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 48968 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-18871

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of its Expert Reference Group on Digital Assets.

The Expert Reference Group (ERG) on Digital Assets was established to provide legal clarification on accommodation of digital assets within Scots private law. The ERG is currently drafting a response to the Law Commission for England and Wales’ (LCEW) Consultation Paper on Digital Assets. The response will take into account any areas of divergence between Scots law and English law but will also confirm those areas where alignment might be of benefit.

Question reference: S6W-19123

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many reports of animals being hit by vehicles Police Scotland has received in each year for which data is available.

The following table shows the number of a nimals involved in injury collisions that were hit in the carriageway.

Animals involved in injury road collisions that were hit in the carriageway

	Animal excluding ridden horse	Ridden horse	Total
1999	Not available	5	5
2000	Not available	3	3
2001	Not available	3	3
2002	Not available	5	5
2003	Not available	3	4
2004	Not available	1	4
2005	47	3	50
2006	53	3	56
2007	45	2	47
2008	54	4	58
2009	46	3	49
2010	38	3	41
2011	41	2	43
2012	43	4	47
2013	38	0	38
2014	26	1	27
2015	33	3	36
2016	39	0	39
2017	24	0	24
2018	20	1	21
2019	20	2	22
2020	22	1	23
2021	8	1	9
2022	14	0	14

Question reference: S6W-19124

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what data it has on how many animals that have been hit by vehicles have been reported to a vet, in each year for which data is available.

Question reference: S6W-19127

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had regarding the co-location of public services.

Scottish Government Directors General wrote to the chief executives of most public bodies in early 2023, setting out expectations for sustainable and impactful public services. As part of this, public bodies were encouraged to consider where savings and benefits can be achieved by working together, including for example through shared approaches on estates. Public bodies have since provided feedback and we expect Directors General to write again shortly.

The Resource Spending Review re-affirmed the Scottish Government commitment to minimise cost and maximise best value in relation to the Scottish public sector estate, which includes to increase co-location, collaboration and the interoperability of offices. A new programme of public sector property improvement work, being the Single Scottish Estate, is helping with delivery of these commitments and will support publicly-funded bodies to, where appropriate, co-locate as well as with other ways to optimise the estate footprint. I wrote to Chief Executives of public bodies on 24 May to update them on this work.

Question reference: S6W-19111

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have accessed alcohol treatment services in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board.

Data on the number of people accessing alcohol treatment services in Scotland is available from Public Health Scotland’s “National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Waiting Times” series of reports. It includes specific figures on the number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment.

It is published by Public Health Scotland and covers the period from 01 April 2011 onwards as earlier data is not available.

The reports covering the period from April 2011 to September 2019 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/ .

The reports covering the period from October 2019 to December 2022 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/

Although the data is publicly available online, in order to answer the above question, it is necessary to combine extracts from multiple reports. Results have been presented in Table 1. Not all necessary data, however, is available to answer the question fully, which explains blank boxes in the table.

Table 1. Number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment

Board	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
NHSScotland	27595	28467	32556	31627	30373	29450	28061	26895	22725	19605	19617
Ayrshire & Arran			1777	1568	1451	1353	1419	1359	1439	1146	1546
Borders			431	399	381	387	298	312	283	278	310
Dumfries & Galloway			922	882	916	795	858	693	745	738	918
Fife			1635	1539	1604	1540	1375	1330	1448	1088	1092
Forth Valley			1491	1423	1746	1425	1346	987	893	797	773
Grampian			1761	1544	1616	1746	1477	1396	1455	1026	1214
Greater Glasgow & Clyde			11895	11905	11027	11095	10648	10482	6622	5598	4901
Highland			1531	1564	1315	1332	1131	1134	1059	869	735
Lanarkshire			5727	6192	5475	5174	5159	5393	5062	4751	4789
Lothian			3303	2964	3000	2960	2995	2544	2565	2154	2303
Orkney			54	36	34	30	41	24	29	35	23
Shetland			73	55	79	41	62	46	53	31	54
Tayside			1651	1336	1482	1380	1110	970	945	995	912
Western Isles			305	220	247	192	142	201	127	99	47

Question reference: S6W-19114

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish its new strategy for palliative care.

Question reference: S6O-02448

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour on public transport.

Question reference: S6O-02451

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to mitigate the impact of the cost of living crisis on people across Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-02454

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it last spoke to the SFA about its efforts to make elite men’s football in Scotland as accessible as possible to everyone, specifically children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Question reference: S6O-02455

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the pilot providing free bus travel to people seeking asylum in Glasgow.