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-32013

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 19 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government which specific local services in Glasgow that make decisions on commissioning and planning services for people impacted by drugs it funds.

Question reference: S6W-32014

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 19 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many instances there have been of the use of drones to deliver drugs to prisons since 2022 to date.

Question reference: S6W-31518

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 5 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what evidence it can provide to confirm that 90% of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards 1-5 were fully implemented as of April 2024.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes a Benchmarking Report each year to demonstrate progress being made by local areas in their implementation of the Medication Assisted Treatment standards. The Report each year includes a detailed breakdown on the three streams of evidence required to assess implementation – processes in place, numerical data gathered and a summary of experiential feedback from people in treatment and recovery.

Process evidence demonstrates that local policies and procedures are in place for service delivery in line with the MAT standards criteria. Numerical evidence demonstrates services are actively gathering data required for future service improvement and to ensure the services available are best targeted. Experiential evidence demonstrates what people receiving support say about the services so that further improvement and focus can be implemented.

The most recent PHS Report was published in July 2024 in which the evidence confirmed 90% of standards 1-5 have been implemented against the criteria set out. That report covered 2023/24 and concluded that all 29 local areas reported evidence to show implementation of MAT standards 1-5.

Question reference: S6W-31525

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has regarding combining the methadone substitution programme with residential rehabilitation, in light of reports that this method has a higher success rate of 29%.

Question reference: S6W-31780

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the most common cancers associated with alcohol misuse are.

The Scottish Government promotes healthy living and encourages the reduction in alcohol consumption by highlighting the risks of drinking too much alcohol on the NHS Inform website.

Guidance from the Chief Medical Officer is clear that drinking more than 14 units per week for both men and women on a regular basis may increase a person’s risk of serious health conditions, including cancer. Cancers associated with excess drinking include cancers of the mouth, upper throat, larynx, oesophagus, breast, liver and bowel.

Question reference: S6W-31768

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working to increase awareness of rehabilitation services among women.

The provision and improvement of residential rehabilitation services for women and those with childcare responsibilities is one of the key focuses of the Scottish Government’s National Mission to improve and save lives impacted by substance use.

We have made a combined £13.5 million available to support the creation of three new rehabilitation services – Phoenix Futures’ Harper House family service in Ayrshire and Aberlour Childcare Trust’s two mother and child recovery housesin Dundee and Falkirk – which are specifically designed to support women through recovery from both drug and alcohol use.

Both organisations have been working to embed their services into residential rehabilitation referral pathways across the country through engagement with key partners; including Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships, social work, perinatal and wider harm reduction services.

The Scottish Government has also worked to increase awareness of the services through our national residential rehabilitation service directory – rehab.scot – which was launched in August. The site provides a nationwide list of residential rehabilitation providers for the first time, empowering individuals and their loved ones to learn about and access quality residential rehabilitation and identify the best service to support them.

Question reference: S6W-31735

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it defines "reasonable overnight accommodation costs" for parents with a baby in neonatal care accessing the Young Patients Family Fund, and how this is applied in practice to ensure that parents are adequately supported to stay with their baby.

In the context of the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF), ‘reasonable overnight accommodation’ is defined as the most cost effective accommodation available. Health Boards have flexibility in relation to how much should be provided in each case but the costs provided should be reasonable in the circumstances.

In an effort to ensure claimants don’t routinely have to provide large amounts of money upfront to cover accommodation costs, the YPFF terms and conditions direct claimants to access Health Board visitor accommodation in the first instance. Where this is not available, private accommodation (e.g. hotel) can be booked and the fund’s terms and conditions direct the Health Board to book on behalf of the claimant where this is possible.

Question reference: S6W-31942

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 17 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working to support any people wishing to access Medication Assisted Treatment services who experience travel barriers due to cost and/or distance.

Question reference: S6W-31937

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 17 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to specifically address the misuse of opiates/opioids.

Question reference: S6W-31158

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 17 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to educate young people on alcohol marketing in schools.