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: S4W-04693

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 12 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive to what extent landscape and natural scenic beauty are taken into account in determining planning permission for onshore wind farms.

Section 25 of the Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006 requires that planning applications are considered in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. It is for planning authorities to prepare development plans for their area.

Scottish Planning Policy informs planning authorities in the preparation of their development plan policies. Paragraph 187 of Scottish Planning Policy indicates that landscape and visual impact can be included in the criteria that will be considered in deciding planning applications for wind farm development. Scottish Planning Policy can be found on the Scottish Government’s website: http://www.scotland.gov.uk.

Question reference: S4W-04602

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 10 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive when the scorecards for the Emissions Reduction Programme Board will be made publicly available, as recommended in the Audit Scotland report, Reducing Scottish Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Question reference: S4W-04601

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 10 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive when the public engagement strategy recommended in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 will be in place.

Question reference: S4W-04621

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 10 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what the annual average number of passengers is for the Scrabster-Stromness ferry service.

Question reference: S4O-00555

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy last met the chairs of NHS boards.

Question reference: S4W-04519

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 21 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-04140 by Nicola Sturgeon on 1 December 2011, what discussions it has had with the European Commission regarding the notification of the proposed measures since 2009 and whether it considers that these measures are notifiable under directive 98/34/EC.

Question reference: S4W-04311

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what it considers to be the NHS's most effective weight reduction service and what evidence it has to support this.

Question reference: S4W-04312

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 13 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on recent research carried out by the University of Birmingham that concluded that "commercially provided weight management services are more effective and cheaper than primary care based services led by specially trained staff, which are ineffective."

This study provides useful data that will help to inform healthy weight management strategies in Scotland. However, care needs to be taken in applying its findings to alternative interventions that were not directly considered within the study.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the development of effective and efficient weight management services within every board area, driven by evidence-based decisions and population needs assessment, across the spectrum of healthy weight interventions.

Question reference: S4W-04310

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 8 December 2011

To ask the Scottish how many men over 65 have died as a result of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in each of the last 10 years.

The following table gives the numbers of deaths, registered in Scotland, of men, who were aged 65 or over, for which the underlying cause was an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Deaths of Men Aged 65 and Over¹ for which the Underlying Cause was an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm²

Year of Registration	Deaths
2001	194
2002	212
2003	233
2004	223
2005	212
2006	218
2007	224
2008	199
2009	192
2010	196

Source: National Records of Scotland (NRS).

Notes:

1. The figures include deaths of men who were aged 65 (as well as those who were over 65) because normal practice, in demographic statistics, is to produce statistics for the “65 and over” age-group rather than for a “66 and over” age-group.

2. Deaths for which the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) code for the underlying cause of the death was one of the following:

I71.3 - abdominal aortic aneurysm, ruptured.

I71.4 - abdominal aortic aneurysm, without mention of rupture.

These figures do not include deaths whose underlying cause was an aortic aneurysm for which the site was not specified NRS, either on the death certificate or in any additional information about the death that NRS subsequently obtained.

Question reference: S4W-04309

Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people aged over 75 have requested a GP health check since the National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2004 came into force.