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-19981

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the revised number of patients is that will be treated in the National Treatment Centre Golden Jubilee Phase 2, and how this compares to the targets set out in its NHS Recovery Plan.

Question reference: S6W-19966

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 1,500 new clinical and non-clinical staff, as committed to in its NHS Recovery Plan, will be based in the National Treatment Centre Fife.

National Treatment Centres (NTCs) require an appropriate mix of new and experienced staff to operate safely and efficiently. Management information provided by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) shows that at 31 March 2023, 93 people were employed in NTC Fife. 23 are new entrants meaning they are undertaking their first role in NHS Scotland. Whilst these figures from NES are classed as management information at this stage, NES will continue to work with data providers to develop these as Official Statistics. The next step in this process will be to release these statistics within the NHS Scotland workforce publication as Experimental Statistics in December 2023. NTC workforce data will be reported every six months thereafter.

Question reference: S6W-19970

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 1,500 new clinical and non-clinical staff, committed to in its NHS Recovery Plan, will be based in the National Treatment Centre Golden Jubilee Phase 1.

National Treatment Centres (NTCs) require an appropriate mix of new and experienced staff to operate safely and efficiently. Management information provided by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) shows that at 31 March 2023, 158 people were employed in NTC Golden Jubilee. 38 are new entrants meaning they are undertaking their first role in NHS Scotland. Whilst these figures from NES are classed as management information at this stage, NES will continue to work with data providers to develop these as Official Statistics. The next step in this process will be to release these statistics within the NHS Scotland workforce publication as Experimental Statistics in December 2023. NTC workforce data will be reported every six months thereafter.

Question reference: S6W-20002

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 1,500 new clinical and non-clinical staff, committed to in its NHS Recovery Plan, will be based in the National Treatment Centre Grampian.

National Treatment Centres (NTCs) require an appropriate mix of new and experienced staff to operate safely and efficiently. While initial modelling of projected workforce requirements was undertaken to inform earlier phases of our planning for the National Treatment Centre programme, detailed plans relating to the size and composition of the workforce for NTC Grampian will be developed by the Board and submitted to the Scottish Government as part of the wider planning and approval process for the site in operation.

Question reference: S6W-19990

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 1,500 new clinical and non-clinical staff, committed to in its NHS Recovery Plan, will be based in the National Treatment Centre Tayside.

National Treatment Centres (NTCs) require an appropriate mix of new and experienced staff to operate safely and efficiently. While initial modelling of projected workforce requirements was undertaken to inform earlier phases of our planning for the National Treatment Centre programme, detailed plans relating to the size and composition of the workforce for NTC Tayside will be developed by the Board and submitted to the Scottish Government as part of the wider planning and approval process for the site in operation.

Question reference: S6W-20004

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the original timetable was for the (a) completion and (b) opening of the planned new Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, and what the revised timetable is as of 30 June 2023.

Question reference: S6W-19991

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the original cost was for the planned National Treatment Centre Lothian, and what the revised cost is as of 30 June 2023.

Question reference: S6W-19866

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many interim care beds were available prior to the announcement by the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on 10 January 2023 regarding more beds being made available; how many were available during the period from 10 January to 31 March 2023, and how many beds are currently available.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. The Scottish Government did publish information on the number of people who were discharged to interim care placements procured using the additional funding offer made to Health and Social Care Partnerships. This data showed almost 500 people were discharged to interim care placements using the funding offer between 10 January and 3 April.

Weekly breakdowns of this data can be accessed through this link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/interim-care-placements-uptake/

Question reference: S6W-20074

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 4 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to any implications of potentially differing regulatory regimes for the new Scottish Veterinary Service, compared to the regime currently in place, particularly in light of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020.

The Scottish Government is committed to the creation of a Scottish Veterinary Service (SVS) to ensure there are highly trained staff to provide Scotland with good animal health and food safety to meet all our needs across the public and private sector for animal health issues.

Animal health and welfare matters are devolved, and were so before the creation of an Scottish Veterinary Service was considered. The Scottish Government is satisfied that any future changes to the arrangements for the delivery of veterinary controls will be purely operational and have negligible implications for the operation of the Internal Market Act 2020.

Question reference: S6W-20118

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 July 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 4 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to increase the number of reports that it makes to the Scottish Parliament in respect of its "keeping pace" power under the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021.

The UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 sets out the requirement for annual reports of the Scottish Ministers use, planned use and considered use of the Section 1(1) power of the Act. The Scottish Government has no plans to propose changes to the Act in respect of reporting its use of the Section 1(1) power. However, The Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, Culture and External Affairs wrote to the Convener of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture committee on 28 June to propose providing further information annually on the policy commitment to EU alignment, namely:

· how alignment has been considered in respect of legislation made in the Scottish Parliament over the reporting year;

· an assessment of EU legislation made over the reporting year that may be relevant to the commitment to align;

· where Scotland’s policy priorities in respect of the EU lie in the coming year; and

· reporting of the impact of the UK Government’s Retained EU Law Bill on Scotland and our ability to align with the EU to protect high standards.

Ministers look forward to receiving the Committee’s consideration of these proposals, and shall continue to work with the committee to ensure transparency in our approach to Parliament.