Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

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: S7W-01250

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Stephen Flynn on 9 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any projected impact of the introduction of a £2 bus fare cap on income for Scotland's railway.

Question reference: S7W-01538

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 3 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the £10 million Scottish Heating Oil Support Scheme fund, how it will evaluate the effectiveness of the scheme, including what assessment it will make of whether eligible households had sufficient access to information on the (a) eligibility criteria and (b) application processes, and whether it will publish any lessons learned from the scheme.

Question reference: S7W-01536

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 3 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the £10 million Scottish Heating Oil Support Scheme fund, how many households have received support, broken down by (a) average amount received and (b) total amount paid out from the fund.

Question reference: S7W-01547

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 3 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessments, reports, correspondence or briefing it has prepared since MV Glen Sannox entered service comparing the vessel's actual greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption with (a) those of the vessel or vessels that it replaced and (b) the emissions reductions forecast in the business case.

Question reference: S7W-01548

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 3 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how and when it will assess whether MV Glen Sannox's use of liquefied natural gas has achieved the anticipated reduction in carbon emissions of around 20% compared with conventional marine gas oil, which formed part of the justification for the use of that fuel.

Question reference: S7W-01537

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 3 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the £10 million Scottish Heating Oil Support Scheme fund, where any unallocated funds are currently held and, if so, what it plans to do with such funds when the scheme closes in September 2026, including where they will be held subsequently.

Question reference: S7W-01549

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 3 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of the time since entering service MV Glen Sannox has operated using (a) liquefied natural gas and (b) diesel; whether this is consistent with the assumptions made in the business case and, if not, for what reason.

Question reference: S7W-01221

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 1 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide its assessment of carbon dioxide emissions from all energy generation sources in Scotland over the last five years, including a comparison of total emissions by (a) type of energy generation and (b) fuel used, where applicable.

On 9th June 2026 the Scottish Government published the Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics 2024 official statistics publication. These statistics focus on all Greenhouse Gas emissions rather than specifically carbon dioxide, however they do provide answers to the majority of your question. Please note that specific information on emissions by type of fuel used are only available for electricity generation.

The following tables were obtained by filtering the detailed data extract spreadsheet of the supporting documents of this publication

Table 1: Carbon Dioxide emissions associated with electricity supply over 2020 to 2024 (MtCO2, rounded to 2 D.P.)

Emission Source	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Electricity Supply	1.68	1.55	1.77	1.10	1.03
Power stations - gas	1.31	1.13	1.34	0.61	0.54
Power stations - municipal solid waste	0.26	0.28	0.36	0.41	0.40
Power stations - petroleum	0.11	0.14	0.07	0.08	0.09

Table 2: Carbon Dioxide emissions associated with fuel supply (MtCO2, rounded to 2 D.P.)

Emission Source	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Oil and gas supply	3.20	2.90	3.00	2.59	2.47
Gas - exploration drilling	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Gas - flaring	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.02	0.02
Gas - venting	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Gas distribution - combustion	0.30	0.30	0.30	0.28	0.22
Gas distribution - leakage	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Gas platforms	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Gas processing terminals	0.70	0.60	0.70	0.62	0.63
Gas terminals	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Oil - exploration drilling	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Oil - flaring	0.10	0.20	0.10	0.16	0.21
Oil - venting	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Oil platforms	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Oil processing terminals	0.40	0.40	0.40	0.35	0.33
Oil refineries	1.50	1.30	1.50	1.17	1.07
Oil terminals	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Solid fuel supply	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Coal mining and handling	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Nuclear fuel production	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Net fuel supply emissions	3.20	2.90	3.00	2.60	2.50

Question reference: S7W-00866

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Stephen Gethins on 18 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how many meetings ministers have held with GB Energy sice May 2025, who attended and what was discussed.

The former Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, met Juergen Maier, interim Chair of GB Energy, and Dan McGrail, CEO of GB Energy, on 14 May 2025. A range of matters were discussed, focusing on how the Scottish Government, public bodies and GB Energy can work together to progress opportunities for Scotland’s businesses and communities.

I met Dan McGrail at the Global Offshore Wind conference on 17 June and we discussed GB Energy’s priorities in Scotland, the need to align with existing delivery mechanisms and the importance of support for our supply chain.

Question reference: S7W-00868

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 18 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how many trees have been felled to accommodate (a) windfarms and their associated infrastructure and (b) other energy projects in each calendar year since 2022.

On Scotland’s national forests and land, tree felling associated with windfarm developments and associated infrastructure since 2022 is 922.30 hectares. Based on the average of 2000 trees per ha, this gives an estimated total of 1.84 million trees felled over this period.

Financial Year	No of Trees Felled
FY 22-23	450,300
FY 23-24	911,960
FY24-25	88,560
FY 25-26	393,780

Many of these trees will have been due for felling through ongoing forest management and will have been replaced through replanting and compensatory planting.

The Scottish Government’s Control of Woodland Removal Policy expects that compensatory replanting will take place in cases where trees are proposed to be felled for the purpose of building a wind farm or other energy development. This requirement would typically be imposed as a condition attached to a planning permission.

We do not hold information on wind farms regarding land that is not owned by Scottish Ministers.