Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 43509 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6F-02373

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-02380

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 18 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2023

To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet will next meet.

Question reference: S6F-02384

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2023

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reported comments from COSLA and council leaders questioning the achievability of net zero targets without a detailed plan and adequate funding.

Question reference: S6F-02377

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2023

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government will consider writing off school meal debts, in light of reports of local authorities instructing sheriff officers to pursue families for unpaid school meal debts.

Question reference: S6F-02372

Asked by: Douglas Ross, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2023

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6W-20743

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it cost to produce the publication, Scottish Government's Plan for School Research 2023-2026, and how many civil servants were allocated to its production.

Question reference: S6W-21460

Asked by: Ben Macpherson, MSP for Edinburgh Northern and Leith, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 September 2023
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Mairi McAllan on 18 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the £5 million funding announced at COP27 for action to address loss and damage.

At COP27, the Former First Minister pledged £5m of funding to address non-economic loss and damage (NELD) over the course of the parliament. Non-economic loss and damage includes, for example, cultural loss, damage to nature and health decline due to climate impacts.

Following the announcement, officials engaged with the international stakeholder community and explored options to deliver the funding. Our priority has been to ensure the funding:

quickly reaches those who need it, in particular women, in the global south,
responds to community needs and is participatory in design,
makes a genuine difference to their lives by allowing them to address the impacts of climate change,
is well-managed by a credible partner, and
allows other donors to join the Scottish Government and provide funding.

On this basis, we are delighted to be partnering with the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) to deliver the £5m of funding.

CJRF will use the funding to create a programme that will provide grants to support vulnerable global communities impacted by climate change and build grant partners’ capacity through technical assistance, learning and advocacy. The aim of the programme is to enable and support communities facing extreme climate-induced NELD to identify and prioritise the actions that will best address it. The programme will also focus on addressing NELD in a gender-responsive way, ensuring women and girls are given a strong voice throughout all stages of programme design.

In addition to meeting our criteria, CJRF were chosen as the preferred delivery partner on the basis of their ability to obtain additional funding and so to ensure that even more vulnerable communities receive support. We are delighted that Open Society Foundations (OSF) are providing $700,000 of additional funding for the programme, especially to foster youth-led community projects. OSF bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the programme given their historical human right and equity approaches to socio-economic challenges, including through their work on Climate Justice

We hope that this is not the only additional funding. The programme is fiscally sponsored by the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) who can accept other funds from governments, NGOs and the private sector, to address loss and damage. The aim is that Scottish Government’s contribution will galvanise others to pay into the fund to create a large, multi-donor initiative that can support more communities address non-economic loss and damage.

The programme is designed to respond to community needs. These may include, for example, activities to address climate-forced displacement and forced migration, and the myriad of associated losses: of family life, community, and culture; activities to address increases in gender-based violence, domestic abuse, and child marriage due to incessant climate stress. Other losses that communities may prioritise include loss of sites of cultural and/or spiritual importance, loss of language, and traditions.

Question reference: S6W-20742

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government where the details underlying the four objectives set out in the publication, Scottish Government's Plan for School Research 2023-2026, which explain how each objective will be pursued and what practically each objective means, are published.

Scottish Government's Plan for School Research 2023-2026 sets out how each objective will be pursued, specifically:

delivering robust and timely evidence to support the policy making process – through publishing a suite of research reports and official statistics, aligned to the Government’s research needs.
collaboration with key partners – via the National Advisory Group and Academic Reference Group.
supporting independent education research – through improved routes for knowledge exchange (such as the Education Research Seminar Series) and expanding membership of the Academic Reference Group to include early career researchers.
continuing to improve data access – by continuing to make datasets available on Administrative Data Research Scotland platform and promoting available datasets and how to access them to the wider education research community.

Question reference: S6W-20992

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 18 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the costs associated with the (a) production and (b) publication of its paper, Citizenship in an independent Scotland.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a New Scotland paper, ‘Citizenship in an independent Scotland’, are set out in the following table.

Costs
Task	VAT %	VAT	Net Price
Formatting and Online Publication (including HTML Web Conversation)	20.00	594.51	2,972.53
Printed Copies	0.00	0.00	1,379.66
Summary Document	20.00	66.83	334.14
Summary Document – Language Translations	20.00	973.08	4,865.40
Summary Document – BSL Translations	20.00	204.57	1,022.86
Summary Document – Audio Translation	20.00	26.88	134.42
Summary Document – Easy Read Version	20.00	173.59	867.96
Total (GBP)		2,039.46	11,576.97
Total including VAT (GBP)			13,616.40

I am unable to provide a figure for the total production costs of Citizenship in an independent Scotland because in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded because there is no business need to do this.

Question reference: S6W-20991

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 18 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the costs associated with the (a) production and (b) publication of its paper, Creating a modern constitution for an independent Scotland.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a New Scotland paper, ‘Creating a modern constitution for an independent Scotland’, are set out in the following table.

Costs
Task	VAT %	VAT	Net Price
Formatting and Online Publication (including HTML Web Conversation)	20.00	1,092.85	5,464.27
Printed Copies	0.00	0.00	2,141.74
Summary Document – including Language Translations	20.00	1,039.50	5,197.52
Summary Document – BSL Translations	20.00	218.12	1,090.59
Summary Document – Audio Translation	20.00	14.18	70.92
Summary Document – Easy Read Version	20.00	280.28	1,401.41
Total (GBP)		2,644.94	15,366.45
Total including VAT (GBP)			18,011.39

I am unable to provide a figure for the total production costs of Creating a modern constitution for an independent Scotland because in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded because there is no business need to do this.