Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-43040

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 21 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of 2025 reportedly being the driest hydrological year since 1976, what discussions it has had with SEPA to minimise and mitigate water scarcity in 2026.

Meetings between Scottish Government and SEPA officials focusing on measures to minimise and mitigate water scarcity take place regularly.

Over the summer, the Scottish Government officials met weekly with SEPA, Scottish Water, and key stakeholders for 28 consecutive weeks to monitor and manage water availability.

SEPA has taken several key actions recently to minimise and mitigate impacts of water scarcity, including improving its website for accessibility, providing clearer guidance, strengthening communications with abstractors, and reviewing abstraction licences to support sustainable water use. Scotland’s National Water Scarcity Plan is available on the SEPA website. This sets out how water resources will be managed prior to, and during, periods of prolonged dry weather.

Officials most recently met SEPA officials in December 2025 to review SEPA’s Autumn Water Situation report, potential implications for 2026 as well as discuss water scarcity mitigation more broadly.

Question reference: S6W-42916

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 21 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what the outturn spend on physical path infrastructure work has been for each of the four statutorily designated long distance routes in Scotland, broken down by (a) routine repair and maintenance and (b) capital works on restoration and improvement, in each financial year from 2022-23 to 2024-25, and what the corresponding allocated budget is for 2025-26.

Neither Scottish Government or NatureScot provide funding for the maintenance or improvement of the four statutory long distance routes. The respective local authorities and national park authorities lead on maintenance and improvements using a variety of approaches.

Scottish Government provides funding to the local authorities for “land access” as part of the Grant Aided Expenditure settlement. Scottish Government also provides funding to the National Park Authorities, and this has included capital for Long Distance Routes related projects such as Conic Hill on the West Highland Way in Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.

Question reference: S6W-42989

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 20 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government when the new "ask and act" obligations included in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 will be fully implemented, to ensure that people are not being discharged from hospital into street homelessness.

The Scottish Government is committed to full and successful implementation of the new homelessness prevention duties.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 includes a provision that Part 5 (homelessness prevention, including ask and act) should be commenced no later than three years from Royal Assent (given November 2025). However, we are clear that relevant bodies do not have to wait for the duties to come into force to adopt the ask and act approach, based on shared responsibility and earlier intervention to prevent homelessness.

We are funding and currently commissioning learning from prevention pilots and independent research to assess the impact of the duties on the relevant bodies named in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025, including health bodies.

This will help inform the development of guidance and secondary legislation in the coming period and support a smooth and effective rollout, ensuring that individuals are not discharged from hospital or other institutions into homelessness.

Question reference: S6W-42606

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 14 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what investment has been made in active travel infrastructure in Lanarkshire in each of the last five years to improve road safety for children walking and cycling to school.

The principle fund for Local Authorities to develop Active Travel routes, including routes to schools, is the Active Travel Fund Infrastructure Fund (ATIF), in particular Tier 1 formerly known as Cycling Walking and Safe Routes. Since 2021 North Lanarkshire Council have received £10,866,076 and South Lanarkshire Council have received £9,937,001 from this funding route.

Additional awards have been granted to both Lanarkshire Local Authorities from other tiers of funding which have contributed to improving active travel routes to schools, these are set out below;

In 2023-24 £1,230,000 was awarded to North Lanarkshire Council to deliver active travel links that improved school active travel connections in Airdrie and Wishaw through the Active Travel Transformation Fund.

In 2024-25 £420,000 was provided to North Lanarkshire Council through ATIF Tier 2 for pedestrians improvements around Motherwell Train Station with cycling and walking improvements on Oakfield Road, Watsonville Park, Camp Street and West Hamilton Street, creating safer corridors to schools.

In 2025-26 £1,074,898 has been awarded to North Lanarkshire Council for two additional projects. The first in Orbiston on key school routes that will upgrade crossings, lighting and drainage, with improvements to bus stops and cycle by-passes. The second in Wishaw aims to create high quality accessibility links between the train station, sports centre and hospital, benefits the whole community, including pupils journeying to school.

