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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 41052 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6O-03191

Asked by: Rona Mackay, MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the availability of ADHD medication supplies in Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-03205

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to comments made by the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland, which described Scotland as being "in the midst of a housing emergency".

Question reference: S6O-03199

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to bring empty properties back into use for housing.

Question reference: S6O-03184

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports of rising wildlife crime across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-25798

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government to what extent it has considered, ahead of the implementation update for short-term let licensing, the recommendation proposed by the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers to decouple planning from short-term let licensing legislation, in light of the reported difficulties faced by businesses in their applications and the impact on lending to the sector.

Question reference: S6W-25654

Asked by: Roz McCall, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with organisations to facilitate the development of leadership programmes to upskill and resource educational leaders to tackle gender inequality in education and learning, as part of the Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning.

The Gender Equality Taskforce in Education & Learning developed a set of ambitions in order to help inform its work, including the development of leadership programmes with a focus on gender inequality in education and learning. Development of this particular ambition was undertaken in consultation with Education Scotland, COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the Scottish Council of Deans of Education and gender equality organisations including Close the Gap, Zero Tolerance and Rape Crisis Scotland. Since then, discussion and work has been ongoing to refine the overall workplan, including this particular ambition, to ensure that it is able to foster the type of long term, complex, systemic change that is needed. I am committed to continuing and accelerating such work to ensure that girls and young women have a gender equal experience of education and learning. The next meeting of the Taskforce will take place on 18 April.

Question reference: S6W-25651

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-25060 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 19 February 2024, in which sportscotland buildings the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) was confirmed.

Question reference: S6W-25661

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many Empowering Communities Programme grant awards for 2023-24 were paid to organisations in each month since April 2023, also broken down by the (a) recipient organisation and (b) amount of each grant award, and what the total value was of these awards.

The Empowering Communities Programme (ECP) comprises two community funding programmes - the Investing in Communities Fund and Strengthening Communities Programme – as well as grants to strategic delivery partners. In 2023-24 222 organisations within the ECP have been offered grants with a total value of £13,855,118.50.

As grant claims are invited on a quarterly basis in arrears we do not collate information on grant claims paid on a monthly basis at an organisational level and are therefore unable to provide this information in the format requested. Data on the amount of grant paid is currently available from the 1 April 2023 up to the period ending 31 January 2024. The total amount of grant paid for the ECP for this period is £9,030,517.

A table including the list of grant awards made for each organisation within the ECP has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 64909)

Question reference: S6W-25081

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 February 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish any record of correspondence, notes, emails, text or WhatsApp messages, as well as the documents themselves, in the month of March 2021, between or on behalf of James Hamilton and civil servants or Scottish Government ministers, regarding the redactions made to the version of the Hamilton Report that was published on 22 March 2021.

Mr Hamilton’s report was published on 22 March 2021. In his letter, which is published alongside the report, Mr Hamilton makes clear that redactions were necessary in order to comply with the court orders in place (made by Lord Woolman and Lady Dorrian), in order to avoid the risk of jigsaw identification.

It would not be appropriate to publish further material that was provided in confidence to Mr Hamilton for the purpose of his investigation. Following a Freedom of Information request for the full text of the Hamilton Report, the Scottish Government provided the Scottish Information Commissioner with the full text of the report, and, in Decision 135/2022 , the Commissioner confirmed that he was satisfied that disclosing the information would lead to the identification of complainers, either directly or indirectly, contrary to the civil and criminal orders, and that the Scottish Government had complied with the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act in responding to that request.

Question reference: S6W-25974

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 March 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Maree Todd on 6 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish the response to the recommendations of the Independent Review of Inspection, Scrutiny and Regulation of Social Care in Scotland (IRISR).

The Scottish Government has accepted all 38 recommendations from the IRISR and the response will be published on 6 March 2024, with a proactive statement due to be issued at 9.30am. The full Scottish Government response can be accessed here http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781835219768 .

In accepting these recommendations, we recognise the significant amounts of work already underway, that will in part or fully address a large number of the recommendations, and this work needs to continue in partnership and at pace. In taking a phased approach to the implementation of the IRISR recommendations, we are confident that work can be carried out to deliver continuous improvement that addresses the key challenges highlighted by the Review and support better outcomes for the people of Scotland.