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 48497 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-18275

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when each of the 32 winning projects of the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme, announced on 18 May 2023, received their funding.

Question reference: S6W-18274

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of the support that applicants receive when applying to the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme, including any targeted support offered to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Application guidance was made available to all applicants to the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme via the Scottish Government’s Website. In partnership with Energy Technology Partnership and the Enterprise Agencies, the Scottish Government hosted a webinar on 5 July 2022 to provide further guidance to prospective applicants and to direct them to additional sources of support. All applicants to the scheme were able to seek additional support from Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise and/or the Energy Technology Partnership.

Question reference: S6W-18256

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when Trucheck cancer-detecting blood tests, which reportedly have 92% to 93.1% accuracy, will be made available on the NHS.

Any healthcare products being used by NHS Scotland require the undertaking of due diligence to ensure the safety of everyone concerned. This involves seeking clinical advice and undertaking a full health technology assessment (HTA).

In the first instance, all health technologies must be registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) before being placed on the market.

Following that, we refer enquiries around health technologies to the Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG), who are part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland. SHTG undertake HTAs, providing evidence support and advice on the use of new and existing health technologies. This includes analysing the benefits, costs, ease of implementation as well as considering any unintended clinical consequences which may arise.

It is ultimately for the 14 Territorial Health Boards across Scotland to decide whether to procure and apply this intervention as part of their treatment for patients. Health Boards receive support from Healthcare Improvement Scotland and SHTG in making such decisions.

The SHTG has not provided advice on the use of Trucheck to date.

Question reference: S6W-18271

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what funding has been granted to the short-life working group, established by the Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC) to carry out a robust workforce review and mapping exercise of posts across the network.

Question reference: S6W-18386

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-17950 by Gillian Martin on 23 May 2023, on what date it will next meet with Danish officials; what advice and knowledge it received from Danish officials at previous meetings regarding community and co-operative ownership, and what actions and policy decisions it has taken based on any such advice.

In June 2022, Scottish Government officials discussed the subject of community and co-operative ownership with Danish officials in the context of heat network ownership models, where officials received a presentation outlining different ownership types and their relative proportions in the Danish market whilst noting that community owned co-operative heat networks are responsible for a small proportion of delivered heat compared to larger municipally owned heat networks in Denmark. No further discussions have been held on the subject of community or co-operative ownership since.

Scottish Government officials will be meeting Danish officials in June 2023 to review activity taken place during the past financial year under the Memorandum of Understanding.

Question reference: S6W-17911

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many green jobs currently exist in Scotland, broken down by the region in which they are located, and what the definition is that it uses for such jobs.

Approaches to measuring green jobs are still under development and as a result estimates on how many green jobs exist differ.

A definition of green jobs was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in March in 2023 “Green jobs” update, current and upcoming work - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) . ONS will now develop a detailed framework to underpin this definition, including the identification of appropriate activities (what the definition does and does not cover) and grouping them into useful sub-categories.

In the meantime our focus is on extracting the greatest number of job opportunities linked to the net zero transition, including via grants from the Green Jobs Fund to create new green jobs throughout Scotland and the Just Transition Fund to support people’s jobs and livelihoods in the North East.

Question reference: S6W-18277

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications to the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme were (a) received and (b) successful, and what continued engagement and support has been offered to unsuccessful applications in relation to future or alternative funding streams.

The Hydrogen Innovation Scheme received a total of 74 applications with 32 successful projects offered grant funding.

Unsuccessful applicants to the scheme were directed to potential alternative sources of assistance, including available business grants and other funding calls and the SME Loan and Cashback Scheme which provides interest free loans (from £1,000 up to £100,000) to small and medium sized Scotland based businesses.

Question reference: S6W-18270

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can detail when the short-life working group, established by the Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC) to carry out a robust workforce review and mapping exercise of posts across the network, (a) last met and (b) will next meet.

Question reference: S6W-18245

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 1 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that changes to short-term lets legislation is causing rising costs for accommodation in Edinburgh (a) in general and (b) during the Edinburgh festivals.

Concerns regarding accommodation costs during the August Festivals pre-date short-term licensing mandatory standards, whereby the success of festivals and tourism within Scotland in recent years has seen increased visitors during peak holiday periods, which has resulted in higher demand for accommodation in the central Edinburgh area.

Short-term lets continue to be a growing sector and as such Scotland is not alone globally in deciding to regulate the sector. Licensing is now in place to ensure short-term lets are safe and the people providing them are suitable. Guests can have confidence that licensed hosts and accommodation have reached a recognised standard of assurance complying with mandatory conditions such as fire, gas, water and electrical safety. Many hosts are already complying with these through existing law or best practice, and we do not consider them onerous.

This additional assurance is expected to enhance Edinburgh’s reputation as an attractive, high quality, all-year round destination and help towards delivering the six-council City Region Regional Prosperity Framework Delivery Plan & 2023-24 Prospectus. 39% of the 2.2 million tickets for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022 were sold to Edinburgh locals, which was an increase of 4% on 2019, pre-COVID figures.

We continue to work with Festivals Edinburgh, the City of Edinburgh Council and industry groups (such as the Events Industry Advisory Group) to continue to support them to build on this success, and to address associated challenges. This is in addition to our continued support to the sector, including fourteen major festivals in Edinburgh and Glasgow receiving a share of this year’s £1.8 million Expo Fund.

Question reference: S6O-02348

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that local authorities have encountered difficulties in engaging electric vehicle charger contractors to repair EV charge points.