Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-11956

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 15 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what responses the First Minister’s Environmental Council gave to the question, posed to the Council at its June 2022 meeting, “In your experience, what are the best mechanisms to reduce consumption of raw materials and how do they fit with the policy priorities that [the Scottish Government has] identified?”.

The First Minister’s Environmental Council’s responses to the question regarding mechanisms to reduce consumption in raw materials can be found in the minutes of the meeting on 13 June 2022: www.gov.scot/publications/first-ministers-environmental-council-minutes-june-2022/

Specifically, the minutes report that:

members suggested an increase in community and stakeholder engagement to understand how best to incentivise household recycling - noting the lack of standardised recycling across local authorities and the social barriers to recycling.
members highlighted chemical recycling as a key example to support a fundamental shift: i.e. chemicals in products holding back recycling potential. Members suggested further investigation on targeting the use of critical elements such as Lithium
support was provided on embedding circular economy practices into construction and product design. Key challenge is addressing the generation of waste, not just managing existing waste.
need to consider low carbon as well as recycled materials and understand the evidence behind different choices is important here.

Question reference: S6W-11777

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10334 by Mairi Gougeon on 13 September 2022, what proportion of the £564 million Common Agriculture Policy payments in 2021 was specifically allocated to support wool farmers.

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments are not specifically allocated to wool farmers. Sheep producers in Scotland are however eligible for a number of CAP support schemes including the Basic Payment Scheme (payments total circa. £418 million), Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (payments total circa. £62 million) and the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (payments total circa £7 million).

Question reference: S6W-11779

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the amount of emissions generated from the manufacture of textiles in Scotland in each of the last five years.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Government is unable to produce these specific statistics as the Greenhouse Gas Inventory that we use does not allow us to extract data separately for textiles. However, a one-off project published in November 2020 ( available here ) shows estimates for textiles manufacturing. We have also included the estimates for wearing apparel from 2014-2018. Please see the following table.

These statistics are on a ‘residence basis’ which differs slightly from the territorial basis we usually use. Nonetheless, we expect the difference between residential and territorial emissions for textiles to be minor.

Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 103 Economic Sectors 1998 to 2018
Residence basis
Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydro-fluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons
sulphur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride expressed in thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent

SIC(07) group		2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
13	Textiles	105.4	108.4	108.4	104.8	100.7
14	Wearing apparel	23.5	24.0	23.6	21.4	21.1

Question reference: S6W-11774

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many wool-related applications have progressed to stage 2 in relation to the Circular Textiles Fund.

Question reference: S6W-11776

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-11018 by Lorna Slater on 30 September 2022, what the intended aim is of the 75% split in favour of capital expenditure in the overall grant budget allocation of the Circular Textiles Fund, in light of the fact that applications are not required to include capital expenditure.

Question reference: S6W-11775

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-11018 by Lorna Slater on 30 September 2022, how many applications that do not include capital expenditure elements have been successful at stage 1 in relation to the Circular Textiles Fund.

Question reference: S6W-11778

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10333 by Mairi Gougeon on 13 September 2022, whether it will provide details of the terms and timeline of the review of the British Wool Board.

The review of the British Wool Board is being conducted by Defra in collaboration with British Wool and the Devolved Administrations. The review is intended to produce a set of recommendations for improvements to the current model which will be agreed by UK and Devolved Ministers. In part this will be looking at:

The merits of the current model for UK producers and Administrations and what improvements could be made within the existing framework:
An Assessment of the changes that would be needed to the legislation, along with a timescale for implementation

The final report and recommendations is expected to be completed and signed off by all Ministers by the end of the year.

Question reference: S6O-01470

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an update on the progress that has been made on a Deposit Return Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-11282

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 30 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 18 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10252 by Michael Matheson on 7 September 2022, for what reason no monitoring activity was undertaken in areas of high population and high population density, such as Aberdeen City, Dundee City, East and West Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire, and how it plans to monitor potential risks in those areas.

Sampling was carried out in the Chemical Investigation Programme 2 (CIP2) Scotland in areas of high density and low dilution wastewater treatment works (WwTW) at inland watercourses to identify WwTW at the greatest risk of non-compliance with the Priority Substance Directive. A selection of WwTW were chosen to represent influent, effluent, upstream and downstream of WwTW in order to keep the cost of testing the extensive suite of substances affordable. CIP2 Scotland consisted of over 160,000 results.

Aberdeen City, Dundee City, East & West Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire are served by WwTW that discharge to coastal waters rather than inland waters. In CIP3 Scotland, sampling is being carried out at WwTW which discharge to coastal & transitional waters. Sampling is being carried out from Dalmuir & Ardoch WwTW which serve East & West Dunbartonshire and Shieldhall WwTW which serves East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire.

Question reference: S6W-11235

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 18 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10660 by Maree Todd on 27 September 2022, what its position is on whether questions around eating disorders should be incorporated into future Scottish Health Surveys, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Government recognises the impact that eating disorders can have on people's lives. Questions on eating disorders will be considered, alongside other requests for new questions submitted as part of the recent review of the Scottish Health Survey content , for possible inclusion in the survey from 2024, if some existing questions can be removed. A report will be published by summer 2023 detailing the findings of the review and decisions on the survey content going forwards.

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