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-03336

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what impact it believes the proposed deposit return scheme will have in tackling climate change.

Question reference: S5O-03291

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported concerns of NHS boards regarding the possible impact of Brexit on their services.

Question reference: S5O-03080

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what recent meetings it has had with ScotRail and Network Rail regarding the efficiency of services using Milngavie station.

Question reference: S5O-02912

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to improve fire safety standards, including requiring domestic properties to be equipped with smoke, heat and carbon monoxide alarms.

Question reference: S5O-02881

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 February 2019
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government how the roll-out of the GP Premises Sustainability Fund will help reduce barriers to the recruitment of GPs.

Question reference: S5O-02848

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the justice secretary's position is on what the implications of a no deal Brexit could be for policing in Scotland.

Serious organised criminality and terrorism do not respect national borders. Leaving the EU without securing continued access to EU criminal justice measures - such as the European Arrest Warrant, the European Criminal Records Information System and the Second Generation Schengen Information System - will mean Scotland losing access to tools which allow the police and law enforcement agencies to tackle these challenges effectively. We have been working with Police Scotland to plan for this, but there is no doubt that fallback measures will be less effective. As I indicated in my reply to Bruce Crawford’s earlier question, the Chief Constable has decided to bring forward the recruitment of 120 officers in this financial year to ensure capacity and resilience is in place to prepare against a range of contingencies associated with Brexit.

Question reference: S5O-02803

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government how much Police Scotland expects to receive from the proposals in the draft Budget, and how it will allocate this.

Question reference: S5O-02685

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what response it has received from the UK Government regarding medical research being undertaken at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital that may be impacted adversely by Brexit.

The Scottish Government has had no specific communication from the UK Government in relation to medical research in Scotland following any Brexit scenario.

Any loss of free movement of research staff and access to EU funding risks a damaging impact - including at the Golden Jubilee, which has supported two EU funded clinical trials in the last 3 years, worth £17,000 and involving around 40 patients.

The best solution is for Scotland to remain in the EU - in line with the way Scotland voted.

Question reference: S5W-20493

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 December 2018
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 11 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the commitment made by the First Minister earlier in 2018 at an international conference on employment of disabled people, to publish an action plan to address the disability employment gap later this year.

Later today, the Scottish Government will publish its Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan. This plan outlines our initial steps towards our commitment to reduce the disability employment gap, which currently stands at 35.8%, by at least half.

The gap in Scotland is similar to that at a UK level and, based upon the current rate of change, it has been estimated it could take 200 years to halve the UK gap. We believe disabled people deserve better and that action must be accelerated. The plan therefore sets out an ambitious but realistic timescale for meeting the target to more than halve the gap. We aim to achieve this by 2038, and will review progress annually and set the following interim goals:

By 2023 we want to increase the employment rate of disabled people to 50%;
By 2030, we aim to achieve an employment rate of disabled people of 60%.

The plan reaches across all parts of government, including Health, Transport, Education, Social Justice and Procurement. It sets out actions which will:-

support employers to recruit and retain disabled people;
support disabled people into work; and
ensure more disabled young people make the successful transition to education, training or work.

Key elements of the plan include:-

funding of £6m to tackle child poverty by supporting more disabled parents towards and into work;
investment of up to £1m to establish a Public Social Partnership, involving government, employers and disabled people’s organisations, to develop, test, and implement solutions to the barriers that employers face in hiring and retaining disabled people;
the setting by the Scottish Government of a target for the employment of disabled people in its own workforce. We will detail this in the Recruitment and Retention Plan which we will publish during the spring 2019;
the creation of a bespoke Scottish employability support service, to be in place from January 2020, to meet the needs of disabled people for whom more mainstream employment support is not suitable. This follows the end of UK Government Specialist Employability Support contracts in December 2019, and subsequent devolution of funding to Scotland;
development of pathways that enable those seeking to enter or remain in work to access appropriate and timely mental health and employability support, alongside work with employers to support the development of mentally flourishing workplaces; and
the investment of up to £500,000 to provide support similar to Access to Work to disabled people undertaking work experience or work trials.

This plan is ambitious but is only the first step towards meeting our objective. It will continue to evolve. We will update it based on the identified priorities of disabled people, the support needs of employers, and as the labour market changes.

Question reference: S5W-19855

Asked by: Gil Paterson, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 22 November 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-18648 by Clare Haughey on 22 October 2018, whether it will provide the same information broken down by what the average waiting time for mental health treatment has been for children.

Data on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times data have been collected nationally since January 2010, although initially data were very incomplete and of poor quality. Waiting times information has been published quarterly since August 2012.

Some NHS Boards provide CAMHS services for all those aged under 18, while others offer services to those over 16 only if they are in full time education.

Data are provided below. The completeness issues which affect the comparability of Psychological Therapies waiting times over time do not affect CAMHS waiting times. Therefore the following table shows all quarters in one table.

Table 1. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Waiting Times - median weeks waiting for patients seen in Scotland. Quarterly - January-March 2014 to April-June 2018.

Quarter	Median Wait (weeks)
April-June 2018	13
January-March 2018	11
October-December 2017*	10
July-September 2017*	12
April-June 2017*	11
January-March 2017	10
October-December 2016	9
July-September 2016	10
April-June 2016	10
January-March 2016	8
October-December 2015	8
July-September 2015	9
April-June 2015	9
January-March 2015	9
October-December 2014	7
July-September 2014	9
April-June 2014	8
January-March 2014	8

*NHS Tayside were unable to submit data between 22 June 2017 to 31 October 2017. Source: Information Services Division Scotland.