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-14337

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 27 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the potential impact on the retail sector of setting the higher rate of income tax threshold at £43,430.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission highlighted that the income tax policy is “not of a large enough magnitude to have a significant aggregate impact on the Scottish economy”. The new rates and bands protect the lowest earning taxpayers by ensuring that 70% of Scottish taxpayers will pay less income tax next year for an unchanged income. The SFCs report can be found here: http://www.fiscalcommission.scot/media/1196/scotlands-economic-fiscal-forecasts-publication.pdf

Question reference: S5W-14651

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 27 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it took of the impact on household incomes when setting the cap on council tax increases at 3%.

Question reference: S5W-14315

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 20 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the proposed income tax changes in its Budget will have on VAT receipts.

Question reference: S5W-14226

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 13 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to identify and resolve any specific challenges in teacher recruitment in the Dundee City Council area should the local authority be unsuccessful in reducing the number of re-advertised vacancies.

The Scottish Government is taking a number of actions to increase teacher recruitment. These include: committing £88m this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers with the right skills; providing support to universities in developing new innovative routes into teaching; announcing STEM bursaries of £20,000 for career changers to train to become teachers of priority STEM subjects for courses starting in August 2018; and the launch of the second phase of our "Teaching Makes People" recruitment campaign in August 2017.

The University of Dundee has a Learn to Teach primary education programme which allows qualified local authority employees to train as primary teachers and we are supporting the University's Supported Induction Route which allows STEM graduates to combine post-graduate teacher education with probation.

Question reference: S5W-14314

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 7 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to remove the Large Business Supplement before May 2021.

Question reference: S5W-14009

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 6 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-13820 by Derek Mackay on 18 January 2018, whether it will provide a breakdown of the arrangements that are in place with HMRC to ensure that taxpayers and pension providers in Scotland are not disadvantaged in respect of pension relief.

Question reference: S5W-14012

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 6 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the (a) cost and (b) usage of the NHS Attend Anywhere service.

Question reference: S5W-14011

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the cost and development of the Health and Social Care Citizen Portal.

The Scottish Government has commissioned NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (on behalf of a consortium of West of Scotland Health Boards including NHS 24) to undertake a Proof of Concept demonstrating a Minimum Viable Product capability for a National Health and Social Care Citizen Portal that could provide patients with the ability to access health and care information from trusted sources such as NHS Inform, view correspondence relating to outpatient clinics, and receive, amend or accept appointments. The Proof of Concept will be evaluated as part of the commission and the learning included in an Outline Business Case for wider implementation to be submitted to the Scottish Government for consideration.

The commission has been allocated a budget of £750,000 and is expected to be completed by Summer 2018.

Question reference: S5W-14013

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-13726 by Shona Robison on 18 January 2018, whether the digital tools that are being developed will offer all of the services that are provided by the NHSquicker app and, if not, whether it will provide a breakdown of the services that they will not provide, broken down by the reason for not offering these.

As set out in my answer to S5W-13726, the NHS Inform website, which is accessible from many different types of digital devices and compatible with a range of assistive technologies, already provides an interactive National Services Directory tool with information about local urgent care services across Scotland. We will consider the outcome of the trial and subsequent evaluation of the NHSquicker app which provides live waiting and travel times for NHS services providing urgent care across Devon and Cornwall, and consider how the current functionality of NHS Inform may be improved.

Question reference: S5O-01758

Asked by: Bill Bowman, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that an increasing use of automation and artificial intelligence over the next decade will increase employment opportunities in Scotland.