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 48968 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-22128

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish its new palliative care strategy, in light of it initially being due in 2021.

Question reference: S6W-22228

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment it has made of the (a) crewing levels and (b) frequency of ferry services between the mainland and the Orkney Islands.

A transport appraisal of passenger and freight ferry services between the Northern Isles and the Scottish mainland, in line with the Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG), was undertaken in 2016-2017 to inform the specification of the Northern Isles Ferry Services contract awarded in 2020. The study report is published here:

final-report-appraisal-of-options-for-specification-of-2018-northern-isles-ferry-services-april-2018.pdf (transport.gov.scot)

Crewing is a matter for the ferry operators.

Question reference: S6W-22021

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many adult patients have been deregistered from NHS dental services in Dumfries and Galloway in the last two years.

Question reference: S6W-22070

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many women have had to travel outside their NHS board area for an abortion in each year since 2019-20, also broken down by the patients' NHS board.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) data is provided below on numbers of patients receiving abortion treatment in a Health Board other than their Board of residence.

It is not possible to distinguish how many patients had to receive treatment in another Health Board or how many chose to do so.

Number of terminations where Board of treatment is different from Board of residence, Scotland, 2019 to 2022.

Health board of residence	2019	2020	2021	2022 (Provisional)
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	15	8	7	9
NHS Borders	*	*	*	*
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	*	*	*	*
NHS Fife	82	73	84	85
NHS Forth Valley	12	23	14	12
NHS Grampian	11	*	10	*
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	9	6	8	8
NHS Highland	116	131	158	144
NHS Lanarkshire	348	343	266	273
NHS Lothian	5	10	6	8
NHS Tayside	9	14	11	14
Island Boards	53	45	37	45
Total	665	660	605	605

Excludes terminations where board of residence is not known or terminations were carried out privately.

* Indicates values that have been suppressed due to the potential risk of disclosure.

Question reference: S6W-22275

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many breaches of discipline have been recorded by the Scottish Prison Service for a prisoner possessing an authorised personal communication device that was not provided by the prison governor for use by that prisoner, since the introduction of this rule to the present date, broken down by financial year.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table shows the number of breaches of discipline where an individual had in his or her possession, or used, an authorised personal communication device which was not provided by the Governor for use by that prisoner, up to and including 31 July 2023, the date in which the provision was withdrawn:

2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023*	TOTAL
332	541	537	186	1,586

* 01-04-2023 – 31-07-2023

Question reference: S6W-22020

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many adult patients have been registered with an NHS dentist in Dumfries and Galloway in each of the last three years.

Question reference: S6W-22288

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo have been handled by Clydeport in each of the last 10 years.

Question reference: S6W-22161

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what improvements it will make in relation to increasing the amount of weather-related advice and information that it shares.

The Scottish Government, via its Ready Scotland digital channels, runs a year-long communications campaign with a specific focus on severe weather.

The aims of the campaign are: to highlight risks associated with particular severe weather conditions and recommend actions people can take to minimise the negative knock-on effects; to promote responsible behaviours; and to raise awareness of information, advice and guidance about what to do in advance to prepare for, respond to and recover from severe weather emergencies.

Since 2022 each campaign burst has been complemented with a bespoke digital toolkit. They contain pre-made social media content providing the most important and relevant weather-related practical advice, signposting users to the Ready Scotland and partner websites where they may find further guidance. The toolkits are shared with partner organisations, who we understand regularly promote this Scottish Government-branded content from their official social media accounts, therefore assisting in maximising the reach of this key messaging.

Question reference: S6W-21997

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-21421 by Jenny Gilruth on 2 October 2023, in relation to the 280,000 devices that have been distributed, whether it can provide a breakdown by type of device, including for example, laptop and tablet, and, at the point of distribution, how many devices were in a (a) new and (b) used condition.

Question reference: S6W-22151

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has undertaken on improving resilience plans to enable the strategic coordination of door-to-door welfare checks.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with categorised responders, who are responsible under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for assessing the risk of an emergency occurring, maintaining plans to ensure they can continue to perform their functions in case of an emergency, and considering whether an assessment makes it necessary or expedient to add or modify plans. Scottish Government are not however responsible for, or the owners of, any of these plans.

In relation to door-to-door welfare checks specifically, our follow-up report on Storm Arwen in October 2022 confirmed that “The capability to deliver this type of large-scale response relies on a number of the issues, for example swift activation of resilience arrangements, the ability to quickly assess the impact on the ground, strong mutual aid arrangements and links to community and voluntary groups, and agile public communications plans. Resilience partnerships are however also aware that deploying a large number of people to travel on foot to carry out door-to-door checks could itself create a risk for those involved, for example if the weather conditions remain challenging. As such, these checks should always be considered as part of a range of ‘care for people’ considerations and measures which are rolled out in response to any major incident, which might also for example include the provision of rest centres.”

The Scottish Government is also supporting partners in the development of the Persons at Risk Distribution (PARD) resource which enables the swift identification of, and support to, those most at risk during an incident.