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-07579

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 6 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recommendations in the Inclusion Health Partnership report, Understanding the lived experience of COVID-19 for marginalised communities.

The Scottish Government welcomes the recently published Inclusion Health Partnership report ‘Understanding the lived experience of Covid-19 for marginalised communities’. We recognise the importance of the issues covered in this report and we will be giving full and proper consideration to each of the recommendations, and how these interact and inform current and planned future activity.

The report itself, and its recommendations, cover a range of issues and areas. We are fully aware that Covid-19 has had a disproportionate impact on certain communities, and work has been ongoing for some time across Government to ensure that we fully understand the impact on those that have been hardest hit, whilst taking forward appropriate action to support marginalised communities. This includes, but is not limited to, our continued efforts to prevent homelessness by strengthening our collaboration between health and homelessness services, whilst similar work is also underway to improve health services for refugees and asylum seekers, ensuring that everyone who is a resident in Scotland is entitled to access high quality, person centred healthcare. The content of this report will further contribute to our learning and our ongoing work, particularly as we work to address the issues and challenges exacerbated by the pandemic.

The report also highlights the valuable insights of those from affected communities, and it is crucial that we listen to those messages, and act on them. The importance of having an ongoing dialogue with impacted individuals and communities has already been emphasised by commitments in both our Programme for Government and Covid Recovery Strategy to further embed lived experience in our policy design.

Question reference: S6W-07339

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve diagnosis of sarcoma cancer.

The NHS Recovery Plan, published August 2021, commits an additional £20m for the Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme, to provide greater public awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer and support the development of optimal cancer pathways to improve earlier diagnosis rates. Research is currently being undertaken to better understand the possible barriers and levers to early diagnosis that any new DCE campaigns should focus on. In addition, our public facing website (getcheckedearly.org) signposts people to the possible signs and symptoms of cancer including sarcoma.

The Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer support primary cancer professionals to ensure those patients with potential symptoms of cancer are swiftly referred into secondary care. In addition we have invested £3m in establishing Scotland’s Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres, providing patients with non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer access to a fast-track diagnostic pathway.

Question reference: S6O-00939

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its discussions with the UK Government to ensure that refugees arriving in Scotland from Ukraine have access to the resources that they need.

Question reference: S6O-00885

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in light of reports of concerns regarding governance at South Lanarkshire College.

Question reference: S6O-00766

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will apply fair work and net zero criteria to the freeport developments with the UK Government.

Question reference: S6W-06335

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 14 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider implementing the recommendation by the Dogs Trust to establish a central, publicly accessible list of licensed breeders, in order for buyers to be able to verify the identity of sellers.

The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 requires all local authorities in Scotland to publish and make accessible on their respective websites a list of licence holders so that prospective buyers of pets can verify that the person supplying an animal is licensed by the local authority. The information to be published includes the name of the licence holder, their postcode, licence number, date licence was granted and its expiry date.

While not a central list, the information needed to verify the status of breeders and pet sellers is already publicly available.

Question reference: S6F-00803

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 February 2022

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government is marking LGBT history month.

Question reference: S6O-00736

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting households that are facing hardship and debt as a result of the rising cost of living.

Question reference: S6W-04812

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 17 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-04467 by Maree Todd on 30 November 2021, whether gamete storage is provided by the NHS to people who are considering or undertaking gender transitioning.

Question reference: S6O-00555

Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 16 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish a timeframe for the implementation of the Scottish dog control database.

The Scottish Dog Control Database Order 2021 comes into force on 31 December 2021 and provides for the establishment of the database.

Technical development of the database will be complete by 31 December; January and the first half of February 2022 will involve security testing of the database, and for users of the database to receive training.

From mid-February 2022, it is planned the database will be available as a live operational database.