- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 15 September 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 29 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36012 by Fiona Hyslop on 31 March 2025, by what date the construction of the controlled pedestrian crossing at Raigmore interchange in Inverness will begin.
Answer
Answer expected on 29 September 2025
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 August 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 23 September 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to conduct a post-implementation review of its Habitats Regulations, similar to that carried out by the UK Government in July 2025, and, if so, what the timeline for this will be, and whether it will publish any conclusions that it has reached on the regulations to date.
Answer
Answer expected on 23 September 2025
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 6 August 2025
To ask the Scottish Government which NHS board areas currently have a dedicated Maternity and Neonatal Psychological Intervention (MNPI) team in place, and what plans there are to ensure that everyone who requires such services can access psychological support from a MNPI team in their area.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to improving perinatal and infant mental health services across Scotland. Anyone who requires Maternity and Neonatal Psychological Intervention (MNPI) services should be able to access them as part of their maternity or neonatal care.
We are providing £123.5 million funding to Boards to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services for all. This funding includes provision for access to MNPI services across all 14 Boards. Continued investment since 2019 has resulted in a substantial increase in services across Scotland, leading to all Boards having access to MNPI services, either from a local MNPI team or, for very small Board areas, via pathways to MNPI care in larger maternity hospitals where the patient may deliver.
The way in which MNPI services are provided differs across Boards, depending on population size and birth rate. However, we expect those who need the services to be able to access them in all areas of Scotland. Some Boards will have independent MNPI teams, working closely with local perinatal mental health services, and agreed referral criteria and pathways into care; while smaller Boards, such as Island Boards should provide access to psychological therapies via local primary care, adult mental health or perinatal mental health clinical psychology, with pathways into specialist MNPI support in the maternity hospital where they deliver.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 17 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Fairlie on 1 August 2025
To ask the Scottish Government when details of the 2025-26 Bus Infrastructure Fund will be published.
Answer
I will launch the Bus Infrastructure Fund in the coming weeks and will publish details once they have been finalised. In the meantime, my officials are in discussion with those voluntary Bus Partnerships that have submitted proposals to the fund. They also keeping COSLA, the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers and the Confederation of Passenger Transport updated.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 31 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether all firefighters are provided with wearable tracking devices for use during incidents to record their heart and breathing rates, in order to provide early warning signs of potential health issues to those monitoring from outside the risk area.
Answer
The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Firefighters in Scotland do not currently have wearable tracking devices to record their heart and breathing rates. SFRS is exploring whether the specification for replacement Breathing Apparatus can monitor breathing rates as part of the integrated communication capability.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 31 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether all fire stations are stocked with a spare thermal imaging camera.
Answer
The equipment used by firefighters is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. SFRS has invested over £600,000 in purchasing 300 new thermal imaging cameras and every front line appliance with breathing apparatus has a thermal imaging camera (TIC). Spare TICs are stored at SFRS Asset Resource Centres rather than in fire stations.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 31 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether all firefighters who are tasked with entering a burning building are provided with a breathing apparatus set that has built-in radio communications with the incident commander and others, to ensure that all are able to communicate their whereabouts or status in the event that they become separated.
Answer
The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Currently every frontline fire appliance has 4 sets of Breathing Apparatus (BA), 2 of which have integrated radio communication. SFRS will shortly be procuring BA sets to an upgraded standard and all of these will have integrated communication as standard.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 31 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether all firefighters are provided with wearable tracking devices for use during incidents to track their location.
Answer
The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Firefighters in Scotland do not currently have wearable tracking devices but this is an area that SFRS are exploring for the future.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 29 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many fire stations had firefighting staff that exceeded the permitted maximum of 24 hours of overtime per month in 2024.
Answer
This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The use of overtime is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 July 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 29 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether any emergency measures introduced during the
COVID-19 pandemic period to operate with reduced manpower in the Scottish Fire
and Rescue Service have been reversed and staffing levels returned to
pre-pandemic minimum safe levels.
Answer
The operational guidance used to keep firefighters safe is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). SFRS generally operates with a crew of 5 on the first appliance deployed to an emergency and this was reduced to 4 during the COVID-19 pandemic. SFRS has a range of options to ensure the availability of its appliances, which on occasion may include appliances being crewed with 4 rather than 5 firefighters.