Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-04667

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has undertaken with the education sector in island communities, such as Orkney, which are reportedly seeing increasing pressures around funding and staff retention, particularly in relation to the provision of additional support for learning.

Question reference: S6O-04630

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans to introduce a cruise ship levy, including the option for local authorities to apply a "point of entry" levy.

Question reference: S6O-04543

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to provide continuity of funding through the Rural and Islands Housing Fund.

Question reference: S6O-04467

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that there is adequate access to support in schools for children with additional support needs in island areas, including the Orkney constituency.

Question reference: S6W-35219

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 11 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government on what dates since 2011 was the timescale for the completion of HMP Highland communicated to it, and what the estimated timescale was at each update.

There has been regular communication between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service on HMP Highland, including time-scales for completion, since 2011, in line with updates to the Infrastructure Investment Plan.

In December 2011 the Scottish Government was updated that completion dates for HMP Highland were uncertain.
In October 2015 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2019.
In September 2016 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2020.
In July 2018 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2021.
In April 2019 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2023.
In September 2020 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2024.
In September 2022 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2025.
In February 2024 the Scottish Government was updated that the most likely time-scale for construction completion was 2026.

Question reference: S6W-35218

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 11 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government on what dates since 2011 were any costs of HMP Highland communicated to the Scottish Government, and what the estimated costs were on each date.

There has been regular communication between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service on HMP Highland, including costs, since 2011, in line with updates to the Infrastructure Investment Plan.

In September 2011 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £52m.
In August 2014 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £62.8m.
In December 2015 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £66m.
In July 2018 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £73.9m.
In November 2018 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £80.5m.
In March 2020 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £92m.
In February 2021 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £98m - £110m.
In July 2022 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland was estimated at £139.5m.
In February 2024 the Scottish Government was updated that the total capital investment for HMP Highland would be £209m.

Question reference: S6W-35220

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 11 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government which contractors bid to build HMP Highland.

Question reference: S6W-35224

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 11 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what additional resources it will provide to prison officers working in overcrowded conditions at HMP Inverness until the new replacement prison is completed.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-35129 on 4 March 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-35216

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 24 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 10 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners have been given early release from HMP Barlinnie in each month since January 2022.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS have proactively published a range of data relating to Emergency Release (ER) on SPS Website, this includes a recently published a summary report of ER returns to custody data.

We continue to be as open and transparent as possible, whilst continuing to meet our statutory obligation to ensure that those in our care have their personal information protected; as such we have taken the decision not to publish a breakdown of establishments of those released under the ER scheme as some of the data could relate to a small group of individuals, which may lead to their inadvertent identification.

Question reference: S6W-35293

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 7 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-19194 by Paul McLennan on 28 June 2023, when it plans to publish the next local authority analysis for the Scottish House Condition Survey.

The Scottish Government publishes local authority analysis using a three-year pooled data set to ensure sufficient sample sizes. As set out in the Scottish House Condition Survey 2023 Key Findings Report (available at Scottish House Condition Survey: 2023 Key Findings - gov.scot) the lack of SHCS data for 2020 and the enforced changes for 2021 cause issues with the production of this analysis for two reasons.

Firstly, due to the Covid-19 pandemic the SHCS survey was suspended and there is no data for 2020. Secondly, the data from the 2021 external+ SHCS is not directly comparable with that for earlier years, due to methodological differences, and therefore it would not be appropriate to combine it with the data for 2019 (or earlier) to produce a multi-year analysis.

As we require three years of data to produce local authority analysis, we won’t be able to return to the usual approach for producing local authority estimates from the SHCS until the 2024 wave of the SHCS has been published in early 2026. We will then be able to produce local authority estimates from the SHCS based on a three-year average for 2022 to 2024.

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