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: S6W-12620

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to help sustain local swimming pools.

The Scottish Government places great importance on leisure facilities and recognises the significant challenges that are facing operators such as leisure trusts, particularly with swimming pools, as increased operational costs continues to put pressure on their operations.

I recently met with members of Community Leisure UK to discuss the issues facing the leisure and culture trusts in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has increased the local government funding by over £1 billion in 2022-23, a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent, despite a 5.2 per cent real terms reduction in the overall Scottish Budget. It is the responsibility of the individual local authorities to provide leisure facilities, including swimming pools, and local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own power and responsibilities and are entirely separate from the Scottish Government. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial recourses available to them, including on swimming pools, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government will continue to make the case for the UK Government to do more to protect our public services.

Question reference: S6W-12611

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment it has made of the help available to veterans to access any support that they are entitled to.

This Scottish Government has consistently championed our Veterans being the first Devolved Administration in the UK to create a Veterans Ministerial portfolio and the first nation in the UK to establish a Veterans Commissioner.

In August, we published our refreshed Veterans Strategy Action Plan in which we reaffirmed our longstanding commitment to our veterans, taking stock of the extensive services and support that the Scottish Government and our partners provide. This was informed by a light-touch consultation with key stakeholders to review our original action plan, first published in 2020, to establish the extent to which our existing commitments remained valid and where there were opportunities to add more detail to these commitments or add new ones. We identified a number of new commitments and updated several existing ones which will help us to better deliver and expand our support to our veterans and their families.

Furthermore, on 8 November I provided the Scottish Government’s annual update to Parliament on its support for the veterans and Armed Forces community. This was accompanied by a published written report which details fully the achievements we have made this year in delivering the commitments we have made to veterans and their families.

The Scottish Veterans Commissioner (SVC) also published her annual assessment of the Scottish Government’s progress against the recommendations made by the Commissioners since 2015. The SVC published this year’s progress report on 16 November which demonstrated good progress against recommendations made since 2015.

Question reference: S6W-12695

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many buildings it (a) has assessed and (b) is due to assess for unsafe cladding through the Single Building Assessment pilot.

Question reference: S6W-12619

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many GP surgeries have closed in each year since 1999.

As at 1 st October 2021, there were 922 GP Practices. This data was published on 14 th December 2021 – ( GP Workforce and practice list sizes 2011 - 2021 - Publications - Public Health Scotland ).

The Scottish Government does not hold figures for how many GP Practices have closed. However, the slight decrease in practice numbers shown in the report is largely driven by practice mergers and a trend towards larger practices with more GPs serving a larger number of patients.

Question reference: S6W-12615

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of NHS staff have been agency staff in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-12610

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much student accommodation, in terms of the number students accommodated, has been built in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government has no direct role in placement of students in accommodation or in the provision of student accommodation, whether that is university halls of residence, private purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) or private rented tenancies .

As such we do not hold information in respect of student accommodation buildings. The statistical information held in respect of new build starts and completions does not capture anything specifically on student accommodation.

Question reference: S6W-12616

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of NHS staff have been (a) full- and (b) part-time in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-12484

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 8 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many short-term let businesses currently operate in Scotland.

Since short-term lets as a category have not previously been subject to regulation, there are no official statistics on the size of the sector. However, there are a variety of data sources which can provide indirect evidence of how the sector has evolved in recent years, particularly with the growing prevalence of on-line platforms. This is discussed in Section B of our Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment: Short-term lets: business and regulatory impact assessment - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Our licensing scheme will provide data on the number, type and location of short-term lets in Scotland. Licensing authorities must maintain a public register of applications for short-term lets licences which they are required to share with the Scottish Government on a quarterly basis. The Scottish Government will amalgamate licensing authority data to produce a national report. This national report on short-term let activity in Scotland will close a significant gap in knowledge that currently exists.

Question reference: S6W-12545

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 8 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many Ukrainian refugees, who were initially residing on the MS Victoria, have since been moved to long-term accommodation.

The Scottish Government’s priority is to ensure that displaced people from Ukraine are able to stay in appropriate temporary accommodation and get the right support ahead of moving into safe, sustainable longer-term accommodation.

We do not want people to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in temporary welcome accommodation. That is why, we are taking action to match those on board the ships to longer-term accommodation and private host homes, with matching teams operating on board both ships. We are also supporting guests to secure longer-term accommodation through other means, such as private rental.

At present, the MS Victoria I is accommodating around 1,250 displaced people from Ukraine, including families and children. Further to this, the ship has accommodated many more people over the past four months who have now been matched to longer-term accommodation or supported to make alternative decisions about where they would like to live. More detailed data on the number of people who have moved on from the MS Victoria I will be provided as part of our Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics publication in due course.

Question reference: S6O-01679

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how any additional cost of living pressures will impact on the rebuilding of public services, as set out in its Covid Recovery Strategy, in particular public services in Edinburgh.