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-36063

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 4 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the adequacy of training provided to sheriffs who preside over fatal accident inquiries.

Question reference: S6W-36055

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 4 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its assessment is of the effectiveness of fatal accident inquiries in preventing similar fatalities.

Question reference: S6W-36056

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 4 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has considered any reforms or changes to the fatal accident inquiry system, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Government has acknowledged that there are concerns about the operation of the FAI system. In January of this year, following publication of the determination of the FAI into the deaths of Katie Allen and William Brown at Polmont Young Offenders Institute, the Scottish Government announced a focussed, independent review of the FAI system. This review is to look at the efficiency, effectiveness and trauma-informed nature of investigations into deaths in prison custody.

Question reference: S6W-35990

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of how much it has spent on business (a) analysts and (b) consultants in each year since 2017-18.

Business Analysts operate across both our directly employed and contingent workforce. Within our directly employed workforce, they operate across two of our Professional groups (Professions); the Digital Profession and the Operational Delivery Profession. A definition of a Business Analyst role can be found here Business analyst - Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework

A breakdown of the expenditure on the directly employed staff in Business Analyst roles can be found here Breakdown of Scottish Government spend on Lawyers and Business Analyst roles: FOI release - gov.scot

There may also be some Business Analysts working in a temporary capacity in our contingent workforce, however our data on contingent workers is not captured at a job title level and this may not adhere fully to the definition provided above.

Scottish Government expenditure on consultants is publicly available and can be found here. Business Consultant is not a commonly applied definition in the Scottish Government.

2023 to 2024 - Government expenditure - gov.scot

Government expenditure: 2016 to 2023 - gov.scot

Question reference: S6W-35973

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many marketing campaigns it has commissioned and subsequently cancelled since 2019, and what the cost of these was.

Question reference: S6W-36629

Asked by: Rona Mackay, MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by John Swinney on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on MSP pay for its ministers for 2025-26, and whether the ministerial element of pay will remain frozen.

Since 1 April 2009, Scottish Ministers have declined to accept their full salary entitlement, freezing it at 2008-09 levels.

Between the start of the pay freeze on 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2025, this has resulted Scottish Ministers making over £2.2 million available for public spending from their own pay packets.

The freeze of the Ministerial element of pay at 2008-09 levels will remain in place for 2025-26, recognising the wider economic and fiscal pressures as well as the restraints placed on public sector pay.

The Ministerial element of pay will therefore remain at 2008-09 levels as shown in the following table:

Junior Minister	£26,068
Cabinet Secretary	£41,618
First Minister	£80,224
Lord Advocate	£54,371
Solicitor General	£39,316

From 1 April 2025, the MSP element of Ministers’ salaries will be equalised with that of MSPs who are not currently serving Ministers, providing parity in line with their roles. This has been set for all MSPs at £74,507.

The Scottish Parliament is responsible for the payment of salaries for MSPs and members of the Scottish Government. These arrangements are made under the Scottish Parliament Salaries Scheme. The rules of the Scottish Parliament Salaries Scheme do not give the power to withhold an annual increase from the gross salary entitlement. To achieve the required reduction, the pay increase to which Ministers and Law Officers would have been entitled are deducted from their net salary and paid direct to the Scottish Government to be made available for public spending.

The Scottish Parliament’s Pay and Pensions Team will be formally notified of this change and the commencement date of 1 April. They will then complete the relevant calculations and issue new mandates to all Ministers confirming the updated deduction value.

Question reference: S6W-35985

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government to what extent universities rely on international students to help their financial stability, and what impact this has on admissions policies.

The Scottish Government welcomes the valuable contribution that international students make to our society, culture, and economy. Our commitment to Scotland's universities is demonstrated through our long-term commitment to Scotland’s universities, investing over £1 billion every year in the sector since 2012/13. This is continued in the 2025-26 budget which provides over £1.1bn of investment in teaching and research in Scotland’s universities.

Universities are autonomous institutions, and the share of international student fee income compared to other income sources will differ between each institution. However, universities are responsible for their own admissions policies but should consider their long-term stability by actively diversifying their international student intake and seeking alternative funding sources. Neither international nor rUK students are able to access funded places which have been set aside for Scottish students.

