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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6W-14341

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what guidelines it has given to GPs regarding the welcoming of Ukrainian refugees into their services.

Question reference: S6W-13941

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 30 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has ceased publication of monthly reports on its expenditure over £25,000, since the last publication date of December 2021.

Question reference: S6F-01716

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2023

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government has taken to bring the strike action by teachers to an end.

Question reference: S6W-13209

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 10 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on the (a) provision and (b) maintenance and servicing of free bikes, since the 2021 election.

Provision, maintenance and servicing of bikes comes from our budget to support Active Travel in 2021-2022, that amounted to £115.5m in total, and in 2022-2023 that amounted to £150m.

Specifically we have three programmes which focus on the provision, service and repair of a bike. They are the Free Bikes Commitment, Access Bikes run by Cycling UK and Scotland’s Cycle Repair Scheme (SCRS) run by Cycling UK. Their financials since May 2021 are below:

Free Bikes Commitment - £4,495,106.72
Access Bikes - £594,583
SCRS - £3,215,123

Question reference: S6T-01078

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 January 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to mitigate the impact of recent teacher strikes on children's education.

Question reference: S6W-13239

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 6 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of every (a) individual and (b) organisation the Education Reform Programme Board has met since its inception up to 9 December 2022.

The role of the Education Reform Strategic Programme Board is to provide advice and support to the programme, ensuring its successful and safe delivery.

The strategic board and three delivery boards have been established to lead, design and deliver work to establish three new national education bodies to replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland. The arrangements for education reform governance include a wide range of external stakeholders to provide a broad and diverse range of views and to put critical challenge at the centre of this work. Minutes of the Education Reform Strategic Programme Board, including attendance, can be found at www.gov.scot/groups/education-reform/.

Engagement with education reform stakeholders and users will continue to be a core part of the education reform programme whose delivery this board oversees. This engagement will provide all those with a stake and interest in the success of education reform with opportunities to provide further input and challenge to inform the design and delivery of the three new national education bodies and the wider education reform programme.

Question reference: S6O-01751

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to reduce antisocial behaviour in the Central Scotland region.

Question reference: S6W-13061

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what steps it is taking to promote locally-sourced, organic food for school meals throughout Scotland.

All local authorities are under a statutory duty to have regard to any guidance, such as ‘Better Eating, Better Learning’, issued by Scottish Ministers on the application of the principles of sustainable development when providing food or drink or catering services in schools. Local authorities, supported by Scotland Excel, remain committed to using local and sustainable produce in school catering wherever possible. It is up to each local authority to decide what produce, including organic, to use in their catering services, taking into account local needs, priorities and circumstances.

Question reference: S6W-12937

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 20 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its anticipated outcomes are of appointing a Chief Entrepreneur, and what the timetable is for delivery.

The outcome which the Scottish Government anticipated would be delivered through its appointment of a Chief Entrepreneur was to have someone with exceptional experience of growing start-up companies to scale with the credibility and influence necessary to command the respect of industry, investors and public sector leaders to take on a key role at the heart of government which covers designing, advising on and supporting effective programmes to successfully embed entrepreneurship across all sectors of the Scottish economy. This current appointment achieves that outcome. Under the terms of his contract, the Chief Entrepreneur will be in post for an initial term of two years.

Question reference: S6W-12936

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 20 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many meetings its Chief Entrepreneur has had with education institutions since his appointment.

The Chief Entrepreneur has had 9 meetings with education institutions since his appointment, not including daily engagements through email, social media and wider events. These engagements reflect the urgency and drive which the Chief Entrepreneur has brought to his work in government as well as the broad base of engagement and relationship building required in order to successfully embed entrepreneurship across all sectors of the Scottish economy. A list of all engagements undertaken by the Chief Entrepreneur in this time will shortly be published through the FOI process.