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: S5W-03064

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 28 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how it assess the efficacy of local authority homelessness prevention initiatives.

Local authorities have the duty to ensure that advice and information about homelessness and any services that may assist a homeless person or assist in the prevention of homelessness, is available free of charge to any person within the authority’s area.

The Scottish Government provides funding to the five local authority led Housing Options Hubs which facilitate the sharing of prevention of homelessness practice across Scotland. The Scottish Government also publishes PREVENT1 data which records local authorities prevention of homelessness activity.

Question reference: S5W-03058

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 28 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that secondary schools have sufficient resources to provide support for pupils with mental health issues.

The Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) Act (Scotland) 2007 places a number of duties on local education authorities including ensuring that schools are health promoting. This includes promoting physical, social, mental and emotional wellbeing by supporting pupils to make positive lifestyle choices in relation to their health and wellbeing.

In addition, as part of Curriculum for Excellence, all practitioners are expected to embed aspects of health and wellbeing in their lessons, regardless of what subject specialism they are delivering. It is for the local authority and schools to decide how to develop their own approaches to implement Curriculum for Excellence and they will be using a range of approaches and resources to support children and young people with their mental and emotional wellbeing based on local needs and circumstances.

Education Scotland have developed a national resource to support the development and practice of nurturing approaches for secondary and primary schools. This aims to ensure that all schools are equipped to support all children and young people to have equal opportunities to learn and develop. Education Scotland is also supporting the delivery of ‘Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid: Young People’ training nationally in secondary school communities. This will complement the range of initiatives and approaches to support mental health and mental wellbeing that local authorities already have in place.

By working closely with schools, teachers and parents, as well as other professionals, educational psychologists have a key role in building capacity to meet the learning and mental health needs of pupils. In addition, every school has a named contact in specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) who can be contacted for advice if they have any concerns about a pupil and can provide ongoing support.

Question reference: S5W-03061

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 28 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to reduce the number of children in temporary accommodation.

Scotland’s homelessness rights mean households with children are in temporary accommodation while they wait for appropriate settled accommodation. We want this time to be as short as possible and we are increasing housing supply to help with this. We will deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes, backed by more than £3 billion investment by the end of this Parliament.

Time spent in temporary accommodation should be used positively to identify the best possible housing option for a household to ensure a sustainable outcome. We are also working with local authorities and their partners to prevent homelessness for families with children before it occurs through further strengthening of the housing options approach.

Question reference: S5W-02265

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many homes have been purchased under the Help to Buy scheme.

Question reference: S5W-02266

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how long the Help to Buy scheme is scheduled to run.

Funding for the Help to Buy (Scotland) Affordable New Build and Smaller Developers schemes has been committed to 2018-19, bringing total support through our Help to Buy (Scotland) schemes to £0.5 Billion over 6 years.

Funding breakdown

Scheme Year	Ceiling Price	Budget
2016-17	£230,000	£80 million
2017-18	£200,000	£65 million
2018-19	£175,000	£50 million

Question reference: S5W-03068

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on introducing legislation regarding the number of dog litters that non-registered owners can breed.

Question reference: S5W-03067

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce its decision on whether to ban dog shock collars.

Question reference: S5W-02911

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had regarding implications for the UK and Scotland's relationship with the European Investment Bank following Brexit, and with whom.

Question reference: S5W-02254

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 August 2016
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 26 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it can take to encourage alternative finance provision, including the promotion of community development finance initiatives, credit unions and peer-to-peer lending, for low income consumers.

The Scottish Government is keen to encourage alternative finance provision, with a range of models designed to suit the circumstances of individuals as part of our wider approach to tackling financial exclusion and creating a fairer Scotland.

We welcome the work of others in this area, including the Carnegie UK Trust which published ‘Gateway to Affordable Credit – The Report of the Affordable Credit Action Group’ earlier in 2016. The report examined the challenges faced by Scotland’s credit unions and Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) and set out recommendations to help grow not-for-profit alternative finance providers.

We have also supported credit unions in recognition of their role in tackling financial exclusion; and in providing financial services and products to a wide range of customers. The report of the Credit Union Working Group “Scotland’s Credit Unions: Investing in Our Future” was published on 10 February 2016 (http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00493888.pdf). One of the recommendations related to increasing the number of sustainable, junior savers schemes in partnership with schools across Scotland. I recently announced how a £300,000 fund to support Junior Savers Schemes will be disbursed in 2016-17.

There are already three CDFIs in Scotland: DSL Finance; Social Investment Scotland; and Scotcash, and discussions have taken place with the Community Development Finance Association to consider how the CDFI model might be developed here.

Lastly, Accountant in Bankruptcy operates a Scottish Financial Health Service website (https://www.scotlandsfinancialhealthservice.gov.uk/). This contains links to a range of organisations who offer information and advice on debt, managing money, housing, homelessness and ethical lending.

Question reference: S5W-03060

Current Status: Withdrawn