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

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Question reference: S6O-04319

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support the Scottish dairy sector.

Question reference: S6O-04339

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to help local authorities move families with children out of temporary accommodation into suitable permanent homes.

Question reference: S6O-04344

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the application of equalities legislation, what its position is on the provision of single-sex spaces in public sector buildings, including hospitals.

Question reference: S6O-04323

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to encourage the prescription of medicinal cannabis on the NHS for the relief of chronic pain.

Question reference: S6W-34151

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 12 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what cybersecurity measures are in place to detect and block access to pornography or other inappropriate content on its devices and networks.

The Scottish Government uses industry leading firewall and perimeter security technology to categorise websites and to either allow or block access to those categories accordingly. Access to certain categories is entirely blocked from all devices connected to the Scottish Government network. This covers all internal and external Scottish Government network access and blocks not only direct access attempts to prohibited websites, but also indirect access or referrals from other websites that are not blocked. The blocked category list includes all websites classified as pornographic.

Question reference: S6W-34166

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 12 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are in place to support doctors who have been victims of assault in the workplace.

No-one should be the victim of abuse or violence while at work and assaults on NHS staff are completely unacceptable. We encourage Health Boards to support criminal proceedings, where appropriate, against anyone who assaults staff. NHSScotland staff can access a range of services to care for their physical and mental health. This includes employee assistance programmes, trauma counselling services and pastoral support, to ensure a safe working environment.

The wellbeing of our health and social care workforce remains a key priority and we are working to ensure that the right level of support is offered across the system. Scottish Government funding provides our workforce with access to psychological interventions and therapies, self-service resources through the National Wellbeing Hub and the National Wellbeing Helpline delivered by NHS 24 to support their wellbeing. We also provide access to confidential mental health services through the Workforce Specialist Service.

Question reference: S6W-34121

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 12 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any impact of so-called medical boarders in surgical wards on the scheduling and delivery of planned surgeries.

Question reference: S6W-34124

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 12 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that the use of surgical wards for so-called medical boarders does not impact on patient outcomes for those requiring surgery.

The Scottish Government does not collate information on medical boarders centrally.

Health Boards operate their own policies for the management of inpatient capacity. Therefore, the member may wish to contact NHS Boards directly for information.

I can confirm in the 12 months to December 2024, 8.7% of planned operations were cancelled, however only 2.3% were cancelled due to capacity or non-clinical reasons.

Cancellation based on capacity or non-clinical reason by hospital includes:

no beds available
staff not available
equipment not available
theatre session overran

Question reference: S6W-34158

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 12 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that nurses are protected from assault in the workplace.

Question reference: S6W-34160

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 12 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve the reporting and recording of assaults on nurses across all NHS boards.

Health Boards have reporting systems in place to capture data on violence and aggression. At present, Health Boards collect this data locally.

We are exploring how we can improve incident reporting systems and investigating proposals for developing standardised approaches to reporting and handling incidents nationally.

We are working to ensure that all staff are aware of currently available reporting mechanisms and ensure they have the psychological safety to report incidents when they occur.