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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: S6O-00890

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether a mix of energy sources, including renewables, could facilitate a reduction in energy prices for consumers.

Question reference: S6W-06156

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 9 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many recorded offences of (a) actual and (b) attempted (i) theft from a motor vehicle by opening a lockfast place, (ii) theft of a motor vehicle, (iii) theft by opening a lockfast place, (iv) theft by housebreaking, including housebreaking "with intent", and (v) house burglary there have been in each of the last 10 years, and, of these, (A) how many and (B) what percentage (1) were reported by the public, (2) were subsequently investigated by police, (3) led to charges being brought and (4) resulted in a successful prosecution.

As this requires several tables of data to answer, a response has been provided through the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 63198). Across all crime and justice-related statistics, house burglary is not identified separately from housebreaking. As such each table shows actual and attempted crimes for theft from a motor vehicle by opening a lockfast place, theft of a motor vehicle, theft by opening a lockfast place and theft by housebreaking, including housebreaking ‘with intent’.

Table 1 shows crimes recorded by the police between 2011-12 and 2020-21. We do not hold information on the number or percentage of these crimes that were reported to the police by the public. For information the Scottish Crime & Justice Survey includes estimates of how many property crimes were committed over 2008-09 to 2019-20, and the percentage of them that were reported to the police. Further information on this has been provided alongside the tables. All crimes presented in Table 1 will have been investigated by the police as a crime was recorded by them. Table 2 and Table 3 show the number and percentage of these crime types that were cleared up the police.

Table 4 shows charges brought by Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

Tables 5 and 6 show the number of people proceeded against and the number of people convicted respectively, for these crime types over 2009-10 to 2019-20, and the overall percentage is shown in table 7. The 2020-21 National Statistics will be published later this year.

Care should be taken when comparing different data sources relating to the criminal justice system. For example recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year, charges brought and court proceedings concluded in subsequent years. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

Question reference: S6W-06404

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 9 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with CalMac regarding reported staffing pressures on the Arran ferry routes.

Question reference: S6W-06670

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 7 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many organisations have now signed up to Scotland’s Redress Scheme as contributors.

Question reference: S6W-06669

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 7 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been distributed in payments by Scotland’s Redress Scheme since its launch.

Scotland’s Redress Scheme has been running for twelve weeks and Redress Scotland have begun to make decisions and offers of redress payments. As this process is in its infancy, completed applications and financial payments have not yet reached a level to enable us to disclose payment amounts without comprising the applicants’ data privacy.

It should also be noted that although determinations have been made, all associated payments may not yet have been processed as a fundamental aspect of the scheme is to ensure that applicants have suitable time, up to 6 months following determination, to consider the offer and seek legal advice prior to accepting any payment and signing any necessary waiver relating to their application. Further information regarding payments will be available in due course as more determinations are made, and in line with the reporting responsibilities included in the legislation.

Question reference: S6W-06717

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many free laptops or tablets given to children in the (a) North Ayrshire, (b) Inverclyde, (c) Renfrewshire, (d) East Renfrewshire, (e) West Dunbartonshire and (f) East Dunbartonshire local authority area have been identified as being hacked by external actors; what remedial action was taken; how long this action took to complete, and whether any further security risks were identified with the devices after remedial action was taken.

Question reference: S6W-06715

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many children in the (a) North Ayrshire, (b) Inverclyde, (c) Renfrewshire, (d) East Renfrewshire, (e) West Dunbartonshire and (f) East Dunbartonshire local authority area are eligible to receive a free laptop or tablet, and, of those, how many (i) have received and (ii) are yet to receive a free laptop or tablet.

The following table shows how many school-aged children are in each local authority (as at September 2020) and how many devices have been distributed by councils using the £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

Local authorities across Scotland have a range of approaches to provision of technology in schools, including some councils who have undertaken to provide cohorts of their school population with devices using their own budgets. We do not hold information centrally on those approaches, therefore, the following table only shows devices distributed through the funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all school-aged children and young people in Scotland have access to a digital device by the end of this parliament.

Local Authority	Pupils (as at September 2020)	Devices Distributed
North Ayrshire	18,061	1,734
Inverclyde	9,811	1,107
Renfrewshire	23,845	1,800
East Renfrewshire	17,392	623
West Dunbartonshire	12,522	2,084
East Dunbartonshire	17,304	1,015

Question reference: S6W-06899

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what budget it has provided to the Violence Reduction Unit for each year since 2016-17, and how much will be provided for 2022-23.

The Scottish Government has provided the Violence Reduction Unit with the following funding:

Year			Violence Reduction Unit Funding	Violence Reduction Total Funding
2016	-	2017	£853,616.00	£1,531,668.00
2017	-	2018	£900,000.00	£1,613,000.00
2018	-	2019	£1,010,000.00 *	£1,881,000.00
2019	-	2020	£956,000.00	£1,817,000.00
2020	-	2021	£946,500.00	£1,848,000.00
2021	-	2022	£1,029,500.00	£1,884,500.00
2022 - 2023			£1,170,500.00	£2,041,500.00

*includes a one off payment for additional funding to VRU

Question reference: S6W-06402

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate has been made of the number of instances of international parental child abduction that have originated in Scotland, in each year since 2015.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect statistics on wider international parental child abduction cases outwith the 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction. The Scottish Government’s Central Authority has been involved with 110 cases between 2015 and 2021, where an application under the 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction has been made to a foreign country to bring a child back to Scotland.

Year	Number	Year	Number
2015	16	2019	12
2016	20	2020	18
2017	19	2021	9
2018	16

Question reference: S6W-06153

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government (a) when and (b) how it will introduce legislation in relation to reforming gender recognition procedures.