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-01077

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 26 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many homeless people have accessed emergency healthcare in each year since 1999.

The exact information requested is not available centrally. The following table shows number of people reported on HL1 applications. applying for Local Authority assistance and presenting as homeless or threatened with homelessness, each year between 2016-17 and 2019-20 and their attendance at Accident and Emergency Departments in the 6 months before and after assessment decision date. The information presented is limited to 11 Local Authorities and the years shown.

The information in the table below will also exclude any homeless people or rough sleepers who attended Accident and Emergency Departments, but did not apply for Local Authority homelessness assistance.

Table 1: A&E attendances in the period before and after HL1 assessment decision date by financial year of the decision date.

		2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
Number of people reported on HL1 applications (based on 11 Local Authorities) 1		15,920	18,670	19,522	18,832
A&E attendances in 6 months before assessment decision date	Number of people with at least one attendance	3,726	4,322	4,701	4,674
A&E attendances in 6 months before assessment decision date	Number of attendances 2	6,719	7,743	8,623	8,807
A&E attendances in 6 months after assessment decision date	Number of people with at least one attendance	3,726	4,348	4,805	4,319
A&E attendances in 6 months after assessment decision date	Number of attendances 2	6,813	7,697	9,039	7,912

1. Local Authorities included are: City of Edinburgh, East Ayrshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Fife, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Na h-Eileanan Siar, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire.

2. A person could have more than one A&E attendance in the period before or after the assessment decision date.

Source: Public Health Scotland

In June 2018, the Scottish Government published findings from the Health and Homelessness in Scotland Research Project. The full report is available at this link:

Health and homelessness in Scotland: research - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The research showed that 435,853 people in households assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness by Scottish Local Authorities, between June 2001 and November 2016, accounted for 1.16 million accident and emergency attendances over the period of January 2011 to December 2016. Some individuals will have experienced several accident and emergency attendances, whereas others may not have experienced any. This publication did not separately report how many of these 435,853 people experienced an accident and emergency attendance.

Question reference: S6W-01095

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 26 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many suspected cancer referrals have been made by NHS dentists in each year since 2014-15.

Question reference: S6W-00897

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 26 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many staff, including all personnel such as porters, healthcare assistants and volunteers, at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital have tested positive for COVID-19, broken down by (a) date and (b) ward location at the time of testing.

The information requested regarding the number of NHS staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 at a hospital level is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Public Health Scotland publishes Health Care Worker Data by NHS Board, this information can be accessed here:

Dashboard - COVID-19 Statistical Report - 14 July 2021 - COVID-19 statistical report - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-01826

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 July 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress with the COVID-19 vaccination programme since March 2021, including a potential future COVID-19 booster vaccination programme.

I am pleased to announce our second update to the Covid-19 Vaccines Deployment Plan will be published later today.

The Plan reflects on our progress since March 2021 and explains how our COVID-19 vaccination programme is designed to be inclusive and that no-one is left behind, in order to protect individuals and the wider population of Scotland. The Plan also looks ahead to operationalising recent advice from the JCVI on vaccination of those under 18 years old, and the potential COVID-19 booster vaccination programme this autumn.

We continue to monitor the vaccination programme and will keep under review if and when a further update to the COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment Plan is required.

Question reference: S6W-01340

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Scottish National Party manifesto commitment to provide free bikes for all children of school age who cannot afford them, what the eligibility criteria are for children to access the scheme.

Question reference: S6W-01326

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the timescale for the completion of the A92/A96 Haudagain roundabout improvements.

Question reference: S6W-01251

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve and increase the infrastructure necessary to support more electric cars.

The Scottish Government continues to support the national development of the ChargePlace Scotland electric vehicle charging network. We have invested over £45 million since 2011 in the ChargePlace Scotland network, which now has over 1800 publicly available chargepoints.

Over £5.5M will be provided to local authorities this year to continue to invest in the growth of the ChargePlace Scotland network. Funds will be administered across a number of schemes including our Local Authority Install Programme, which will focus on improving the capacity and resilience of the network by bolstering electric vehicle charging provision at key sites across Scotland, retrofitting rapid chargers with contactless payment facilities and funding warranty and maintenance packages. Other programmes such as Switched on Towns and Cities and Low Carbon Travel and Transport Fund will continue to deliver additional chargepoints and we are providing additional funding to Scottish local authorities as top-up funding for the UK Government’s on-street charging funding programme.

We continue to support households and business who wish to install chargepoints by providing grant funding to support this. To date almost 10,000 household and workplace charge points have been installed.

We are currently working with Scottish Future Trust to consider new approaches to financing publicly available EV charging infrastructure and will shortly bring forward consultation on installing EV infrastructure in all new build properties and all existing properties undergoing major renovation.

Question reference: S6W-01443

Asked by: Richard Leonard, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 July 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reasons the Cycle to Work scheme has not been made available to ScotRail employees for 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-01198

Asked by: Richard Leonard, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 12 July 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00829 by Graeme Dey on 28 June 2021, what recent advice it has received from the (a) Maritime and Coastguard Agency and (b) other regulatory authorities on the safety of the MV Pentalina to operate on routes in the current contract for Clyde and Hebrides ferry services.

Question reference: S6W-01327

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 23 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the most recent estimate is of the cost of the A92/A96 Haudagain roundabout improvements scheme; when this estimate was made and whether it will publish all the previous estimates that have been made for this project, broken down by the (a) date of the estimate and (b) reasons for any increase in the cost.