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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: S6F-01193

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 June 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 June 2022

To ask the First Minister whether she will provide an update on work to close the attainment gap.

Question reference: S6W-08461

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 26 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported findings of the recent report by the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership, with Cancer Research UK, that in 38.5% of cases, patients in Scotland were diagnosed with cancer only after emergency admittance to hospital.

The Scottish Government has committed a further £20 million over the parliamentary term to our Detect Cancer Early Programme, which aims to provide greater public awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer to improve earlier diagnosis rates.

Significant funding has also been targeted at increasing diagnostic capacity across NHS Scotland. This includes our Endoscopy and Urology Diagnostic Recovery and Renewal plan to specifically support scope based diagnostics backed by £70 million and our £1bn NHS Recovery Plan which sets out our plans and ambitions for the next five years.

The NHS remains under sustained pressure as a result of COVID-19, with the number of people awaiting diagnostic tests now at the highest level since 2018. Patients continue to be seen based on their clinical urgency, for example those referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer continue to be prioritised for key diagnostic tests.

Question reference: S6W-08390

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 19 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to gather data on restraint practices applied to care-experienced children while being securely transported.

To uphold the rights of children and young people who require secure transport, and to meet the Secure Care Standards and the Youth Justice Standards , the Scottish Government and COSLA led Secure Care Group seek to identify and develop solutions to the issues surrounding secure care transport in Scotland. A service specification is in development which will include an appropriate recording and monitoring process.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on proposed children’s care and justice legislation, including seeking views on whether legislative reform is needed around the use of secure transport.

Question reference: S6W-08389

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 May 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 18 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what data exists regarding the use of restraint applied to care-experienced children while being securely transported.

The responsibility for the organisation and funding of secure transport lies principally with the local authority responsible for the child’s placement. Information on the use of restraint applied to care-experienced children whilst being securely transported is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government has a contract with GEOAmey for escorting children serving a custodial sentence within secure care, who are Scottish Ministers’ responsibility. As part of that contract GEOAmey must provide the Scottish Government with details of when restraint is used. No incidents of restraint have been recorded during the current contract.

Question reference: S6T-00711

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the investigation into the recent spike in deaths of newborn babies.

Question reference: S6W-08042

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 10 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Chief Scientist Office provided for clinical research in each year since 2012.

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) provides funding to support and facilitate high quality applied research across a wide health and care remit

CSO Approach to Funding – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

This includes funding in support of research in areas of public health, or health and care where delivery may be outside of clinical settings

CSO's annual budget from 2012-13 to 2022-23 is provided below:

2012-13 £67.9 million

2013-14 £68.3 million

2014-15 £68.5 million

2015-16 £66.8 million

2016-17 £64.8 million

2017-18 £64.4 million

2018-19 £67.2 million

2019-20 £69.9 million

2020-21 £69.9 million

2021-22 £75.4 million (includes £3.5 million non-recurring COVID-19 funding)

2022-23 £78.4 million

Question reference: S6W-08044

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 10 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Chief Scientist Office provided to support clinical research careers in each year since 2012.

These are the directly funded clinical academic fellowships (CAF) and Senior Clinical Academic Fellowships (SCAF) awarded by the Chief Scientist Office since 2012.

Year	Fellowships Awarded	Total Funding committed
2012	CAF/12/04	£666,181
	CAF/12/05
	CAF/12/07
2013	CAF/13/02	£775,052
	CAF/13/03
	CAF/13/09
	CAF/13/13
2014	CAF/14/02	£343,061
	CAF/14/04
2015	CAF/15/03	£1,459,574
	CAF/15/07
	SCAF/15/01
	SCAF/15/02
2016	CAF/16/01	£2,210,713
	CAF/16/06
	CAF/16/09
	SCAF/16/01
	SCAF/16/02
	SCAF/16/03
2017	CAF/17/01	£2,107,722
	CAF/17/06
	CAF/17/11
	SCAF/17/01
	SCAF/17/02
	SCAF/17/03
2018	CAF/18/02	£1,851,621
	CAF/18/05
	CAF/18/08
	CAF/18/12
	SCAF/18/01
	SCAF/18/02
2019	CAF/19/01	£1,636,496
	CAF/19/04
	CAF/19/05
	SCAF/19/01
	SCAF/19/02
2020	CAF/20/01	£659,011
	CAF/20/02
	CAF/20/03
2021	CAF/21/05	£700,147
	CAF/21/06
	CAF/21/13

Question reference: S6W-08043

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 10 May 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Chief Scientist Office provided for clinical research infrastructure in each year since 2012.

The Scottish Government, through the Chief Scientist Office and NHS Research Scotland, has invested approximately £40 million per year in clinical research infrastructure since 2012. This funding supports Health Boards, researchers, clinicians and industry to improve the quality, efficiency, coordination and impact of clinical research, and provides state of the art facilities to conduct clinical trials.

Question reference: S6W-08097

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 April 2022
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 29 April 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has met its target to embed, within every Drug and Alcohol Partnership, the 10 Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards by April 2022.

Work to embed the MAT standards by local services and Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) is a crucial and significant undertaking. To support progress, we are providing multi-year funding to HSCPs specifically for the standards and have set up a MAT support team, based within Public Health Scotland to lead this work.

I have committed to update Parliament on the progress of MAT standards on a six monthly basis and will be returning to Parliament in June to provide an update on progress on embedding the standards.

Local progress from each HSCP area is currently being evaluated and a report will be published in June to coincide with the update to Parliament. This report will be a collation of process, data and lived experience evaluation. This will be followed in short order during the summer with a report providing more detail of work undertaken in each area.

April 2022 is not the end of line for the standards and what happens post April is as equally important. From now and over the life of the National Mission, work will continue on the standards to make sure they are not only embedded, but are improving and are sustainable.

Question reference: S6W-07052

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 28 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government from where it has located the additional £6 million funding for the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, which it announced on 25 February 2022.

The additional funding to deliver the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults in 2021-22 has been identified as part of the £120 million Mental Health Recovery & Renewal (MH R&R) Fund to ensure the delivery of commitments set out in the Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan.

The new Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults was launched in October 2021 with £15 million of funding from the Mental Health Recovery & Renewal budget. The Fund aims to support grassroots community-based initiatives across Scotland which promote good mental health and wellbeing and early intervention for those in distress and tackle the impact of social isolation, loneliness and the mental health inequalities made worse by the pandemic. The Fund is managed locally by Third Sector Interface (TSI) bodies and is designed to support the development of an integrated culture of mental wellbeing and prevention within local communities.

Following a very positive response to the Fund from communities across Scotland, the additional £6 million funding for 2021-22 announced in February has been provided to TSIs to meet the demand for local mental health and wellbeing projects, bringing total funding to £21 million in 2021-22.