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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S7W-01678

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 10 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what arrangements are in place to ensure that patients can access diagnosis or treatment where no NHS board is able to accept a referral to the required specialist service due to capacity or workforce pressures.

Question reference: S7W-01679

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 10 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of whether current cross-board referral arrangements provide equitable access to specialist services across NHS Scotland, particularly in specialties where service provision is limited by workforce shortages.

Question reference: S7W-01677

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 10 August 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the funding of private specialist assessment or treatment in circumstances where an NHS board is unable to provide the required service and is unable to secure an onward NHS referral within a clinically appropriate timescale.

Question reference: S7W-01240

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 10 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its planned consultation on the use of smartphones in schools, (a) when it will be launched, (b) how long it will run for, and (c) when it will publish its response and any resulting guidance.

Question reference: S7W-01443

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide information on the funding it has provided to support the provision of a landing slot for flights from Dundee Airport at (a) London Heathrow Airport and (b) London City Airport, including in which financial years such funding was provided.

Question reference: S7W-01442

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 July 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what public funding has been provided to Dundee Airport, broken down by (a) amount and (b) purpose, in each of the last seven years.

Question reference: S7W-01126

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 2 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S7O-00051 by Angela Constance on 11 June 2026, how it defines specialities in health services.

Specialty is defined as a division of medicine or dentistry covering a specific area of clinical activity and identified within one of the Royal Colleges or Faculties. A Discipline is a non-medical profession related to healthcare, for which formal training leading to a recognised professional qualification is undertaken. Examples of disciplines are physiotherapy, nursing, pharmacology. This is set out in the Public Health Scotland’s Recording Manual Waiting Times Recording Manual.

Question reference: S7W-01133

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 2 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S7O-00051 by Angela Constance on 11 June 2026, what services it defines under the term gynaecology.

Gynaecology is the care of women with problems of the female reproductive system (ovaries, tubes, womb, cervix, vagina). Some gynaecologists specialise in urogynaecology (bladder incontinence), reproductive medicine (fertility problems and recurrent miscarriage), colposcopy (dealing with abnormal smears), gynae-oncology (cancer of the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries), contraception and menopause. It is worth noting that some of these services do not fall under gynaecology waiting times.

Question reference: S7W-01134

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 2 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S7O-00051 by Angela Constance on 11 June 2026, whether it will provide a breakdown of the number of people waiting on gynaecology services in each of the last five years.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes statistics on stages of treatment waiting times for gynaecology by board and length of wait. The most recent report was published on 26 May 2026 and can be found at

https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times/

This specific data file contains historic trends for ongoing waits at each quarter-end with a breakdown of waits by NHS board.

https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/38855/newop_apr26-data-file-up-to-31-march-2026.xlsx

Table 1.1 refers to new outpatients and the drop-down menu can be used to filter by gynaecology. Table 2.2 refers to inpatients and day cases and again, can be filtered by specificality, including gynaecology. This data is based on waits covered by the new outpatient and inpatient and day case waiting times standards, and as such there may be some gynaecology services that do not fall under these criteria and are therefore not included in published statistics.

Question reference: S7W-01136

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 2 July 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S7O-00051 by Angela Constance on 11 June 2026, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of people waiting for gynaecology services in NHS Tayside are treated within the Scottish Government's treatment time guarantee of 12 weeks.

There were 38 inpatient or day case admissions during April 2026 that were completed in 12 weeks or less for NHS Tayside under the specialty of gynaecology, which equates to 50.7% admitted within the TTG. This compares to 55.1% of all gynaecology inpatient and day case waits completed in 12 weeks or less across NHS Scotland.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) releases statistics, as part of the monthly Stage of Treatment (SoT) publication, on inpatient and day case waits covered by the 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). The latest statistics are published up to 30th April 2026 and can be found using the following link:

https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times/

Please note, individual patients are counted more than once if they are waiting to attend more than one admission, so the official statistics shown here do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved.