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-26873

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 January 2020
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 17 January 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what impact ending Abellio's ScotRail franchise in 2022 will have on the planned new services between Dunbar and Edinburgh via East Linton.

Timetable development work is ongoing and will continue as an industry process regardless of whoever operates services beyond the expiry of the ScotRail Franchise at the time of the introduction of services to Dunbar/East Linton.

An industry working group (East Coast Mainline (ECML) December 2021 Event Steering Group) has been established as per normal industry practice to plan for the December 2021 East Coast Main Line timetable. This includes provision and planning for services at East Linton and other stations on the line. Transport Scotland, ScotRail and Network Rail are active participants in the steering group.

In addition, the opening of the new fully accessible platform at Dunbar Station in December 2019, has created additional capacity on the route.

Question reference: S5F-03840

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 January 2020

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to reports that 14,000 applicants missed out on a place at university last year.

Question reference: S5W-26381

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2019
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 27 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to align the Care Experienced Students Bursary with the national minimum hourly rate of £9.30 that has been announced by the Living Wage Foundation.

The Scottish Government provided additional investment of over £5 million in 2018-19 to increase the care-experienced bursary across Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) to £8,100 per year. This additional investment funded an increase from the previous level of £7,625 in HE and £4,185 in FE, providing a significant increase in the financial support available to care-experienced students.

In addition, we recently announced that we will improve access to the care-experienced bursary by removing the age 26 cap from academic year 2020-2021.

At present, the Scottish Government are the only administration to offer bursary support targeted specifically for care-experienced students and we are extremely proud to lead the way on this.

Any further funding decisions regarding the care-experienced bursary and wider student support, will be considered as part of future Budget processes, alongside other demands.

Question reference: S5O-03689

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many parents will cease to receive the Scottish Child Payment each year for a child who reaches 16 while still in full-time education.

Question reference: S5O-03645

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it is developing relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Question reference: S5W-25202

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many roads in residential developments remain unadopted by local authorities.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of unadopted local authority roads within Scotland. It would be for each local authority to detail their understanding of what roads remain unadopted within their areas.

Unadopted or private roads within residential developments are the responsibility of either housing developers or private home owners, and they should consult with the relevant local authority on adoption arrangements if required.

Question reference: S5O-03582

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the economies of small towns.

Question reference: S5W-25061

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it provides to each hospice.

The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 makes clear that it is the responsibility of Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to plan and commission services for their area, using the integrated budget under their control, to meet the specific needs of their local population. This includes hospice, palliative and end of life care services.

Earlier this year representatives from the IJB Chief Officers Group and independent Hospices agreed a national level Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between IJBs and independent Scottish Hospices. A central tenet of the MOU is to establish effective, reciprocal relationships between IJBs and Hospices to help provide sustainability for hospice services and move away from a transactional relationship. Scottish Government officials are providing support in this work.

Question reference: S5W-25060

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to reinstate the recording of crime data by the sex of the offender.

The Scottish Government has not made any changes to the recording of sex or gender within data on police recorded crime or criminal proceedings.

The National Statistics on crimes recorded by the police do not include any demographic information on perpetrators, whereas those on criminal proceedings show convictions split by male/female. This reflects the information provided to the Scottish Government by the relevant criminal justice agencies (Police Scotland, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service).

As recently announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People (in a statement to parliament on the 20th June), the Chief Statistician will lead a working group on the recording of sex and gender in data. This working group will consider what guidance should be offered to public bodies on the collection of data on sex and gender – including what form of data collection and disaggregation is most appropriate in different circumstances.

Going forward, the statisticians responsible for crime and other Justice-related statistics will reflect on any new guidance produced by the working group – and will work with data suppliers to investigate whether any changes in approach will enhance the value of this information to users.

Question reference: S5W-25062

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of the cost of hospice provision is funded by public money.