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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: S5T-02122

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 April 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 April 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that thousands of people in Scotland have lost their home-care support during the COVID-19 crisis.

Question reference: S5W-28270

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 24 April 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether Education Maintenance Allowance is available to unaccompanied child asylum seekers, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Government wants young people to be able to choose from the same learning opportunities regardless of background or circumstance.

Under paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Education Maintenance Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2007, it is stated that all applicants who have been given some form of legal leave to enter or remain in the UK are eligible to apply for Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), provided they also satisfy the other EMA eligibility criteria, such as:

having a household income under the EMA threshold (where the household income is £24,241 or less before tax for households with one dependent child or £26,884 before tax for households with more than one dependent child.
being of age -recipients will normally be aged between 16 and 19 years (inclusive), and
be taking part in an eligible course of learning.

Question reference: S5W-28271

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 20 April 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-22108 by John Swinney on 20 March 2019, whether it will provide the information for 2019 regarding the number of additional support for learning (a) teachers and (b) classroom assistants there were in each local authority.

(a) Additional Support Needs (ASN) Teachers - Full Time Equivalents

The following table sets out the full time equivalent of additional support for learning teachers in each authority in 2019.

	2019
Aberdeen City	150
Aberdeenshire	258
Angus	84
Argyll and Bute	53
City of Edinburgh	135
Clackmannanshire	33
Dumfries and Galloway	98
Dundee City	100
East Ayrshire	112
East Dunbartonshire	113
East Lothian	37
East Renfrewshire	31
Falkirk	86
Fife	174
Glasgow City	157
Highland	164
Inverclyde	32
Midlothian	51
Moray	95
Na h-Eileanan Siar	20
North Ayrshire	111
North Lanarkshire	143
Orkney Islands	28
Perth and Kinross	82
Renfrewshire	56
Scottish Borders	64
Shetland Islands	34
South Ayrshire	97
South Lanarkshire	103
Stirling	39
West Dunbartonshire	45
West Lothian	52

All local authorities	2836

This includes teachers with their main subject recorded as: Learning Support Secondary; Learning Support, Primary; Special Educational Needs (SEN) (primary) non-recorded pupils; SEN (recorded pupils); SEN (Secondary) non-recorded pupils; SEN Behavioural Support; SEN Learning Difficulties; SEN Physical Disabilities; Hearing Impairment; Visual Impairment; or English as an Additional Language (EAL). Teachers from all sectors, primary, secondary, special schools and centrally employed, are included. Teachers in grant-aided schools are not included.

(b) Classroom Assistants, Additional Support Needs Auxiliaries or Care Assistants - Full Time Equivalents

The use of the term 'classroom assistant' varies between local authorities and is sometimes used interchangeably with 'additional support needs auxiliary or care assistant'. Therefore these two categories of school support staff are combined and reported as 'pupil support assistants' in the published statistics on school support staff.

Statistics on the number of pupil support assistants by local authority from the 2019 staff census are published in Table 1.1 of the 2019 School Support Staff statistics, available on the Scottish Government website here https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-statistics/ .

Question reference: S5W-28237

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 April 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 20 April 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its response of 15 July 2019 to the Hunterston PARC Masterplan, whether this response still reflects its position, or whether its position has changed in light of its declaration of a climate emergency.

Our response to the consultation on the masterplan was informed by our existing energy policy, and by our planning policies as set out in National Planning Framework 3 (2014).

We are currently preparing National Planning Framework 4. This will take into account more recent wider Scottish Government policies, including our climate change targets, and our energy policy which recognises that innovative use of hydrocarbons could play a role in reducing emissions including as part of a hydrogen future scenario. We expect to lay a draft National Planning Framework 4 in the Scottish Parliament for consultation and scrutiny in 2021.

Question reference: S5W-27832

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 19 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the reports in the Sunday Mail on 8 March 2020, what safeguards are in place to ensure that products developed using Scottish Enterprise funding for the civilian sector are not used in military applications.

Question reference: S5W-27674

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to regulate the use of aluminium chemistry in water treatment by the municipal waste water and construction sectors to the same standards.

Question reference: S5W-27672

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much aluminium chemistry has been used by Scottish Water in waste water treatment in each year since 2015, and whether the company is required to conduct aluminium assessments to justify the use of this.

Scottish Water have over 1,800 wastewater treatment works across Scotland. However, only a small proportion of these use aluminium as part of the waste water treatment process and it has used an average of around 2.5 million litres of chemicals containing Aluminium per annum over the last 5 years.

In terms of whether the company is required to conduct aluminium assessments, I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-27671 on 12 March 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-27675

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the size of a company or public body has on its application of the regulations regarding the use of aluminium chemistry in water treatment.

Question reference: S5W-27671

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the use of aluminium chemistry in municipal waste water treatment.

Under its standard regulatory guidance (WAT-SG-13, available on its website), SEPA discourages the use of aluminium dosing due to its toxicity. Aluminium dosing at wastewater treatment works should only be used in situations where ferric dosing is impracticable. The operator also needs to provide full justification for the use of aluminium. If aluminium is proposed, the standards to be followed are those set out in SEPA's regulatory method (WAT-RM-12), which will determine discharge limits. However, to limit discharge levels in high dilution situations, a backstop discharge limit of 10mg/l dissolved aluminium may need to be used.

Where an aluminium-based product is proposed for use in municipal wastewater treatment, SEPA uses a tiered approach to assess the level of risk that the substance's use may pose the environment. This requires the operator in the first instance to share details of the process, the chemicals used and their properties (through for example a safety datasheet). If this information is not sufficient to demonstrate safe use, SEPA would require further information on the process and specific details like discharge and receiving water flow rates, for example. This information could then be used to assess the risk a chemical’s use poses to the environment, as the result of the environmental exposure versus the intrinsic chemical hazard (e.g. the risk quotient as defined by predicted environmental concentration divided by predicted no-effect concentration). SEPA may ask the operator to derive this, but may do so itself if necessary. Further information may then be required if a risk is indicated in an iterative process to refine the risk assessment. If safe use cannot be demonstrated, restrictions may be placed on the use of the substance.

Question reference: S5W-27676

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2020
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether quantitative chemical risk assessments should be used to justify the use of chemical aids in the (a) municipal and (b) construction waste water sector.