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-26140

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 November 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what independent econometric research it has commissioned since January 2019 to establish what constitutes fair delivery charges in rural areas, and what the outcome was.

Question reference: S5W-26139

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 November 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it uses the Improving Consumer Outcomes Fund to tackle unfair and misleading delivery charges in rural areas, and what analysis it has carried out of the effectiveness of this.

Question reference: S5W-26138

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 November 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made since January 2019 regarding postcode accuracy for parcel deliveries in rural areas.

Question reference: S5W-26135

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 November 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether its development of an interactive data hub to measure the fairness of delivery pricing in rural areas is expected to commence before 2020 and, if not, by what date it will do so.

Fairer Deliveries For All: An Action Plan sets out eight clear actions designed to tackle longstanding issues surrounding parcel deliveries, with particular regard to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

As part of the Action Plan, the Scottish Government committed to publishing an annual review setting out progress made on each of the actions. It was anticipated that this review would be published in November 2019. However, the Scottish Government has taken the decision to postpone this publication and associated announcements until early 2020 on account of next month’s General Election, and the restrictions that apply to it during the pre-election period. A full update will therefore be published early next year.

Question reference: S5W-26047

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the average number of hours per day convicted prisoners were engaged in purposeful activity (a) across the prison estate and (b) in each penal establishment in 2018-19, also broken down by month.

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

SPS publishes the average number of Purposeful Activity (PA) Hours per week, per convicted prisoner, as part of our Key Performance Indicators as reported in our Annual Report and Accounts.

In 2018-19 the average number of PA hours undertaken per convicted person in our care, per week, was 20 hours.

SPS does not publish figures in relation to the number of PA hours undertaken on a daily basis. The number of PA hours available for delivery fluctuate over the course of a working week and generally reduces at weekends.

Average PA hours by prison, per week, per convicted person in SPS care for 2018-19 is detailed in table 1, below:

Purposeful Activity Hours per Prison 2018-19
Prison	April	May	June	July	August	September	October
Barlinnie	18	16	15	15	15	14	14
Cornton Vale	17	20	22	20	18	19	18
Dumfries	18	20	20	21	18	17	18
Edinburgh	10	13	11	12	13	10	12
Glenochil	19	18	17	17	17	16	18
Grampian	30	29	26	24	25	23	26
Greenock	22	24	22	21	21	21	20
Inverness	26	27	23	30	25	27	24
Low Moss	23	25	23	23	25	22	23
Open Estate	23	24	22	23	25	22	24
Perth	20	21	19	18	18	17	19
Polmont	21	23	22	22	23	20	22
Shotts	23	22	23	26	26	25	26
Average per month	21	22	20	21	21	19	21

Purposeful Activity Hours per Prison 2018-19
Establishment	November	December	January	February	March	Annual average PA hours
Barlinnie	14	12	12	13	12	14
Cornton Vale	19	17	19	23	19	19
Dumfries	16	14	16	19	15	18
Edinburgh	13	11	14	14	13	12
Glenochil	18	14	17	16	16	17
Grampian	25	22	24	26	23	25
Greenock	19	15	16	21	22	20
Inverness	24	22	25	25	22	25
Low Moss	23	19	21	22	21	23
Open Estate	22	13	20	22	22	22
Perth	18	16	15	16	16	18
Polmont	22	18	20	22	19	21
Shotts	27	24	25	27	25	25
Average per month	20	17	19	20	19	20

HMP Addiewell and HMP Kilmarnock have differing contractual requirements for delivery of PA hours, which are detailed within each contract, by the service provider.

HMP Addiewell is required to offer a minimum 6 hours a day on a Monday to Friday basis, with a minimum of 40 PA hours per week over a rolling 7 day period for all people in custody, including those who are untried and civil prisoners.

HMP Kilmarnock is required to ensure that all convicted people in their care achieve 35 hours a week PA, with a minimum of 7 hours a day for a 5 day working week.

Question reference: S5W-26050

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the finding by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture that in Scotland's prisons “in practice, recreation time was the exception rather than the norm. Overall, remand prisoners were getting, at best, two hours unlocked from their cells per day.”

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

The quote provided was made specifically in relation to HMP Barlinnie, not the wider SPS estate.

On Friday 1 November 2019 HMP Barlinnie was operating at 144% capacity. HMP Barlinnie has been routinely operating significantly above its intended capacity for some time and this has had a notable impact upon the operation of the prison.

Where any prison routinely operates above capacity then this inevitably impacts upon the ability to provide an enhanced regime. HMP Barlinnie’s building design also inhibits open association and in order to ensure the safety of all those in our care, out of cell activity therefore requires more structured delivery than at other prisons.

The Committee for the Prevention of Torture’s (CPT) report highlighted that in other Scottish prisons visited, people held on remand were provided with opportunity for out of cell activity which exceeded two hours per day.

Question reference: S5W-26053

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the finding by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) that there has been a considerable deterioration in the presence of GPs in Scottish prisons, how many GPs have (a) been employed to work in or (b) attended prisons in each year since 2012-13.

Question reference: S5W-26057

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) average and (b) longest time spent on remand by individuals was in in each year since 2014-15.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information at present. As stated in the answer to S5W-20884 on 30 January 2019, the Scottish Government are currently working with the Scottish Prison Service to develop a shared approach to publishing the data captured by the operational database (as well as the range of historical data held) and making more data and information accessible to users. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-26051

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20884 by Humza Yousaf on 30 January 2019, what progress it has made toward maintaining and publishing data on the hours spent by remand prisoners engaged in purposeful activity.

The question S5W-20884 does not relate to data on the hours spent by remand prisoners engaged in purposeful activity.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information and, as stated in the answer to question S5W-20603 on 9 January 2019, hours of purposeful activity is not available broken down by sentence type. Data is not collected in that format by SPS. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-26054

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 13 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the finding by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) that there has been a considerable deterioration in the number of psychiatric sessions available to people in Scottish prisons since 2012, how many sessions there have been in each year since 2012-13.