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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: S6W-39820

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 28 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the operational hours of all vessels operating on (a) CalMac and (b) NorthLink ferry services in each of the last three years, broken down by vessel.

Question reference: S6O-04871

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how growth deals are growing the economy of the Highlands and Islands region.

Question reference: S6W-39896

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 27 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether the topic of Scottish independence was discussed in the meeting between the First Minister and the President of the European Commission on 26 July 2025.

The First Minister met President Von der Leyen in Scotland on 26 July.

They discussed transatlantic trade talks, the current state of the UK/EU relationship, the UK/EU Summit held in May 2025, energy cooperation and Scotland’s potential as a centre for renewable energy production, Gaza and Ukraine.

President Von der Leyen noted that the visits of European leaders and the US President provided a wonderful opportunity to showcase Scotland to the world.

Question reference: S6W-40090

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 27 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £15 million funding for general practice that it announced on 21 August 2025 will support general practice in the Highlands and Islands region.

The £15 million funding for general practice announced by the Scottish Government on 21 August 2025 will be allocated to territorial health boards as outlined in the following table.

NHS Board	Additional funding (£m)
Ayrshire & Arran	1.0
Borders	0.3
Dumfries & Galloway	0.4
Fife	1.0
Forth Valley	0.8
Grampian	1.5
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	3.3
Highland	1.1
Lanarkshire	1.8
Lothian	2.4
Orkney	0.1
Shetland	0.1
Tayside	1.1
Western Isles	0.1

Total	15

Question reference: S6W-39612

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to fund scholarships for foreign nationals in (a) higher and (b) further education in each year since 2016.

As scholarships in Scotland are primarily funded and managed by institutions themselves, the Scottish Government does not hold all the information that has been requested.

The Scottish Government has however provided funding towards a number of scholarship programmes for foreign nationals, between 2016 and 2025 including:

Scholarship	Timeframes	Funding
Saltire Scholarships	From 2009 to 2023	£2.25 million in postgraduate places
Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls:	From 2016 to 2025	£2,067,500
Scotland Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh Business School) Online MBA Scholarships for Women in Zambia	From 2018 to 2025	£234,000
Girls Initiative for Resilient Learning and Support (GIRLS) supporting to support vulnerable girls and young women	Launched in 2024	£224,127

Question reference: S6W-39611

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many individual scholarships for foreign nationals it has funded in (a) higher and (b) further education in each year since 2016, broken down by each individual's country of origin.

The Scottish Government recognises the benefits of international higher education for students, staff and researchers. Our International Education Strategy, published in 2024, sets out the approach that we are taking to attract international students and increase opportunities for student mobility including through the Scottish Education Exchange Programme.

Scholarships provide financial support to help students undertake education at undergraduate and postgraduate level, making education more accessible. International students, that is foreign nationals who temporarily travel to Scotland for education, may apply for scholarships via Scottish universities and colleges.

As scholarships in Scotland are primarily funded and managed by institutions themselves, the Scottish Government does not hold all the information that has been requested.

Since 2016, the Scottish Government has provided funding towards a number of International Development scholarship programmes. Additionally, between 2009 and 2023, the Scottish Government supported the Scottish Saltire Scholarship programme aimed at raising the profile of Scotland as a place to live, work and study for international students.

Scholarship	Country of origin	FE or HE places*	Timeframes
Saltire Scholarships	China, India, Pakistan, USA, Canada, and Japan	1550 HE	From 2009 to 2023
Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls:	Pakistan	2300 HE and FE	From 2016 to 2025
Scotland Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh Business School) Online MBA Scholarships for Women in Zambia	Zambia	50 HE	From 2018 to 2025
Girls Initiative for Resilient Learning and Support (GIRLS) supporting to support vulnerable girls and young women	Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda	104 HE	Launched in 2024

*HE can be undertaken at a college or university

Question reference: S6W-39816

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many citizens’ assemblies it has held since May 2021, and what the cost has been of each assembly.

Question reference: S6W-39906

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people have been matched with an adopter via Scotland’s Adoption Register in each year since 2021.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Scotland’s Adoption Register (SAR) publishes quarterly statistics and annual reports on the number of matches of children and young people with adoptive parents through SAR on their website.

Their Annual Report for 2024-2025, shows that, through SAR, there were 81 matches of children and young people with adoptive parents in 2020-2021, 71 matches in 2021-2022, 61 matches in 2022-2023, 62 matches in 2023-2024, and 35 matches in 2024-2025. SAR does not publish data on matches by age group.

Question reference: S6W-39817

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 25 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost has been of staff redundancy payments for people who worked in its international offices in each year since 2021, broken down by office.

Question reference: S6W-39813

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 22 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many Significant Adverse Event Reviews have been commissioned for a Category I adverse event in each year since 2021, broken down by NHS board.

The data requested is gathered by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and is provided in the following table.

Category 1 SAERs commissioned from Jan 2021 - Jun 2025
Board	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
NHS 24	< 5	8	< 5	10	< 5
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	46	49	46	56	34
NHS Borders	12	18	10	15	12
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	47	47	40	42	25
NHS Fife	46	68	66	59	33
NHS Forth Valley	18	15	28	19	12
NHS Grampian	23	21	21	31	20
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	244	272	292	317	117
NHS Highland	20	22	26	29	20
NHS Lanarkshire	50	84	107	99	64
NHS Lothian	71	91	80	94	20
NHS National Waiting Times Centre	27	18	21	12	< 5
NHS Orkney	< 5	6	8	< 5	< 5
NHS Shetland	< 5 in each year
NHS Tayside	24	22	36	40	16
NHS Western Isles	< 5 in each year
Scottish Ambulance Service	62	46	64	22	7
State Hospital	< 5 in each year
Total	700	788	852	857	389

Notes

1.The data is sourced from Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s (HIS) Significant Adverse Event Review National Notification System.

2.The data provided for 2025 is for the period from January to June 2025 only.

3.Cases where the volume is less than 5 are withheld to comply with HIS' disclosure control protocols.

4.HIS published the revised ‘Learning from adverse events through reporting and review: A national framework for Scotland’ in February 2025. Each NHS board is responsible for applying the National Framework in the context of its own local incident reporting systems and governance processes. Therefore, there remains some variation in how the National Framework is applied in practice and it is not possible to compare data on a like-for-like basis across NHS boards.

5.The notification data refers to the commissioning of SAERs for category 1 events, and not the total number of category 1 events.