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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: S6F-01745

Asked by: John Mason, MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 January 2023

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the second round of the UK Government's Levelling Up Fund allocations in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-13575

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding Flamingo Land's Lomond Banks planning application, whether Transport Scotland completed a carbon impact assessment, or any other assessment, of the application's potential impact on Scottish Government climate and car kilometre reduction targets before submitting its response to the planning application to the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority.

The question relates to a live planning application, and remains subject to consideration by the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority at this time.

As a statutory consultee in the planning process, with a responsibility for the safe and efficient flow of traffic on the A82 trunk road, Transport Scotland was consulted on the second Flamingo Land's Lomond Banks planning application in May 2022.

In terms of national planning policy requirements when considering the potential transport impacts of the proposed development, Scottish Planning Policy, (2014) remains in force until such time as National Planning Framework 4 is adopted and published. SPP contains no requirement to consider potential carbon impacts on Scottish Government climate and vehicle reductions targets.

Transport Scotland did however undertake a comprehensive review of the applicant’s transportation assessment supporting the planning application. Transport Scotland was satisfied that the proposed development could be adequately served by, and connected to, active travel and public transport networks and would not therefore be wholly reliant on car travel.

The outcome from the review informed Transport Scotland’s formal consultation response to the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority.

Question reference: S6W-13530

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the health and social care workforce will grow by 1% over the next five years.

We remain committed to the increasing in the Health and Social Care workforce by 1% over the next 5 years, as outlined within the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care.

NHS Scotland official workforce statistics published on 06 December 2022 show that staffing levels have increased by over 2,800 permanent whole time equivalent in the last year (or 1.8% of the NHS Scotland workforce) – representing 10 consecutive years of staffing growth.

Question reference: S6W-13531

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have joined the health and social care workforce through national schemes, such as modern apprenticeships, in each year since 2007, broken down by (a) scheme and (b) NHS board.

Question reference: S6W-13413

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what work it is doing to support research into the discovery of new antibiotics, non-antibiotic solutions and new combinations of medicines.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) supports funding schemes for applied health research across the range of health challenges including prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. Applications are assessed through independent expert review with funding decisions based on the recommendations of independent expert research committees. Currently funded projects include an investigation of a novel class of antibiotic and on targeting antibiotic use.

In addition, CSO contributes financially to a range of National Institute for Health & Care Research funding schemes so these are open to applications from researchers in Scotland. These schemes can also consider applications for research relating to infectious diseases with funding recommendations made following independent expert review.

CSO also invests through NHS Research Scotland in a range of clinical research infrastructure to support Health Boards to host and participate in clinical studies and trials, including an Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Network to support the delivery of studies in this area.

The Scottish Government has also agreed, in principle, to join a new payment and evaluation model for new antimicrobial products, led by National Institute for Health & Care Excellence and NHS England. Frameworks are set to be finalised and in place by end of March 2023, at which point, all four nations will collectively decide on the new products that will be awarded contracts. If this new model is successful, we hope it will help to address supply chain issues by incentivising industry research and development into new antimicrobials.

Question reference: S6W-13429

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its commitment to "collate new or better use existing data sources" in relation to secondary breast cancer.

The National Cancer Quality Steering group have overseen the development of a newly proposed QPI on 'Recurrence Following Breast Cancer Treatment' in 2022. This proposal contains 3 parts - i) local recurrence (or new cancer) following conservation surgery; ii) local recurrence (or new cancer) following mastectomy; and iii) any recurrence (or new cancer) in same breast, axilla or distant site after surgical treatment.

This QPI, along with the other revisions have recently been subject to a public engagement exercise and all comments received via this process are due to be discussed at a further Breast Cancer QPI Formal Review meeting later in January prior to final agreement.

Further to this, the Scottish Government continues its dialogue with Public Health Scotland, NHS England and the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership alongside breast cancer specialists and the charity Breast Cancer Now regarding data collection for secondary breast cancer.

Question reference: S6W-13540

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has introduced the Flying Finish initiative across all NHS boards in order to help retain older workers.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) are taking steps to introduce Flying Finish across NHS Boards, to benefit the workforce and the service. Work has already taken place to put in place a national Retire & Return policy within the NHS.

On 30 August 2022 the Interim National Arrangements on Retire & Return was announced, which offers a process that supports retiring employees to return to employment in their health board on a part time basis, should they wish to do so. The process enables retiring employees to continue employment that is suitable to them and the service, taking a person-centred approach which supports and manages the retirement in a tailored and individual way.

Question reference: S6W-13539

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done with NHS boards to gain Equally Safe at Work accreditation.

Equally Safe at Work is an innovative employer accreditation programme developed by Close the Gap, Scotland’s policy advocacy organisation working on women’s labour market equality. It supports employers to improve their employment practice to advance gender equality at work and prevent violence against women.

Public Health Scotland, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and Healthcare Improvement Scotland are taking part in this pilot which commenced in July 2022 and will take approximately one year to complete. A further five Health Boards, NHS Borders, NHS Shetland, NHS Orkney, National Education Scotland and NHS Fife, are part of the shadow group.

Question reference: S6W-13354

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 December 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent, other than the funding allocated to local authorities, for the purpose of tobacco control in each year since 2017-18.

The following table shows the amount spent by the Tobacco Team in each year since 2017-18. Due to way in which spend is recorded it is not possible to disaggregate Tobacco Control spend from overall Tobacco spend. Also please note that 2022-23 spend is not included as this financial year has not yet concluded.

		2017-2018	2018-2019	2019-2020	2020-2021	2021-2022
Regular stakeholder grants	ASH Scotland	£657,268	£610,900	£669,250	£669,250	£724,543
	Scottish Student Sport	£0	£0	£11,500	£26,315	£27,420
	The Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards In Scotland	£30,000	£62,500	£62,500	£55,000	£232,000*
	Rest of Tobacco Funding	£207,334.55	£385,885.73	£82,748.81	£44,325.26	£58,382.24
Total		£894,602.55	£1,059,285.73	£825,998.81	£794,890.26	£1,042,345.24

*Includes funding for Operation CeCe

I also refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-12229 on Health Board funding allocations for cessation services on 30 November 2022 and S6W-12227 on Local Authority Tobacco Control funding on 30 November 2022 which provide additional detail on Scottish Government Tobacco spend. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Question reference: S6W-13419

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Cancer Research UK report, Cancer in the UK: Deprivation and cancer inequalities in Scotland.

The Scottish Government continues to focus on tackling disparities in deprived areas by ensuring equitable access to cancer services through the actions in our National Cancer Plan. We recognise that the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated inequalities within screening. A key Ministerial priority is reducing inequalities in access to and uptake of screening programmes. That is why we committed up to £2.45 million to the Screening Inequalities Fund to build a programme of evidence-based, sustainable and scalable projects that tackle inequalities in a systemic way.

Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services (RCDS) have been established across three NHS Boards to date which have a key role in delivering earlier diagnosis and improving patient care. The First Minister recently announced an additional two RCDS’ are being developed.

Additionally, the development of national clinical management pathways through the Scottish Cancer Network will help reduce variation across Scotland, across the entirety of the pathway. In parallel, the first optimal cancer diagnostic pathway, led by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) was launched in December 2022, and is being funded by £3 million from the Scottish Government’s Detect Cancer Earlier (DCE) Programme.