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-00879

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 April 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what contingencies are in place to mitigate the impact on students, particularly those with upcoming exams, of reported planned strikes by college lecturers.

Question reference: S5W-08367

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 April 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what additional resources it plans to invest in the Aberdeen area to tackle teacher shortages.

There is a shortage of teachers in a number of areas in Scotland and this is reflected in many other countries.

We have taken a series of actions to help address issues around teacher recruitment. These include increasing student intake targets for the sixth year in a row, taking steps to maintain teacher numbers as a central part of our priority to improve education, launched a new teacher recruitment campaign in February this year and developed, alongside Scottish universities, a package of innovative routes to teaching to help encourage more graduates to become teachers.

We are very happy to work with local authorities to help tackle teacher shortages in the Aberdeen area. Currently we are supporting the University of Aberdeen’s DLITE (Distance Learning for Initial Teacher Education) Programme which allows local authority staff to train as teachers while remaining in post and are funding an extension to this programme so that it coves secondary teaching and is available to all local authorities. We are also committed to considering whether a second cohort of PGDE (The Professional Graduate Diploma in Education) Internships can be supported.

Question reference: S5W-07656

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 29 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation regarding an independent Scotland applying for membership of the EU, in light of membership requiring member states being obliged to adhere to the common fisheries policy.

Question reference: S5W-08132

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many people on the waiting list for an appointment at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary cataract clinic in the last year have sought private treatment.

Question reference: S5W-07655

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 29 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation regarding the policy of supporting continued membership of the EU, in light of the concerns expressed by the federation regarding the common fisheries policy.

No specific discussions with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation regarding the policy of continued membership of the EU have taken place. We continue, however, to work with stakeholders on areas of mutual interest, and to ensure that their views are given due regard. This includes ensuring that stakeholder views are taken into account by the UK Government’s during its Brexit negotiations, and that they can be reflected in the development of future fisheries management arrangements by the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S5W-07906

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in the event that local authorities raise more in non-domestic rates than the sum allocated to them in the local government settlement, whether they will retain the difference.

Question reference: S5W-07907

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of non-domestic rates is retained by local authorities.

Question reference: S5O-00795

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation regarding the impact of the common fisheries policy.

The Scottish Government works closely with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, and with other fishermen’s representatives, to manage sea fisheries in Scotland. Working together, we have made sure that the Common Fisheries Policy has been implemented in as sensible a way as possible in Scotland. We will also continue to work together to develop effective fisheries management policies for the future.

Question reference: S5W-07668

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 14 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-05829 by Angela Constance on 11 January 2017, whether it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.

Question reference: S5W-07667

Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 13 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to tackle anti-Semitism.

We promote and support the development of inter-faith relations and dialogue through funding of £145,000 (2016-17) for Interfaith Scotland. We support the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and Interfaith Scotland to deliver Scotland’s National Holocaust Memorial Day event each year promoting a multi-faith and multi-cultural society based on mutual trust, respect and understanding, as well as work on citizenship education under Curriculum for Excellence which includes an annual visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Officials will meet with representatives of the Scottish Council for Jewish Communities and the Community Security Trust to discuss a recent report which showed a rise in anti-Semitic incidents across the UK. Whilst levels of hate crime against Jewish people in Scotland remain very low, we are not complacent and will continue to take action and send a strong message that anti-Semitism is unacceptable.