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-06698

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans to make sapropterin available on the NHS for people with phenylketonuria.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) previously considered Kuvan ® (the branded version of sapropterin) in August 2018 and the medicine was not recommended for use in NHS Scotland because the submitting company’s justification of the treatment’s cost in relation to its health benefits was not sufficient; in addition, the company did not present a sufficiently robust clinical and economic analysis to gain acceptance by the SMC. The SMC would welcome a resubmission of this medicine, the submitting company (BioMarin).

The first generic version of sapropterin has recently received a Marketing Authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and we are currently considering how best to provide advice to Health Boards on whether it should be made available for routine use in NHS Scotland, based on the latest available evidence. Meantime, doctors can request access to medicines that are not generally available on the NHS on an individual case-by-case basis through the Peer Approved Clinical System (PACS) Tier Two process, where the treating clinician considers there would be a clinical benefit for their patient.

Question reference: S6W-06717

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many free laptops or tablets given to children in the (a) North Ayrshire, (b) Inverclyde, (c) Renfrewshire, (d) East Renfrewshire, (e) West Dunbartonshire and (f) East Dunbartonshire local authority area have been identified as being hacked by external actors; what remedial action was taken; how long this action took to complete, and whether any further security risks were identified with the devices after remedial action was taken.

Question reference: S6W-06332

Asked by: Ruth Maguire, MSP for Cunninghame South, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the key sources of data on prostitution offences are within the criminal justice system.

The Scottish Government’s primary sources of data on prostitution offences within the criminal justice system are the annual National Statistics publications on Recorded Crime in Scotland and Criminal Proceedings in Scotland .

Recorded Crime in Scotland is based on a count of these crimes, reported to Police Scotland, and broken down by local authority. The most recent publication covers the 2020-21 financial year.

The Criminal Proceedings in Scotland publication provides statistics on individuals proceeded against in court (specifically their age and gender). Statistics are also available on the result of these proceedings and the subsequent disposal given if the individual was found to be guilty. The most recent publication covers the 2019-20 financial year.

For these statistical collections, prostitution offences fall under the category “Crimes associated with prostitution”, which is included in Sexual crimes. This category includes six specific crime types:

? Brothel keeping;

? Immoral traffic;

? Offences related to prostitution;

? Procuration (excluding homosexual acts);

? Procuration of homosexual acts; and

? Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution

Offences related to prostitution is defined in the Scottish Crime Recording Standard as, “A prostitute (whether male or female) who for the purposes of prostitution loiters in a public place; solicits in a public place or in any other place so as to be seen from a public place; or importunes any person who is in a public place.”

The publications described above provide statistics on the Crimes associated with prostitution group but do not routinely include separate figures on the six crime types listed above. However, this information is available on request.

As an example, below we show data from the last available five years for recorded crime (Table 1) and criminal proceedings (Tables 2-4, covering proceedings, convictions and conviction rates, respectively). Note: criminal proceedings data is only available up to 2019-20, whereas recorded crime is up to 2020-21.

Care should be taken when comparing these different data sources. For example, recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while criminal proceedings statistics report on cases which have concluded in court. This means that a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year. In addition, a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime, or a set of crimes with more than one victim, in a proceeding, but only the main charge is counted in these court proceedings statistics. There is also the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course of judicial proceedings.

Table 1. Police recorded crimes associated with prostitution, Scotland, 2016-17 to 2020-21

Crime	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
Brothel keeping	14	18	10	13	13
Immoral traffic	26	21	31	23	23
Offences related to prostitution	194	65	50	13	2
Procuration (excluding homosexual acts)	11	8	5	10	7
Procuration of homosexual acts	0	2	0	0	0
Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution	58	22	139	42	11
Total	303	136	235	101	56

Table 2. Number of people proceeded for crimes associated with prostitution where it is the main charge, Scotland, 2015-16 to 2019-20

Crime	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
Brothel keeping	7	3	3	2	6
Immoral traffic	2	0	2	2	2
Offences related to prostitution	55	59	32	9	9
Procuration (excluding homosexual acts)	0	0	1	0	0
Procuration of homosexual acts	0	0	0	0	0
Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution	53	36	15	30	57
Total	117	98	53	43	74

Table 3. Number of people convicted for crimes associated with prostitution where it is the main charge, Scotland, 2015-16 to 2019-20

Crime	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
Brothel keeping	5	1	1	2	1
Immoral traffic	1	0	2	1	1
Offences related to prostitution	49	58	30	8	5
Procuration (excluding homosexual acts)	0	0	1	0	0
Procuration of homosexual acts	0	0	0	0	0
Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution	31	25	13	26	38
Total	86	84	47	37	45

Table 4. Conviction rate for crimes associated with prostitution where it is the main charge, Scotland, 2015-16 to 2019-20

Crime	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
Brothel keeping	71%	33%	33%	100%	17%
Immoral traffic	50%	0%	100%	50%	50%
Offences related to prostitution	89%	98%	94%	89%	56%
Procuration (excluding homosexual acts)	0%	0%	100%	0%	0%
Procuration of homosexual acts	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Soliciting services of a person engaged in prostitution	58%	69%	87%	87%	67%
Total	74%	86%	89%	86%	61%

Question reference: S6W-06189

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people have applied to the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel scheme, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-06190

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people have received a free bus pass through the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel scheme, broken down by local authority.

