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-38268

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to invest in infrastructure to support a greater uptake of home dialysis as part of the forthcoming long-term conditions framework.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with long term conditions including Chronic Kidney Disease are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

We are running our public consultation on the Long Term Conditions Framework from 23 April to 20 July 2025. This is available at Health: Long Term Conditions Framework - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space.

We will take the results of the consultation into account when developing the framework which will include identifying areas where targeted condition-specific action will still be needed. In the development of the framework we will identify what funding is available for implementation.

Question reference: S6W-35818

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the total budget allocated to the Scottish Education Exchange Programme (SEEP) was in 2024-25.

Question reference: S6W-38248

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken or commissioned any national reviews or audits of youth centre provision since 2019, and, if so, whether it will publish the findings.

An independent review of the Community Learning and Development (CLD) landscape was commissioned in December 2023.

Following the review, the Learning: For All. For Life. report was published in July 2024 which set out 20 recommendations varying in complexity and scope. The report can be accessed at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/learning-life-report-independent-review-community-learning-development-cld/.

In December 2024, the Scottish Government and CoSLA accepted the first recommendation of the report to set up a CLD Strategic Leadership Group (SLG). The SLG are collectively considering the remaining recommendations of the report, including those relating to youth work.

Question reference: S6W-37842

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many police officers have had claims not accepted by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-38237

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what data it holds on how many early learning and childcare settings have withdrawn from the funded provider scheme since 2022, and what analysis it has conducted of the reasons for any such withdrawals.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many providers have withdrawn from offering funded early learning and childcare (ELC), or their reasons for doing so.

Information on the number of private, and third sector childcare services delivering funded ELC in each local authority in September each year is captured through the ELC census. This information is published as part of the Summary Statistics for Schools and is available in Table 1 of the Additional early learning and childcare statistics spreadsheet. It is important to note that there may currently be additional services delivering funded ELC that were not doing so at the time of the Census. Table 1 also includes information on the share of ELC registrations that were in private and third sector services (Partnership Centres) in each year.

Table: Number of Partnership Centres (private and third sector services) providing funded ELC

	2022	2023	2024
Number of ELC Partnership Centres	985	962	956
Share of registrations in Partnership Centres	30.3%	30.5%	31.0%

Source: Additional early learning and childcare statistics (as part of the Summary Statistics for Schools) for 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The Care Inspectorate collect data from childminding services regarding the provision of funded ELC places. Figure 23 of the 2023_Early_learning_and_Childcare_Statistics.pdf publication provides data on the number of childminding services approved to deliver funded ELC at the 31 December in each year over the period 2020 to 2023. This reports that 1,220 childminding services were approved to deliver funded ELC as at 31 December 2022. For 31 December 2023 this figure was 1,127.

Since 2021, the Care Inspectorate has given all services who are in the process of cancelling their registration the option to provide them with the reasons why they are cancelling. An analysis of the reasons given by day care of children and childminding services (regardless of whether they offer ELC or not) for cancelling their registration over the period 2021 to 31 December 2023 was included in the Care Inspectorate’s 2023_Early_learning_and_Childcare_Statistics.pdf publication. This information is summarised in Figure 9 of the report.

Question reference: S6W-38252

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the number of applicants that were (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful in applying for a Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme payment for 2025-26, broken down by local authority area.

The application window for the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (SUSSS) scheme year 2025 does not open until 1 September 2025.

In the following table, details are provided of the number of businesses that had a successful or unsuccessful application under the SUSSS in 2024, broken down by local authority area. Applications included as unsuccessful are those applications which were rejected as they did not meet the scheme eligibility criteria.

Local Authority	Successful	Unsuccessful
Aberdeenshire	9	1
Angus	8	0
Argyll and Bute	78	1
City of Edinburgh	1	0
Dumfries and Galloway	6	1
East Ayrshire	10	0
East Lothian	2	0
Highland	478	8
Inverclyde	2	0
Midlothian	1	0
Moray	7	0
North Ayrshire	8	0
Orkney	6	0
Perth and Kinross	36	1
Renfrewshire	1	0
Scottish Borders	10	0
Shetland	53	4
South Ayrshire	2	0
South Lanarkshire	6	1
Stirling	19	0
West Dunbartonshire	1	0
Western Isles	370	11
Total	1114	28

Question reference: S6W-38266

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has reviewed the impact of the national guidance on reimbursement for home dialysis costs to include utility costs, including water and electricity, following its introduction in March 2024.

In January 2024, we implemented a Scotland-wide policy reimbursing home dialysis patients for their extra electricity costs incurred in their treatment. At the time of implementation, there was a commitment to undertake a review 6-12 months later to ensure that the Policy had been fully applied across all NHS Boards. This Review has been completed and concluded that all Boards had reimbursement policies for eligible patients. This removes the financial disincentive to making a choice for home dialysis over in-centre treatments, allowing personal choice in where and how to receive treatment.

Question reference: S6W-38294

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is aware of any extraditions to Scottish prisons being blocked or held up by international courts in the last five years, and, if so, what the reasons were for any such cases.

Foreign authorities sometimes request assurances from Scotland in response to an extradition request because they must be satisfied that requested persons will not be subject to treatment that breaches their human rights. Assurances, by their nature, require more work to be done in order to secure the extradition of a requested person, therefore, all cases where assurances are sought necessarily involve some element of additional delay. The most commonly sought assurances relate to prison standards and the nature of healthcare available in prisons.

Pre-Brexit, assurance requests from the EU were rare due to the principle of mutual trust and respect accorded between EU member states. However, post-Brexit, the number of assurances and the complexity of the specific asks increased as courts, both Scottish and Foreign, must consider the system the requested person will be surrendered to in greater detail and with greater scrutiny due to the loss of mutual recognition between the UK and EU.

The Scottish Government is aware of one extradition which was temporarily blocked by an Irish court in 2023 following a negative judicial finding regarding the first set of assurances provided. The requested person was subsequently extradited to Scotland in 2024 following the provision of updated assurances by the Scottish authorities.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any other international or foreign court blocking any extradition.

Question reference: S6W-37839

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many students who entered Scottish universities with teacher assessed grades have since withdrawn.

Question reference: S6W-35816

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the Scottish Education Exchange Programme (SEEP) was officially launched, and how many students have participated in the programme to date.

The Scottish Education Exchange Programme (SEEP) Test and Learn Project was launched in 2023.

In year 1 the project did not directly fund any student exchanges. Institutions prioritised staff mobility projects supporting the development of sustainable partnerships.

Projects in year 2 of the test and learn provided opportunities for students from Scottish institutions who would not meet the criteria for Turing Scheme funding to participate in a mobility project.

Year 2 projects concluded on 31 March 2025. Institutions are currently submitting end of project reports which will feed into the external evaluation of the project, the report from which is due to be published late summer.

Additional information on the year 2 projects can be found on the Scottish Government website: Scottish Education Exchange Programme: - Test and Learn: funded projects - gov.scot.