Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 2305 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6O-05104

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 October 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact that the proposed 15 walk-in primary care clinics will have on health inequalities.

Question reference: S6F-04397

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 October 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 October 2025

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is regarding the reported 200,000 public sector workers who are still waiting on their pension entitlement following the 2018 McCloud judgement on pension discrimination.

Question reference: S6W-41123

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 22 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the new traineeship scheme for legal aid will look like.

In order to increase the capacity and capability of the legal aid profession in Scotland, the Scottish Government is planning to create a new Legal Aid Traineeship Fund. This new fund will build on the success of the first fund announced in December 2020 which provided funding of up to £1 million to support 40 new legal aid trainees across Scotland. The 2020 fund was managed by the Law Society of Scotland and supported new talent through the duration of their traineeships.

The Scottish Government is committed to taking on feedback from an evaluation of the 2020 fund. My officials are closely engaging with the Law Society of Scotland and the wider legal profession, and discussions on the specific design of the scheme, including eligibility criteria, are ongoing. A commitment has been given to funding up to 20 traineeships in the first instance.

Question reference: S6W-40991

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the target operating capacity of HMP Glasgow will be.

Question reference: S6W-40700

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 3 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what stage it is at regarding potentially legislating to make the creation of deepfake pornographic content a crime.

The Scottish Government recognises the devastating harm that can be caused by the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images. As noted in response to S6W-40699 on 3 October 2025, the offence of non-consensual sharing of intimate images introduced under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 criminalises the sharing of images, including deepfake images, that either show or appear to show a person in an intimate situation without their consent. 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.

We continue to keep the law under continual review and will carefully consider through consultation whether further changes are required to tackle the creation of deepfake sexual images.

Question reference: S6W-40699

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 3 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making with tackling image-based abuse.

The offence of non-consensual sharing of intimate images introduced under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 criminalises the sharing of images that either show, or appear to show, a person in an intimate situation without their consent. Those convicted of the offence of disclosing, or threatening to disclose, an intimate photograph or film face up to five years imprisonment under this legislation.

The recent Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill will, when implemented, require a court to always consider whether to impose a non-harassment order after a conviction under the intimate images offence.

Question reference: S6W-40511

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what contracts it currently holds with Fujitsu; what the total value is of these; by what date each will end; whether it plans to renew any and, if so, which, and whether it will rule out inviting Fujitsu to bid for any future contracts.

The Scottish Government has one contract with Fujitsu (Case 440206 Electronic Counting for Local Government Elections) to deliver electronic vote counting for Scottish local government elections. The contract commenced October 2020 at a value of £6,345,172 and is currently scheduled to conclude on 16th February 2027. The Scottish Government is currently undertaking an open procurement exercise to re-let this contract.

With regard to future procurement activity, the Scottish Government conducts its procurements in line with Scottish public procurement legislation and Scottish Government policy. All organisations bidding for contracts need to pass the selection criteria detailed in the procurement documents, which will include mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds. Any decision to exclude Fujitsu from participating in Scottish Government tenders will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Where a ground for exclusion applies, a supplier may be able to provide evidence of self-cleansing measures taken to demonstrate their reliability despite the existence of a relevant ground for exclusion, should this evidence prove that the measures taken by the supplier are sufficient then the supplier would not be excluded. These decisions will be made in accordance with regulation 58 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.

At this time, the Scottish Government is not aware of Fujitsu tendering for any Scottish Government contracts.

Question reference: S6O-04965

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6O-04948

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Turner & Townsend regarding its role in auditing and monitoring the work undertaken by Amey to complete the M8 Woodside viaducts.

Question reference: S6W-39678

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 28 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will ensure that secondary school pupils will be taught, during education on sex and relationships, that strangulation is illegal even if it does not cause any visible injury, as is the case in England under its new relationships, sex and health education guidance.

Relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. RSHP education focuses on equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills and values to make informed and positive choices about forming relationships. This includes understanding of issues like consent, appropriate relationships and boundaries.

RSHP teaching guidance is specific about the need for children and young people to gain knowledge appropriate to their age and stage of education. The curriculum in Scotland is not statutory and therefore it is for teachers to decide the on the development and implementation of the curriculum. As such, teachers in Scotland have the flexibility to include content on non-fatal strangulation, for example as part of learning about abuse in relationships or on the impact of pornography, as part of RSHP lessons.

We are also funding Time for Inclusive Education’s Digital Discourse Initiative, which provides training for teachers and educators to address the effects of online hate and disinformation on children and young people.

In addition, the 2025-26 Programme for Government committed the Scottish Government to carrying out a comprehensive assessment of the law in relation to non-fatal strangulation to determine if there is further action that needs to be taken beyond existing provisions in law that could be used to tackle this issue.