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-41376

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 3 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to protect public sector workers, in light of figures released by Unison suggesting that there were more than 75,000 assaults on these workers in the last year.

Violence and abuse against public sector workers are completely unacceptable. Everyone deserves to feel safe at work, especially when serving the public.

A range of criminal laws protect public sector staff. The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 allows for up to 12 months’ imprisonment for assaulting emergency workers. More serious offences can be prosecuted under common law, with penalties up to life imprisonment. Courts have strong powers to address threats and abuse.

Employers play a key role in promoting staff safety. Public sector workers provide vital services, and we fully support law enforcement in using their powers to prosecute offenders. We encourage all incidents to be reported to employers and the police.

Violence in schools is also unacceptable. National guidance on managing behaviour, co-produced with teaching unions and headteachers and published in June 2025, supports staff in using their professional judgement. Additional guidance on risk assessments helps schools respond to violent or aggressive behaviour.

The Scottish Government and COSLA have jointly urged Directors of Education to review and update local behaviour policies this academic year.

We’ve invested £1.64 billion in Police Scotland this year—£90 million more than in 2024–25—and increased local government funding by over £1.1 billion. Since 2023, over £6 million has supported the Violence Prevention Framework, including work by the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit and Medics Against Violence. Up to £26 million will also be available from March 2026 for the next phase of the Cashback for Communities Programme, supporting projects that help young people avoid crime.

Question reference: S6W-41378

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 3 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported concerns raised by the Scottish Police Federation that public safety might be at risk should there not be a significant increase in Police Scotland’s financial settlement in 2026-27.

The Scottish Government’s Vision for Justice clearly sets out the priorities we have for the whole of the justice system, ensuring it serves everyone fairly and effectively, with a focus on creating safer communities.

Police Scotland remain focused on keeping our communities safe, with the Scottish Government investing a record £1.64 billion in policing in 2025-26 – an increase of £90 million when compared to the 2024-25 published budget. Scotland has more police officers per head than England or Wales, and recorded crime is down almost 40% since 2006-07.

We are working closely with the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland to understand their 2026-27 budget requirements

Question reference: S6O-05063

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6O-05042

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 October 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the decision by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport to progress with proposals for bus franchising.

Question reference: S6W-40738

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 1 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will increase funding for the No Knives, Better Lives campaign, in light of the campaign having a reported 12% real-terms reduction in its funding since 2022-23.

Against a background of increased funding pressures, we have committed over £6 million to support delivery of a range of prevention and early intervention activities through the Violence Prevention Framework, since its publication in 2023. This investment supports a range of partners, who are working jointly to deliver on the priorities set out in the Framework. YouthLink Scotland’s No Knives, Better Lives programme itself has been financially supported with grant funding of over £5.7m since 2009, including almost £300k in 2025-26. This has allowed YouthLink Scotland to deliver social media messages about knife crime prevention as well as No Knives, Better Lives training sessions to 6,000 front line practitioners and 650 peer educators. This has enabled the programme to reach 165,000 young people across all 32 local authorities in Scotland.

Question reference: S6T-02699

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report from the Scottish Funding Council stating that universities and colleges are in unsustainable financial situations, with some at risk of insolvency in the current financial year.

Question reference: S6W-40498

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of it having a proposed capacity of 1,344 places, what the expected size of cells in the new HMP Glasgow will be. .

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

HMP Glasgow’s design is built on lessons learned from previous builds and other jurisdictions. The design utilises a formation of smaller household units. This structure support safety and provides flexibility to contract or expand in line with operational and regime requirements.

The 5 residential houseblocks will have 20 cells within each of the 3 spurs. Each spur will have 18 single cells of 9.44 m² and 2 double cells of 13.60 m².

Question reference: S6O-04952

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will make a direct award to the Ferguson Marine shipyard for the replacement of MV Lord of the Isles.

Question reference: S6O-04906

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recently published report by National Records of Scotland, Healthy Life Expectancy 2021-2023.

Question reference: S6W-39801

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 21 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the fourth supplementary to question S6O-02531 by Siobhian Brown on 20 September 2023, in light of the minister’s comment that Scotland is “maintaining frontline services by having a higher number of firefighters than there is in other parts of the UK”, whether it can confirm how many firefighters there are in Scotland, and how this compares with the rest of the UK, also broken down by how many firefighters from (a) Scotland and (b) the rest of the UK are currently available for operational service and are employed (i) in a full-time equivalent (FTE) role or (ii) on a retained duty system (RDS), and how it ensures that, when calculating these figures, it does not double-count firefighters in Scotland who hold dual contracts with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service as both FTE and RDS staff.

In answering Parliamentary Questions in relation to firefighter numbers, the Scottish Government uses nationally available Official Statistics from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and for comparative numbers, the Welsh and UK Governments.

Current Official Statistics for the SFRS in 2023/24 (statistics for 24/25 will be published on 29 August 2025) show that at 31 March 2024 there were 3,419 wholetime operational staff, 55 Retained full-time and 166 Operational Control staff all of whom are considered to be wholetime firefighters. There were 2,708 Retained Duty and 269 Volunteer firefighters which are considered to be On-Call firefighters. Both the wholetime and on-call firefighter numbers are added together to show the total number of firefighters in Scotland. The full Scottish Statistics can be found at FSOS2023-2024Statistics.pdf. Comparable statistics for Wales and England are available at Personnel (headcount) by employment type and Fire and Rescue Service area and Fire statistics data tables - GOV.UK.

SFRS statistics count individual staff who are on dual contracts twice, once in their wholetime operational role and once in their On Call role as they are two distinct and separate jobs with separate contracts. Scottish Government does not hold details on Scottish or UK firefighters that are currently available for operational service and employed on an FTE or RDS role.