The Improvement Service (IS), who manage the application process, have informed us that at close of business on 1 March 2022 a total of 144,377 cards had been produced and despatched.

The latest figures that IS have provided broken down to a local council level are from close of business on 14 February 2022 and can be found in the following table.

Aberdeen City Council	3,949
Aberdeenshire Council	5,126
Angus Council	1,350
Argyll & Bute Council	1,136
City of Edinburgh Council	16,580
Clackmannanshire Council	504
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	260
Dumfries & Galloway Council	1,973
Dundee City Council	5,919
East Ayrshire Council	4,838
East Dunbartonshire Council	1,507
East Lothian Council	2,336
East Renfrewshire Council	2,375
Falkirk Council	1,888
Fife Council	7,426
Glasgow Council	8,209
Highland Council	3,155
Inverclyde Council	6,873
Mid Lothian Council	1,837
Moray Council	1,383
North Ayrshire Council	1,452
North Lanarkshire Council	3,999
Orkney Islands Council	176
Perth & Kinross Council	2,502
Renfrewshire Council	2,635
Scottish Borders Council	2,722
Shetland Islands Council	1,018
South Ayrshire Council	1,106
South Lanarkshire Council	2,840
Stirling Council	1,282
West Dunbartonshire Council	851
West Lothian Council	3,791

Question reference: S6W-06231

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many online applications for a new or replacement National Entitlement Card (NEC) or Young Scot National Entitlement Card (Young Scot NEC), to access the Young Persons' Free Bus Travel Scheme, have been started since the application process opened on 10 January 2022; of these started applications, how many have been completed and submitted, and, of these submitted applications, how many have been rejected, broken down by the reason for rejection.

The Improvement Service (IS), who manage the application process, do not have the statistics on applications started available. Some online applications were submitted in advance of the 10 January 2022 application open date. At close of business on 1 March 2022, there had been a total of 201,306 online applications submitted.

The IS are able to report on the online rejection numbers only. At close of business on 1 March 2022, 47,251 applications had been rejected. Among the most common reasons for rejection were:

? Abbreviated birth certificate supplied which contains insufficient information necessary to prove that a parent is authorised to act on behalf of a child.

? Documents supplied cannot be read

? Parental ID not supplied

? Mismatch on address

? Data mismatch

? Non-compliant photo

? Documents do not pass security features checks

? Wrong date of birth

? Duplicate application

? Failed ID verification checks

Question reference: S6W-06188

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people it estimates are eligible for the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel scheme, broken down by local authority.

Up to 930,000 young people aged between 5 and 21 will be eligible for the Young Persons' Free Bus Travel Scheme. This is in addition to almost 60,000 young people in this age group who already hold National Entitlement Cards providing access to the existing Free Bus Travel Scheme for Older and Disabled Persons. The following table provides population estimates calculated by Transport Scotland on the basis of data published by National Records of Scotland.

Scotland	989,300
Council areas
Aberdeen City Council	37,600
Aberdeenshire Council	51,400
Angus Council	20,800
Argyll and Bute Council	14,100
City of Edinburgh Council	84,800
Clackmannanshire Council	9,700
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	4,600
Dumfries & Galloway Council	25,100
Dundee City Council	26,600
East Ayrshire Council	22,400
East Dunbartonshire Council	21,000
East Lothian Council	20,900
East Renfrewshire Council	21,400
Falkirk Council	30,000
Fife Council	70,400
Glasgow Council	107,000
Highland Council	42,100
Inverclyde Council	13,600
Mid Lothian Council	18,600
Moray Council	17,600
North Ayrshire Council	24,500
North Lanarkshire Council	67,400
Orkney Islands Council	3,800
Perth and Kinross Council	26,700
Renfrewshire Council	32,400
Scottish Borders Council	20,400
Shetland Islands Council	4,500
South Ayrshire Council	19,100
South Lanarkshire Council	59,100
Stirling Council	17,500
West Dunbartonshire Council	16,600
West Lothian Council	37,900

Question reference: S6O-00861

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6O-00854

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) whether it will consider amending its policy on party identity or affiliation appearing on publications paid for by the SPCB.

Question reference: S6O-00855

Current Status: Withdrawn