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-00431

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 November 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to help tackle the reported affordable housing crisis in Edinburgh.

Question reference: S6O-00253

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure the future workforce can have access to vocational skills training, in light of the current staff shortages in certain sectors.

Question reference: S6T-00184

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports of staffing shortages at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital leading to health professionals warning about patient safety.

Question reference: S6O-00165

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 16 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason Scotland's Mental Health First Aid is reportedly not running any training courses at present.

Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid programme is delivered as a face-to-face training event. In order to comply with the Scottish Government’s COVID-19 guidance and to protect public health, the delivery of these training courses was paused by Public Health Scotland (PHS), which holds the licence for this training to operate in Scotland. A range of online resources was made available by PHS and NHS Education for Scotland throughout the pandemic. In recognition of the changing context, PHS is working to ensure that the delivery of the Mental Health First Aid programme can resume safely. These courses will restart in November 2021.

Question reference: S6W-02481

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 13 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to reimburse payments made by local authorities and assessment centres to the SQA for exam-related services that were not provided in academic year 2020-21.

Charges for National Qualifications have remained unchanged since 2012-13 despite changes in costs. While charges contribute towards the cost of awarding National Qualifications they do not cover the full costs. In addition, 2020 and 2021 late entry fees have been waived and there have been no charges for appeals. There are therefore no plans to reimburse National Qualifications payments.

For 2021, SQA estimates that the costs of providing certification for national qualifications was £41.7m, while income from local authorities, colleges and independent schools is expected to be £30.5m. The remaining cost is covered by SQA’s grant in aid budget from the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S6T-00139

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the use of face-to-face GP appointments.

Question reference: S6W-02094

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking, in addition to initiatives such as mobile vaccine buses and vaccinations at football stadiums and shopping centres, to encourage and incentivise younger people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, in light of reports that vaccine rollout statistics show a lower take-up rate amongst younger people.

The vaccination programme uptake in Scotland is highly successful overall with around 90% of the adult population (18+) having received their first dose - far beyond our planning assumption of 80% - and so far 73% have received their second dose.

To ensure good uptake amongst younger age groups the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland are undertaking a wide range of initiatives.

Drop in clinics are widely available for people who want a first vaccination or are 8 weeks or more from their second vaccination – regardless if they have an appointment in the system. Drop-in mobile centres are attending a range of sites such as football grounds, parks, workplaces and shopping centres.

Young people within the eligible Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) age cohorts will still also receive a scheduled invitation which they may attend if the time and date suits. A dedicated self-registration portal allows SMS notification to take account of the greater turnover of registered addresses amongst young people.

We continue to engage with young people in a variety of ways, including through social media outlets, to make sure they have access to the correct information on vaccines. To this end the Scottish Government has developed a comprehensive set of public information campaigns across TV, radio, print and online to disseminate quality information on vaccines and positive encouragement to take up vaccination invitations.

We are presently strengthening communications targeting the 18-29 age group, such as the Roll Up Your Sleeves campaign, to ensure we vaccinate as many people in this cohort as possible.

All NHS Boards have dedicated inclusion plans within the vaccination programme, outlining how they will actively offer vaccination to people who may face barriers in taking up the vaccine. Some examples of outreach include offering vaccinations in places of worship, in other community settings, providing concessionary bus travel to appointments and working with community leaders to promote uptake.

We are continuing to discuss a range of measures with universities and colleges to help ensure students get vaccinated as soon as possible before arriving on campus. We remain in regular dialogue with Universities Scotland and Colleges Scotland and have agreed with Health Boards and Higher and Further Education Institutions to appoint Single Points of Contacts in universities and colleges. Additionally, we are engaging with the Health Boards to support vaccine delivery for both international and home based students where there is local need, including the possibility of on-campus pop-up clinics.

Question reference: S6W-01821

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many Specialist Nurse Practitioners there are for (a) primary and (b) secondary breast cancer, and what the nurse-to-patient ratio is, both broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S6W-01822

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have had a genomic profile carried out on their tumour in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.

The Scottish Genetic Laboratory Consortium is commissioned by NHS Services Scotland National Services Division (NSD) through four Laboratory sites in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow.

Genetic services are a matter for NSD and local Health Boards therefore the information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

However we can advise that the Scottish Genetic Laboratory Consortium use a number of testing methodologies for accurate tumour profiling.

Next generation sequencing (NGS) for the most common cancers is now available across all four Scottish Consortium Laboratory sites. The application of NGS means that several clinically important genetic variants can be tested for simultaneously. Such testing expedites rapid and accurate diagnosis of the particular cancer and informs the most appropriate treatment for patients based on the genetic profile of their tumour which can also be referred to as Precision Medicine.

NGS testing is being delivered by the Consortium laboratories for colorectal cancer, lung cancer and melanoma as well as a number of less common solid tumours.

Question reference: S6W-02100

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 25 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of the (a) assessment criteria used, and (b) weighting of the submitted bids, in relation to the process to determine the new contract for the provision of Scottish National Standardised Assessments.

The Evaluation Guide and Award Criteria published as part of the Invitation to Tender determined the Quality: Price ratio for the evaluation process as 75:25. The emphasis placed on quality reflects the importance the Scottish Government attaches to delivering a high quality assessment resource to schools, and recognises the requirement for a range of technical, educational and psychometric expertise to deliver the complex and multi-faceted Services associated with the Contract.

The Award criteria for the Quality Analysis element of the evaluation identified a series of questions across a range of areas, including Assessments and Reporting; Technical; Service Management; Security; and Transition, Implementation and Business as Usual. Some of these questions were identified as mandatory, requiring a minimum score of 2 in order for the tender to progress to the Price Analysis. The rationale for this approach is that if suppliers are unable to fulfil particular aspects of the service, the service would not be viable, irrespective of cost. Mandatory items are clearly identified within the published Evaluation and Award Criteria.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 Statutory Guidance (amended 2021) states that regulated contracts must be awarded to the most economically advantageous tender. The Guidance clarifies that this means contracts cannot be awarded on the basis of lowest price or lowest cost alone.