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: S5O-00223

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 5 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to promote telehealth and telecare.

The Scottish Government's Technology Enabled Care, or TEC, Programme was set up in 2014 to significantly extend the number of people directly benefiting from technology enabled care and support in Scotland, which includes telehealth and telecare.

Funding from the TEC Programme drives activity within Health boards, Integration Authorities and other delivery partners who remain responsibly for promotion locally. A report of the first year of funding, covering 2015-16, shows that already close to 25,000 additional people have benefited from the Programme. This report will be published later in October.

The Scottish Government will also publish this month our National Action Plan for Technology Enabled Care, setting out a range of actions to further promote telehealth and telecare as part of service redesign.

Question reference: S5W-03155

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 5 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it can take to reduce the number of bats being killed by the condition, barotrauma, as a result of flying near to wind turbines.

Question reference: S5W-02901

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government by what date 100% rollout of broadband will be achieved.

Question reference: S5W-03018

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what minimum level of national broadband coverage by 31 December 2021 it considers will be acceptable, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

Question reference: S5W-02904

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many Community Broadband Projects (a) there are and (b) it plans, and how it will ensure that these are fully-funded.

The Scottish Government’s support for community broadband projects is delivered through Community Broadband Scotland (CBS). CBS currently has 14 projects underway and in build; and a further 49 projects either about to enter the procurement or consultation phase. CBS is working with these communities to refine their plans and, in some cases, to determine whether they still want to progress a community owned or managed project. If so, funding will be made available to help deliver that aspiration, where a sustainable business case exists.

Question reference: S5W-02900

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its investment priorities are for the new round of procurement for superfast broadband rollout and, if these have not been agreed, by what date it will do so.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring superfast broadband access for 100 per cent of premises across Scotland. Commercial investment will play a key role in delivering this target. We would anticipate that public sector funding will be focused primarily on extending superfast connectivity to rural areas, with commercial roll-out covering urban areas.

Precise investment priorities will be determined once an Open Market Review (OMR) has been completed and the findings analysed. It is not possible, at this stage, to specify a precise date; though we expect the OMR to begin in the coming months.

Question reference: S5W-02910

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the pledge in the 2016 SNP manifesto, for what reason it has extended the target date for 100% roll-out of superfast broadband to 2021.

The Scottish Government set out a commitment to extend superfast broadband access to 100 per cent of premises by 2021 in the Programme for Government, published on 6 September 2016. There was no previous Scottish Government commitment around superfast broadband access so there is no question of a target date having been extended. Our 2020 commitment relates to the delivery of world class, future-proofed digital infrastructure, rather than superfast broadband access.

Question reference: S5W-02908

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings it has had in the last year to discuss extending the 100% roll-out target for superfast broadband to 2021, and who attended.

Question reference: S5W-02898

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to assist the 132,000 premises that were referred to at page 10 of the August 2016 Audit Scotland Report, Superfast broadband for Scotland: A progress update, which will not have broadband access, and how much it would cost to roll out such access to these premises,

Audit Scotland’s report estimates that 132,000 premises will not have access to fibre broadband following completion of the Digital Scotland programme. In the vast majority of cases, these premises will be able to access basic broadband (minimum of 2Mbps) or access funding, via the Better Broadband Scheme, to improve their service.

The Scottish Government has made a commitment to deliver 100 per cent superfast broadband access by 2021. All premises that do not have superfast access delivered commercially or via the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme will be eligible for inclusion in our programme for new public investment aimed at extending coverage.

There are no definitive cost estimates available at this time. This will be dependent on the exact number of premises remaining unserved and the nature of the technology deployed.

Question reference: S5W-02888

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many breaks in broadband service provision lasting (a) more than and (b) up to one hour there have been in each of the last 12 months in each Scottish Parliamentary (i) constituency and (ii) region, and what information it has regarding how many were due to (A) technical reasons and (B) over-subscription.