Questions and answers

Question reference: S5W-23688

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when the six-week extension to enable bidders to prepare initial submissions for R100 was granted, and for what reason this information has not been included in its previous answers to questions on this issue.

Question reference: S5W-23691

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the financial implications are of the delay in appointing a bidder for R100.

Question reference: S5W-23689

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will inform the Parliament by means of a Government Initiated Question as soon as possible should there be any further delays to the R100 procurement process.

Question reference: S5W-22176

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government by what date it will announce the contractor for the R100 project, and when work on the project will commence.

Question reference: S5O-03444

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 June 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that services for older people in Dumfries and Galloway are facing an in-year deficit of £6.85 million.

Question reference: S5W-23690

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 19 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to ensure that there will be no further delay in appointing a bidder for R100.

Question reference: S5W-22978

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 13 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that lessons have been learned from any previous failures to roll-out community broadband for rural communities.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme has been very successful, delivering truly transformative results across all 32 Scottish Local Authorities, with fibre broadband access extended to over 930,000 homes and businesses across Scotland – many of these in remote and rural locations – with over 26,800 premises in the constituency of Galloway and West Dumfries alone.

Of course, it has been a challenge to deliver broadband infrastructure improvements to some of the most remote and rural areas, especially given the fact that all regulatory and legal responsibility for telecommunications in the UK rests solely with the UK Government, under the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998.

The Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) initiative helped to support a number of successful community-run networks across Scotland. However, an extensive review of how best to deliver continued support to such networks concluded that – despite its successes – the CBS model was no longer the most viable approach, not least because of constraints around state aid challenges. Communities within the project pipeline were given the option of continuing with their own projects or being included in planning for our £600 million Reaching 100 percent programme (R100), and the vast majority of communities indicated a preference to wait for the R100 rollout, give the commitment to deliver services at superfast speeds of 30 Megabits per second or better.

The lessons learned from this process have helped to shape the design of the R100 programme. Primary amongst those lessons was the need to continue engagement with communities and suppliers to ensure their voices are heard. The result has been an extensive and ongoing engagement process, with R100 officials visiting all parts of Scotland to speak with stakeholders, and with the objective of ensuring that no communities are left behind.

Question reference: S5W-23604

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it had with the UK Government regarding the reduction of the Plug-in Car Grant in 2018, and what its position is regarding whether it is too early to scale back support for electric vehicle uptake.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the UK Government on matters relating to low carbon transport. With regard to changes to the Plug-in Car Grant, we received a week’s notice from UK Government about their plans to scale back support for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles until they chose to make the announcement in October 2018.

It is disappointing that the UK Government has chosen to cut support to the PiCG, particularly as sales of alternatively fuelled vehicles have dropped across the UK since the UK Government removed this support.

This view was echoed by other stakeholder groups including the AA and RAC who have also commented that this cut represents a backward step and could well stall progress on targets to ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles.

Question reference: S5W-23605

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government following the increase in the Low Carbon Transport Loan from to £20 million for 2018-19, what plans it has to increase and create further support measures for those seeking to purchase an electric vehicle.

The Scottish Government has demonstrated a strong commitment to the phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2032. Our increase in funding for the Low Carbon Transport Loan (LCTL) from £8M to £20M is one of many measures we have taken to incentivise ultra-low emission vehicle uptake across Scotland.

We are considering a number of options on how we can incentivise ULEV uptake further through the loan fund and we will be able to provide further details in due course.

The Scottish Government has funded the development of one of the most comprehensive charge point networks in Europe. The 1,000th charge point will soon be installed on the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) network and the average distance from any given location to the nearest public charge point is just 2.78 miles in Scotland, the lowest in the UK where the average is 4.09 miles.

Question reference: S5W-23606

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £700,000 Plugged-in Households Grant Fund has been allocated, and what future plans it has for the fund.

The total value of the award allocated was £515,956. The remaining unused budget was used to support other low carbon transport initiatives designed to encourage consumers and businesses to make the switch to ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs).

We launched phase two of the Grant Fund on 31 May 2019 which is due to close on 23 August 2019 with a budget of £500,000 to reflect our expenditure in 18-19.

As part of the Scottish Government’s engagement, officials have been speaking with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) to promote and communicate this funding opportunity to their members. Delivery partners Energy Saving Trust have also been engaging with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) to capture housing associations who did not apply for phase one funding.

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