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-39869

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 28 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the requirements of section 30 of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, what measures have been put in place to ensure that a children’s hearing, pre-hearing panel, or court has regard to any risk of prejudice to the child’s welfare that a delay in proceedings would pose.

Section 30(1), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7) of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, on delay in children’s hearings and adoption and permanence proceedings, came into force on 22 June 2025:

The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 3 and Saving Provision) Regulations 2025.

Section 30(2), relating to delay in cases under section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (e.g. contact and residence) is not yet in force. It will be included in the next set of commencement regulations planned for October 2025. Since it is linked to the commencement of other provisions where there will be operational implications, there will be a 12 month lead-in period before the provisions in the next set of commencement regulations will come into force.

I refer the member to a meeting of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee on unimplemented legislation (including the 2020 Act) on 24 June 2025 regarding this commitment: Official Report (see columns 10 to 14).

Question reference: S6W-39870

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 28 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the duty of Scottish Ministers under section 21 of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 to ensure the availability of child advocacy services in contact and residence cases, whether it will (a) provide an update on its short-life working group on child welfare reporters and (b) confirm whether it is complying with its duty to ensure the availability of child advocacy services in contact and residence cases.

I refer the member to a meeting of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee on 24 June 2025 on unimplemented legislation, including the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, where the Scottish Government provided an update on implementation of the register of child welfare reporters and child advocacy services in contact and residence cases: Official Report (columns 10 to 14).

We recognise the importance of section 21 of the 2020 Act and the need to ensure child advocacy is available to children in contact and residence cases. However, we are not in a position to implement this provision until other areas of implementation work (e.g. child contact services regulation and child welfare reporters) are further advanced. Therefore, we have not yet commenced section 21, but we will gather views of key bodies on what they would like to see in this area.

There have been four meetings of the working group on child welfare reporters to date with a focus on looking at what changes can be made to the system and how we will establish the register. We plan to publish minutes from those meetings in due course.

Question reference: S6W-39866

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 28 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will (a) provide an update on the implementation of the provisions of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 and (b) set out all provisions that have yet to be implemented, including the reasons why they have not been implemented to date.

I refer the member to the recent meetings of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee on unimplemented legislation, including the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (the 2020 Act), where updates on implementation of the Act were discussed – on 10 December 2024 [see Official Report columns 11 to 15] and 24 June 2025 [see Official Report columns 10 to 14].

The Scottish Government letter to the Committee on 11 March 2025 sets out the position on commencement and implementation of key provisions of the 2020 Act: Letter from the Minister for Victims and Community Safety.

Since that letter we have made a further set of commencement regulations: The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 3 and Saving Provision) Regulations 2025 relating to section 1(2), on the views of the child being considered when parents are making major decisions; and section 30(1), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7), on delay in children’s hearings and adoption and permanence proceedings.

A number of other provisions are already in force or have already been commenced for certain purposes:

?The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 1 and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2020

?The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 2) Regulations 2021

We plan to make a further set of commencement regulations in October 2025 of provisions set out in the letter to Committee. This commitment was made at the meeting of the Committee on unimplemented legislation on 24 June 2025.

Sections 4, 5, 7 and 8 of the 2020 Act are considerably amended by provisions in Part 3 of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform Bill, therefore commencement of those sections will follow enactment of the Bill. In addition, since we intend to regulate child contact services using powers in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, we won’t commence further provisions in section 10 of the 2020 Act at this time.

Question reference: S6O-04876

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what role the finance secretary has in authorising any continued expenditure of public bodies that incur substantial legal costs, including those covered by the Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-39564

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided towards the construction of cycle lanes in each of the last five years.

We have recently published an Active Travel Infrastructure Investment Report for 2023-24, which reports on Transport Scotland’s active travel capital investment in infrastructure.

The active travel budget does not allocate funding to specific infrastructure types, rather is available for the delivery of all active travel infrastructure projects. The individual project expenditure information we hold from delivery partners does not always disaggregate or identify distinct infrastructure types such as cycle lanes. However, the active travel infrastructure investment in each of the last five years is presented in the following table:

Year	Investment
2020-21	£85,821,798
2021-22	£92,928,802
2022-23	£122,343,823
2023-24	£150,548,994
2024-25	£119,549,631

In 2025-26 we will invest over £188 million to support high quality active travel and bus infrastructure, sustainable travel integration, and behaviour change activity to promote walking, wheeling and cycling for everyday shorter journeys. This investment has and will continue to transform communities, enabling more people to walk and cycle, helping to improve their health and wellbeing.

Question reference: S6W-39565

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many train stations operated by ScotRail in Scotland are not step-free, and what action it is taking to ensure better accessibility to all train stations.

Question reference: S6W-39556

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on whether an independent Scotland would (a) take a share of UK debt in exchange for assets or (b) adopt a position of no shared assets, no shared debt.

Question reference: S6W-39559

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on who would represent an independent Scotland in any participation at a G20 summit.

Question reference: S6W-39557

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on whether an independent Scotland would seek to join NATO.

Question reference: S6W-39558

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 20 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, what its policy is on whether an independent Scotland would seek to join the Nuclear Energy Agency.