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-41384

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide information on the number of veterans it has helped secure accommodation since November 2018, broken down by financial year.

Question reference: S6W-41382

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an estimate of the number veterans who are currently unemployed.

Question reference: S6W-41386

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to expand the Veterans In Service Injury Network, which is currently hosted by NHS Highland, to other NHS boards.

Question reference: S6W-41381

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what new data it has started to collect on veterans since November 2018.

Question reference: S6W-41383

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide information on the number of veterans it has helped enter employment since November 2018, broken down by financial year.

Question reference: S6W-41385

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what mental health initiatives aimed at veterans it has supported since November 2018 and how much funding it has provided for each programme.

Question reference: S6W-40967

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason Public Health Scotland has paused the 18 weeks referral-to-treatment standard reporting, and what steps are being taken to address any underlying data quality issues.

The 18 weeks Referral to Treatment (RTT) standard is one of a number of targets set by the Scottish Government for access to hospital services.

The decision by Public Health Scotland (PHS) to pause RTT collection and reporting is consistent with the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician letter to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in October 2024 which set out the importance of statisticians having the authority to take decisions to improve their statistics to service a wide range of users.

It is for each individual analytical area in Scottish Government and the agencies, including PHS, to determine the approach they want to take to deliver on the priorities. Critical to that delivery is the ability for statisticians to properly resource the work to develop their priorities and this means that some publications may need to be scaled back or paused to make space for transformative work and deliver on the Statistical Strategic Priorities for Scotland.

PHS’s decision reflects the need to release capacity to focus on new priorities, such as expanding the diagnostic activity statistics for the eight key diagnostic tests. Developing these statistics will contribute to the measurement of progress towards the Scottish Government’s Operational Improvement Plan commitments in the financial year 2025-26.

Furthermore, PHS publishes a wide range of statistics about waiting times for different services and in recent years the focus of NHS boards and Scottish Government has been directed to individual targets for each part of the patient journey such as 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) and New Outpatient Standard.

In line with the principles in the Code of Practice for Statistics, PHS informed users of the pause on 18 March 2025 and invited feedback from users to assess the impact of this decision. This information will help inform future plans or PHS’s waiting times statistics.

Question reference: S6W-40986

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 are applied consistently and fairly to small-scale, low-impact outdoor adventure and sporting events.

Question reference: S6W-40965

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the Treatment Time Guarantee can be meaningfully enforced in cases where NHS boards are unable to measure full patient pathways, and what assessment it has made of compliance under such circumstances.

Question reference: S6W-40987

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to review the current Scottish Outdoor Access Code guidance for outdoor event organisers, and if so, how it will ensure that any such updated guidance reflects the practical realities of responsible outdoor access, while protecting Scotland’s natural environment.