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: S6W-00312

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many radiotherapy training places have there been in each academic year, since 2015.

Radiography education is not commissioned or controlled by the Scottish Government. The following table sets out the number of entrants to accredited radiography courses at Scottish Universities each academic year. The courses included match the Health and Care Professions Council’s (HCPC) list of accredited courses from 2015-16.

Entrants to accredited pre-registration radiography courses.

Year	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
Therapeutic Radiography	54	71	47	47	43
Diagnostic Radiography	119	146	140	152	155
Total	173	217	187	199	198

Source: HESA Student Population

Clinical Radiology

The following table gives the overall established number of Clinical Radiology trainee posts in place in each year from 2015 to 2021:

Clinical Radiology Programme Establishment
2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
121	129	139	149	160	172	182

The above table includes Scottish Government funding for 18 additional posts between 2015 and 2017 with a further commitment of another 50 funded posts,‎ 10 per year from 2018.

Source: NHS Education for Scotland (NES) medical trainee establishment data

Question reference: S6W-00522

Asked by: Edward Mountain, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many fishing vessels have been boarded for inspection by Marine Scotland in each month between (a) January and May 2020, and (b) January and May 2021, broken down by the nationality of the vessel.

Boarding inspections in Port can only be conducted if a vessel lands in a Scottish Port. Therefore this largely depends on what vessels land in Scottish ports.

The following table is a breakdown of Boarding inspections in port by Month (January to May) in 2020 and 2021, by nationality.

	Boardings in Port						Boardings in Port
2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	2021	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
DNK	2	1				DNK					1
ESP	6	2	1			ESP				1	1
FRA	5	6	5			FRA		2		2	1
FRO	3					GBR	51	18	33	31	39
GBR	116	94	54
NOR	2		2

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May		Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
UK	87%	91%	87%	0%	0%	UK	100.0%	90.0%	100.0%	91.2%	92.9%
Non UK	13%	9%	13%	0%	0%	Non UK	0.0%	10.0%	0.0%	8.8%	7.1%


	Landings						Landings
2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	2021	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Denmark	2					England	62	56	56	65	72
England	79	63	88	37	61	France	3	17	33	24	24
France	20	29	37	25	37	Germany			1	1	2
Germany			1	1	2	Guernsey					1
Ireland				2		Isle of Man	1	6		4	3
Isle of Man	2	2	4	4	7	Northern Ireland	11	3	19	9	9
Northern Ireland	12	1	3		2	Norway	1			1
Norway	5	7	6	2	2	Scotland	3442	2571	3848	3550	2297
Scotland	3334	3132	3266	2045	3443	Spain		11	15	18	28
Spain	14	13	25	29	32	Wales					1
Wales	4	1	1		4

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May		Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
UK	98.8%	98.4%	97.9%	97.1%	97.8%	UK	99.9%	98.7%	98.8%	98.7%	97.6%
Non UK	1.2%	1.6%	2.1%	2.9%	2.2%	Non UK	0.1%	1.3%	1.2%	1.3%	2.4%

The following table is a breakdown of Boarding inspections at sea, by nationality for the periods January to May 2020 and 2021.

It is worth noting that on any given day the UK fishing fleet accounts for approximately 80% of vessels actively fishing in Scottish waters. It would therefore be reasonable to expect that 80% of our boarding inspections during any given period would be on UK vessels and the remaining 20% being foreign vessels.

As we work a risk based approach, our boardings will not always reflect nationality. Our boarding statistics indicate that 70% of our boardings are UK vessels, with the remaining 30% being foreign vessels, which would be proportionate to the fleet sizes.

	Boardings at Sea						Boardings at Sea
2020	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	2021	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
DEU						DEU	1	1		2
DNK						DNK	4		2	3
ESP						ESP				1	3
FRA			1			FRA	1			5	5
GBR	16	11	7			GBR		7	13	25	37
IRL		3				IRL	7				4
NLD						NLD				1
NOR		1	2

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May		Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
UK	100%	73%	70%	0%	0%	UK	0%	88%	87%	68%	76%
Non UK	0%	27%	30%	0%	0%	Non UK	100%	13%	13%	32%	24%

Please note, Covid restrictions were applicable from April 2020 and continue to be applicable now.

Mitigations have been put in place to allow boarding inspections to take place where safe to do so.

