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-21058

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don on 20 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to increase the number of available early years and childcare places.

Scotland’s flagship 1140 policy is the most generous childcare offer in the UK, delivering high quality early learning and childcare to thousands of families.

There is nearly universal uptake for three and four year olds, and if families paid for this themselves it would cost them around £5,000 per child per year.

Independent research shows that 97% of parents were satisfied with the quality of the funded ELC they were receiving and 88% with a 3-5 year-old were satisfied that they could access it in a way that meets their needs.

Last week in the Programme for Government, the Scottish Government announced plans to develop local infrastructure and services needed to provide childcare for children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school in early adopter communities in six local authority areas in Scotland.

We are already delivering innovative school age childcare services to around 1,000 priority families through our early adopter work in four local authorities – Glasgow, Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Inverclyde. We will expand that to two additional areas – Fife and Shetland – and we will start to test innovative models of delivery to provide childcare for families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school. This investment will enable us to begin to create and test for the first time what an all-age childcare system will look like in Scotland.

The Programme for Government also set out plans to begin work to phase in an expanded national offer for more families with two-year-olds, focusing on those who will benefit most. We already offer 1140 hours of high quality funded early learning and childcare to around a quarter of families with two year olds who experience the most disadvantage. Over the next year we will work with local authorities and our partners in the sector to develop plans to expand access to around 40% of families in Scotland over time.

The Programme for Government also contained important commitments we have made to recruit 1,000 more childminders and to provide the necessary funding to increase pay to £12 per hour for early learning and childcare professionals delivering funded provision in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector.

Question reference: S6W-21095

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 19 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been hospitalised with COVID-19 since January 2023.

PHS publishes information on COVID-19 hospitalisations on their interactive dashboard ( COVID-19 & Respiratory Surveillance (shinyapps.io) ) which is updated weekly on a Thursday at 9.30am. Data can be downloaded from here and filtered to the desired timeframe. Since 1 January 2023 to 10 September 2023, there were a total of 8,076 acute COVID-19 hospital admissions in Scotland (as reported on the dashboard on Thursday 14 September). Note that data for the most recent week is provisional and may be subject to change.

Question reference: S6W-20768

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of the named women's health leads in every NHS board.

Question reference: S6W-20771

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the network of menopause specialists and any progress that this group has made, including any minutes of previous meetings.

The Menopause Specialist Network, chaired by Dr Heather Currie, has been meeting on a quarterly basis since 2021. A peer support group, the Network includes representatives from all the mainland Health Boards, providing consistent advice and peer support to healthcare professionals. The Network supports primary care teams by providing access to a menopause specialist for consistent advice, support, onward referral, leadership and training.

We have also recently established a Menopause Clinical Reference Group. Issues raised by the Network are fed into the Group which then considers potential Scotland wide approaches.

Information on the activity of the Network can be found in the Women's health plan: progress report published in January 2023 and the Womens-health-plan-interim-progress-update published in August 2023.

Question reference: S6W-20769

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how often it has met the named women's health leads in each NHS board in the last 12 months, and how often it plans to meet them in the next 12 months.

Question reference: S6W-21094

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 15 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when ministers last discussed the issue of COVID-19 hospitalisations with NHS (a) Lanarkshire and (b) Forth Valley.

Question reference: S6W-21096

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 15 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has assessed any risk of a potential rise in COVID-19 hospitalisations over the winter period.

We continue to monitor the impact of COVID-19 and other seasonal illnesses within the population both in the community and in acute settings. This, along with other pressures, are part of our Winter Plan work which we are developing in partnership on with COSLA. This plan will seek to promote system resilience and set out the necessary actions for that local systems should take to prepare for the expected pressures.

Question reference: S6W-21097

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 15 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it has included COVID-19 in NHS winter preparedness plans.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the totality of the Health and Social Care system deal with emerging pressures including any rise in COVID-19. In partnership with COSLA, we are developing the Winter Plan for 2023/24, working collaboratively with local systems and partners to ensure that the necessary steps are being taken now to support system resilience including preparations for the impact of COVID-19. This plan will be published in October. We will continue to monitor the situation in relation to COVID-19 over the course of winter and stand ready to enact the National Response Framework if needed.

Question reference: S6W-20394

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 14 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how its Global Affairs Framework prioritises biodiversity.

Question reference: S6W-20697

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 14 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it (a) last met and (b) will next meet with the Scottish Funding Council to discuss governance.

The Scottish Government regularly meets with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to discuss a range of matters, including SFC governance.

SFC’s governance framework is set out by the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 and the September 2022 Framework Document setting out ways of working between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council. The Framework Document is supplemented by the annual Letter of Guidance which sets out Ministerial priorities and expectations.