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-33575

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 5 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the average notice period given by the beekeeper, for visits to the Parliament’s estate, has been in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-33576

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 5 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it has any plans to review or change the current delivery of beekeeping services at the Parliament.

Question reference: S6W-33577

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 5 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the average loss/profit per jar of honey sold in the Parliament shop has been in each of the last five years.

The purpose of having bees at the Parliament is not to produce honey but to partially demonstrate our compliance with the biodiversity duty under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 which places a statutory duty on all public sector bodies in Scotland to further the conservation of biodiversity. The honey is a by-product from having bees and is sold at a profit minus any costs for bottling and labelling.

Question reference: S6W-33567

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 5 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how often healthcare needs assessments are conducted in rural areas, and what changes have been implemented in the last 10 years as a result.

Question reference: S6W-33574

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 5 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many visits the beekeeper has made to the Parliament’s estate in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-33377

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 5 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, further to the answer to question S6W-32347 by Claire Baker on 14 January 2025, how it verifies that the beeswax used for the Great Seal of Scotland comes from the Parliament’s bees and whether it provides any payment for the wax to the beekeepers.

Question reference: S6W-33833

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 4 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its news release of 22 January 2024, Early learning and childcare (ELC): provision for 1 and 2 year olds in Scotland, whether it will provide an update on progress with the implementation of this commitment, and by what date this will be fully implemented.

Keeping children in Scotland out of poverty is the First Minister’s and this government’s top priority and we recognise how important both early learning and school age childcare are in supporting families. That is why we continue prioritise our investment of around £1 billion per year in delivering funded ELC to all eligible children. And as a result, families across Scotland have been benefitting from the provision of 1140 hours of high quality ELC since 2021. We also committed in the 2024 Programme for Government to work with local authorities to maximise the uptake of funded early learning and childcare for eligible two-year-olds.

We are now working with local authorities and the Improvement Service on a National Improvement Project which will take focussed action in five local authorities as well as seek out and promote good practice to increase uptake for eligible two year olds across all local authority areas.

We are also progressing our early adopter community (EAC) work in six local authorities, backed by £16 million between 2024-25 and 2025-26. The EACs are expanding access to affordable childcare for low-income families with children from the early years through to the end of primary school and evaluating the difference this can make.

This expansion includes continued investment in four EACs established in 2022 in Dundee, Clackmannanshire, Glasgow and Inverclyde, as well as further expansion into new communities in Fife and Shetland.

Ultimately, it will help us to understand what it takes to design and deliver local childcare systems that support those families most at risk of living in poverty.

We have undertaken two key pieces of research, which were published last year. The first was work to map current ELC provision for younger children in Scotland and the second a literature review undertaken by Public Health Scotland. The purpose of this work was to help us understand and identify what models of ELC are best for younger children.

The evidence suggests that attending high quality formal childcare can have benefits for children’s cognitive development. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds were found to benefit most from early access to formal childcare. However, the evidence of benefits for social, emotional and behavioural outcomes is more limited and mixed. The findings from this research supports taking a considered approach to policy development so that we understand what is right for families with children under three.

We will continue to build on this early insights work by piloting new approaches via funding from the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund to test models of holistic family support, learning from our EACs and reviewing current evidence.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving our existing funded ELC offer and to taking the time needed to deliver a childcare expansion that is both fair and affordable, giving children the best possible start in life and supporting parents and carers to work, train and take up education opportunities.

Question reference: S6W-33918

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 4 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government on how many occasions the current (a) Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands and (b) Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity has met with the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association since they were appointed to their role.

Question reference: S6W-33924

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 4 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government on how many occasions the current (a) Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands and (b) Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity has met with the Shetland Fishermen’s Association since they were appointed to their role.

Question reference: S6W-33919

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 4 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government on how many occasions the current (a) Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands and (b) Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity has met with the Scottish White Fish Producers Association since they were appointed to their role.