- Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 26 January 2026
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 29 January 2026
To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government’s new national housing agency will support its work to deliver more affordable homes.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 29 January 2026
- Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication of the Women’s Health Plan: Phase 2 (2026-2029), by what date it will publish the National Plan for Gynaecology, and what the timeline is for its implementation.
Answer
The development of this plan is in the very early stages; therefore, there has not yet been a decision around publication or timescales.
We continue to focus on reducing long waits for all patients including those awaiting gynaecology appointments and treatment, while a longer-term plan is developed.
We have already allocated over £10.5 million additional funding to Health Boards to target long waits for gynaecology this year. The further £2.4 million I announced, alongside the publication of Phase 2 of the Women’s Health Plan, brings the total investment to almost £13 million, demonstrating our commitment to improving care and ensuring women and girls receive a timely diagnosis and access to the support they need.
The latest data shows our plan is working, with waits of more than a year down 18.1% for new outpatients and down 3.9% for inpatient and day-case procedures between July and November 2025.
- Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 16 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the ongoing investigation by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre in relation to “kill switches” in Chinese-manufactured buses, and how this has informed the design of the procurement regime of phase three of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB3).
Answer
Vehicle safety and standards are reserved matters and fall under the responsibility of the UK Government and the Driver and Vehicles Standards Agency (DVSA). The Scottish Government is not responsible for, nor directly involved in, the investigation or regulation of such matters.
The Scottish Government has not received any formal notification from the UK Government or the National Cyber Security Centre regarding an investigation into these issues. Should relevant information or findings be made available by the UK authorities, the Scottish Government would consider these as appropriate.
Phase three of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB3) is delivered as a grant award in accordance with public sector grant-making rules and does not constitute a procurement exercise under Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations. Successful applicants are responsible for undertaking their own competitive processes with suppliers in line with applicable legislation. As a result, the design of the ScotZEB3 scheme has not been informed by any assessment into these matters.
- Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 16 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding phase three of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB3), whether it has instructed Transport Scotland to disregard any tenders from any specific non-treaty state suppliers, as defined by s19(3)(b) of the Procurement Act 2023.
Answer
ScotZEB3 operates as a capital grant subsidy scheme and, as such, the Procurement Act 2023 does not apply.
Awards under ScotZEB3 must comply with the UK subsidy control regime, including the Subsidy Control Act 2022. The scheme is required to operate in a manner that is non-discriminatory and consistent with the subsidy control principles
Applications are assessed solely against the published eligibility and scoring criteria set out in the scheme guidance: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/ScotZEB3-Guidance-document-1.pdf.
Successful applicants are responsible for running their own competitive processes with suppliers.
- Asked by: Maggie Chapman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to ensure that relevant law in Scotland is brought into line with that in England and Wales regarding sexually inappropriate AI-generated images.
Answer
As set out during the debate in Parliament on Motion S6M-19504 on Non-fatal Strangulation Laws and Intimate Partner Homicides on 8 January 2026, the Scottish Government will shortly publish a consultation to seek views on a number of issues relating to how the criminal law protects women and girls. This will include seeking views on online harms, including proposals to criminalise the non-consensual creation of intimate images, including through the use of AI image generation tools.
The existing law concerning intimate images makes it an offence for a person to disclose or threaten to disclose an intimate image of another person where they either intend to cause that person fear, alarm or distress or else are reckless as to whether the disclosure or threatened disclosure would be likely to cause the person to suffer fear, alarm or distress. The definition of an intimate image includes images that appear to show a person in an intimate situation and as such, images generated using a software programme that appear to be photographs are covered by the offence where the image is shown or made available to anyone other than the person featured in the image.
- Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government how many passengers have complained to ScotRail about the temperature on the West Highland Line trains since it came into public ownership.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-43104 on 26 January 2026. 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.
- Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reported landside at the A815 road near the junction with the A83, what assessment Transport Scotland has made of its landslide mitigation measures at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful.
Answer
The reported landslide on the A815 did not impact on the operation of the A83 Rest and Be Thankful. The current operational management and decision-making for the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful requires daily analysis of the information being acquired from the hillside including the outputs from remote monitoring, general on-site observations, hillside inspections and associated measurements. This information in conjunction with daily monitoring of the six-day weather forecast, and associated hillside saturation estimates, is used to inform the traffic management arrangements required for a safe road operation.
- Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Angus Robertson on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its decision to increase the budget for "Other arts and activity" by 277.6% in its draft Budget 2026-27, whether any of this funding has already been earmarked for particular organisations, and, if so, whether it will provide details of this.
Answer
The “other arts and activity” budget line in the 2026-2027 draft budget is now confirmed as £16.044m. The Museums Future Programme, Non National Libraries and the Royal and Ceremonial lines have been moved to their own Level 4s. The "other arts and activity" funding will support a range of projects, with around £10 million going to Creative Scotland to support our world class festivals through the Expo Festivals Fund and our Culture Collective. Other funding has been indicatively allocated to a range of priorities including creative communities and our national collection bodies.
- Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what investment it has planned to improve the heating system on ScotRail’s West Highland Line trains.
Answer
While we expect ScotRail to provide an environment which allows for a comfortable journey, this is a matter for ScotRail. ScotRail continues to consider solutions, which can be applied to improve the situation. ScotRail advises that due to its investment so far, the heating system improvements allowed ScotRail to achieve an ambient temperature on board of 156 class trains in half the time, as compared to Winter 2024-25.
In the longer term, the Scottish Government’s investment in its rolling stock replacement programme will bring more modern trains onto the network, which will benefit passengers travelling on West Highland Line.
- Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 January 2026
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 26 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government how many complaints it has received from members of the public in each year since 2021, broken down by complaint category.
Answer
The following figures show the total number of complaints received during each of the specified years. When calculating these figures, each complaint has been counted only once, regardless of whether it was processed at stage 1 only, stage 2 only, or at both stage 1 and stage 2.
Year | Total number of complaints |
2021 | 70 |
2022 | 44 |
2023 | 54 |
2024 | 62 |
2025 | 80 |
We do not currently categorise complaints based on the type of complaint. However, we are exploring how this may work in future.
