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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 41052 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-08260

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05015 by Màiri McAllan on 7 January 2022, what assessment it has made of the average cost per farm of upgrading slurry storage.

Question reference: S6W-08210

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what direct consultation was undertaken with the staff affected in relation to the decision to put in place a recruitment freeze in its health and social care directorate.

Question reference: S6W-07976

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the reported statement that the number of delayed discharges is back to pre-pandemic levels, whether it will provide details of the figures on which this is based.

Weekly management information published as part of the Coronavirus (Covid-19): Trends in Daily Data publication ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-trends-in-daily-data/ ) shows that delays first exceeded pre-pandemic levels (1,640 delays in January 2020) on 19 January 2020, with 1,664 delays recorded. Delays remained above 1,640 for the next two weeks before reducing again to pre-pandemic levels between 9 February and 23 March.

The whole health and social care system is under severe pressure and staff continue to work tirelessly to provide safe care. However, we continue to see extreme pressures across the whole health and social care system, with more people coming through hospitals who need high levels of care and support to go home, alongside high levels of unmet need in the community.

To address this significant additional funding has been allocated to support social care, including £62m to enhance care at home capacity; £48m to increase the hourly rate of pay; £40m to provide interim care arrangements; and £20m to enhance multi-disciplinary teams. Funding is also being used to rapidly scale up Hospital at Home services, which aim to reduce acute admissions and support timely discharge.

Question reference: S6W-08057

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in respect of the proposed Deposit Return Scheme, whether it has any plans to carry out another Gateway Review to consider the current economic uncertainty that is facing businesses.

Question reference: S6W-07949

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings its ministers or officials had with management representatives at Glasgow Prestwick Airport between December 2019 and March 2022 in relation to the nationalisation of Scotland’s railways, and whether any conclusions or lessons from these meetings will be published.

Prestwick Airport Station is owned by Prestwick Airport therefore it is not operated by ScotRail albeit passenger services do call there. Therefore, while Ministers and aviation officials routinely engage with representatives of Glasgow Prestwick Airport, discussions did not centre on ScotRail coming into public sector control at any point, including the period December 2019 and March 2022.

During this timeframe there was, however, appropriate consideration by Transport Scotland and ScotRail in the context of the transition from Abellio ScotRail to ScotRail Trains Ltd.

Question reference: S6W-08540

Asked by: Audrey Nicoll, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Keith Brown on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to improve victims’ experiences of and confidence in the justice system.

A public consultation on improving victims’ experiences of the justice system will open from today, 10 May 2022, until 3 August 2022. It will be available at https://consult.gov.scot/justice/victimsconsultation .

The consultation focuses on proposed legislative reforms with particular reference to victims of sexual offences. It takes forward our Programme for Government commitments to introduce a statutory right to anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases, establish a Victims’ Commissioner and carefully consider the recommendations from Lady Dorrian’s Review into the management of sexual offence cases that require a legislative basis to deliver.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving victims’ experiences of the justice system by putting them at its centre. This consultation explores how to do this by making the justice system more trauma informed and person centred. It is an important part of a wide-ranging programme of work to bring about transformational change necessary to ensure our justice system is trusted, modern, smart and effective.

We will continue to take an open and collaborative approach to achieve this aim, and this consultation will seek to capture the views of a broad range of stakeholders including legal professionals, the third sector and those with lived experience of the system.

I look forward to considering the full range of views received.

Question reference: S6O-01085

Asked by: Marie McNair, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress to remove NHS dental charges for everyone.

Question reference: S6O-01084

Asked by: Kaukab Stewart, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 12 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress on delivering the Heat in Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021.

We are creating a broad, co-ordinated package of policies and support programmes to deliver the change required. We have widened the scope of our capital and advice programmes and have several live funding calls for large scale projects. Further work over the coming year includes:

consulting on regulations for zero emissions heat
establishing a virtual National Public Energy Agency to coordinate delivery and build public understanding
co-producing, with industry, a Heat in Buildings supply chain delivery plan
collaborating with a range of partner organisations, through the Green Heat Finance Taskforce, on innovative heat decarbonisation finance mechanisms.

Question reference: S6O-01096

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will respond to the UK Government’s consultation, launched on 9 May, regarding the proposed expansion of its Warm Home Discount scheme.

Question reference: S6O-01087

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to improving data gathering and data management across government as part of the development of policies relating to the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.