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-34957

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-34287 by Neil Gray on 27 January 2025, regarding its commitment to increase access to GPs, whether this includes the commitment in the NHS Recovery Plan 2021-2026 to recruit 1,000 additional staff in primary care mental health, and whether that recruitment process has already begun.

While financial challenges have caused this programme to remain paused since 2022, we remain committed to delivering increased mental health and wellbeing workforce capacity in general practice, when budgets permit.

We have already prioritised significant investment to build mental health capacity in primary care through Action 15 of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 and the Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF). As of March 2024, 182.5 WTE mental health workers had been recruited under PCIF and at March 2022, the action 15 commitment had seen an additional 356 WTE mental health workers recruited to general practice.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan sets out a range of actions to achieve the ambition in the Strategy, including an action to work collaboratively to improve access to support, assessment and treatment in primary care mental health and wellbeing services; and to produce an initial report on progress by November 2024. The Mental Health in Primary and Community Care Report was published on 20 December 2024 detailing a range of actions to enhance access to mental health and wellbeing support in general practice and communities.

Question reference: S6W-34720

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many properties in the North Lot area are scheduled to be connected to superfast broadband through the R100 build scheme in 2025, broken down by local authority area.

The latest data, as provided on our address checker at www.scotlandsuperfast.com, shows that a total of 7,924 connections are expected to be delivered through the R100 North contract in 2025. This information is broken down by Local Authority in the following table.

Please note that these figures are subject to change, as connection plans can change, based on a number of factors such as adverse weather or issues with securing access to land or property, etc.

Local Authority	Expected connections to be delivered in 2025
Aberdeen City	0
Aberdeenshire	1,536
Angus	293
Argyll and Bute	592
Dundee City	0
Highland	1,333
Moray	1,818
Na h-Eileanan an Iar	0
North Ayrshire	0
Orkney Islands	557
Perth and Kinross	1,121
Shetland Islands	674
Stirling	0
Total	7,924

Question reference: S6W-34447

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidents of whistleblowing have taken place in each public service organisation in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-35005

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it will conduct its review of the package of student financial support available for nursing and midwifery studies, and whether, as part of that review, it will explore any changes to reflect those who choose rural and remote work.

The Paramedic, Nursing and Midwifery (PNM) student financial support review is currently ongoing. The review aims to ensure that all PNM students are adequately supported to complete their studies, this includes students from remote and rural locations. A key aspect of the work associated with the review is to hear directly from PNM students about their experiences and opinions on financial support during their studies.

Question reference: S6W-34586

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason guidance was issued to NHS boards and health and social care partnerships in August 2022 advising that the Primary Care Improvement Plan reserves should only be utilised in-year as part of the overall funding allocation.

Given the significant challenges facing public finances at that time, utilising reserves that had been built up over time from underspend of previous allocations to reinvest in support of multidisciplinary team implementation was a prudent use of public funds. At the same time, the Scottish Government increased the recurring funding available for these teams through the Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF) to £170 million in 2022-23 to support Integration Authorities to continue to work with local partners to increase and enhance capacity in primary care services. We are now investing over £190 million annually in the implementation of primary care multidisciplinary teams through the PCIF as well as additional funding for annual pay uplifts.

Question reference: S6W-34583

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to recent research published by the James Hutton Institute, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and Forest Research, examining the efficacy of tree planting on carbon capture.

Question reference: S6W-34584

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration has been given to the potential for soil carbon losses when increasing tree cover with the aim to capture carbon, through its tree planting targets.

Question reference: S6W-34585

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to revising the guidance on the Primary Care Improvement Plan reserves, with the aim of allowing for greater flexibility, including for the reserves to be allocated during the setting of annual budgets.

We are investing over £190 million annually in the implementation of primary care multidisciplinary teams through the Primary Care Improvement Fund (PCIF) as well as additional funding for annual pay uplifts. The utilisation of PCIF funding held in reserve from the previous year to support in-year PCIF objectives is an approach we have now taken for a number of years. It is prudent to reinvest these public funds given the challenging financial context.

Question reference: S6W-34495

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason no financial provision was made in its draft Budget 2025-26 for the new national treatment centre in Aberdeen, in light of the increase in capital funding and the Finance and Public Administration Committee's call on it to "ensure it’s in the best possible position to ‘hit the ground running’ with infrastructure projects from the start of the next financial year."

As had been made clear, there remains challenge and uncertainty in the capital funding position.

All due consideration will be given as to which projects are affordable and deliverable and can be included within our revised infrastructure investment plan pipeline, following the outcome of the UK Government’s spending review and clarity on our longer-term capital funding position.

To this end, we are working with all health boards to develop a whole-system NHS infrastructure plan which will reflect needs across Scotland and support continued safe operation of existing facilities, as well as determination of longer term investment priorities.

Question reference: S6W-34006

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker (on behalf of the SPCB) on 20 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how much has been spent on new and replacement (a) televisions and (b) monitors in each of the last 10 years.