We need an immigration system that supports our higher education sector to deliver the best learning, research and student experience. That is why the Scottish Government announced proposals for a Scottish Graduate Visa - to support a clear pathway for international students to build their careers in Scotland and contribute to our economy and wider society.

Question reference: S6W-35980

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it had with businesses, including in the renewable heating sector, before making the decision to not proceed with the proposed Heat in Buildings Bill.

As I have set out in my statement to Parliament earlier today, we intend to introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill in Year 5 of this Parliamentary session. In this statement I set out government’s rationale for the format of the Bill. We will continue to engage with stakeholders from all sectors as we do so, building on the discussions that began with our consultation and have been continuing since then.

Question reference: S6W-35971

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many women have been waiting longer than two years for gynaecological procedures, broken down by NHS board.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes quarterly data on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. The latest statistics represent all patients covered by the national standards for these stages of treatment to 31 December 2024. Individual patients are counted more than once if they are waiting to attend more than one scheduled hospital appointment or admission, so the official statistics shown here do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved but the number of waits.

Table 1. sets out the number of ongoing waits over 2 years for a Gynaecology inpatient or day-case admission as of 31 December 2024:

Table 1.

NHS Board of Treatment	Over 104 week waits
NHS Borders	12
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0
NHS Fife	1
NHS Forth Valley	0
NHS Grampian	314
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	673
NHS Highland	42
NHS Lanarkshire	124
NHS Lothian	10
NHS Orkney	0
NHS Shetland	0
NHS Tayside	186
NHS Western Isles	0
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	11
TOTAL	1,373

Table 2. sets out the number of ongoing waits over 2 years for a Gynaecology new outpatient appointment as of 31 December 2024:

Table 2.

NHS Board of Treatment	Over 104 week waits
NHS Golden Jubilee	0
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	0
NHS Borders	0
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0
NHS Fife	0
NHS Forth Valley	0
NHS Grampian	195
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	0
NHS Highland	5
NHS Lanarkshire	0
NHS Lothian	31
NHS Orkney	0
NHS Shetland	0
NHS Tayside	32
NHS Western Isles	0
TOTAL	263

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more. In 2024-25, we allocated over £450,000 to gynaecology from our £30 million targeted investment in planned care, delivering around 3,500 additional new outpatient appointments.

The 2025-26 Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for Health & Social Care, including a commitment to provide £200 million to help reduce waiting times and improve capacity, and gynaecology is being targeted as a key priority area for additional funding.

Question reference: S6W-35894

Asked by: Meghan Gallacher, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment it has made of whether the target for all (a) properties of private landlords reaching a minimum standard equivalent to an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of at least band C by the end of 2028, (b) properties of homeowners reaching a minimum standard equivalent to an EPC rating of at least band C by the end of 2033, (c) building owners ending their use of polluting heating by 2045 and (d) buildings owned by a public authority using clean heating systems by the end of 2038, remains achievable.

As set out in Parliament today, we intend to bring forward a Heat in Buildings Bill in Year 5 of this Parliamentary session.

We intend this Bill to introduce a statutory clean heating target for all buildings in Scotland to be decarbonised by 2045, as far as possible.

We know that improving energy efficiency is vital in reducing heat demand in buildings, and that it makes buildings warmer and easier to heat, and can reduce bills. For this reason, we also intend to include powers in the Heat in Buildings Bill to introduce regulations in the future for non-domestic and domestic owner-occupied buildings to reach a minimum energy efficiency standard, should this be appropriate.

To accompany this, we intend to progress now with a minimum energy efficiency standard in the private rented sector using existing primary powers in the Energy Act 2011. This means that all privately rented homes in Scotland would be required to meet energy performance certificate band C, on reformed energy performance certificates, as far as possible, by a specific date. This date is yet to be finalised but will not be as soon as 2028. This is to reflect the need to give the sector sufficient notice ahead of making required changes. Any proposed regulations will be consulted on, and engagement with stakeholders will be prioritised, to ensure regulations are achievable.

In terms of the public sector, where available, the public sector will be required to take action to connect to heat networks in line with build-out of the heat network. For the rest of the public sector estate, the target date of 2045 will apply. This is to account for any potential additional challenges of decarbonising buildings outside of heat network zones, for example in more remote areas.