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: S6W-18063

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 30 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many programmes it is providing funding to charities to deliver in the financial year 2023-24, and how many of these have yet to have final confirmation of funding.

Scottish Government expenditure is allocated across portfolios to various sectors, including the third sector, to improve a wide range of outcomes. Some Scottish Government funding will be issued through third sector intermediary organisations. Spending is not all specifically classified as to whether or not it is allocated to third-sector organisations to deliver services. Consequently the figures requested are not available.

Question reference: S6W-18052

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 30 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many schools are (a) eligible and (b) registered for the Equally Safe at School programme, as of May 2023.

Our Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls (VAWG) emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place.

The Equally Safe at School (ESAS) project, developed by Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance, applies a whole school approach to inequality and gender-based violence in schools. Every secondary school in Scotland is eligible for ESAS. Rape Crisis Scotland have reported that currently 77 schools are registered with an ESAS account. Rape Crisis Scotland is continuing to work with local authority education leads, VAWG partnerships and other third sector partners across Scotland to encourage and support schools to engage with ESAS.

We also fund and support other education-based programmes and initiatives aimed at tackling violence against women and girls and the attitudes which perpetuate it such as; the Mentors in Violence peer education programme, the Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning, the Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group and Rape Crisis Scotland’s national sexual violence programme for secondary schools.

Question reference: S6W-18082

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a progress update on the implementation of placental growth factor (PlGF) based tests for pre-eclampsia across the NHS in the next Women's Health Plan.

The Women’s Health Plan: A plan for 2021 – 2024 aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for women and girls. This iteration of the Plan focusses on a specific set of priorities where there is particular evidence of inequalities (heart health) and where women have told us improvements are needed (menopause and menstrual health including endometriosis).

The priorities for any future Women’s Health Plan are not yet determined. Future aims and priorities will be developed in collaboration with women and girls, including our lived experience stakeholder group, clinical experts and relevant stakeholders alongside the most up-to-date evidence base.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and will write to NHS Boards again in June to assess how implementation of PlGF testing is progressing.

Question reference: S6W-18575

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-17897

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-17395 by Shona Robison on 5 May 2023, how progress on its commitments will be reported to parliamentary committees.

Ministers are content to provide any updates on progress which parliamentary committees would find helpful as part of their normal ongoing engagement on progress within their portfolios.

As previously set out by the First minister, the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring the people of Scotland have the information they need to hold the Government to account for delivery of the three missions and will report routinely, regularly and transparently on performance against the aims and outcomes set out in the policy prospectus. This reporting will include an annual progress report which will be brought to the attention of relevant committees once published.

Question reference: S6W-17862

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on increasing Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) expenditure to £1.75 billion by 2025, as outlined in its strategy for innovation, and what additional funding it has put in place to support this aim.

Provisional data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) expenditure estimate for Scotland in 2021 was £3.12bn. Note that the ONS has recently changed their measurement of BERD. The BERD statistics methodology has been improved to better capture data from smaller businesses, which has led to significant uplift revisions to BERD expenditure estimates. More work is required to further quality assure the new methodology and we will continue to work with the ONS on that. The Scottish Government and its agencies invested an additional £45m to support the increase of BERD between 2018 and 2021.

Question reference: S6W-17895

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many NHS dentists require patients to pay a deposit before registering with them.

Question reference: S6W-17997

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) Glasgow City Council and (b) Glasgow Life regarding the long-term future of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Question reference: S6W-17657

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the work carried out on its behalf by the social research agency, The Lines Between, in August and September 2022, which resulted in the report, Scottish Government Pain Management Panel, published in November 2022, how much in total was spent to facilitate the work.

Question reference: S6W-17872

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 25 May 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the delay to the launch of the Deposit Return Scheme, how much time will be available to test implementation arrangements ahead of the new launch date, and whether this has been communicated to (a) Circularity Scotland, (b) industry and (c) Zero Waste Scotland.

The Scottish Government and delivery partners such as Circularity Scotland, and Zero Waste Scotland have regularly engaged with businesses on the Deposit Return Scheme.

The new launch date of 1 st of March 2024 provides an additional six and a half months preparation time for businesses and the scheme administrator. This includes time for end to end testing.

Working with partners we have refreshed the system-wide governance for the implementation stage of the programme. This now includes a Ministerial Strategic Assurance Group which will meet for the first time during May 2023 and sectoral groups representing producers, retailers, hospitality and the public sector, most of which have already had their first meeting.