by Skills Development Scotland, provide data on the number of online job postings in the wider tourism sector, sourced from Lightcast. The latest data indicates that between January-June 2023, there were 5,000 online job postings for chefs and cooks and 2,300 job postings for waiters and waitresses. The latest sectoral skills assessment for the tourism sector can be found at: https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/l55d3jqy/sectoral-skills-assessment-tourism.pdf.

The Scottish Government is taking measures within our powers to address labour and skills shortage issues. These include providing a range of employability support to help people enter the workforce alongside funding for the development of modern apprenticeships, via Skills Development Scotland, to meet the needs of the tourism and hospitality sector.

We are also working to explore solutions to staff shortages in collaboration with the sector, through our Tourism and Hospitality Industry Leadership Group and our Tourism and Hospitality Skills Group.

Question reference: S6W-29419

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what data it holds in relation to the gender pay gap within the hospitality sector.

Estimates of the gender pay gap for full-time employees in the accommodation and food services sector in Scotland are published in Table 2.5 of the Scottish Government’s summary of earnings statistics from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings: Annual survey of hours and earnings: 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The gender pay gap estimates included in Table 2.5 measure the difference between median hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men and women as a proportion of men's median hourly earnings (excluding overtime).

Question reference: S6W-29418

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 September 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of what the median hourly pay in the hospitality sector has been in each of the last 10 years.

The Scottish Government monitors pay in the hospitality sector using data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (table 5.6a) published by the Office for National Statistics. This data is available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/regionbyindustry2digitsicashetable5.

The latest available data shows that median gross hourly pay (excluding overtime) for all employees in the Accommodation and Food Services sector was estimated to be £10.89 in 2023. This was the lowest median hourly pay across all industrial sectors in Scotland for which data are published by ONS. The median gross hourly pay in the Accommodation and Food Service sector for the last 10 years is shown in the following table.

Table 1: Median gross hourly pay (excluding overtime) in the accommodation and food services sector, 2014-2023

YEAR	MEDIAN GROSS HOURLY PAY (EXCLUDING OVERTIME)
2014	£6.63
2015	£7.00
2016	£7.44
2017	£7.69
2018	£8.01
2019	£8.52
2020	£8.72
2021	£8.90
2022	£10.00
2023	£10.89

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, ONS

The Fair Work Convention considered pay, including information on median hourly pay, in the hospitality sector as part of its recent inquiry into fair work in the hospitality industry in Scotland. The Fair Work Convention Hospitality Inquiry Report will be published on 24 September 2024.

Fair work is at the heart of our national Tourism Strategy, Scotland Outlook 2030, which commits to support and enable the adoption of fair work practices in Scotland’s tourism and hospitality sector. We continue to promote fair work measures in the sector which will help businesses attract and retain staff and will carefully consider recommendations from the Fair Work Convention’s hospitality inquiry and take forward as appropriate.

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