Design funding has been award for 2025-26 for South Lanarkshire Council, partnering with Strathclyde Passenger Transport. £65,2220 will be used to plan a safer route from Glespin to Douglas.

Question reference: S6W-42608

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide additional funding to local authorities in Lanarkshire to implement school street schemes aimed at reducing congestion and improving safety for pupils.

While Transport Scotland provides funding to support the development of active travel infrastructure, decisions on specific interventions, such as work to improve routes to schools, are made by local authorities in line with their statutory duties under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984. This includes assessing local needs, engaging with communities, and determining the most appropriate solutions for their area.

Local authorities can apply through our Active Travel Infrastructure Fund for active travel infrastructure schemes, including those for schools and these have in the past helped in some cases to deliver safer routes to schools and applications are currently open for 2026-27.

Question reference: S6W-42631

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 9 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it allocated £500,000 received through Barnett consequential funding in 2024-25 to trading standards for tobacco and vapes enforcement in Scotland, which would be proportionate to the UK allocation, as set out in the Legislative Consent Memorandum for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

The Scottish Government have a long history of working with local authorities and COSLA to make sure council finances are sustainable and will continue to work with our partners across the public sector to address any budget challenges.

Alongside this, the Scottish Government will continue to work with our partners on how we operate and collaborate on reforming public services to ensure communities across Scotland continue to receive high quality, sustainable public services that they expect and deserve.

Question reference: S6W-42862

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 January 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Fair Work agenda, what its position is on whether bargaining agreements are important to help improve pay and working conditions, such as health and safety, and whether the salmon industry should enter into collective bargaining agreements to help make improvements to health and safety.

Question reference: S6W-42858

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 January 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 22 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings have taken place, in the current parliamentary session, between any government minister and/or civil servant and any salmon farming company and/or their umbrella body, Salmon Scotland, and whether the issue of (a) health and safety and (b) workers' rights and trade union recognition in the salmon industry was raised.

Question reference: S6W-42612

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of e-bike and e-scooter use on pedestrian safety, particularly for older people and those with disabilities.

I refer the member to answer to question S6W-32672 on 9 January 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.

Transport Scotland is also undertaking policy development work on e-scooters, part of which will involve stakeholder engagement and public consultation which will include assessment of their impact on the perceived safety to older people and those with disabilities.

Question reference: S6W-42610

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what data it holds on accidents involving e-bikes and e-scooters in Scotland in the past three years, and what steps it is taking to reduce injuries and fatalities associated with their use.

Data on collisions which cause injury and take place on the road network, including adjacent pavements and cycle lanes, is collected by Police Scotland as part of the Great Britain-wide dataset known as STATS19.

The following tables provide the number of injury road collisions recorded as involving an e-bike or an e-scooter over the last three full calendar years.

Number of injury road collisions involving e-bikes, by severity

	Fatal	Serious	Slight	Total
2022	0	0	4	4
2023	0	4	3	7
2024	0	4	5	9

Number of injury road collisions involving e-scooters, by severity

	Fatal	Serious	Slight	Total
2022	0	4	4	8
2023	1	8	7	16
2024	0	6	10	16

E-scooters and e-bikes are not designated vehicle types collected within STATS19, and as such they can only be identified using free-text fields which capture other vehicles and similar. This is likely to represent an incomplete record of e-bikes in particular, as it is not always possible to identify where e-bikes may have been recorded as bicycle or electric motorcycle, which are both designated vehicle types.

The Scottish Government is committed to enhancing safety across Scotland’s road network. Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030 sets out a vision for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world by 2030. This contains mode and user specific targets focussed on our priority areas.

In the 2025-26 financial year, the Scottish Government has invested a record £48m in road safety, alongside significant investment in sustainable and active travel programmes to promote safety.

A dedicated stakeholder group has also been established to monitor risks, identify emerging trends, and develop targeted measures for vulnerable road users.

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