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: S5W-31342

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 August 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 September 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the evidence given to the Justice Committee by the Chief Executive of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service on 18 August 2020 (Official Report, c.2) regarding the potential positive impact of jury centres in reducing the backlog of solemn cases, whether it will rule out introducing trial by judge only.

Question reference: S5W-31096

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 August 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 September 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when the annual Scottish Prison Service procurement report for the financial year 2019-20 will be published.

Question reference: S5W-31405

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 August 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jackson Carlaw (on behalf of the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body) on 1 September 2020

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the process and timescale is for it to nominate and appoint the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner.

The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner will be appointed by Her Majesty on the nomination of the Scottish Parliament.

Under the Parliament’s Standing Orders, a cross-party selection panel will be established. The selection panel will be chaired by the Presiding Officer and the other members will be a relevant convener (in this case the Convener of the Justice Committee) and between 4 and 7 other members having regard to the political balance of the Parliament.

It is anticipated that the recruitment of the Biometrics Commissioner will start in October with the successful candidate taking up appointment in 2021.

Question reference: S5W-31270

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 August 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 27 August 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when the working group to consider a standalone offence of misogynistic harassment will be set up; how it will be constituted, and what specific timescales have been establish for it to (a) convene and (b) report.

The Working Group will consider how the criminal law deals with misogyny, including whether there are gaps in legislation that could be filled with a standalone offence on misogynistic harassment.

The Working Group will also consider whether the characteristic of ‘sex’ should be added to the lists of characteristics within the hate crime legislative framework. An enabling power has been included in the Bill that will allow this to happen at a later date, by regulations, once the Bill has been passed.

The priority for the Scottish Government at this time is to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, therefore the work to establish the working group is currently paused. Further details, including the remit and membership of the working group, will be considered in due course.

Question reference: S5W-31269

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 August 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 27 August 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the most appropriate mechanism for tackling misogynistic hate crime is through secondary, rather than primary, legislation.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill provides for an enabling power for the Scottish Ministers to add sex as a characteristic as part of the framework of statutory aggravations and/or stirring up hatred offences. Under the Bill, secondary legislation could be used only to bring sex-based hate crime into this framework. It will be for Parliament to decide whether to confer this power and, if so, for the Scottish Ministers to decide whether to use the power – subject to further scrutiny by Parliament at that point through affirmative procedure. If sex is added as a characteristic, it will become part of the framework provided for in primary legislation.

If a criminal offence of misogynistic harassment is to be legislated for at some future date, it will require primary legislation as there are no enabling powers within the Bill in this regard. The Scottish Government considers this is an appropriate approach to this area.

Question reference: S5O-04554

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 August 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 September 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains committed to publishing an alternative to the annual GERS report.

Question reference: S5W-31006

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 July 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 26 August 2020

To ask the Scottish Government on what date it plans to publish the final report of the Independent Review of Complaints Handling, Investigations and Misconduct Issues in Relation to Policing by Dame Angiolini, in light of her preliminary report stating on page 15 that publication of the final report would take place in the summer of 2020.

Question reference: S5W-31024

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 July 2020
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 25 August 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish the scientific advice that has informed its COVID-19 route map planning regarding gyms and indoor sports.

Decisions on what sectors and activities to re-open on our route out of lockdown are guided by the principles set out in our Framework for Decision Making. Proposals are technically assessed using the best available evidence and analysis of their potential benefits and harms to health, the economy, and broader society to minimise overall harm and ensure transmission of the virus continues to be suppressed. This assessment process includes oversight of the assessed health risks in different settings by the Chief Medical Officer and input from the other Chief Clinicians as appropriate.

As well as this advice, we also need to weigh up the competing claims of different sectors of society such as schools reopening and their associated benefits to broader health and well-being, the economy and broader society. As you will be aware, the First Minister is undertaking reviews every three weeks, with the latest review and publication of our route was published on Thursday 20 August. This confirmed that the re-opening of gyms would be brought forward to 31 August.

Question reference: S5W-30869

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 July 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 14 August 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether, further to the answer to question S5W-30843 by Humza Yousaf on 21 July 2020, it will publish the (a) review of health measures that has been carried out and (b) evidence that changed to enable Spain to be put onto the exemption list.

We continue to review the International Border Health regulations on a three weekly basis. We have now concluded our latest review and Ministers have assessed that there remains a requirement for these regulations to remain in place. This decision was relayed to the Scottish Parliament on Monday 10 August via Government Initiated Question (GIQ).

The data and the associated risk assessments behind the country specific exemptions come to us from Public Health England (PHE) and the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC). PHE and the JBC provide the same data to the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. As this data is owned by the UK Government, we are not able to publish the analysis on specific countries and provide detail on why countries are or are not on the exemptions list. I have written to the UK Government asking them to make the data publicly available.

We are continuously keeping countries under review and where there is clear evidence that it is safe to do so, we will add further countries to the exemption list. Likewise, if the evidence suggests an exempt country may provide increased risk, we will not hesitate to reinstate quarantine arrangements

Question reference: S5W-30667

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 July 2020
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 13 August 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that drug-related deaths have increased during the COVID-19 lockdown, and whether Police Scotland will publish this data.

The Scottish Government is concerned by any reports regarding an increase in drug related deaths. We are fully committed to doing everything within our powers to tackle this issue, including supporting the ongoing work of the Drug Death Taskforce.

We work closely with Police Scotland and Public Health Scotland to monitor the number of drug deaths and any arising trends. Arrangements for the sharing of police data is a matter for Police Scotland.

National Records Scotland (NRS) is responsible for publishing the official national statistics on Scottish drug deaths on an annual basis. We are currently awaiting details from them with regards to the date of publication of the 2019 drug death statistics.