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 40913 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-34940

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 27 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will meet its peatland restoration target by 2030.

Good progress is being made towards the current target to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030, with - 75,000 hectares restored to date.

Recent years have seen strong increases including, in 2023-24, over 10,000 hectares restored in a single year for the first time. We will again restore over 10,000 ha in 2024-25.

Through the Scottish Budget 2025-26 we will invest £35.5 million towards peatland restoration. With this funding the ambition of the Peatland ACTION partnership is to restore at least 14,000 hectares next year.

The funding will also enable the Peatland ACTION partnership to invest in designing a large number of new projects for future years. This will ensure the sustainability of the sector, allowing us to be more responsive to funding and continue to accelerate the programme’s success towards our 2030 target.

Question reference: S6W-34588

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 27 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken following the cross-party summit on violence amongst young people, which was held on 13 January 2025.

Following the cross party summit on violence among young people held on 13 January, Scottish Government officials are preparing a report on key issues raised. This will be published and shared across Scottish Government to help inform policy development on areas that contribute to violence prevention and harm reduction.

Preparations are currently being made for a further meeting involving those cross-party MSPs who attended the summit.

Question reference: S6W-34356

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 27 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Engineering report, Engineering Skills Gap Analysis for Scotland.

The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic, myself, and Scottish Government officials have held several meetings with Scottish Engineering to discuss the report Engineering Skills Gap Analysis for Scotland. We will continue to engage with the sector in the coming weeks to assess options and expect to finalise an action plan by April.

We will also continue to drive agility and efficiency in the post school education and skills system through our programme of reform. This includes work on skills planning that will put in place a mechanism to collectively agree and prioritise Scotland strategic skills needs, to meet our economic, social and environmental aims

Question reference: S6W-34292

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 27 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in increasing staff presence and staff numbers across the ScotRail network, in response to the recommendation in the Transport Scotland summary report, Women's and girls' views and experiences of personal safety when using public transport, which calls for the feasibility to be explored of increasing staff presence at points of boarding, alighting and interchange.

The adjustments to ticket offices opening hours have been consulted upon with ScotRail staff and aim to increase the staff presence to enhance passenger travel experience and passenger safety, not least by allowing staff redeployment onto Travel Safe teams.

ScotRail Travel Safe Team has expanded to 28 members in the West and soon will add 9 team members in the East. Since its introduction, there has been a 43% reduction in reporting of low level anti-social behaviour, 10 suicide interventions and 1 lifesaving CPR intervention; youth related incidents decreased by 52% and a 70% reduction in anti-social behaviour related events in hot spot locations.

Importantly, it remains the specification of the Scottish Government that all ScotRail trains should have a member of staff on board to assist passengers, which is different to many UK operators.

Question reference: S6W-34126

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 27 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on any legal costs related to defending or advising former ministers in each year since 2018, and from which budgets these costs were drawn.

Question reference: S6O-04401

Asked by: Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on Action 20 of the Housing to 2040 strategy to "streamline and accelerate the adaptations system".

Question reference: S6O-04395

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the potential impact on state schools of the UK Government's decision to make independent schools liable for VAT, how it plans to use any Barnett consequential funding resulting from this decision to support state schools.

Question reference: S6O-04396

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported view of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland that proposed changes to legislation on religious observance diverge from the recommendation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to allow young people to independently opt out of religious observance at school.

Question reference: S6O-04398

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to support increased levels of sport and physical activity in Dumfries and Galloway.

Question reference: S6O-04399

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last discussed the future of Greenock police station with Police Scotland.