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-02497

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the number of alcohol-specific deaths in 2022.

Question reference: S6O-02471

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an estimate of the number of households whose council tax bills have risen this year.

Question reference: S6W-19815

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 1 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much additional funding will be allocated specifically to provide training on problem drug use for healthcare professionals working in primary care settings.

Healthcare professionals working in primary care settings play a vital role in the delivery of the national mission to reduce drug deaths and improve lives. The Scottish Government encourages these professionals to engage with the range of training opportunities available on drug use.

The Scottish Government provides funding to NHS Health Boards and a proportion of this funding is allocated for education and training. It is the responsibility of each Health Board to decide how this funding is allocated for staff training.

Scottish Government has, in previous years, provided funding to the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to deliver the Management of Problem Drug Use certificate. This is a multi-disciplinary course aimed at professionals working with people who use drugs across primary care settings, and beyond, including General Practitioners (GPs), pharmacists, nurses, prison healthcare staff, and individuals in third-sector.

Scottish Government has agreed to provide further funding, over the next three years, to support continued delivery of the certificate.

Question reference: S6W-19819

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 31 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been allocated for drug and alcohol third sector organisations in 2023-24.

Third sector organisations are vital in delivering services to those affected by drugs and alcohol, and their families. The majority of available National Mission funding is allocated to alcohol and drugs partnerships who have local arrangements to support third sector organisations. Scottish Government also fund third sector organisations directly including through the Corra Foundation funds which values £65m over 5 years, and via SG managed grants.

As funding is distributed through these various channels, throughout the year at both local and national level, the total available to third sector organisations is subject to factors such as grant funding applications and local decision making.

Question reference: S6W-19818

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 31 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether third sector organisations are still able to receive funding through the National Drugs Mission.

Question reference: S6W-19817

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what support it is offering primary care services to enable the implementation of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standard 7.

The Scottish Government is providing support to primary care services in their implementation of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Standard 7 through three routes:

The first is through our ringfencing £30m as set out in our Cross Government Plan, over the course of 3 years, from the Scottish Government’s Enhanced Services Allocation to NHS territorial Boards, from April 2023, in order to accelerate the adoption of Enhanced Services for drug services across Scotland. Local areas will be asked to prioritise use of this funding to improve outcomes for people who use drugs.

The second is through our commissioning Public Health Scotland to consider and develop a reference suite of best practice models that should provide local areas with guidance on how they might adapt primary care delivery to integrate drugs services in a way that suits local needs. The material will be derived from a critical examination of international and domestic experience of drug service provision in primary care settings, including through direct consultation with delivery partners on the ground and with our Drugs Policy Clinical Advisory Group, providing insight into a breadth of applicable scenarios and solutions.

The third is through targeted support and intervention from Public Health Scotland’s MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST), who work closely with local areas to evaluate and progress implementation across the range of MAT Standards 1-10.

Question reference: S6W-19814

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the level of awareness of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standard 7 among healthcare professionals working in primary care settings, and what steps are being taken to raise awareness among this group.

The Scottish Government has not fully assessed the level of awareness of MAT standard 7 among healthcare professionals working in primary care settings. Local services are being supported to implement the MAT standards by the MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST) which includes healthcare professionals with experience in primary care.

The National Mission benefits from the expertise of a Clinical Advisory Group of healthcare professionals and the implementation of the standards is also supported by NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) which has primary care professionals on its MAT team.

Given the involvement of this support for implementing the standards and through their ongoing engagement with services all healthcare professionals working in primary care settings that have contractual arrangements in place to provide medication assisted treatment should be aware of MAT standard 7.

In January 2023, in the Cross-Government Plan published by the Scottish Government included a commitment to ring-fence £30 million of the funding available to General Practice to encourage more primary care providers to take on Enhance Service provision to support people impacted by drugs.

Question reference: S6W-19816

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the amended implementation timeline for Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standard 7 has been developed in consultation with primary care staff to reflect progress across GP practices.

The timeline for MAT standard 7 ‘Primary Care’ has not been amended this year – it remains at full implementation to be completed by April 2025 as per the 2022 National Benchmarking report published by Public Health Scotland.

The MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST team) within Public Health Scotland provide support to local areas to engage with their primary care providers and will continue to do so.

Question reference: S6W-18736

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 19 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has begun, or plans to begin, any testing for the drug, xylazine, in light of the first death from the drug having been reported in the UK in May 2023.

The Scottish Government is aware of this drug, to date there have been two detections in Scotland that we have been made aware of through the Welsh WEDINOS programme.

Public Health Scotland, through their Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (RADAR) programme, are continuing to monitor this situation. Currently xylazine is not routinely screened for in police or post-mortem toxicology throughout the UK, but we will keep this under review and future decisions around adding this to toxicology screening in Scotland would be made by the RADAR pathology and toxicology network.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD, the UK Government’s drug advisory body) New Psychoactive Substance committee are also monitoring the availability of this substance and are conducting an evidence review which will also inform action in Scotland. Public Health Scotland continue to lead on the ongoing development of RADAR which provides essential and real-time data on drug trends and harms to ensure a quick response to what is happening on the ground, including providing vital public health alerts, such as they issued around nitazenes in January 2023.

Question reference: S6W-18211

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 7 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to introducing a moratorium on the creation of bus stop bypasses, also known as "floating" bus stops.