Chamber and committees

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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.

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Question reference: S4W-29827

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 February 2016
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 7 March 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of recorded religious hate crimes in 2014-15 expressed as the number of incidents per 1,000 members of each religious affiliation, also broken down by incidents recorded under section (a) 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and (b) 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.

The reports titled Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2014-15 and Charges reported under the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 in 2014-15 were published on 12 June 2015 and presented information on the number of charges that were reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) by the police in 2014-15 under section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and section 1 and section 6 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.

The following table shows religious aggravation charges that were reported to COPFS in 2014-15 for conduct which was derogatory to each religion under the two pieces of legislation. The final column presents the number of charges per 1,000 members of each, as recorded in the 2011 census.

It is important to note that reported charges only contain information about the nature of the offensive conduct and not about the religious affiliation of the victims of incidents. In 41% of charges, the victim of the conduct was a police officer (a proportional decrease from 48% in 2013-14), and in 15% of charges the victim was a worker (a proportional increase from 11% in 2013-14). The occasions when religious abuse targeted people within the ‘general community’, and not a particular individual, represented 36% of all charges (a proportional increase from 26% in 2013-14).

This suggests that for many of the charges it is unlikely the accused knew the religious affiliation/belief of the victim at the time of incident, and that the attacks were more arbitrary in nature.

Table: Religious aggravation and offensive behaviour at football charges derogatory to religions in Scotland in 2014-15 per 1,000 members

Religious aggravation charges in 2014-15¹

Offensive behaviour at football charges in 2014-15

The religion that the conduct was derogatory towards⁵	Number of charges²	Number of members³	Charges per 1,000 members	Number of charges²	Number of members³	Charges per 1,000 members
Christianity⁴,⁵	479	2,850,199	0.17	48	2,850,199	0.02
of which: Roman Catholicism	328	841,053	0.39	42	841,053	0.05
of which: Protestantism	145	1,717,871	0.08	6	1,717,871	0.00
Judaism	25	5,887	4.25	1	5,887	0.17
Islam	71	76,737	0.93	1	76,737	0.01
Unknown	9	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	N/A
Other	1	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	N/A

Table notes:

1. Information on religious aggravations is taken from Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2014-15 and information on offensive behaviour at football charges is taken from Charges reported under the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 in 2014-15, published on the Scottish Government website on 12 June 2015.

2. The number of charges refers to the religion that the conduct was derogatory towards and not the number of charges where victims had the relevant affiliation. Information about victims’ religious affiliations is not recorded by the police.

3. Religious group membership information data for this parliamentary question and in 2013-14 (S4W-24173 on 9 February 2015) were taken from the 2011 census. These were published in census release 2A, on 26 September 2013. Previous calculations of the number of incidents per 1,000 members for 2011-12 and 2012-13, presented in response to previous parliamentary questions (S4W-15809 on 7 July 2013 and S4W-11536 on 12 December 2012), were based on membership data as presented in the 2001 census:

http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/censusresults/release2a/StatsBulletin2A.pdf

4. There are six charges in the Christianity total for religious aggravations charges that referred to conduct which was offensive to Christianity in general and were not directed towards Protestantism or Roman Catholicism.

5. Religious group membership data is based on self-reported affiliation in the 2011 census. Christian denominations are presented in the census under three categories: ‘Roman Catholic’, ‘Church of Scotland’ and ‘other Christian.’ For the purpose of this table only ‘Church of Scotland’ membership has been attributed as ‘Protestant’ because ‘other Christian’ may include a mixture of Protestant and non-Protestant denominations. As a consequence this may lead to an under-reporting of the ‘charges per 1,000 members’ in the Protestant category.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Question reference: S4O-05566

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to deal with antibiotic resistance in the food chain.

Question reference: S4W-29443

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 1 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many schools have been (a) built and (b) refurbished in each local authority area in each year since 2007.

Data is provided from 2007-08 up to 2014-15 for schools which have been rebuilt or refurbished. The distinction between rebuilt or refurbished has only been collected and published since 2010-11, so two further tables have been provided from 2010-11 to 2014-15 to show which schools have been rebuilt and which schools have been refurbished.

Table 1: Schools Rebuilt or Refurbished 2007-08 to 2014-15, by Local Authority

Local Authority	07-08	08-09	09-10	10-11	11-12	12-13	13-14	14-15	Total
Aberdeen City		1	6	3	1		1		12
Aberdeenshire	4	1		1				5	11
Angus	7	4	2	2					15
Argyll and Bute	9	1							10
Clackmannanshire	1	2	1					1	5
Dumfries and Galloway		4	11	5		4	6	2	32
Dundee City		6	2	1	2	1	2		14
East Ayrshire	3	6				8	1	1	19
East Dunbartonshire		1	7						8
East Lothian		5	1	2	1		2		11
East Renfrewshire			1		1		1		3
Edinburgh, City of	4	6	7				6	4	27
Eilean Siar					3	4			7
Falkirk		5	4			1			10
Fife	6		2	5	2	3	2	1	21
Glasgow City	2	9	7	4	3	2	2	44	73
Highland	4	6	8			4	2	2	26
Inverclyde	1	3	2		3	3	5		17
Midlothian	8		3			1	2		14
Moray					1	1		1	3
North Ayrshire	7	1		3	2	1	2	1	17
North Lanarkshire	9	5			5	8			27
Orkney Islands		1	1			1	1		4
Perth and Kinross		2	9	2	1	1	3	2	20
Renfrewshire	5	5	3		1	3		1	18
Scottish Borders	2	3	3	2	1	1	1		13
Shetland Islands				2			1		3
South Ayrshire	1	8		2	1		4	2	18
South Lanarkshire	14	12	13	15	11	12	16	14	107
Stirling	6	7	1	1	1	1	1		18
West Dunbartonshire			3	3	2		1		9
West Lothian		2	6	2	4		1		15
Total	93	106	103	55	46	60	63	81	607

