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

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Question reference: S6W-19545

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 25 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much a prisoner on the prison estate is currently charged for 100 minutes of telephone usage for (a) landline and (b) mobile calls, and whether it will provide a breakdown of any change to those charges in each of the last four years.

Question reference: S6W-19541

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its progress towards its target for out-of-area residential placements and inappropriate hospital stays to be greatly reduced by March 2024, as set out in its report, Coming Home Implementation: A report from the working group on complex care and delayed discharge.

We are committed to delivering the Coming Home recommendations to reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements and delayed discharges experienced by people with learning disabilities and complex care needs. We continue to work closely with COSLA and the local partners which have statutory responsibility for providing and commissioning appropriate services to meet their population’s needs.

In terms of progressing the recommendations, Dynamic Support Registers have been developed and launched, and local partners are now populating these. The Registers will provide an overview of the position across Scotland and help local areas to plan for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs to live in their home communities. We know that a number of local areas are already using these registers.

The Practitioner Peer Support Network to support local areas to share best practice will go live soon and we are also progressing work to establish a National Support Panel, to support local areas to share best practice and ensure genuine change is delivered.

Question reference: S6W-19543

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupils were suspended from schools in each of the last four years, broken down by local authority area.

Information on the number of pupils and cases of exclusions is collected and published every two years. Statistics on the number of pupils excluded by local authority from 2007-08 to 2020-21 are available in Table 2.3 here:

https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2018/06/school-exclusions-statistics/documents/school-exclusions-2020-21/school-exclusions-2020-21/govscot%3Adocument/Exclusion%2Bstatistics%2B202021.xlsx

Cases of exclusion have fallen from a high of 44,794 in 2006-07 to 8,323 in 2020-21. There was a particularly notable decrease in exclusion between 2018-19 and 2020-21, with cases of exclusion falling 44%. This decrease is partly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over 99% of all exclusions were for a fixed period of time (referred to as temporary exclusions), with pupils expected to return to their original school when the exclusion period is completed.

Question reference: S6W-19546

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made an assessment of the impact of the redevelopment of Ardrossan harbour on the ferry routes servicing Arran, and, if so, whether it will provide details of this assessment.

Question reference: S6W-19542

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 17 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many rural bus services have been discontinued in each year since May 2018, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-19537

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 13 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much was paid out in grants from the Forestry Grant Scheme, and how many grants were made, in each of the last five years.

The following table shows the number of unique forestry grant scheme cases with a capital or Single Application Form claim within the past 5 financial years and the total associated authorised financial claims.

Number and Value of cases claimed: Capital & Single Application Form (SAF) for the Financial Year’s 2018-19 – 2022-23

Claim Year	Unique Projects Funded	Total Claim Value Authorised
2018-19	742	£41,132,555
2019-20	629	£39,698,484
2020-21	961	£46,371,455
2021-22	699	£43,558,765
2022-23	584	£35,436,910
Sum:	3615	£206,198,169

Question reference: S6W-19547

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 12 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what structures or schemes it currently has in place to provide support to EU students seeking financial support to study in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-19544

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 12 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the financial limit is beyond which it considers that the cost for answering a written parliamentary question would be disproportionate.

Question reference: S6W-18681

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 5 July 2023

To ask the Scottish Government which current cabinet secretaries and ministers have not undertaken unconscious bias training since taking up their posts.

Question reference: S6T-01482

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it can do to increase the resilience of Scotland's 999 emergency telephone service, in light of UK-wide technical issues over the weekend that rendered the service unusable for many users.