Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-00493

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the speed for offering invites for initial and second COVID-19 vaccinations in the NHS Lothian area is reportedly slower than in other NHS board areas.

NHS Lothian is performing in-line with the rest of Scotland and within national timeframes. All NHS Boards have the same timeframe in which to complete each JCVI cohort. There will be slight local variations in time taken to reach targets dependant on population demographics within each NHS Board i.e Lothian has proportionally the highest constituency population of younger adults. NHS Lothian have reached these targets for each cohort, with the percentage coverage for over 50s in line with the Scottish average.

The vaccination data are updated daily and can be found here: COVID-19 Daily Dashboard | Tableau Public

Question reference: S6W-00476

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what reassurances it can provide to parents and carers regarding the risk of COVID-19 to young children, in light of comments by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care during a radio interview on 2 June 2021 that travelling from a Level 2 area to a Level 1 area to visit a soft play centre “could lead to hospitalisation of children”.

Question reference: S6W-00453

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on prescriptions in each of the last five years, and how many people received a prescription.

The cost of medicines and appliances in the past five financial years, 2016-17 to 2020-21, is shown in Table 1. These data relate to community dispensing only.

Table 1 – Gross Ingredient Cost (£), 2016/17 – 2020/21 Year	Gross Ingredient Cost (GIC) (£)
2016-17	1,137,588,236
2017-18	1,170,761,719
2018-19	1,142,104,457
2019-20	1,175,878,909
2020-21	1,118,110,484

Source: Public Health Scotland, PIS (Prescribing Data)

Reference: IR2021-00410

The number of people who have received a prescription in the last five years has recently been provided in an answer to S5W-36221 on 30 April 2021. This presented the number of patients with a paid prescription by financial year from financial year 2009-2010 to financial year 2020-2021 (partial year to December 2020 data).

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-00478

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether there has been in increase in cases of children being hospitalised as a result of COVID-19 in the six months up to June 2021.

This data is available on the Public Health Scotland Education Surveillance Dashboard which provides a three-weekly rolling average of hospital admissions for 2-17 years olds - COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard - Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in education settings - COVID-19 data and intelligence - COVID-19 - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland

Equivalent weekly data for children under 2 years is not currently published however, data on Cumulative COVID-19 Hospital Admissions since the start of the pandemic is available and shows that as of 26 May 2021, 238 children between 0-4 years have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 since March 2020. The full set of data can be found here - https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/weekly-covid-19-statistical-data-in-scotland/resource/bd8a865f-10e6-47d2-a461-8633c61693fe .

Question reference: S6W-00564

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce water pollution on beaches, in light of a recent survey, which suggested that seven out of the 10 of the UK beaches with the highest samples of E.coli and intestinal enterococci were in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing water pollution at beaches across Scotland.

We do not know what water quality data range was used by Save on Energy, a price comparison website, to support its claim. They do not reflect the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s bathing water classifications, which use statutory methods that are used across the UK and all EU member states.

Four of the seven Scottish beaches listed with the highest E.coli and intestinal enterococci in the Save on Energy survey are classified by SEPA as having ‘sufficient’ or better bathing water quality with one of these being rated as ‘excellent’. The three other beaches are receiving significant investment from Scottish Water totalling £23M in order to improve bathing water quality.

This bathing water season Scotland has more bathing waters rated as ‘excellent’, ‘good’ or ‘sufficient’ than at any point since tighter bathing water standards first came into force in 2015.

Question reference: S6W-00562

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to update crofting law in the current parliamentary session, and what timeline it has for publishing any legislation.

The Scottish Government remains committed to modernising crofting law to make it more transparent, understandable and workable. This is a complex area of work and officials will continue to engage with key crofting stakeholders with issues for consideration being discussed with members of the Crofting Stakeholder Forum, the Law Society and others.

The timetable for crofting law reform is being considered as part of the Government’s wider legislative programme. In the meantime non-legislative administrative solutions will be sought wherever possible and work will continue with the Crofting Commission to bring crofts back into active use, aligned to actions in the National Development Plan.

Question reference: S6W-00507

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to calls from the Scottish Environment Link coalition to introduce legally-binding targets to protect wildlife by 2022.

The Scottish Government is committed to action to protect wildlife and to the effective monitoring of progress towards this goal. The Scottish Government has recently added a new single high level indicator to the National Performance Framework which measures trends in marine and terrestrial biodiversity in Scotland.

We have committed to introducing an ambitious new Biodiversity Strategy for Scotland within a year of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (CoP15) and the publication of a new global biodiversity framework. Policies to take forward our commitment to tackle the nature crisis and methods to measure progress in this regard will be considered as part of the development of this Strategy and its supporting delivery plan.

Question reference: S6W-00474

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people aged (a) under 12, (b) 12 to 15 and (c) 16 to 17 have been in hospital with COVID-19 each week in 2021.

This data is available on the Public Health Scotland Education Surveillance Dashboard which provides a three-weekly rolling average of hospital admissions for 2-17 years olds - COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard - Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in education settings - COVID-19 data and intelligence - COVID-19 - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland

Equivalent weekly data for children under 2 years is not currently published however, data on Cumulative COVID-19 Hospital Admissions since the start of the pandemic is available and shows that as of 26 May 2021, 238 children between 0-4 years have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 since March 2020. The full set of data can be found here - https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/weekly-covid-19-statistical-data-in-scotland/resource/bd8a865f-10e6-47d2-a461-8633c61693fe .

Question reference: S6W-00839

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated in (a) the South Scotland parliamentary region and (b) each local authority area for the purchase of scientific equipment for schools in each year since 2012-13.

Scientific equipment for use in lessons is purchased by schools and the amount schools spend on scientific equipment is not decided centrally by the Scottish Government.

Scottish Government's policy towards local authorities' spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of the revenue funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on Education, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Question reference: S6F-00164

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 June 2021

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to curb the decline of iconic woodland bird species in Scotland.

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