Question reference: S6W-00474

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people aged (a) under 12, (b) 12 to 15 and (c) 16 to 17 have been in hospital with COVID-19 each week in 2021.

This data is available on the Public Health Scotland Education Surveillance Dashboard which provides a three-weekly rolling average of hospital admissions for 2-17 years olds - COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard - Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in education settings - COVID-19 data and intelligence - COVID-19 - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland

Equivalent weekly data for children under 2 years is not currently published however, data on Cumulative COVID-19 Hospital Admissions since the start of the pandemic is available and shows that as of 26 May 2021, 238 children between 0-4 years have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 since March 2020. The full set of data can be found here - https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/weekly-covid-19-statistical-data-in-scotland/resource/bd8a865f-10e6-47d2-a461-8633c61693fe .

Question reference: S6W-00399

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what area of land Forestry and Land Scotland and its predecessor, Forest Enterprise Scotland, has disposed of in each year since 2007-08, also broken down by how much was raised.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) and its predecessor Forest Enterprise Scotland (FES) has sold the following under the New Woodland Investment Programme (2021 - 2017) / Repositioning Programme (2007 – 2016). The figures in the following table include 6,598 hectares sold / transferred to communities and NGO’s under the National Forest Land Scheme and Community Asset Transfer Scheme:

Financial Year	Area (Ha)	Proceeds (£)
2007-2008	2,960.35	6,957,864
2008-2009	2,906.41	12,316,593
2009-2010	5,418.28	14,505,670
2010-2011	6,635.73	12,057,479
2011-2012	5,795.61	14,922,765
2012-2013	3,592.35	10,464,333
2013-2014	4,826.25	14,468,081
2014-2015	1,061.07	4,285,000
2015-2016	9,244.82	15,669,100
2016-2017	2,474.40	3,658,000
2017-2018	1,786.66	7,301,089
2018-2019	1,911.30	5,755,656
2019-2020	1,628.23	14,572,952
2020-2021	1,914.85	5,523,000
Totals	52,156.31	142,457,582

Excluded are sales of ‘surplus’ assets, typically buildings and small parcels of land, sold under the Rationalisation policy.

The funds for disposals have been used for the following:

Acquiring land for planting;
Cost of woodland creation;
Maintenance and management of new woodland creation;
Starter Farms initiative;
Transaction and programme costs both for acquisitions and disposals.

The New Woodland Investment programme was closed at the end of FY 20-21 and there will be no further land sales as part of the programme. Further acquisitions / residual obligations (to cover future costs as detailed above) remain to be discharged over the following four year period.

As announced as part of last year’s Capital Spending Review, FLS were allocated £30M of capital funding over the next five years (starting in FY 21-22) to purchase land for woodland creation and expansion of Scotland’s national forests and land.

The woodland sold by FLS / FES remains managed as woodland. Using the proceeds to subsequently purchase and plant additional land has ensured that the area of woodland in Scotland continues to increase.

Question reference: S6W-00453

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on prescriptions in each of the last five years, and how many people received a prescription.

The cost of medicines and appliances in the past five financial years, 2016-17 to 2020-21, is shown in Table 1. These data relate to community dispensing only.

Table 1 – Gross Ingredient Cost (£), 2016/17 – 2020/21 Year	Gross Ingredient Cost (GIC) (£)
2016-17	1,137,588,236
2017-18	1,170,761,719
2018-19	1,142,104,457
2019-20	1,175,878,909
2020-21	1,118,110,484

Source: Public Health Scotland, PIS (Prescribing Data)

Reference: IR2021-00410

The number of people who have received a prescription in the last five years has recently been provided in an answer to S5W-36221 on 30 April 2021. This presented the number of patients with a paid prescription by financial year from financial year 2009-2010 to financial year 2020-2021 (partial year to December 2020 data).

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

Question reference: S6F-00164

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to curb the decline of iconic woodland bird species in Scotland.

Question reference: S6F-00143

Asked by: Neil Gray, MSP for Airdrie and Shotts, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government, the Post Office and CJ Lang regarding the proposed closure of 31 Post Office branches across Scotland.

Question reference: S6F-00144

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government is supporting the NHS, in light of reports of wards being full and an increase in patients with serious and complex conditions.

Question reference: S6F-00140

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-00142

Asked by: Lorna Slater, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

Question to be taken in Chamber.