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-28922

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners are on remand for alleged drug-related offences.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

“There are currently 1,359 prisoners in custody who are on remand.

The SPS is unable to ascertain how many of these individuals are in custody for drug related crimes as only the offence and offence code are available on the warrant provided by the court.

419 of the 1,359 prisoners are being held on remand for an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.”

Question reference: S4W-28921

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners are serving three months or less for drug-related crimes.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

“There are currently 85 prisoners in custody with a sentence of three months or less.

The SPS is unable to ascertain how many of these individuals are in custody for drug related crimes as only the offence and offence code are available on the warrant provided by the court.

Nine of the 85 prisoners are being held for an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.”

Question reference: S4W-28727

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 15 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what Scottish Enterprise’s capital budget is for 2015-16, including any in-year changes, and whether it will provide a breakdown of how it has been spent.

Question reference: S4W-28729

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 15 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what Scottish Enterprise’s revenue budget was for (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15, including any in-year changes, and whether it will provide a breakdown of how this was spent.

Details of Scottish Enterprise's revenue budget for 2013-14 and 2014-15, including any in-year changes and a breakdown of how this was spent, can be found in Scottish Enterprise's annual report and accounts for each of these years, which are published and available to view on the Scottish Enterprise website at:

http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/~/media/se_2013/about%20us/documents/annual-accounts-2014.pdf

http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/~/media/se_2013/about%20us/documents/annual-accounts-2015.pdf.

Question reference: S4W-28726

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 15 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what Scottish Enterprise’s capital budget was for (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15, including any in-year changes, and whether it will provide a breakdown of how this was spent.

Details of Scottish Enterprise's capital budget for 2013-14 and 2014-15, including any in-year changes and a breakdown of how this was spent, can be found in Scottish Enterprise's annual report and accounts for each of these years, which are published and available to view on the Scottish Enterprise website at:

http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/~/media/se_2013/about%20us/documents/annual-accounts-2014.pdf

http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/~/media/se_2013/about%20us/documents/annual-accounts-2015.pdf

Question reference: S4W-28731

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 15 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what Scottish Enterprise’s revenue budget is for 2015-16, including any in-year changes, and whether it will provide a breakdown of how it has been spent.

Question reference: S4W-22978

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 November 2014
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 19 November 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will include court disposals for people who have received (a) fiscal fines, (b) fiscal direct penalties and (c) police antisocial behaviour fines in its next Reconviction Rates in Scotland bulletin.

The Scottish Government recently started a consultation process with the users of its Reconviction Rates in Scotland bulletin, which aims to determine whether the bulletin currently meets their needs, and also to identify whether additional analyses should be included in future editions.

The next bulletin is due to be released in spring 2015, with work starting on it shortly. The consultation process will not be concluded before the work starts on the bulletin, so it is unlikely that the analyses in the 2015 bulletin will be significantly different to those in the 2014 bulletin.

Question reference: S4F-02267

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 August 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 August 2014

To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government will ensure the future of shipbuilding in the lower Clyde.

Question reference: S4W-20528

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 30 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether NHS boards now monitor the use of primary care, preventative and early detection services by people from more deprived areas, as recommended by Audit Scotland in its December 2012 report, Health inequalities in Scotland.

Designing and commissioning services to meet the needs of the local population is vital. To this extent understanding patterns of need across different population groups is crucial. Much of the data from primary care, prevention and early detections services will be held locally and we encourage health boards and other local delivery partners to make the best use of these data.

It is for health boards to decide on how they monitor and make use of data on primary care, preventative and early detection services by people from deprived areas.

However there are national data sets which can help boards. These include inpatient and outpatient hospitalisation data (through, for instance, SMR00, SMR01 and SMR04), available at health board and local authority by deprivation category, gender and age. Data on uptake of the national screening programmes are available for bowel screening it is published by The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation at health board level. Health and wellbeing profiles are available to health boards via the Scottish Public Health Observatory site.

Question reference: S4W-20527

Asked by: Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 April 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 30 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether the GP contract now includes measurable outcomes to monitor progress toward tackling health inequalities, as recommended by Audit Scotland in its December 2012 report, Health inequalities in Scotland, and, if so, what outcomes.

The arrangements we agreed with the Scottish General Practitioner’s Committee for 2013-14 introduced a number of measures important for deprived areas, including anticipatory care and poly-pharmacy for those most at risk of hospital admission; importantly, this also paved the way towards minimising the bureaucracy associated with the GP contract in Scotland whilst placing more freedom in the hands of GPs to exercise their clinical judgment in the provision of care for patients, rather than the constraints of a tick-box approach.

The Scottish Government through recognising the challenges in the national contract in relation to practices whose patients face the greatest inequalities have significantly altered the 2014-15 contract to free those practitioners up to devote more time to the complex problems that their patients face.