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: S6O-01817

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on Scotland's trainee doctor workforce.

Question reference: S6O-01793

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to help increase public transport use in East Kilbride.

Question reference: S6O-01573

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how the expansion of the Scottish Child Payment will impact on the delivery of its Covid Recovery Strategy.

Question reference: S6O-01546

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve Scotland’s relationship with European countries and any benefits such initiatives can have to Scotland’s people, public services and businesses.

Question reference: S6W-09471

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 22 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the number of pupils in the East Kilbride constituency who will (a) benefit from and (b) be included in the roll-out of the provision of universal free school meals to all children in primaries 1 to 5 in the coming academic year, and whether it will provide an estimate of the average saving per family.

Information on the number of children receiving free school meals, broken down by parliamentary constituency, is not available. The Pupil Census of 2021 reported there were 274,938 children in primaries 1 to 5 at all schools across Scotland, and 17,482 of those were registered with schools managed by South Lanarkshire Council.

Free school lunches are available to all children in primaries 1 to 5 during school term-time, therefore all children within this age group are automatically registered to receive them if they wish. We estimate that providing free school meals will save families around £400 per child, per year on average.

Question reference: S6W-09895

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 11 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an estimate of the number of people in (a) the East Kilbride constituency and (b) Scotland who have benefitted from the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax first time buyer relief since its introduction.

Around 43,000 home buyers have claimed first-time buyers relief since its’ introduction in September 2018.

Revenue Scotland does not publish constituency level data, however, the latest available local authority data shows that around 1,040 homebuyers in South Lanarkshire have claimed the relief.

LBTT statistics published by Revenue Scotland can be found at: https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics/land-buildings-transaction-tax-statistics-0

Question reference: S6W-09226

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 30 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many category (a) F2 and (b) F3 fireworks it estimates have been sold in Scotland in each of the last five years.

Retail sector turnover figures are available from surveys carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes. There are no retail SIC codes specific to fireworks which means it is not possible to estimate figures on the number of F2 and F3 fireworks sold in Scotland from official statistics.

However, in their report published on 3 November 2020 the Firework Review Group, established by myself in 2019, estimated that there are around 250,000 sales of fireworks every year in Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-01312

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the potential impacts on Scotland's economy and society of the UK Government's policy programme, including the current and future impact of Brexit on Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-08713

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 14 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support the delivery of (a) social and (b) other affordable housing (i) across the South Lanarkshire Council area and (ii) in East Kilbride over the current parliamentary session.

Through our Affordable Housing Supply Programme, over this parliamentary session, we will make available over £156 million of funding for the South Lanarkshire Council area to support delivery of social and affordable homes. Details of the resource planning assumptions for this period can be accessed on our webpage – Affordable housing: resource planning assumptions to councils 2021-2022 to 2025-2026 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

This funding will support the delivery of projects identified as strategic affordable housing priorities to the area, as set out in the Council’s Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP), and will be administered through our Scottish Government More Homes local area team, working with delivery partners across the local authority area. A copy of the South Lanarkshire Council SHIP should be available online and is updated annually.

Based on the 2022-27 SHIP, it is estimated that over 3,000 affordable homes could be delivered across South Lanarkshire in this parliamentary term including over 700 in East Kilbride. It should be noted that the SHIP is a moveable document and planned figures are subject to change throughout the course of a financial year.

Question reference: S6W-08726

Asked by: Collette Stevenson, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 14 June 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-08428 by Ben Macpherson on 19 May 2022, whether it can provide an estimate of the number of children and young people in the East Kilbride constituency who are (a) eligible for and (b) forecast to receive payments for the (i) Scottish Child Payment and (ii) Best Start Grant.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission publish estimates and forecasts of eligibility and payments for Scottish Child Payment and Best Start Grant but only for Scotland. There are no estimates or forecasts of eligibility and take-up (the proportion of eligible children that receive payments) by area within Scotland. The following figures cannot be used to inform eligibility or take-up for East Kilbride specifically.

However, internal Scottish Government analysis suggests around 6000 children in East Kilbride are forecast to be eligible for Scottish Child Payment in each of the next 6 years and around 1000 for Best Start Grant. Also, that in 2022-23 around 4000 children are forecast to receive Scottish Child Payment, rising to 5000 from 2023-24 onwards. For Best Start Grant, around 1000 children are expected to receive payment in each of the next 6 years.

All figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand to reflect these are approximate estimates and use national level eligibility and take-up rates. See Tables 1 and 2:

Table 1: Estimated number of children in East Kilbride constituency forecast to be eligible for Scottish Child Payment and Best Start Grant.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25	2025-26	2026-27	2027-28
Scottish Child Payment	6000	6000	6000	6000	6000	6000
Best Start Grant	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000

Source: Internal Scottish Government estimates.

Table 2: Estimated number of children in East Kilbride constituency forecast to receive payments for Scottish Child Payment and Best Start Grant.

	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25	2025-26	2026-27	2027-28
Scottish Child Payment	4000	5000	5000	5000	5000	5000
Best Start Grant	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000

Source: Internal Scottish Government estimates.