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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: S6W-37696

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will introduce a policy to ensure that a minimum of 20% of dialysis patients in renal centres receive home dialysis.

The decision to offer home dialysis to patients is primarily a matter for NHS Boards. As detailed in my answer to question S6W-37695 on 27 May 2025, we have acted to address any financial disincentives to the patient by the agreement of a national policy across NHS Boards to reimburse patients for the additional electricity costs of home dialysis.

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

Question reference: S6W-37512

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many young people have received a private mental health diagnosis in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-37693

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupils in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools have needed catheterising in each year since 1999, also broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6O-04686

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the setting of budget allocations, what discussions the finance secretary has had with NHS boards regarding the National Resource Allocation Formula.

Question reference: S6W-35730

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 12 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to develop a single passporting system of support for students in (a) further and (b) higher education to support widening access.

The final report of the Commission on Widening Access was published in 2016. A lot has changed since 2016 and we are now considering what has worked well and what we could do better.

The Scottish Government recognises the need to simplify the support landscape for students as it can be difficult for young people and their parents and carers to identify what support is available particularly in non-linear learning pathways.

The Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) currently provides living cost support to higher education students whilst the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) provides bursary support to further education students via individual colleges. The Scottish Government is pressing ahead with the proposal to consolidate all student support funding within SAAS. Bringing student support responsibilities together unlocks opportunities and enables new ways of administering student support, collecting data and providing coherent information and guidance to learners and institutions.

Through the Student Mental Health Action Plan Scottish Government has committed to working with institutions, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), CoSLA, and prospective students to explore what information institutions require to inform continuity of support for newly-enrolled students, and how students and their families can be supported to request and share this information with colleges and universities. This action is being driven forward by the Plan’s Delivery Group, which met recently, and includes consideration of the use of the Getting it Right for Everybody (GIRFE) practice model to support a more person centred offer of support.

Question reference: S6W-36766

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reported announcement that £3 million will be allocated to Adoption England to help deliver more multidisciplinary teams to support young adoptees up to 26 years of age and their families, whether it will consider providing funding to deliver similar action in Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s Adoption Vision Statement, published in November 2024, highlights the need for continued and lifelong support for all those affected by adoption.

Adoption support should include a range of multi-disciplinary universal and specialist services. Under the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007, local authorities have a duty to assess someone’s needs for adoption support services and then provide that support.

In 2024-25, the Scottish Government provided £790,000 to organisations delivering support to those affected by adoption, including adopted children and young people and their families, adult adoptees and those working in the adoption sector. This funding has supported: a national helpline and support for adoptive families; national good practice guides on permanence; support for professionals and practitioners working in the adoption sector, as well as delivery of the Adoption Contact Register. The Adoption Vision Statement makes clear our commitment to work in collaboration with stakeholders to improve the availability and consistency of post-adoption support in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-37197

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the public sector equality duty is reducing inequalities for people (a) in housing need and (b) who are homeless.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling inequalities and equality is the thread running through our homelessness strategy, Ending Homelessness Together.

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) is not a duty to achieve any particular results, but a duty to have ‘due regard’ to the need to achieve the three goals of:

eliminating discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the 2010 Act;
advancing equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it;
fostering good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

The Scottish Government expects all public bodies in Scotland which are subject to the PSED to pay due regard to the duty as they carry out their functions The duty applies to local authorities in their role as housing and homelessness support providers. The duty also applies to bodies who are not public authorities but who ‘exercise public functions’.

Question reference: S6W-37205

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people under the age of 65 have received free personal care in each year since the instruction of the policy in 2002, broken down by local authority.

The extension of Free Personal Care to people under the age of 65, also known as Frank's Law, came into effect in April 2019.

The Scottish Government do not hold data on how many adults aged 18-64 were paying for or receiving personal care prior to 2019.

The Scottish Government began collecting data on the number of adults receiving Free Personal Care in each local authority from late 2018-19 (prior to the introduction of Frank’s Law). This information is published annually on the Scottish Government website.

Local Authority	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Aberdeen City	320	320	300	330	350	360
Aberdeenshire	70	280	300	360	600	550
Angus	240	270	280	320	340	360
Argyll and Bute	190	210	210	230	210	210
City of Edinburgh	1,330	1,480	1,300	1,290	1,450	1,470
Clackmannanshire	110	130	140	140	170	170
Dumfries and Galloway	620	710	750	770	790	830
Dundee City	160	200	230	230	290	330
East Ayrshire	230	270	280	410	370	360
East Dunbartonshire	120	100	110	140	130	130
East Lothian	150	180	190	200	190	200
East Renfrewshire	80	100	80	100	110	100
Falkirk	190	210	210	180	200	250
Fife	630	1,020	820	770	590	600
Glasgow City	1,980	2,000	2,170	1,900	1,980	2,100
Highland	290	280	310	290	300	340
Inverclyde	220	270	270	290	300	300
Midlothian	180	200	210	200	200	190
Moray	220	200	220	230	240	250
Na h-Eileanan Siar	30	30	30	30	30	30
North Ayrshire	310	380	430	440	420	400
North Lanarkshire	320	280	340	340	330	300
Orkney Islands	20	10	10	10	20	20
Perth and Kinross	290	330	370	390	390	430
Renfrewshire	130	130	220	220	260	270
Scottish Borders	[NR]	[NR]	[NR]	[NR]	[NR]	230
Shetland Islands	60	40	70	50	40	50
South Ayrshire	420	390	420	410	430	440
South Lanarkshire	530	600	630	640	680	700
Stirling	200	210	230	180	200	230
West Dunbartonshire	160	180	180	170	170	180
West Lothian	740	690	800	700	730	760
SCOTLAND total	10,550	11,690	12,100	11,950	12,480	13,110

Question reference: S6W-36768

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 8 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have accessed the drug, Givinostat, in each NHS board.

Question reference: S6W-36769

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 8 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average waiting time is for patients to access diabetic (a) glucose monitoring and closed-loop insulin pumps and (b) insulin pumps.

The Scottish Government is committed to expanding access to diabetes technology and since 2016, we have invested almost £30 million to support expansion. Last year, we established a national programme aiming to provide over 2000 more people with access to hybrid closed loop technology.

Waiting times for insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors and hybrid closed loop systems vary across health boards and are difficult to measure due to the length of time it takes for an individual to receive education and training.

However, since June 2024, our national programme has provided Closed Loop Systems (CLS) to over 2000 people. We have also established a National Onboarding Service, who provide significant additional capacity to support local services. This national programme has additional funding to support more people in 2025-26.

While we recognise that there are still waits for some diabetes technology, we remain committed to increasing access to all those that would benefit.