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-04512

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many successful applications to the Young Farmers Start-Up Grant Scheme there were from women in each year for which the scheme was open for applications.

Question reference: S6W-04498

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many electric vehicle domestic charge point grants have been provided to customers in the Scottish Borders area, and what the total value is of these grants.

The Scottish Government since 2010 has provided funding to the Energy Saving Trust to deliver the Domestic chargepoint scheme, this scheme provides grant funding to support individuals across Scotland install electric vehicle home chargepoints.

To date Energy Saving Trust have provided 433 grants with a value of £137,423 to individuals across the Scottish Borders to install electric vehicle chargepoints.

Question reference: S6W-04558

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Monday, 22 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action Revenue Scotland is taking to reclaim fraudulent or incorrect furlough payments, in light of reports that HM Revenue and Customs has been asked to recover £1 billion from such payments.

Question reference: S6W-04330

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported comments by the Chair of the Scottish Police Federation that there is concern about the impact of large caseloads on the ability of police officers to monitor registered sex offenders.

It is the responsibility of the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable to allocate resources across policing priorities, and to allocate officers to cases.

Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) provide a strong statutory framework to manage the risks posed by registered sex offenders with the greatest resources put towards those who present the highest risk to the public. Under MAPPA, Police, local authorities and other agencies work together to assess and monitor these individuals to reduce the risk they pose to the public. This includes proactive policing and zero tolerance of non-compliance which involves reporting cases to the Procurator Fiscal.

In 2021-22 the Scottish Government invested an additional £75.5 million in policing bringing the total policing budget to more than £1.3 billion, including £15 million one-off funding specifically to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the police budget. Police officer numbers in Scotland have been maintained and are favourable relative to elsewhere in the UK with around 32 officers per 10,000 population in Scotland compared to around 23 in England and Wales.

Question reference: S6W-04590

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to promote the use of the Scots language and to further Scots language education.

The Scottish Government has made clear its support for our indigenous languages, including Scots. It is essential that those that wish to use the Scots language are given every opportunity to use the language of their choice. For many, Scots is the language of home and community and its use in other areas of Scottish life should be encouraged.

The Scottish Government provides around £460,000 of funding to various Scots organisations and Scots projects such as the Scots Language Centre, Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Association of Scottish Literary Studies, Scots Radio and Scots Hoose to develop and promote Scots and deliver high quality Scots language learning and resources to open up the educational access to Scots for young people. In addition, the Scottish Government works alongside Education Scotland and the SQA and they have worked to standardise, promote and make the Scots language more readily available in schools.

The Scottish Government is committed to taking the forward the manifesto commitments for a new Scottish Languages Bill which takes further steps to support Gaelic, acts on the Scots language and recognises that Scotland is a multilingual society. This work is at an early stage and we intend to consult in 2022.

Question reference: S6O-00489

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not published information on ministerial engagements, travel and gifts since April 2021.

Engagements and events are an essential part of official government business. Ordinarily, the Scottish Government will routinely publish this information online. However during the Covid response it has been necessary to reprioritise staff resources to support the Covid recovery and the publication schedule has been delayed.

The Scottish Government are working hard to address this and anticipate that transparency data publication will return to normal mid-December.

Question reference: S6O-00488

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans to deliver Anne’s Law and other action it is taking to reduce isolation and loneliness in care homes.

We remain absolutely committed to strengthening residents’ rights in adult care homes through the introduction of ‘Anne’s Law’. This will give people who live in adult care homes the right to see and spend time with those who are important to them. Our public consultation on Anne’s Law closed on 5 November . We have received a considerable number of responses Scottish Government officials are currently working through the responses to consider the impact this may have on how we implement Anne’s Law. It is important that we carefully consider the views from the public and stakeholders that took the time to submit a response to our consultations. We intend to publish the responses in the coming weeks and results of the consultations on Anne’s Law and the strengthening of health and social care standards in the early part of the new year.

Question reference: S6O-00486

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 2 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what improvements to transport infrastructure are planned for the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley constituency.

Future transport investment by the Scottish Government, will be set out in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review.

In February, we published of the Case for Change report for Ayrshire and Arran, which included transport options being appraised as part of the Review. Under consideration are options for active travel; bus priority; getting more freight onto rail; improving the safety and resilience of the transport network and the decarbonisation of the transport system.

We intend to publish the STPR2 recommendations in the new year, however, until then I am not able to share further details.

Question reference: S6O-00519

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 December 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to improve the support that is available for people who are affected by strokes.

Question reference: S6O-00517

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 December 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made on the roll-out of superfast broadband in Orkney.

Scheme Year	Applications successful from women
2016	25
2017	10
2018	26
2019	1

Parliament dissolved ahead of election

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