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-38379

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 19 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to defence-related projects in each of the last five financial years, broken down by the (a) value of each allocation, (b) organisation that received the funding and (c) purpose of the project.

Question reference: S6W-37917

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown by health and social care partnership of the distribution of the 100,000 enhanced GP appointments it has committed to provide by March 2026.

HSCP	Clinical review appointments expected
Aberdeen City	3650
Aberdeenshire	2767
Angus	1672
Argyll and Bute	1347
Clackmannanshire and Stirling	2802
Dumfries and Galloway	2469
Dundee City	3544
East Ayrshire	2486
East Dunbartonshire	1306
East Lothian	1760
East Renfrewshire	1105
Edinburgh	8239
Falkirk	2403
Fife	6540
Glasgow City	17582
Highland	3668
Inverclyde	1792
Midlothian	1618
Moray	1212
North Ayrshire	3046
North Lanarkshire	7224
Orkney Islands	267
Perth and Kinross	1994
Renfrewshire	3533
Scottish Borders	1676
Shetland Islands	264
South Ayrshire	1982
South Lanarkshire	6092
West Dunbartonshire	2160
West Lothian	3413
Western Isles	396
Grand Total	100009

Question reference: S6T-02591

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to reduce ambulance turnaround times at hospitals, in light of figures showing that so far in 2025 more than half of conveyances recorded a turnaround time of longer than 45 minutes.

Question reference: S6W-38301

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that people with palliative care needs, who do not want to die in hospital, are not admitted to hospital unnecessarily.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access high-quality palliative care that is right for their circumstances.

Through our upcoming palliative care strategy, we will promote person-centred future care planning. Future care planning is important for people of all ages living with long-term conditions, disabilities, frailty in older age or rare conditions, as well as people with life shortening conditions. A future care plan summarises what matters to the individual and has key information for staff providing urgent or emergency care about the person, their health and care. Planning ahead can help people manage or avoid crisis situations and improve experiences of urgent or emergency health and social care, as well as avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions.

The strategy will be published alongside a delivery plan, which will set out our approach to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access timely palliative care and care around dying.

Question reference: S6W-38300

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take if the £5 million being allocated to hospices is not enough for them to match 2025-26 NHS staff pay levels.

The Scottish budget for 2025-26 includes £5 million of investment to support independent hospices to provide pay parity with NHS levels. This figure is based on estimates provided by independent hospices. Officials are working with a variety of colleagues across the health directorates to explore mechanisms for providing this funding to hospices, while respecting existing commissioning arrangements with Integration Joint Boards (IJBs).

We expect the £5m for pay parity to significantly help independent hospices in increasing their pay offer for staff. However, as independent hospices are charitable organisations, they are responsible for setting their own staff terms and conditions, including pay arrangements.

The Scottish Government does not undertake financial planning for local services, which is why commissioning and contractual discussions are carried out at a local, operational, level between independent hospices and IJBs.

Question reference: S6W-38299

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to ensure that hospices do not lose staff as a result of the reported delay in allocating the £5 million of funding to hospices.

The Scottish Government has already provided reassurances to independent hospices that the funding will be allocated as soon as practically possible, based on the analysis of financial data provided by the hospices.

However, it is important to reflect that it remains the responsibility of Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to commission palliative care services, including independent hospices, to meet the needs of their local populations. As such, we expect Scottish hospices and IJBs to continue to engage on any matters that may impact on the delivery of local palliative care services.

Question reference: S6W-38298

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions have taken place between the finance and workforce sections of its health directorate regarding the allocation of funding to ensure pay parity for hospice staff.

The Scottish budget for 2025-26 includes £5 million of investment to support independent hospices to provide pay parity with NHS levels. Officials are working with a variety of colleagues across the health directorates to explore mechanisms for providing this funding to hospices, while respecting existing commissioning arrangements with Integration Joint Boards (IJBs).

Most recently, policy officials have been working closely with health finance officials to ensure that the relevant governance and approval procedures are correctly followed to ensure this funding can be provided as soon as practically possible. We look forward to engaging further with Scottish hospices as we conclude this work.

Question reference: S6W-38384

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 13 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to engage in the development of amendments to the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill.

The Scottish Government is currently considering its position on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill moving forward, in light of Parliament’s decision to support the general principles of the Bill. In doing so, we will be taking care to ensure that any future steps are informed, balanced and respectful of the views expressed across the Chamber and the country. As part of this, we are carefully reflecting on the conclusions of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee in their Stage 1 report.

Question reference: S6W-38119

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 13 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support people who are reporting topical steroid withdrawal.

In partnership with NHS Scotland colleagues, the Scottish Government are developing tools to support GP practices to proactively identify people on topical steroids so that their treatment can be reviewed.

We have cascaded the medicines regulatory body’s updated safety alert, new labelling information and revised patient safety leaflet to prescribers through our established clinical networks to further raise awareness.

Question reference: S6W-38147

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 13 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its discussions with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde on improving waiting times for ovarian cancer surgery.