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

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 273 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S5W-23397

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 Scotland’s “earnings growth appears to be lagging the rest of the UK”, which could have a negative impact on both growth in the tax base and changes in the tax rates.

As highlighted by the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s latest report, forecasts for future earnings growth in Scotland have improved over the past six months. The SFC attribute this in part to Scotland’s record low unemployment rate and the Scottish Government’s public sector pay policy. On the back of this improved earnings growth, income tax receipt forecasts have also been revised upwards since Budget 2019-20, by a cumulative £490 million across the forecasting period. Earnings growth is an important driver of income tax revenues and that is why this Government continues to support growth in the economy through the actions of the Economic Action Plan and other measures.

Question reference: S5W-23392

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

To ask the Scottish Government how many grants have been awarded by Scottish Enterprise in each of the last three years, broken down by (a) industry and (b) local authority area.

Question reference: S5W-23398

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 analysis by the Scottish Fiscal Commission suggesting that its tax forecasts for 2017-18 and 2018-19 were too optimistic, with an estimated gap of nearly £600 million.

The latest forecasts [May 2019] for Scottish income tax are higher in every future year than the previous forecasts [December 2018], in large part due to an improved picture for earnings growth.

The SFC’s reconciliation estimates are still only forecasts, and are therefore subject to significant uncertainty. Any reconciliation risk will only be confirmed once final outturn data from HMRC is available in July 2019 (for 2017-18), and Summer 2020 for 2018-19. The Scottish Government will make a decision as part of each Budget process on how to manage any reconciliation, including through the use of the limited reserve and borrowing powers at its disposal - guided by the principles set out in the MTFS.

Question reference: S5W-23401

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 what the average rescheduled waiting time is for NHS Scotland patients whose operations are cancelled, broken down by NHS board.

This information is not centrally available.

As you will be aware there are a number of reasons why operations can be cancelled including, at the request of the patient and based on clinical reasons. Clearly, if a patient is not clinically able to have an operation, the right course of action is that it doesn’t go ahead.

The decision for a board to postpone an elective procedure is never taken lightly. We continue to work closely with health boards to ensure cancellations are kept to a minimum and that any postponed procedures will be rescheduled at the earliest opportunity.

If a patient has their operation cancelled NHS Boards will aim to rebook them as soon as possible. Clinical urgency always takes precedence.

If a patient’s condition deteriorates whilst waiting for a procedure, the patient may contact their GP who can get in touch with the Consultant in order to discuss their case and consider whether a more urgent appointment might be more appropriate.

The Scottish Government Waiting Times Improvement Plan, launched in October 2018 and backed by more than £850 million, will ensure we further increase capacity, clinical effectiveness and efficiency, and will help implement new models of care that will support the reduction in the number of patient cancellations for non-clinical reasons. We are also working closely with those health boards experiencing the greatest pressures to support immediate and sustainable improvements.

Question reference: S5W-23380

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 effect its plan of increased productivity and balanced wage growth to increase the savings ratio has had on consumption growth.

Scotland’s Economic Strategy sets out the need to pursue a more balanced form of economic growth, through a greater contribution from investment and net trade, rather than consumption in order to achieve growth that is sustainable in the long-term.

Experimental statistics on the growth of GDP expenditure components in real terms were published within the GDP Quarterly National Accounts for Scottish published on the 1 May 2019. These provide emerging evidence that Scotland’s economy is starting to rebalance, with growth in consumption moderating and growth in exports picking up over the last two years. Business investment has fallen over the past year, a trend also observed in the UK as a whole, and which can be attributed to economic uncertainty surrounding Brexit. The statistics can be accessed at https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/QNA2018Q4 .

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.