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

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 636 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6O-01529

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the social justice cabinet secretary has had with ministerial colleagues on any potential impact on levels of personal debt of the inclusion of individual consumers under the Moveable Transactions (Scotland) Bill.

Question reference: S6O-01417

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 September 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to support the rural economy in areas impacted by long-term population decline.

Question reference: S6W-09954

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what investment it is making in public transport in (a) Patna and (b) other villages in Scotland to ensure that residents are able to travel to and from nearby towns and major cities at times convenient to them.

The Scottish Government is aware of the importance of rural bus services for villages across the country and are committed, in partnership with operators and local authorities, to looking at ways of ensuring that those living in or visiting Patna, as well as all other towns and villages across Scotland, are provided with effective and accessible public transport.

Since the end of January children and young people under the age of 22 in Scotland have been able to travel for free by bus. Around half of Scotland’s population are now eligible for free bus travel including those aged over 60, under 22 and eligible disabled persons. The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 provides an enhanced suite of options for local transport authorities to improve bus services according to their local needs.

The Scottish Government’s Community Bus Fund will support local transport authorities to explore the options in the Act, and to improve public transport in their areas – £1 million is allocated in the 2022-23 Scottish Budget for development of the Community Bus Fund. The Scottish Government have provided up to £210 million in funding to support bus services during the pandemic and are providing £100 million in to support bus services this year including additional recovery funding.

Additionally, the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), which sets the priorities for transport spending over the next 20 years and has been developed in conjunction with stakeholders across the country, includes several recommendations which are relevant to rural areas and will have a positive impact on improving public transport connectivity to nearby towns and major cities. The draft report was published on 20 January this year for a three month consultation period. Feedback is now being considered and the final report is due later this year.

Question reference: S6W-09952

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether spectating at sporting events can be an important and significant part of some people's lives, and what it is doing to ensure that public transport services work to ensure that such events can be enjoyed by all.

Spectating at sporting events is important to the people of Scotland and brings benefits in terms of enjoyment, stress reduction, socialisation and camaraderie with community, friends and family. Public transport has a role to play in enabling fans to get to and from sporting events, especially families and young people. The extension of free bus travel to all children and young people under 22 makes public transport more affordable, helping to improve access to such events while enabling them to travel sustainably early in their lives.

In Scotland we take a modal corridor approach to strategic transport issues for the last two decades. The Scottish Strategic Transport Projects Review 2 (STPR2) makes recommendations on the strategic corridors and TS continues to work hard with local and national partners to provide such connectivity; and local authorities have a key role to play too.

Transport Scotland engages with transport operators on decision making for meeting spectator requirements. With the introduction of Scotrail’s Fit for the Future timetable from 20 July 2022, reliability of rail service to sporting events has improved as driver availability has improved. Transport Scotland will monitor public transport offerings for sporting events.

Question reference: S6W-09953

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported concerns by football fans in south Scotland that current public transport services do not run frequently enough to attend an evening football match and return home afterwards.

Question reference: S6W-10084

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 16 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to improve access to dentistry services in rural areas.

Question reference: S6W-10085

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 16 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of households in the (a) Borders, (b) Dumfries and Galloway, (c) East Lothian, (d) East Ayrshire, (e) South Ayrshire, (f) South Lanarkshire and (g) Midlothian Council area are not registered with a dentist.

The percentage of the population registered with a NHS dentist in Scotland is broken down by NHS Board rather than council area and is published by Public Health Scotland (PHS). As of September 2021, the percentage of patients who are not registered with a NHS dentist is as follows:-

Ayrshire and Arran

15.3% of children
1% of adults

Borders

14.6% of children
15.7% of adults

Dumfries and Galloway

13.7% of children
8.5% of adults

Lanarkshire

13.2% of children
0% of adults

Lothian

16.1% of children
7.9% of adults

Question reference: S6W-10083

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 16 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will invest more in NHS dentistry in rural areas in order to ensure that every family has access to affordable and accessible dentistry care.

The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to invest in NHS dentistry in rural areas, which is why we have updated the Recruitment and Retention Allowance to reflect the particular challenges in attracting dentists to work in more remote areas.

Dentists, who meet all the requirements and are providing GDS in a Classification 1 area, will receive:

£25,000 paid over two years, at £12,500 per annum, for dentists in sub-part A of the first part of a dental list;
£12,500 paid over one year for dentists undertaking VT.

Dentists, who meet all the requirements and are providing GDS in a Classification 2 area, will receive:

£15,000 paid over two years, at £7,500 per annum, for dentists in sub-part A of the first part of a dental list;
£7,500 paid over one year for dentists undertaking VT.

Question reference: S6W-09282

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 1 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what specific financial support is in place for teachers who are unable to find employment.

Universal Credit is available as support for those unemployed and there are other benefits such as Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), however these are all reserved to the UK Government. Furthermore Employment Law is also reserved to the UK Government and the Scottish Government has no powers over associated policies.

We have provided £240 million of additional investment over two financial years, and a further £145.5 million of permanent funding from April this year, to support the employment of additional teachers and support staff.

We will also fund 3,500 additional teachers and 500 support staff over this Parliamentary term – over and above the 1,400 teachers recruited during the pandemic.

We will continue to work closely with COSLA regarding the employment of teachers, to maximise the number of jobs available, including permanent posts.

Question reference: S6W-09539

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 June 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 27 July 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of business support staff across all social work team types, in light of the findings of the report Setting the Bar for Social Work in Scotland that there has been an average loss of 32.9% of staff in this role between 2019 and 2020.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Setting the Bar report and will consider and discuss the findings with its partners to inform and develop future social work workforce policy.

Social workers, and the business support staff that assist them, are primarily employed by local authorities. It is the responsibility of local authorities to plan their workforce and ensure they have the appropriate levels of staff in place to provide social services for their residents. To aid with this, the Scottish Government provided additional funding of £25m, announced as part of the 2022-23 Budget, to relieve pressure on the adult social care sector to ensure care can be delivered safely to those who need it. As agreed by COSLA Leaders, £22m of funding was distributed based on grant aided expenditure for adult social work for 2022-23. Local authorities have the flexibility to allocate Scottish Government funding based on their individual needs. The intention of the funding is to allow local authorities to employ additional social workers or associated social work assistants or support staff – with the clear purpose of adding to the capacity of the social work workforce to respond to the current pressures.

Considering the findings of the report, the Scottish Government will continue to work with COSLA and other stakeholders to look at how social workers can be supported while they undertake their vital work across our communities.