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-39775

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of NHS Forth Valley delivering the BE FAST (balance, eyes, face, arms, speech, time) stroke awareness campaign in its accident and emergency department, whether it is considering rolling out the campaign to other NHS boards’ accident and emergency departments.

Question reference: S6W-39688

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 27 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many community safety or outreach patrols it funded in 2024-25 to support drug users.

Scottish Government provide funding to local areas to allocate as appropriate based on local need. Decisions about the need for community safety or outreach patrols will be for local areas to take.

Details of 2024-25 ADP funding and activity are set out in the annual funding letter which you can access here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/alcohol-drug-partnership-adp-letters-2024-25/

In addition, details of the National Drugs Mission funds, administered by the Corra Foundation support a range of projects are also available here: https://www.corra.scot/funding/grant-holder-data/

Question reference: S6W-39715

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 04 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether Scottish Water owns the Glasgow Harbour Tunnel, or only the water main pipe within the tunnel.

Question reference: S6W-39602

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on how the continued operation of the Mossmorran natural gas liquids plant aligns with Scotland’s statutory greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

In 2023, Mossmorran’s natural gas liquids plant produced around 0.1MtCO2e, or around 1.5% of Scotland’s industrial emissions. Scotland’s pathway to net-zero will require all polluting businesses to decarbonise over the next two decades where feasible. For Mossmorran’s natural gas liquids plant, carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be a crucial enabling decarbonisation technology. This hugely depends on the development of the Acorn CCS project, which is still waiting on a final decision and the full funding package from the UK Government.

Question reference: S6W-39601

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the economic contribution of the Mossmorran natural gas liquids plant to the Fife economy, including (a) direct employment, (b) supply-chain expenditure and (c) gross value added, in each of the last three calendar years.

Question reference: S6W-39612

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to fund scholarships for foreign nationals in (a) higher and (b) further education in each year since 2016.

As scholarships in Scotland are primarily funded and managed by institutions themselves, the Scottish Government does not hold all the information that has been requested.

The Scottish Government has however provided funding towards a number of scholarship programmes for foreign nationals, between 2016 and 2025 including:

Scholarship	Timeframes	Funding
Saltire Scholarships	From 2009 to 2023	£2.25 million in postgraduate places
Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls:	From 2016 to 2025	£2,067,500
Scotland Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh Business School) Online MBA Scholarships for Women in Zambia	From 2018 to 2025	£234,000
Girls Initiative for Resilient Learning and Support (GIRLS) supporting to support vulnerable girls and young women	Launched in 2024	£224,127

Question reference: S6W-39633

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the possibility of developing or licensing the UK Government’s planning data platform for use in Scotland to monitor planning (a) approvals and (b) completions.

An assessment to license, or develop upon the UK Government’s planning data platform has not been undertaken to date.

The digital development consents programme being taken forward by the Scottish Government will deliver a replacement for the current eDevelopment.scot service, beginning with planning and building standards applications. A first version is expected to be available in 2026 with subsequent versions in 2027 and 2028. As part of the later phases of delivery, the new service is expected to improve both the quality and availability of planning and building standards data. This will allow greater insights into proposed, approved and ongoing developments and related trends across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-39598

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has received on how many tonnes of (a) propane, (b) butane and (c) natural gasoline were exported from the Mossmorran natural gas liquids plant in each of the last three financial years.

According to the most recently available data provided to Fife Council by Shell, the total tonnes of natural gas liquids processed at the plant were: FY 2021-22: 2 million, FY 2022-23: 1.9 million and FY 2023-2024 1.9 million. The total number of shipments of propane were 19 in 2021-22, 16 in 2022-23 and 17 in 2023-24; for butane the figures were 15 for 2021-22, 23 for 2022-23 and 20 for 2023-24; for mixed propane butane – 22 for 2021-22, 3 for 2022-23 and 5 for 2023-24 and for gasoline the number of vessels was 27 for 2021-22, 36 for 2022-23 and 36 for 2023-24.

Question reference: S6W-39630

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what representations it will make to ensure that television coverage of the Tour de France is free to air when the event comes to Scotland in 2027.

Question reference: S6W-39780

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage young people to save money using schemes run by credit unions.

The Scottish Government is supporting work to encourage young people to develop good financial habits and increase engagement with credit unions. This includes collaboration with partners on initiatives aimed at improving financial education in schools and helping young people access suitable financial products.

Current work focuses on piloting approaches in selected areas to test how best to increase account ownership among school leavers and reduce financial exclusion, with progress being monitored to inform future policy and potential wider rollout.