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 46716 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6O-03549

Asked by: Dr Alasdair Allan, MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 June 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recently published data from Scotland’s Census on the number of people with Gaelic language skills.

Question reference: S6O-03565

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 June 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it is informing tourists and other visitors of how to use roads across the Highlands and Islands safely.

Question reference: S6O-03552

Asked by: James Dornan, MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 June 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact that Brexit is having on Scotland’s economy.

Question reference: S6O-03561

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 June 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether Fife Council will be given assistance under the Bellwin Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-28044

Asked by: Ben Macpherson, MSP for Edinburgh Northern and Leith, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2024
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on determining the future role and focus of Scotland’s national education agency.

Following engagement with teachers and stakeholders, the Scottish Government has further considered the role of the national education agency, including how it can add most value to Scotland’s education system.

An excellent curriculum from 3-18 requires national leadership and direction. Therefore, the primary purpose and focus of Scotland’s national education agency will be to lead curriculum design, delivery and improvement, including the provision of resources to support high quality learning and teaching.

The national agency will also have an important role in supporting a thriving professional learning sector through a national framework for professional learning and will build on the existing and well-regarded national leadership professional learning programmes.

The Scottish Government is ambitious for all of Scotland's children and young people and Scotland’s local authorities and schools have an important role in creating the conditions for them to thrive. The national agency will work with local authorities to inform approaches to wellbeing, inclusion, behaviour and enabling better support for those with additional support needs. The national agency will also employ its unique national perspective to inform, share and promote wider approaches to improvement to close attainment gaps as set out in the National Improvement Framework.

The Scottish Government has determined that refocussing Education Scotland will deliver the change and improvement necessary to achieve excellence and equity for Scotland’s children and young people including across Gaelic Medium Education.

Work is underway to set out further detail on transition plans and associated timescales, including for the appointment of a permanent Chief Executive for a refocussed Education Scotland and HM Chief Inspector of Education, both of which will be taken forward as quickly as practicable. In line with previous commitments, there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of this reform.

Question reference: S6W-27935

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with Crown Estate Scotland, and what was discussed.

Question reference: S6W-26881

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much private finance, which involves paying returns to private investors, was (a) arranged under the support of the private finance pilot and (b) spent on (i) tree planting and (ii) peatland restoration between the launch of the £2 billion private finance pilot on 1 March 2023 and the last day of February 2024; who the private finance providers involved were; how much was invested and on which projects, and whether it considers any finance awarded by any lottery funds to be private finance.

The Nature Investment Partnership (formerly referred to as the Private Finance Pilot) has not yet invested any private finance in to projects on the ground, or delivered any return to investors.

The Partnership is focussed on building the pipeline of projects to enable that investment to flow, and engaging with a range of investors and communities to establish the best fit for each project. NatureScot have published a detailed FAQs page ( Private finance pilot for nature: FAQs | NatureScot ). The first pilot – the Wild Heart Expansion Project - has been established in the South of Scotland and is now engaging with communities and land managers to test the appetite for nature finance and design the potential investment.

We consider lottery funding to be philanthropic funding.

Question reference: S6W-27817

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many community first responders have been trained by the Scottish Ambulance Service, to date, broken down by parliamentary region.

The Scottish Ambulance Service currently has around 900 Community First Responders. The number of Community First Responders trained by the Scottish Ambulance Service by SAS Operational Areas between April 2021 - March 2024:

	Region
Period	North	East	West	Total
April 21 - March 22	34	2	5	41*
April 22 - March 23	33	30	19	82
April 23 - March 24	56	63	66	185
	123	95	90	308

*The focus in 2021-2022 was re-mobilisation of Community First Responders post Covid, therefore recruitment of new volunteers was limited.

Question reference: S6W-27814

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it provides to the Scottish Ambulance Service on the objectives of its community first responders programme.

Question reference: S6W-27812

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) international standards and (b) training accreditations are currently met by community first responders trained by the Scottish Ambulance Service.