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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 2295 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S4W-17927

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether blacklisting is an abuse of a person's rights.

Question reference: S4W-17926

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-14621 by John Swinney on 1 May 2013, and in light of further evidence of blacklisting in the construction industry, whether it will establish an independent inquiry into blacklisting.

The Scottish Government is pleased to see that the Scottish Affairs Committee is continuing its rigorous investigation into this issue. It remains appropriate for the Committee to carry out these investigations and to publish their final recommendations, which we will give careful consideration to. It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to conduct an inquiry at this time or pre-empt any conclusions or recommendations that the Committee is considering.

However, in line with the commitment given by the Deputy First Minister at a debate on 17 April on Public Procurement Reform, secured by the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, the Scottish Government has now engaged with the unions on developing guidance for purchasers on how to address the issue of blacklisting when awarding public contracts. Government officials have been in close liaison with the unions and have had a number of meetings to discuss guidance on the exclusion from public contacts of companies which engage in the practice of blacklisting. Scottish Ministers will be in a position to publish this guidance shortly.

Question reference: S4O-02593

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what action the education sector is taking to promote good health and help tackle health inequalities.

Question reference: S4F-01673

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 November 2013

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government is taking to address the amount that the NHS spends on medical overtime.

Question reference: S4O-02547

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 6 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to improve social care for vulnerable and older people.

We are doing many things to improve social care to ensure vulnerable and older people are treated with respect and dignity:

the integration of health and care to ensure seamless service provision for all adults;

our Reshaping Care for Older People programme, which recognises people want to live in their own communities for as long as possible, with appropriate support;

effective care standards, regulation and inspection of care to ensure that all people receive quality and compassionate care that protects their dignity and independence on every occasion and in any setting;

the move to strategic commissioning of care;

more choice and control through self-directed support;

the commitment to Free Personal and Nursing Care as a universal benefit for over 65s;

our dementia strategy to ensure people are treated with consideration for their condition; and

access to care information and advice via Care Information Scotland which is being developed to signpost information for all care groups, not just older people in the coming year.

Question reference: S4W-17531

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 28 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government which of the drugs made available by NHS England's Cancer Drugs Fund are only accessible in Scotland through individual patient treatment requests.

<>This information is not held centrally. The Individual Patient Treatment Request (IPTR) process allows a clinician to submit a clinical case to their NHS Board on behalf of an individual patient where they believe that the patient would benefit from a medicine which the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has not accepted it for use within the NHS in Scotland. SMC advice is publicly available on its website: http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk.

NHS England published its latest National Cancer Drugs Fund List on 23 September 2013, the list can be viewed via the attached link:

http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/pe/cdf/.

The Scottish Government’s response to the Health and Sport Committee’s Inquiry into Access to New Medicines outlining that IPTR would be replaced with PACS can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/29829.aspx.

Question reference: S4W-17532

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 28 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many individual patient treatment requests have been (a) approved and (b) refused in each year since 2010.

Question reference: S4W-17534

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 28 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government on what grounds individual patient treatment requests can be refused and whether it will provide a breakdown of how often each of these reasons has been used.

The individual patient treatment request (IPTR) process allows a clinician to submit a clinical case to their NHS board on behalf of an individual patient where they believe that the patient would benefit from a medicine which the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has not accepted it for use within the NHS in Scotland. The clinician is expected to provide evidence that the patient is likely to gain significantly more benefit from the medicine than would normally be expected. In order to do so, the clinician is expected to clarify that the patient’s clinical circumstances are significantly different from either the general population of patients covered by the medicine’s licence; or the population of patients included in the clinical trials for the medicine’s licensed indication as appraised. This would indicate that the medicine in question is likely to be more clinically and cost-effective for treating the patient in question than was demonstrated in the evidence submitted to the SMC.

Where the IPTR panel accepts that the clinical evidence provided suggests that the patient will achieve a significantly improved clinical response for the individual patient than would normally be expected, the IPTR will be approved. Where the panel does not accept this, the IPTR will be rejected.

Information on the reasons for IPTRs refused are not held centrally.

The Scottish Government’s response to the Health and Sport Committee’s Inquiry into Access to New Medicines outlining that IPTR would be replaced with PACS can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/29829.aspx.

Question reference: S4W-17348

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 20 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 10 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the supplementary to question S4F-01561 by Alex Salmond on 19 September 2013 (Official Report, c. 22684), what discussions it has had with the Royal Mail regarding renationalisation of the service in an independent Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-17349

Asked by: Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 20 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 10 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the supplementary to question S4F-01561 by Alex Salmond on 19 September 2013 (Official Report, c. 22684), what legal advice it has sought on the practicalities and legality of renationalising the Royal Mail in an independent Scotland.