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-23382

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what decisions on the repayment method of capital borrowing it has taken for 2019-20.

The Scottish Government’s Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) published on 30 May 2019, sets out the Scottish Government’s plans to borrow £450 million in 2019-20. This is an outline at this stage and has been modelled at 2% over a 25 year repayment term. A final decision on the amount and term of borrowing will be taken nearer the end of the financial year, taking account of relevant factors at the time.

The MTFS publication can be found by way of the following link www.gov.scot .

Question reference: S5W-23399

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Fraser of Allander Institute statement that “a strategy is needed for managing reductions in some areas, and not just a strategy for where new money will be spent.”

The Scottish Government manages Scotland’s public finances in a competent, responsible and balanced way. This Government has a strong track record in this respect as we continue to invest in Scotland’s economy and public services in the face of Westminster austerity.

In our second Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) published on 30 May, we set out the key financial challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. The MTFS is accompanied this year by a framework for our forthcoming Spending Review, which will assist us to allocate budgets to meet the changing needs of Scotland’s people. Both the MTFS and spending review framework are key parts of our Written Agreement with the Finance and Constitution Committee, which followed the recommendations of the Budget Process Review Group.

Question reference: S5W-23396

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much of any additional Barnett consequentials from increased NHS spending in England in each of the last three years was spent on (a) NHS Grampian and (b) NHS boards in total.

Question reference: S5W-23407

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-17428 by Derek Mackay on 16 July 2018, what its position is on whether borrowing less than the maximum level of available capital borrowing in its post-2019-20 budgets over a shorter repayment period would have the effect of freeing up borrowing space.

Question reference: S5W-23381

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to revised figures by Quarterly National Accounts, which record construction output being down by 0.4% and output in the production sector decreasing by 0.8%.

Growing Scotland’s economy and supporting businesses and jobs is a top priority for the Scottish Government. The latest national accounts statistics show that Scotland’s economy grew by 1.3% in 2018, with the production sector growing by 2.8% and the service sector increasing by 1.2%.

However, Scotland’s economic performance is threatened by the UK’s exit from the EU. All forms of exit will cost jobs, make people poorer, damage our society and undermine the democratic decision of the people of Scotland to remain in the EU.

Question reference: S5O-03294

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve NHS Grampian’s performance in meeting the 18 weeks referral to treatment target of at least 90%.

Question reference: S5O-03229

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether all outstanding Agri-Environment Climate Scheme claims from farm businesses in the north east for the 2017 claim year will be paid by the end of June 2019.

Question reference: S5O-03186

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 2 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason ScotRail's annual average figures record that one in five trains arriving or terminating at Aberdeen station are more than five minutes late.

Performance problems at Aberdeen are particularly disappointing given the unprecedented increase in service level, rolling stock and infrastructure investment for Aberdeen. Over the last few periods, 8 out of 10 trains have arrived at Aberdeen Station within PPM. However it isn’t surprising to note that over half of the performance issues (55%) impacting Aberdeen services over the last year is down to Network Rail’s infrastructure issues. As I have said on many occasions it is critical that all parts of the railway system are delivering on contract and regulatory requirements to improve service reliability for passengers.

Question reference: S5W-22373

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 30 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21814 by Jeane Freeman on 5 March 2019, whether it considers that NHS Grampian provides the "best care available" to patients, in light of reports that the NHS is routinely recorded as underperforming.

NHSScotland provides extremely high quality care and is a world leader, internationally recognised, for the improvements in care and safety brought about by our Patient Safety Programme. We will continue to work towards ensuring that every patient receives safe, effective, person-centred care every time they access the health service.

We recognise that there are areas that require further improvement, including NHS Grampian’s performance, which includes waiting times for A&E, cancer and outpatients appointments. To ensure substantial and sustainable improvements are made to waiting times we launched the Waiting Times Improvement Plan in October last year. The Plan sets out actions to ensure future delivery of waiting time standards for patients across Scotland by the Spring of 2021. As part of the implementation of the Plan, initial funding of £26.7 million was allocated to Health Boards earlier this year to support additional activity in 2018-19 - NHS Grampian received almost £0.8 million to reduce waiting times for ophthalmology and endoscopy, whch was in addition to the £4.9 million already allocated in 2018-19 to support an improvemet in waiting times. We have also allocated a total of £710,000 to support cancer waiting times performance in 2018-19 and more than £900,000 to improve A&E performance over the winter period.

We are now working closely with NHS Grampian, and all other Health Boards across Scotland, to prepare plans for 2019-20, which will focus on key areas that require improvement.

Question reference: S5O-03153

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many deaths there were in 2018 in the NHS Grampian area that can be attributed in some way to the use of Xanax.