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-39426

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to publish national service standards for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessment, treatment and support.

Question reference: S6W-39408

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS staff have been assigned to support parents who have experienced a (a) pregnancy loss, (b) stillbirth and (c) neonatal death in NHS (i) Highland, (ii) Western Isles, (iii) Orkney, (iv) Shetland, (v) Western Isles and (vi) Grampian in each year since 2021.

Question reference: S6W-39432

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 14 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when details of the 2025-26 Bus Infrastructure Fund will be published.

Question reference: S6W-39037

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what oversight mechanisms are in place to ensure accountability and value for money from Scottish Development International.

Ensuring accountability and value for money is a key priority for the Scottish Government and Scottish Development International (SDI).

To support this, several oversight mechanisms are in place for export and investment support policies, with all programmes designed to support the Scottish Government’s growth strategies, i.e. our Inward Investment Plan and A Trading Nation. These include:

1.Regular Performance Reporting: Mutually agreed bimonthly and quarterly reporting tracking both quantitative and qualitative metrics e.g. number of businesses supported, markets accessed, and the forecasted return on investment of these. As part of this there are project management reviews and programme boards at both operational and strategic levels.

2.Independent Evaluation: Partner and delivery agencies, including SDI’s performance were assessed through external independent evaluations of both Trade and Inward Investment, which was published in 2023.

3.Transparent Reporting: Annual results, research and insight reports, including case studies, are published on Scottish Enterprises website.

The Scottish Government will continue to actively evaluate its trade and investment support programmes through structured internal assessments and independent evaluations to ensure that our package of support remains effective, impactful, meets business need and provides value for money. Updated evaluations have already been commissioned for both inward and export support/promotion and are expected to be completed this financial year.

Question reference: S6W-38974

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to how reserved social security payments could be integrated into its updated Benefit Take-Up Strategy due in 2026, alongside devolved payments, to maximise the incomes of older people.

As set out in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, Scottish Ministers have a statutory duty to promote take-up of devolved benefits across the Scottish social security system. Reserved benefits remain the responsibility of the UK Government and the Scottish Government has no formal role in the administration of these payments. We continue to urge the UK Government to more actively promote reserved benefits and to follow Scotland's example by developing a Benefit Take-Up Strategy.

Welfare rights advice services, supported by Scottish Government investment, continue to assist people to take up benefits they may be entitled to, including reserved payments. In 2025-26, we are allocating over £15 million for provision of free income maximisation support, welfare and debt advice services.

Question reference: S6W-39088

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many foreign direct investment (FDI) projects have been undertaken in Scotland in the last 10 years, broken down by (a) new investment projects, (b) expansion investment projects, (c) retention investment projects, (d) mergers and acquisitions projects and (e) joint ventures.

Responsibility for measuring Scotland’s inward investment performance, which includes planned jobs and supply chain impacts for involved projects, rests with Scottish Enterprise. The independent EY Attractiveness Survey and the UK Government’s Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) annual inward investment results provide an additional performance indicator for inward investment. Collectively, the results provide robust estimates of Scotland’s inward investment activity and performance.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) is not a classification that the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise nor EY use when measuring the performance of inward investment projects into Scotland.

Scotland has a strong record in attracting foreign direct investment and our Inward Investment Plan (IIP) plays a central role in supporting our ambitions to be a destination of choice for global inward investors. Information on how Scotland has performed in terms of attracting inward investment projects is available via the EY attractiveness survey (the latest results can be found here: ey-uk-attractiveness-survey-scotland-06-2025.pdf) and the Department for Business and Trade Inward Investment Results (the latest results can be found here: DBT inward investment results 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK). Scottish Enterprise results will be published in the Autumn.

Question reference: S6W-39036

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people are currently employed by Scottish Development International, broken down by office location.

Scottish Development International (SDI) is the international arm of Scottish Enterprise (SE). The SDI teams in overseas offices are made up of staff employed by FCDO on behalf of Scottish Enterprise. The breakdown by location of these FCDO employed staff is included in the following table. There are also Scotland and London based staff working in the international arm of SE. SE's international teams based in Scotland currently employ 150 staff; and 8 in London.

Overseas Location	Staff
Abu Dhabi	4
Barcelona	1
Beijing	4
Berlin	1
Berne	2
Boston	1
Calgary	1
Cambridge (Massachusetts)	9
Chicago	4
Copenhagen	5
Dubai	3
Dublin	2
Dusseldorf	8
Guangzhou	2
Hong Kong	1
Houston	4
Jakarta	1
Kuala Lumpur	1
Madrid	1
Melbourne	2
Mexico City	1
Mumbai	3
Paris	9
Perth (Australia)	1
Rome	1
San Jose	9
Seoul	1
Shanghai	6
Singapore	4
Sydney	1
The Hague	1
Tokyo	9
Toronto	3
Warsaw	1
Grand Total	107

Question reference: S6W-39040

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many employee-owned businesses there currently are in Scotland, and whether it is on track to meet its target of 500 employee-owned businesses by 2030.

According to the Employee-Owned Business Census Scotland 2024, undertaken by Co-operative Development Scotland, there were a total of 286 employee-owned businesses operating in Scotland as of 31 March 2024. This represents a 47% increase since 2022. A new Economic Democracy Group has formed to drive growth in social enterprises, co-operative business and employee owned firms. The Group held its first meeting in April and will take stock of the journey to the 2030 target, examining what action may be required.

Question reference: S6W-39097

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-38278 by Neil Gray on 10 June 2025, what support, in the form of guidance and process delivery, it is providing to clinicians to prioritise any urgent non-cancer colonoscopy requests.

As part of the Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal Plan, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has published a number of clinical pathways and guidance, co-designed with clinicians from specialty delivery groups to manage patients referred routinely for colonoscopy. This includes the recently published qFIT clinical consensus document and National guidance for specifically managing Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) symptoms. It is for Health Boards and clinicians to embed these pathways locally and ensure capacity within the six week diagnostic standard. The pathways are published on Health Board websites, and it is expected all boards should be implementing these locally.

Clinicians can also refer to IBD UK’s IBD Standards for advice on delivering high-quality care at every point in a patient’s journey.

Question reference: S6W-38975

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 17 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding Scottish social security benefits, what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding accessing the data available between the UK Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC records to identify older people on low incomes in Scotland who are likely to be eligible for pension credit, and what assessment it has made of how this data, along with data held by the Scottish Government and local authorities, could be used to target action to improve the uptake of both devolved and reserved social security payments in Scotland.

As responsibility for promoting the take-up of Pension Credit lies with the UK Government, the Scottish Government has not had any specific discussions with the UK Government regarding access to the Department for Work and Pensions or HM Revenue and Customs data for the purposes of promoting take up of Pension Credit.

However, I have wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions last year, highlighting the need for a targeted campaign to increase awareness of Pension Credit and offered our support in promoting take-up, which we will continue to do to ensure everyone receives the support they are entitled to.