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-15752

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many applicants to the Access Bikes scheme have received an interest-free loan to date, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-15753

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many people have expressed an interest in receiving an interest-free loan through the Access Bikes scheme to date, broken down by local authority area.

The Access Bikes scheme closed in February 2022. During the life of the scheme, 348 people expressed an interest, 43 people advanced to the application stage and 4 of those applications were successful and received a loan.

A new Access Bikes scheme has been running since April 2022 which focuses on assisting those facing challenges to access a bike through various means. There is no loan aspect provided in the new scheme.

Question reference: S6W-15755

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government which specific organisations have been involved in distributing funding allocated to the Access Bikes scheme, and how much funding was allocated to each.

The Access Bikes scheme closed in February 2022. The scheme was run by Cycling UK, who partnered with Capital Credit Union and ScotWest Credit Union as a mechanism for offering the loans. £250,000 was originally provided for financial transactions, though only £7,000 of this was distributed to successful applicants.

A new Access Bikes scheme has been running since April 2022 which focuses on assisting those facing challenges to access a bike through various means. This scheme is also run by Cycling UK.

Question reference: S6W-15751

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many people to date have repaid their interest-free loans through the Access Bikes scheme.

Question reference: S6W-15754

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many additional miles travelled by bicycle, that have replaced miles travelled by vehicles, it estimates there have been as a result of the Access Bikes scheme.

Question reference: S6W-15886

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6O-01852 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 2 February 2023, whether it has any plans to encourage local authorities to record different types of absences in order to provide more targeted support to young people on the autism spectrum.

Our national guidance ‘Included, engaged and involved part 1: promoting and managing school attendance’ encourages Education Authorities to consider the underlying reasons for absence, including those which arise from an additional support needs.

The guidance identifies that poor attendance can often be related to, or be an indication of, an additional support need and that schools should use their staged intervention processes to ensure that any barriers to learning are identified and appropriate support is provided.

The guidance establishes requirements regarding classifying and recording attendance and absence. It is for local authorities to record the reasons for absence for their pupils within the local authority management information system SEEMiS.

Question reference: S6W-15824

Asked by: Paul McLennan, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it engages with the Ministry of Defence regarding objections to wind farm projects within the 50km safeguarding zone at Eskdalemuir.

If the Ministry of Defence objects to an application for consent for a wind farm which impacts on the Eskdalemuir seismic array, then the Scottish Government would not proceed to consent the application unless that objection is withdrawn.

In cases where further information is provided by an applicant or changes are made to a proposal to overcome an objection, there will be further consultation to establish if the Ministry of Defence are content to remove their safeguarding objection.

Question reference: S6W-15686

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the deferral rate for disabled people entering higher education has been in each of the last 10 years.

Information on the deferral rate for disabled students entering Higher Education is not held by the Scottish Government.

UCAS collect and publish information each year on the number of applicants, applications and acceptances for UK providers. As part of their releases, UCAS publish the number of acceptances who defer entry to a later year split by Domicile, Age and Gender, in their interactive dashboard. Deferral rates for those with a Disability Declared are not included.

UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data resources 2022 | Undergraduate | UCAS

UCAS do publish the number of acceptances with a Disability Declared overall. This shows in the 2022 cycle, there were 6,535 Scottish domiciled acceptances with a Disability Declared, 17.5% of all Scottish domiciled acceptances.

Scottish Domiciled acceptances to UK providers, by disability
	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Disability Declared	3,195	3,510	3,775	4,290	4,560	5,450	5,865	6,535
No Disability Declared	31,580	32,165	32,760	32,820	31,160	33,060	33,435	30,785
Total	34,775	35,670	36,540	37,105	35,725	38,510	39,300	37,320
% Disability Declared	9.2%	9.8%	10.3%	11.6%	12.8%	14.2%	14.9%	17.5%
Source: UCAS End of Cycle 2022
Data not included prior to 2015 due to methodology changes in those included in the UCAS main Scheme.
Data only published for UK providers, not Scottish providers.

Question reference: S6W-15622

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government for what reasons the percentage of adults participating in the General Dental Service fell from 98.6% in September 2007 to 50.2% in September 2021.

Question reference: S6W-15720

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 21 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in advance of publishing its refreshed tobacco control action plan in 2023, whether Public Health Scotland plans to update any analysis on the estimated effects of reduced smoking prevalence on the three outcomes of smoking-attributable deaths, smoking attributable hospital admissions and smoking-attributable NHS costs.