Table 2: Schools Rebuilt 2010-11 to 2014-15 by Local Authority

Local Authority	10-11	11-12	12-13	13-14	14-15
Aberdeen City	2	1
Aberdeenshire					1
Angus	1
Argyll and Bute
Clackmannanshire					1
Dumfries and Galloway	3		1	1	1
Dundee City	1	1	1	2
East Ayrshire			5	1
East Dunbartonshire
East Lothian		1
East Renfrewshire		1		1
Edinburgh, City of
Eilean Siar		3	4
Falkirk
Fife		1	1	1	1
Glasgow City	2	2	2		1
Highland			3
Inverclyde		2		3
Midlothian			1	1
Moray		1	1
North Ayrshire			1		1
North Lanarkshire		5	4
Orkney Islands			1	1
Perth and Kinross	2	1			1
Renfrewshire			1		1
Scottish Borders			1	1
Shetland Islands	2
South Ayrshire	1			1
South Lanarkshire	14	11	11	16	14
Stirling			1
West Dunbartonshire	3	2		1
West Lothian		1		1
Total	31	33	39	31	22

Table 3: Schools Refurbished 2010-11 to 2014-15 by Local Authority

Local Authority	10-11	11-12	12-13	13-14	14-15
Aberdeen City	1			1
Aberdeenshire	1				4
Angus	1
Argyll and Bute
Clackmannanshire
Dumfries and Galloway	2		3	5	1
Dundee City		1
East Ayrshire			3		1
East Dunbartonshire
East Lothian	2			2
East Renfrewshire
Edinburgh, City of				6	4
Eilean Siar
Falkirk			1
Fife	5	1	2	1
Glasgow City	2	1		2	43
Highland			1	2	2
Inverclyde		1	3	2
Midlothian				1
Moray					1
North Ayrshire	3	2		2
North Lanarkshire			4
Orkney Islands
Perth and Kinross			1	3	1
Renfrewshire		1	2
Scottish Borders	2	1
Shetland Islands				1
South Ayrshire	1	1		3	2
South Lanarkshire	1		1
Stirling	1	1		1
West Dunbartonshire
West Lothian	2	3
Total	24	13	21	32	59

Question reference: S4W-29255

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 26 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to help Scotland play a leading role in ensuring that the EU birds and habitats directives are implemented better, and what the reason is for its position on this matter.

Scotland provides the largest component of the UK’s contribution to the European Union’s Natura 2000 network. The Scottish Government is continuing to participate in the European Commission’s “fitness check” of the EU birds and habitats directives, the conclusions of which have yet to be determined. Like the UK Government (as outlined by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Council of the EU Environment Council meeting on 16 December 2015), we do not wish to seek the renegotiation of the directives.

Question reference: S4O-05244

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 January 2016
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce the prevalence of smoking among young people.

Question reference: S4O-05209

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to tackle knife crime in the West Scotland region.

Question reference: S4W-28388

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 24 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that the European Commission’s review of the birds and habitats directives does not result in a reduction in the protection afforded to Scotland’s best places for wildlife.

Question reference: S4W-28389

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 24 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the European Commission regarding its review of the birds and habitats directives.

Scottish Government officials contributed to the formulation of the UK Government’s response to the evidence gathering phase of the European Commission ‘Fitness Check’ exercise, including involvement in a workshop held when commission officials visited the UK as part of their evidence gathering. The UK Government’s response has been published by the commission via the following web link: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/fitness_check/responses_en.htm

Question reference: S4W-28386

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 24 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on reports that nine EU countries representing 63% of the EU's population have written to the European Commission urging it to protect the birds and habitats directives and concentrate on improving implementation rather than weakening protection for wildlife, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Government is aware that a number of European Union member states have written to the European Commission in advance of the ‘Fitness Check’ conference being held in Brussels on 20 November 2015. This event will hear the emerging findings from the evidence gathering phase of the ‘Fitness Check’ which are published in the contractor's draft Evaluation Study to support the Fitness Check of the Birds and Habitats Directives – Emerging Findings, which is available via the link below:

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/fitness_check/docs/consultation/Fitness%20Check%20final%20draft%20emerging%20findings%20report.pdf

Scottish Government officials are attending the event. The Scottish Government is not aware of any European Union proposals to weaken protection for wildlife.

Question reference: S4W-28387

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 24 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had, or plans to have, with the UK Government regarding the UK position on the European Commission's review of the birds and habitats directives, in light of suggestions that the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was pushing for reform to weaken the directives.