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: S6O-03303

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 April 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of recent reports that one in 10 planned operations in the NHS were cancelled this January, what steps it is taking to reduce the rate of cancelled operations.

Question reference: S6W-26114

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 March 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 21 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the production and publication of the paper, An independent Scotland’s place in the world.

Question reference: S6O-03241

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 March 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to spend the £295 million in Barnett consequential funding arising from the UK Government’s 2024 Spring Budget.

Question reference: S6W-25757

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 7 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to address the lack of a uniform approach across Scotland for the treatment of people with severe asthma, and the particular problems for smaller centres, as highlighted in the Respiratory Care Action Plan 2021-2026.

The Scottish Government’s Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland sets out our priorities and commitments for driving improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of people living with respiratory conditions such as severe asthma.

As part of work to improve the care for people living with severe asthma, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery is developing a ‘once for Scotland’ severe asthma pathway which will streamline access to advanced therapies and specialist care. This project aims to identify people with severe asthma in the community who are struggling to manage their condition and at high risk of a poor outcome and will provide a clear referral pathway through to specialist services.

Question reference: S6W-25758

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 7 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken towards an equitable approach to diagnosis across all NHS boards for severe asthma.

Question reference: S6W-25500

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 February 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 1 March 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, following the recent publication of data by the British Heart Foundation, which reportedly highlights significant issues in Scotland’s cardiology services for both outpatient appointments and echocardiograms and suggests that performance against waiting time targets is the worst on record, what urgent measures can be put in place to ensure that no one dies as a result of not receiving the appropriate scan in time.

Question reference: S6W-24641

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 January 2024
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 31 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to NHS Fife reiterating its commitment, in August 2023, to the development of two new purpose-built Community Health and Wellbeing Centres in Kincardine, in addition to Lochgelly, with plans having been developed over a number of years with its partners and local communities, and in light of the current health centre reportedly being condemned as unfit for purpose around 15 years ago, for what reason this work has not yet commenced; whether the reason is budget related, and what stream of unused funding could be used to finance this project.

As set out in our draft budget the capital funding position is extremely challenging, with a UK Government cut of some 10% in our capital budget over the next five years. That has inevitably led to some difficult decisions on what capital projects will be progressed.

Kincardine and Lochgelly Medical Centres were not included within the Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-22 to 2025-26, which identified the priority health capital projects for funding within that period. The Scottish Government will bring forward a revised Infrastructure Investment Plan in the spring, alongside the medium-term financial strategy, at which point we would hope that the fiscal outlook will be clearer.

Question reference: S6O-03035

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that the housing of adult male prisoners at HMP & YOI Polmont is being considered, what its position is on whether such an announcement should be made to the Parliament.

Question reference: S6W-24569

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 January 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 24 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many online clicks its paper, Our marine sector in an independent Scotland, received in its first month following publication, broken down by (a) main paper, (b) easy read version, (c) each individual language version and (d) audio version.

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

Paper title: Building a New Scotland: Our marine sector in an independent Scotland

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-marine-sector-independent-scotland/

Main paper publish date: 21-11-2023

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 2,775

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-marine-sector-independent-scotland-easy-read-version/

Easy read publish date: 21-11-2023

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: 298

Audio URL: https://on.soundcloud.com/5VJaA

Audio publish date: 21-11-2023

Audio link clicks in first month: 9

Community language landing pageURL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-marine-sector-independent-scotland/documents/

Translation publish date: 21-11-2023

Translation downloads in first month:

Arabic: 1

Bengalii: 1

Bulgarian: 0

Cantonese: 0

French: 4

Gaelic: 1

Hindi: 0

Italian: 3

Mandarin: 0

Polish: 1

Punjabi:1

Romanian: 0

Russian: 0

Spanish: 0

Ukrainian: 1

Urdu: 3

BSL YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDdIcputSSg

Date BSL Version Published: 21-11-2023

Views in first 30 days: 4

Question reference: S6W-24447

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 January 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 19 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it (a) has and (b) will put in place to make the public aware that vehicle idling is an offence, under the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (Scotland) Regulations 2003.

The Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (Scotland) Regulations 2003 provide local authorities with powers to issue fixed penalty notices to drivers of parked idling vehicles who refuse a reasonable request to switch off their engines. It is for individual local authorities to decide how to make use of their powers and promote awareness. The Scottish Government provides support to assist authorities in undertaking these duties.