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-17199

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 22 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to encourage food and drink companies to access Flexible Workforce Development funding.

The Scottish Government has promoted the Fund through a variety of media channels and has encouraged stakeholder groups to promote the Fund to their member networks.

Colleges have actively promoted the Fund to employers in their area which will take in a wide range of sectors including Food and Drink. In addition, Skills Development Scotland promote the Fund through the ‘Our Skills Force’ website - www.ourskillsforce.co.uk .

Question reference: S5W-17200

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 20 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many food and drink manufacturing businesses have accessed Flexible Workforce Development funding.

Question reference: S5W-17201

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 20 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether the pilot of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund will be extended into 2018-19.

Question reference: S5W-17017

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 04 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 13 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what funding it has given to Taylor Wimpey in the last two years (a) through its Help to Buy scheme and (b) for any other reason.

Question reference: S5W-16896

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 May 2018
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 12 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-15927 by Aileen Campbell on 30 April 2018, when allocations to individual NHS boards from the additional £20 million funding for drug and alcohol services will be made.

Question reference: S5W-17016

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 04 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 12 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to facilitate wider opportunities for self-build housing.

The Scottish Government is taking forward a programme of support for self build homes.

The £160k Self & Custom Build Challenge Fund is supporting 7 pilot projects which will contribute to the expansion of the sector. Case studies of the individual projects will be made available on completion and will inform future support for the sector.

The £4m Self Build Loan Fund will be rolled out Scotland-wide in early autumn 2018, building on the successful pilot in Highland area, supporting the development costs of self build projects which cannot secure standard bank lending.

Question reference: S5T-01141

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 11 June 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to meet its 2020 target for childcare provision, in light of a recent survey that found that only 30% of private nurseries are likely to offer the full 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare.

Question reference: S5O-02177

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 May 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the impact could be on Scotland's future ability to develop and promote its culture of the reported reduction in funding for music tuition in schools.

Question reference: S5W-16616

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 23 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many children have been home-schooled in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S5W-16632

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 May 2018
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 22 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish updated guidance on housing allocation policy for local authorities.

On 4 November 2016, the Scottish Government published on its website a final draft of the statutory guidance on the social housing allocations provisions in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014. This can be found at: https://beta.gov.scot/policies/social-housing/ and forms part of a package of guidance on the social housing provisions in the 2014 Act published between November 2016 and November 2017. The statutory guidance on the social housing allocations provisions will be published formally once the commencement order for the provisions that it covers comes into force. This is expected to be in summer 2018.

The Scottish Government’s practice guidance on social housing allocations is currently being revised. The revised guidance is expected to be published in autumn 2018.