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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-38606

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it has provided in relation to locating defibrillators outside school buildings.

Question reference: S6W-38603

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that less than 10% of patients survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Scotland, what action Ministers are taking to improve CPR training and defibrillator familiarisation in schools, to improve citizen response to an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

The Scottish Government is a partner in the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership, which is working to ensure that all school aged children in Scotland will be given the opportunity to be equipped with CPR skills and increase defibrillator familiarisation across Scotland.

This has included delivery of Restart a Heart Day Live last year. This was a live stream CPR training event targeted at school-age children, which included information on defibrillation. The Scottish Government has committed to working with Save a Life for Scotland to support Restart a Heart Day Live again in 2025.

Question reference: S6W-38605

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people have received cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in each local authority area in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-38604

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 19 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many defibrillators have been located in (a) nurseries, (b) primary schools and (c) secondary schools in each local authority area in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-38256

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to prevent any misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) by public bodies and ensure that creative talent is protected.

To prevent any misuse of artificial intelligence by public bodies we encourage best practice and advice through the Scottish Government’s Public Sector AI Task Force which meets on a monthly basis to support the safe adoption of AI, finding synergies and reducing the risk of duplication. The Task Force currently has over 200 individual members from all areas of the Scottish public sector. The meetings’ agendas and minutes are openly available online.

Scottish Ministers also mandated the use of the Scottish AI Register for Scottish Government and core agencies in April 2024. The Register enables safe and transparent development and use of AI in the public sector, and offer the public a simple and effective platform to have a say in how AI is used to make decisions and deliver public services. Consisting of a public facing website, and underlying resources and governance tools for public sector developers, the Register helps ensure we manage AI risk effectively and consistently, whilst also sharing best practice and reducing duplication.

To protect creativity, we have responded to the UK Government’s “Copyright and AI” consultation and asked them to reconsider their proposed plans which would significantly impact creative talent. Officials are closely monitoring the current back-and-forth in the UK Parliament over the UK Data Bill, stemming from the amendments introduced by Baroness Kidron to protect creative talent, and the UK Government’s refusal to accept them. We understand that the UK Government now plan to delay addressing the AI copyright issue until the passing of a specific AI Bill, which they had announced last year for 2025, but is now not expected until 2026. We will continue to engage with UK Government on the future UK AI regulations to ensure Scottish creative talent is protected.

The Scottish AI Alliance, the delivery body of our AI Strategy are also working to understand and support creatives with the potential and the impact of AI in the creative sector, with an event on this topic taking place in Glasgow on the 13th of June.

Question reference: S6W-38196

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to developing a dedicated Skills Action Plan for the construction sector, similar to that proposed for the offshore wind sector in the 2025-26 Programme for Government, in recognition of the sector’s reported significant skills gap, and in light of the Chartered Institute of Building's survey, which reportedly found that 74% of young people in Scotland view construction careers positively, yet 43% reported not receiving relevant information about the industry through school careers advice.

The Scottish Government is supporting plans for a more sustainable, productive, innovative and diverse construction industry.

The Scottish Construction Leadership Forum (CLF), chaired by the Minister for Business, is the main forum for Scottish Government/ Industry collaboration. The Construction Accord, launched by CLF on 13 October 2022, is a shared vision for the industry and the public sector, and includes key principles such as fair work, net zero, diversity and inclusion. A Transformation Action Plan to deliver on the commitments in the Accord was launched on 25 Jan 2024. Actions are being implemented by CLF working groups, including one focusing on Skills and Workforce. This group is co-chaired by Elaine Ellis of Skills Development Scotland, and Stephanie Lowe of SNIPEF. With a vision of 'Increasing the capacity, capability, and diversity of the workforce with a focus on future skills and industry attractiveness, ’the working groups are coordinated by the CLF Transformation Board.

[Alongside these actions], construction apprenticeships continue to be one of the highest taken up in terms of overall number of starts each year and statistics published by Skills Development Scotland (SDS) showed that in 2023-24, construction occupations accounted for 25.3% of Modern Apprenticeship starts

Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) facilitates the engagement between employers and schools to support young people transition into the world of work. Across Scotland DYW are embedding ‘Construction Work Tasters’ into the schools. This 3-year project, funded by CITB, has been co-developed with the DYW network, employers and young people and will continue its impact post CITB funding as part of the activities for pupils in the senior phase at High Schools across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-38602

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment ministers have made of the policy to provide an automated external defibrillator to every state school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; whether it will adopt this policy in Scotland, and, if not, for what reason.

Decisions on whether to install defibrillators in schools are a matter for Local Authorities.

The Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy: 2021-2026 does not include a specific commitment to placing defibrillators in Scottish schools. Our policy is to work with Save a Life for Scotland partners, taking a data driven approach, to optimise defibrillator placement and ensure they are publicly accessible and registered with the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The Scottish Government provided the Resuscitation Research Group funding for PADmap. PADmap is a free to use, data-driven service to help defibrillator guardians make informed decisions about where to place their devices in order to have the most impact.

Question reference: S6W-38197

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 17 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the rights of people to access collective advocacy.

Section 259 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 gives people with a mental illness, learning disability, dementia and related conditions a right of access to independent advocacy. It confers a duty on each relevant local authority and relevant health board to secure the availability of independent advocacy services and to take appropriate steps to ensure that those persons have the opportunity of making use of those services.

The Code of Practice Volume 1 for the 2003 Act states that independent advocacy organisations may provide individual or collective advocacy, but notes the Act is not specific about the type or types of independent advocacy services to which an individual should have a right of access. It goes on to acknowledge that any or all of the various types of independent advocacy may be appropriate depending on the circumstances and personal preferences of the individual concerned.

Question reference: S6W-38195

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 13 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on proposals to introduce congestion charging schemes in local authorities.

Local authorities have existing discretionary powers to introduce local road user charging schemes under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, which was brought into statute by a previous Parliament.

We have committed, in our recently published 'Achieving Car Use Reduction in Scotland: A Renewed Policy Statement', to take the opportunity to conduct a regulatory check of the secondary legislation, given the passage of time since they were brought into statue to ensure that these existing discretionary powers remain fit for purpose. Once the necessary regulations and guidance are in place, it will be a decision for local authorities or RTPs whether and how to implement schemes.

We welcome local authorities’ commitment to local measures which support delivery of car use reduction in Scotland. We will continue to work with COSLA and local authorities to support equitable measures which encourage active travel and accompany greater investment in public transport for a fairer and greener transport system to ensure a just transition to net zero. Local authorities are best placed to determine whether a local road user charging scheme supports the objectives set out in their local transport strategy.

Question reference: S6W-38021

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 30 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 13 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many self-employed counsellors have been contracted by each local authority to work in schools in each year since 1999.

Local Authorities have the statutory responsibility for education therefore the Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. Local authorities may hold this information.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to invest in access to school counselling services, since 2021 local authorities have reported on key measures of their counselling provision. A summary of these reports can be found at: Access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services – summary reports - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)