- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many households it estimates will be impacted by the proposed ban on building new homes with gas boilers from 2024.
Answer
All households occupying a new home warranted after 1 April 2024 will be impacted by the proposed prohibition on the installation of Direct Emissions Heating Systems, including gas boilers, from that date. We will publish details on the projected number of new build homes and conversions impacted by the Standard as part of our Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) which will be made available alongside the regulations in spring 2023.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to hold future ScotWind offshore wind leasing rounds.
Answer
ScotWind is at the very early stages, with Option Agreements setting out a potential development of 27.6GW. We are also awaiting the results of Crown Estate Scotland’s evaluation of the INTOG applications, which could deliver a further 5.7GW of targeted oil and gas decarbonisation projects. The need for future offshore wind planning and leasing rounds will be subject to ongoing evaluation of the current programme and the outcome of supporting assessments, such as the Iterative Plan Review, that take into account the further development of a just transition, new and emerging technology and our net zero commitments.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government when the Green Heat Finance Taskforce last met and what actions were agreed.
Answer
The Green Heat Finance Taskforce meets on a bi-monthly basis with the last meeting taking place on 2 November 2022. All meeting summaries and action points of the Green Heat Finance Taskforce are published on the Green Heat Finance Taskforce webpage following confirmation of Member's approval at the following meeting. Therefore, the action points of the November meeting will be made available on the website in January 2023.
- Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, have worked on tobacco policy within its Health Improvement Division in each year since 2017-18.
Answer
The following table details the number of full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, who have worked on tobacco policy within Health Improvement Division since 2017-18.
Please note the following:
- numbers do not equate to head count within Health Improvement Division.
- vacancies have not been included.
- numbers have been compiled using historic Scottish Government HR records
- during 2020/21 some staff would have focused on COVID pandemic response work
| | 31 March 2017 | 31 March 2018 | 31 March 2019 | 31 March 2020 | 31 March 2021 | 31 March 2022 | 10 January 2023 |
C2 | - | - | - | - | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.9 |
C1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.6 |
B3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | - |
B2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
B1 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | | 1 | 1 |
A4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Total | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to help facilitate the development of a community-based heating scheme.
Answer
Reducing emissions from our homes and buildings is one of the most important things we can do to help end Scotland’s contribution to climate change, and communities have a key role to play within this.
The Scottish Government’s £300 million Heat Network Fund offers capital grant funding for the rollout of new zero emission heat networks and communal heating systems, as well as the expansion and decarbonisation of existing heat networks across Scotland.
At the start of December, our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) launched the Community Heat Development Programme. This programme will work with eligible community organisations and groups of householders to help develop their ideas for locally-generated, low and zero carbon heat project ideas.
- Asked by: Emma Roddick, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the publication, Neurological Conditions: estimating the prevalence in Scotland of selected conditions using General Practice and Hospital Admissions datasets, for what reasons there are no data on the prevalence of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) from (a) NHS Highland and (b) NHS Ayrshire and Arran.
Answer
NHS Ayrshire & Arran and NHS Highland did not participate in the extraction of data from the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE), so we were unable to provide general practice data on the prevalence of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for these Boards.
- Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff, broken down by grade, have been employed by Public Health Scotland and its predecessors, Health Protection Scotland and NHS Scotland’s Information Services Division, to work on tobacco policy in each year since 2017-18.
Answer
This is a matter for Public Health Scotland. The information requested is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions have taken place regarding potentially establishing a Rural Homes Just Transition Package.
Answer
Scottish Government officials had discussions with the Existing Homes Alliance during 2022 as part of the Alliance’s work to develop a Rural Homes Just Transition Package .
Our own National Just Transition Framework will ensure that those likely to face the greatest impacts as a result of the transition to net zero, including rural communities, are given a voice. Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, due to be published early next year, involved engagement with 1500 people (including businesses, workers, communities and young people).
We are producing Just Transition Plans for Transport, Land and Agriculture, Buildings and Construction that will publish in draft form in November 2023 alongside the new Climate Change Plan.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the proposed 24% reduction in spending on More Homes in 2023-24, what its revised resource planning assumptions are for local authorities to plan their housing supply for 2021-22 to 2025-26, broken down by local authority area.
Answer
The 24% reduction is when comparing the total More Homes budget in 2023-24 against the total More Homes budget in 2022-23. The profile of our more than £3.5 billion commitment over this parliament varies from year to year as do its component parts which include capital, financial transactions and anticipated receipts.
The £751.945m budget for 2023-24 for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme has reduced by 4.7% from that previously planned, a net decrease of £37.320m, and will be supplemented by donations from the Charitable Bond Programme and contributions from the Heat in Buildings Fund for the installation of zero emission heating systems in affordable homes where these systems are installed.
Our guidance asks Local Authorities to over plan in their Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) programmes against these planning assumptions by at least 25% to mitigate delays to housing programmes. There are therefore no plans to revise Resource Planning Assumptions for 2023-24. Any in year funding pressures that emerge will be managed in discussion with local partners. Planned annual budgets for the remainder of the parliament have not been reduced.
- Asked by: Emma Roddick, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the publication, Neurological Conditions: estimating the prevalence in Scotland of selected conditions using General Practice and Hospital Admissions datasets, of those with a diagnosis of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and in the GP practice dataset, what proportion were (a) female and (b) male.
Answer
This publication’s Supporting Documents include a spreadsheet file titled ‘General Practice recorded diagnoses’. Table 4 in this spreadsheet shows GP recorded diagnoses of neurological conditions, by sex and age, for each neurological condition shown . In some cases small numbers have been suppressed to help maintain patient confidentiality. Taking into account the suppression of small numbers, the approximate split of diagnoses for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is as follows: (a) Female – 69% (b) Male – 31%.
Please note that that this percentage breakdown draws on figures which do not cover the whole of Scotland. The general practices whose data are included represented 72.7% of registered patients at the time of the data extract.