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: S5W-29258

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 9 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the publication of the findings of the Scottish Human Rights Commission survey of the 2017-18 budget on 29 April 2020, what plans it has to improve feedback to participants who participate in the budget process.

Question reference: S5W-29256

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 9 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the publication of the findings of the Scottish Human Rights Commission survey of the 2017-18 budget on 29 April 2020, what plans it has to improve pre-budget scrutiny, and whether this will include legislative committees in the process.

Question reference: S5W-29573

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 June 2020
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 9 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to alleviate on-street verbal sexual harassment, which is also known as catcalling.

The Scottish Government recognises the need to tackle on-street harassment, of which catcalling is one form. We recognise that such harassment is overwhelmingly experienced by women and girls.

Following the provisions of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill we aim to develop a standalone offence on misogynistic harassment and a Working Group will be established to take this forward. It will look at how criminal law deals with misogyny, including whether there are gaps in legislation that could be filled with a specific offence on misogynistic harassment. We are also taking forward work through the implementation of our Equally Safe strategy to tackle the underlying attitudes and inequalities that create the conditions for all forms of gender based violence, including sexual harassment.

Question reference: S5W-29253

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 9 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the publication of the findings of the Scottish Human Rights Commission survey of the 2017-18 budget on 29 April 2020, what plans it has to produce clear and well-advertised guidance for public engagement with the budget process.

We welcome the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) Open Budget Survey report as a contribution to understanding how the Scottish Budget process might be improved.

The 2017-18 Budget to which the SHRC report refers preceded the work of the Budget Process Review Group which reported in 2017 and resulted in changes to the budget process which have been implemented from 2018 onwards.

These changes include:

publishing our first Medium-Term Financial Strategy in May 2018;
publishing our first Fiscal Framework Outturn Report in September 2018;
implementing a revised written agreement between Scottish Government and the Parliament’s Finance Committee in May 2018; and
implementing a new Budget process in agreement with the Parliament, with initial changes for Draft Budget 2018-19 and further changes for Scottish Budget 2019-20.

Question reference: S5W-29255

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 9 June 2020

We welcome the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) Open Budget Survey report as a contribution to understanding how the Scottish Budget process might be improved.

We are strongly committed to the principles of open government and accordingly we participate actively in the Open Government Partnership.

The current Open Government Partnership Scottish Action Plan includes Commitment 1 on Fiscal Transparency which is designed to begin to address the issues that have been raised in the SHRC report. The Action Plan is available at https://www.gov.scot/policies/improving-public-services/open-government-partnership/ . Because of the impact of COVID-19 the delivery of the Scottish Action Plan has been delayed until December 2020, but significant progress has been made.

Question reference: S5W-29254

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 9 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the publication of the findings of the Scottish Human Rights Commission survey of the 2017-18 budget on 29 April 2020, what plans it has to improve the public availability and transparency of budget information.

Question reference: S5W-29448

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 8 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason hospital dormitory wards are not referred to in the COVID-19 infection control guidelines.

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) has detailed infection prevention and control guidance for COVID-19 for a wide range of healthcare settings. Guidance for hospital dormitory wards can be found within the Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) Guidance for primary care and secondary care documents:

https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-primary-care/

https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-secondary-care/

Additionally, all health and social care workers should follow infection prevention and control measures set out in the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual:

http://www.nipcm.scot.nhs.uk/

Question reference: S5W-29447

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 8 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many people in hospital dormitory dementia wards have been (a) infected with and (b) died from COVId-19.

Question reference: S5W-29248

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 5 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Close the Gap's briefing, Disproportionate disruption: The impact of COVID-19 on women's labour market equality, how it is ensuring that policy-making that addresses labour market disruption due to COVID-19 focuses on occupational segregation as a central aim.

Question reference: S5W-29251

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 May 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 5 June 2020

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Close the Gap's briefing, Disproportionate disruption: The impact of COVID-19 on women's labour market equality, whether it will ensure that gender-sensitive, sex-disaggregated data informs future labour market analyses.