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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-39933

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will conduct a review of public funding to any organisations accused of politically motivated discrimination.

Question reference: S6W-39935

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether it is acceptable for publicly funded cultural institutions to exclude authors on the basis of their views on women’s sex-based rights.

Question reference: S6W-39934

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is protecting cultural freedom and open debate in any events that receive public funding.

The Scottish Government supports the culture sector to make its own decisions relating to artistic or cultural judgement. How individual cultural organisations engage in public debate is a matter for them, as are their programming decisions. Artists and cultural organisations are free to explore and convene dialogue on any issues whilst having regard to relevant legislation, such as the Equality Act.

Question reference: S6W-39748

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports of rising economic inactivity among younger adults, what steps it is taking to improve workforce participation among this group.

To grow Scotland's economy, we must make full use of our potential workforce and remove barriers to employment.

Economic inactivity is a complex issue, and this government is acting through a coordinated, system-wide and multi-sector approach. To address this challenge, we have focussed on key transition points where individuals are most at risk of inactivity including young people.

Devolved employability and career services play a vital role in supporting young people into fair and sustainable work. Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) helps prepare school leavers for employment through a wide range of activities delivered by schools, employers, the DYW Employer Network, and partners across the third and Community Learning and Development (CLD) sectors, including Education Scotland and Skills Development Scotland. These activities include work tasters, information sessions, professional career advice, mentoring, and work experience placements.

As outlined in the Programme for Government, we’re working with schools in
2025-26 to expand effective support helping young people into positive destinations. We’ll also launch the First Minister’s Start-up Challenge to promote youth entrepreneurship. The 2025-26 Entrepreneurial Education Fund received 94 applications, up one-third from last year to further support young people across Scotland develop an entrepreneurial mindset, seeking a share of £1.2 million. Successful applicants will be notified in due course.

Addressing economic inactivity requires innovative approaches. We are working with local government, public sector and third sector partners to improve the reach and visibility of support services.

Young people who require ongoing support after leaving school are supported by Skills Development Scotland and access tailored employability services through No One Left Behind, helping them into work or other positive destinations such as further or higher education, aligned with their aspirations.

While students are statistically classified as economically inactive, these pathways are expected to lead to future employment and are considered positive steps toward long-term economic participation.

Work continues across government and with partners to identify further impactful actions to reduce economic inactivity.

Question reference: S6W-39760

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many civil servants are currently on its payroll without a recognised job title or role.

Prior to the implementation of Oracle Cloud, the Scottish Government’s previous HR Information System did not require Job Title to be a mandatory field for completion. This meant that individuals could be operational in substantive posts, but with missing or out of date job titles recorded on the system.

There are 45 civil servants, directly employed by the Scottish Government, whose Job Title does not appear on the organisation’s HR Information System, Oracle Cloud, when a report is downloaded. Further information on Scottish Government workforce numbers is available here Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot).

A Professions Strategy is in operation within Scottish Government. This enhances workforce management by adopting a classification system that links all jobs to a profession and a related job family and job type. While the majority of jobs have been through this classification system in preparation for Oracle Cloud going live, there is a small minority of roles (~7%) still to be formally classified which Scottish Government are currently progressing.

Question reference: S6W-40272

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of there being a reported over 40,000 live applications for homelessness assistance, what urgent measures it is taking to reduce homelessness.

In my statement to Parliament on 2 September, I set out a suite of urgent actions to be taken in response to the housing emergency. Some of the measures to reduce homelessness include:

Committing to a multi-annual, multi-billion pound affordable housebuilding project worth up to £4.9 billion over the next four years, capable of delivering up to 36,000 affordable homes or put another way, providing 24,000 children with a safe, warm and affordable home.
Doubling investment in our immediate acquisitions fund from £40 million to £80 million this year. This will support the acquisition of at least 1,200 homes over the 18 months of the fund, helping families move out of temporary accommodation and into permanent tenancies without waiting on the construction of new homes.
Investing a £3 million capital grant to expand Housing First and create new tenancies, alongside a £1 million uplift to local authorities to accelerate existing Housing First programmes.
Extending rapid rehousing transition plan funding to 2026-27 to enable local authorities to prioritise settled housing for homeless households.
Rolling out a £1 million new national ‘fund to leave’. This could help up to 1,200 women and their children to leave abusive relationships.
Investing up to £2 million through the discretionary housing payments scheme to support households currently in temporary accommodation to find settled homes in the private rented sector. This is in addition to £97 million already being invested in discretionary housing payments in 2025-26 including £79m to mitigate the UK Government’s Bedroom Tax.

I called on partners across the housing sector and beyond to support work to accelerate the delivery of high-quality homes of all tenures, with a focus on the delivery of affordable and social homes. I have also set out the government’s expectation that local authorities, in compliance with ALACHO guidance, should contact every family in good quality temporary accommodation to explore opportunities to convert those temporary tenancies to permanent tenancies.

Question reference: S6W-40241

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what exemptions or reliefs will apply under the Building Safety Levy for (a) affordable housing, (b) small builders and (c) build-to-rent projects.

The Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill includes an exemption for new homes intended for social or affordable use, defined as homes let under Scottish secure or short secure tenancies and those funded under the Housing (Scotland) Acts of 1988 or 2001. The Bill also includes an exemption for developments occurring on islands.

The Scottish Government recognises that smaller developers can face proportionately higher development costs compared to others operating in the sector. Therefore, section 12 of the Bill enables Scottish Ministers to introduce a levy-free allowance. This is an annual number of units that will not be subject to the Levy, which will apply over and above any units covered by other exemptions. The Scottish Government is working with developers and industry stakeholders to gather evidence to inform the decision on where to set the allowance, which will be legislated for in secondary legislation.

The Bill as introduced includes build-to-rent developments within the scope of the Levy, consistent with the arrangements in place for the Building Safety Levy in England. The Scottish Government will continue to engage stakeholders throughout the legislative process to gather evidence and assess whether exemptions should be extended to include, for example, build-to-rent and mid-market rent properties.

Question reference: S6W-39495

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of jobs in Scotland that could be lost due to AI over the next decade.

Question reference: S6W-39762

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its justification is for reportedly paying a civil servant for 18 months despite them having no formal duties.

Question reference: S6W-40108

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 9 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what specific devolved regulatory changes are being considered to make the Grangemouth industrial cluster a more attractive location for private sector investment.

The Scottish Government continues to consider, alongside potential investors, regulatory and policy barriers to investment, including those outlined in Project Willow. We are already making tangible progress with the conclusion of an initial study by the James Hutton Institute and Scotland’s Rural College on the potential for cover crops to be grown in sufficient quantities that could support a potential biorefinery project at Grangemouth which will be published shortly. This will now progress to field trials to ensure a comprehensive approach is being taken to satisfactorily address the recommendation in the Project Willow.